The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, by Ida M. (Ida Minerva) Tarbell

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Title: A Life of Napoleon Bonaparte

With a Sketch of Josephine, Empress of the French. Illustrated from the Collection Of Napoleon Engravings Made by the Late Hon. G. G. Hubbard, and Now Owned by the Congressional Library, Washington, D. C., Supplemented by Pictures from the Best French Collections....

Author: Ida M. (Ida Minerva) Tarbell

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BONAPARTE AT TWENTY-TWO YEARS OF AGE

After a portrait by Greuze.

The chief source of illustration for this volume, as in the case of the Napoleon papers in McClure’s Magazine, is the great collection of engravings of Mr. Gardiner G. Hubbard, which has been generously placed at the service of the publishers. In order to make the illustration still more comprehensive, a representative of McClure’s Magazine and an authorized agent of Mr. Hubbard visited Paris, to seek there whatever it might be desirable to have in the way of additional pictures which were not within the scope of Mr. Hubbard’s splendid collection. They secured the assistance of M. Armand Dayot, Inspecteur des Beaux-Arts, who possessed rare qualifications for the task. His official position he owed to his familiarity with the great art collections, both public and private, of France, and his official duties made him especially familiar with the great paintings relating to French history. Besides, he was a specialist in Napoleonic iconography. On account of his qualifications and special knowledge, he had been selected by the great house of Hachette et Cie, to edit their book on Napoléon raconté par l’Image, which was the first attempt to bring together in one volume the most important pictures relating to the military, political, and private life of Napoleon. M. Dayot had just completed this task, and was fresh from his studies of Napoleonic pictures, when his aid was secured by the publishers of McClure’s Magazine, in supplementing the Hubbard collection.

The work was prosecuted with the one aim of omitting no important picture. When great paintings indispensable 12to a complete pictorial life of Napoleon were found, which had never been either etched or engraved, photographs were obtained, many of these photographs being made especially for our use.

A generous selection of pictures was made from the works of Raffet and Charlet. M. Dayot was able also to add a number of pictures—not less than a score—of unique value, through his personal relations with the owners of the great private Napoleonic collections. Thus were obtained hitherto unpublished pictures, of the highest value, from the collections of Monseigneur Due d’Aumale; of H. I. H., Prince Victor Napoleon; of Prince Roland; of Baron Larrey, the son of the chief surgeon of the army of Napoleon; of the Duke of Bassano, son of the minister and confidant of the emperor; of Monsieur Edmond Taigny, the friend and biographer of Isabey; of Monsieur Albert Christophle, Governor-General of the Crédit-Foncier of France; of Monsieur Paul le Roux, who has perhaps the richest of the Napoleonic collections; and of Monsieur le Marquis de Girardin, son-in-law of the Duc de Gaëte, the faithful Minister of Finance of Napoleon I. It will be easily understood that no doubt can be raised as to the authenticity of documents borrowed from such sources.

The following letter explains fully the plan on which Mr. Hubbard’s collection is arranged, and shows as well its admirable completeness. It gives, too, a classification of the pictures into periods, which will be useful to the reader.

Dear Sir:—It is about fourteen years since I became interested in engravings, and I have since that time made a considerable collection, including many portraits, generally painted and engraved during the life of the personage. I have from two hundred to three hundred prints relating to Napoleon, his family, and his generals. The earliest of these is a portrait of Napoleon painted in 1791, when he was twenty-two years old; the next in date was engraved in 1796. There are many 13in each subsequent year, and four prints of drawings made immediately after his death.

There are few men whose characters at different periods of life are so distinctly marked as Napoleon’s, as will appear by an examination of these prints. There are four of these periods: First Period, 1796–1797, Napoleon the General; Second Period, 1801–1804, Napoleon the Statesman and Lawgiver; Third Period, 1804–1812, Napoleon the Emperor; Fourth Period, the Decline and Fall of Napoleon, including Waterloo and St. Helena. Most of these prints are contemporaneous with the periods described. The portraits include copies of the portraits painted by the greatest painters and engraved by the best engravers of that age. There are four engravings of the paintings by Meissonier—“1807,” “Napoleon,” “Napoleon Reconnoitering,” and “1814.”

First Period, 1796–1797, Napoleon the General.—In these the Italian spelling of the name, “Buonaparte,” is generally adopted. At this period there were many French and other artists in Italy, and it would seem as if all were desirous of painting the young general. A French writer in a late number of the “Gazette des Beaux-Arts” is uncertain whether Gros, Appiani, or Cossia was the first to obtain a sitting from General Bonaparte. It does not matter to your readers, as portraits by each of these artists are included in this collection.

There must have been other portraits or busts of Bonaparte executed before 1796, besides the one by Greuze given in this collection. These may be found, but there are no others in my collection. Of the portraits of Napoleon belonging to this period eight were engraved before 1798, one in 1800. All have the long hair falling below the ears over the forehead and shoulders; while all portraits subsequent to Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt have short hair. The length of the hair affords an indication of the date of the portrait.

Second Period, 1801–1804, Napoleon the Statesman and Lawgiver.—During this period many English artists visited Paris, and painted or engraved portraits of Napoleon. In these the Italian spelling “Buonaparte” is adopted, while in the French engravings of this period he is called “Bonaparte” or “General Bonaparte.” Especially noteworthy among them is “The Review at the Tuileries,” regarded by Masson as the best likeness of Napoleon “when thirty years old and in his best estate.” The portrait painted by Gérard in 1803, and engraved by Richomme, is by others considered the best of this period. There is already a marked change from the long and thin face in earlier portraits to the round and full face of this period. In some of these prints the Code Napoléon is introduced as an accessory.

Third Period, 1804–1812, Napoleon the Emperor.—He is now styled “Napoléon,” “Napoléon le Grand,” or “L’Empereur.” His chief painters in this period are Léfevre, Gérard, Isabey, Lupton, and David 14(with Raphael-Morghen, Longhi, Desnoyers, engravers)—artists of greater merit than those of the earlier periods. The full-length portrait by David has been copied oftener and is better known than any other.

It has been said that we cannot in the portraits of this period, executed by Gérard, Isabey, and David, find a true likeness of Napoleon. His ministers thought “it was necessary that the sovereign should have a serene expression, with a beauty almost more than human, like the deified Cæsars or the gods of whom they were the image.” “Advise the painters,” Napoleon wrote to Duroc, September 15, 1807, “to make the countenance more gracious (plutôt gracieuses).” Again, “Advise the painters to seek less a perfect resemblance than to give the beau ideal in preserving certain features and in making the likeness more agreeable (plutôt agréable).”

Fourth Period, 1812–1815, Decline and Fall of Napoleon.—We have probably in the front and side face made by Girodet, and published in England, a true likeness of Napoleon. It was drawn by Girodet in the Chapel of the Tuileries, March 8, 1812, while Napoleon was attending mass. It is believed to be a more truthful likeness than that by David, made the same year; the change in his appearance to greater fulness than in the portraits of 1801–1804 is here more plainly marked. He has now become corpulent, and his face is round and full. Two portraits taken in 1815 show it even more clearly. One of these was taken immediately before the battle of Waterloo, and the other, by J. Eastlake, immediately after. Mr. Eastlake, then an art student, was staying at Plymouth when the “Bellerophon” put in. He watched Napoleon for several days, taking sketches from which he afterwards made a full-length portrait.

The collection concludes with three notable prints: the first of the mask made by Dr. Antommarchi the day of his death, and engraved by Calamatta in 1834; another of a drawing “made immediately after death by Captain Ibbetson, R. N.;” and the third of a drawing by Captain Crockatt, made fourteen hours after the death of Napoleon, and published in London July 18, 1821. These show in a remarkable manner the head of this wonderful man.

The larger part of these prints was purchased through Messrs. Wunderlich & Co., and Messrs. Keppel of New York, some at auctions in Berlin, London, Amsterdam, and Stuttgart; very few in Paris.

The historical and critical notes which accompany the illustrations in this volume have been furnished by Mr. Hubbard as a rule, though those signed A. D. come from the pen of M. Armand Dayot.

The Life of Napoleon in this volume first appeared as a serial in Volumes III and IV of McClure’s Magazine. In 1895 on its completion in serial form it was published in book form, illustrated by a series of portraits from the Hubbard collection which had been used in the magazine and by numerous other pictures drawn from the principal French Napoleon collections. The illustrations in the present edition have been selected from those used in the first. The variety and extent of these illustrations are explained in the Preface to the First Edition here reproduced. The Life of Napoleon is supplemented in the present work by a sketch of Josephine. The absence of any Life of Josephine in English drawn from recent historical investigations is the reason for presenting this sketch. Until within a very few years the first Empress of the French People has been pictured to the world as her grandson Napoleon III desired that she appear—a fitting type for popular adoration—more of a saint and a martyr than of a woman. The present sketch is an attempt to tell a true story of her life as it is revealed by the recent diligent researches of Frederic Masson and by the numerous memoirs of the periods which have appeared, many of them since the passing of the Second Empire. If the story as told here is frank, it is hoped by the author that it will not be found unsympathetic.

16

CHARLES BONAPARTE, FATHER OF NAPOLEON. BORN 1746; DIED 1785.

17

PENCIL SKETCHES BY DAVID, REPRESENTING BONAPARTE AT BRIENNE, BONAPARTE GENERAL OF THE ARMY OF ITALY, BONAPARTE AS EMPEROR.

CHAPTER I
 
NAPOLEON’S YOUTH AND EARLY SURROUNDINGS—HIS SCHOOL DAYS AT BRIENNE

“If I were not convinced that his family is as old and as good as my own,” said the Emperor of Austria when he married Marie Louise to Napoleon Bonaparte, “I would not give him my daughter.” The remark is sufficient recognition of the nobility of the father of Napoleon, Charles Marie de Bonaparte, a gentleman of Ajaccio, Corsica, whose family, of Tuscan origin, had settled there in the sixteenth century, and who, in 1765, had married a young girl of the island, Lætitia Ramolino.

Monsieur Bonaparte gave his wife a noble name, but little else. He was an indolent, pleasure-loving, chimerical man, who had inherited a lawsuit, and whose time was absorbed in the hopeless task of recovering an estate of which the Church had taken possession. Madame Bonaparte 18brought her husband no great name, but she did bring him health, beauty, and remarkable qualities. Tall and imposing, Mademoiselle Lætitia Ramolino had a superb carriage, which she never lost, and a face which attracted attention particularly by the accentuation and perfection of its features. She was reserved, but of ceaseless energy and will, and though but fifteen when married, she conducted her family affairs with such good sense and firmness that she was able to bring up decently the eight children spared her from the thirteen she bore. The habits of order and economy formed in her years of struggle became so firmly rooted in her character that later, when she became mater regum, the “Madame Mère” of an imperial court, she could not put them aside, but saved from the generous income at her disposal, “for those of my children who are not yet settled,” she said. Throughout her life she showed the truth of her son’s characterization: “A man’s head on a woman’s body.”

The first years after their marriage were stormy ones for the Bonapartes. The Corsicans, led by the patriot Pascal Paoli, were in revolt against the French, at that time masters of the island. Among Paoli’s followers was Charles Bonaparte. He shared the fortunes of his chief to the end of the struggle of 1769, and when, finally, Paoli was hopelessly defeated, took to the mountains. In all the dangers and miseries of this war and flight, Charles Bonaparte was accompanied by his wife, who, vigorous of body and brave of heart, suffered privations, dangers, and fatigue without complaint. When the Corsicans submitted, the Bonapartes went back to Ajaccio. Six weeks later Madame Bonaparte gave birth to her fourth child, Napoleon.

“I was born,” said Napoleon, “when my country was perishing. Thirty thousand Frenchmen were vomited upon our soil. Cries of the wounded, sighs of the oppressed, and tears of despair surrounded my cradle at my birth.”

19Young Bonaparte learned to hate with the fierceness peculiar to Corsican blood the idea of oppression, to revere Paoli, and, with a boy’s contempt of necessity, even to despise his father’s submission. It was not strange. His mother had little time for her children’s training. His father gave them no attention; and Napoleon, “obstinate and curious,” domineering over his brothers and companions, fearing no one, ran wild on the beach with the sailors or over the mountains with the herdsmen, listening to their tales of the Corsican rebellion and of fights, on sea and land, imbibing their contempt for submission, their love for liberty.

At nine years of age he was a shy, proud, wilful child, unkempt and untrained, little, pale, and nervous, almost without instruction, and yet already enamored of a soldier’s life and conscious of a certain superiority over his comrades. Then it was that he was suddenly transplanted from his free life to an environment foreign in its language, artificial in its etiquette, and severe in its regulations.

It was as a dependent, a species of charity pupil, that he went into this new atmosphere. Charles Bonaparte had become, in the nine years since he had abandoned the cause of Paoli, a thorough parasite. Like all the poor nobility of the country to which he had attached himself, and even like many of the rich in that day, he begged favors of every description from the government in return for his support. To aid in securing them, he humbled himself before the French Governor-General of Corsica, the Count de Marbœuf, and made frequent trips, which he could ill afford, back and forth to Versailles. The free education of his children, a good office with its salary and honors, the maintenance of his claims against the Jesuits, were among the favors which he sought.

By dint of solicitation he had secured a place among the free pupils of the college at Autun for his son Joseph, the oldest of the family, and one for Napoleon at the military school at Brienne.

20

LÆTITIA RAMOLINO, NAPOLEON’S MOTHER. BORN 1750, DIED 1836.

21To enter the school at Brienne, it was necessary to be able to read and write French, and to pass a preliminary examination in that language. This young Napoleon could not do; indeed, he could scarcely have done as much in his native Italian. A preparatory school was necessary, then, for a time. The place settled on was Autun, where Joseph was to enter college, and there in January, 1779, Charles Bonaparte arrived with the two boys.

Napoleon was nine and a half years old when he entered the school at Autun. He remained three months, and in that time made sufficient progress to fulfil the requirements at Brienne. The principal record of the boy’s conduct at Autun comes from Abbé Chardon, who was at the head of the primary department. He says of his pupil:

“Napoleon brought to Autun a sombre, thoughtful character. He was interested in no one, and found his amusements by himself. He rarely had a companion in his walks. He was quick to learn, and quick of apprehension in all ways. When I gave him a lesson, he fixed his eyes upon me with parted lips; but if I recapitulated anything I had said, his interest was gone, as he plainly showed by his manner. When reproved for this, he would answer coldly, I might almost say with an imperious air, ‘I know it already, sir.’”

When he went to Brienne, Napoleon left his brother Joseph behind at Autun. The boy had not now one familiar feature in his life. The school at Brienne was made up of about one hundred and twenty pupils, half of whom were supported by the government. They were sons of nobles, who, generally, had little but their great names, and whose rule for getting on in the world was the rule of the old régime—secure a powerful patron, and, by flattery and servile attentions, continue in his train. Young Bonaparte heard little but boasting, and saw little but vanity. His first lessons in French society were the doubtful ones of the parasite 22and courtier. The motto which he saw everywhere practised was, “The end justifies the means.” His teachers were not strong enough men to counteract this influence. The military schools of France were at this time in the hands of religious orders, and the Minim Brothers, who had charge of Brienne, were principally celebrated for their ignorance. They certainly could not change the arrogant and false notions of their aristocratic young pupils.

It was a dangerous experiment to place in such surroundings a boy like the young Napoleon, proud, ambitious, jealous; lacking any healthful moral training; possessing an Italian indifference to truth and the rights of others; already conscious that he had his own way to make in the world, and inspired by a determination to do it.

From the first the atmosphere at Brienne was hateful to the boy. His comrades were French, and it was the French who had subdued Corsica. They taunted him with it sometimes, and he told them that had there been but four to one, Corsica would never have been conquered, but that the French came ten to one. When they said: “But your father submitted,” he said bitterly: “I shall never forgive him for it.” As for Paoli, he told them, proudly, “He is a good man. I wish I could be like him.”

He had trouble with the new language. They jeered at him because of it. His name was strange; la paille au nez was the nickname they made from Napoleon.

He was poor; they were rich. The contemptuous treatment he received because of his poverty was such that he begged to be taken home.

“My father [he wrote], if you or my protectors cannot give me the means of sustaining myself more honorably in the house where I am, please let me return home as soon as possible. I am tired of poverty and of the jeers of insolent scholars who are superior to me only in their fortune, for there is not one among them who feels one hundredth part of the noble sentiment which animates me. Must your son, sir, 23continually be the butt of these boobies, who, vain of the luxuries which they enjoy, insult me by their laughter at the privations which I am forced to endure? No, father, no! If fortune refuses to smile upon me, take me from Brienne, and make me, if you will, a mechanic. From these words you may judge of my despair. This letter, sir, please believe, is not dictated by a vain desire to enjoy extravagant amusements. I have no such wish. I feel simply that it is necessary to show my companions that I can procure them as well as they, if I wish to do so.

Charles Bonaparte, always in pursuit of pleasure and his inheritance, could not help his son. Napoleon made other attempts to escape, even offering himself, it is said, to the British Admiralty as a sailor, and once, at least, begging Monsieur de Marbœuf, the Governor-General of Corsica, who had aided Charles Bonaparte in securing places for both boys, to withdraw his protection. The incident which led to this was characteristic of the school. The supercilious young nobles taunted him with his father’s position; it was nothing but that of a poor tipstaff, they said. Young Bonaparte, stung by what he thought an insult, attacked his tormentors, and, being caught in the act, was shut up. He immediately wrote to the Count de Marbœuf a letter of remarkable qualities in so young a boy and in such circumstances. After explaining the incident he said:

“Now, Monsieur le Comte, if I am guilty, if my liberty has been taken from me justly, have the goodness to add to the kindnesses which you have shown me one thing more—take me from Brienne and withdraw your protection: it would be robbery on my part to keep it any longer from one who deserves it more than I do. I shall never, sir, be worthier of it than I am now. I shall never cure myself of an impetuosity which is all the more dangerous because I believe its motive is sacred. Whatever idea of self-interest influences me, I shall never have control enough to see my father, an honorable man, dragged in the mud. I shall always, Monsieur le Comte, feel too deeply in these circumstances to limit myself to complaining to my superior. I shall always feel that a good son ought not to allow another to avenge such an outrage. As for the benefits which you have rained upon me, they will never be forgotten. I shall say I had gained an honorable protection, but Heaven denied me the virtues which were necessary in order to profit by it.”

24

BONAPARTE AT BRIENNE.

The original of this statue is in the gallery of Versailles. It dates from 1851, and is by Louis Rochet, one of the pupils of David d’Angers.

25In the end Napoleon saw that there was no way for him but to remain at Brienne, galled by poverty and formalism.

It would be unreasonable to suppose that there was no relief to this sombre life. The boy won recognition more than once from his companions by his bravery and skill in defending his rights. He was not only valorous; he was generous, and, “preferred going to prison himself to denouncing his comrades who had done wrong.” Young Napoleon found, soon, that if there were things for which he was ridiculed, there were others for which he was applauded.

He made friends, particularly among his teachers; and to one of his comrades, Bourrienne, he remained attached for years. “You never laugh at me; you like me,” he said to his friend. Those who found him morose and surly, did not realize that beneath the reserved, sullen exterior of the little Corsican boy there was a proud and passionate heart aching for love and recognition; that it was sensitiveness rather than arrogance which drove him away from his mates.

At the end of five and one-half years Napoleon was promoted to the military school at Paris. The choice of pupils for this school was made by an inspector, at this time one Chevalier de Kéralio, an amiable old man, who was fond of mingling with the boys as well as examining them. He was particularly pleased with Napoleon, and named him for promotion in spite of his being strong in nothing but mathematics, and not yet being of the age required by the regulations. The teachers protested, but De Kéralio insisted.

“I know what I am doing,” he said. “If I put the rules aside in this case, it is not to do his family a favor—I do 26not know them. It is because of the child himself. I have seen a spark here which cannot be too carefully cultivated.”

De Kéralio died before the nominations were made, but his wishes in regard to young Bonaparte were carried out. The recommendation which sent him up is curious. The notes read:

“Monsieur de Bonaparte; height four feet, ten inches and ten lines; he has passed his fourth examination; good constitution, excellent health; submissive character, frank and grateful; regular in conduct; has distinguished himself by his application to mathematics; is passably well up in history and geography; is behindhand in his Latin. Will make an excellent sailor. Deserves to be sent to the school in Paris.”

It was in October, 1784, that Napoleon was placed in the Ecole Militaire at Paris, the same school which still faces the Champ de Mars. He was fifteen years old at the time, a thin-faced, awkward, countrified boy, who stared open-mouthed at the Paris street sights and seemed singularly out of place to those who saw him in the capital for the first time.

Napoleon found his new associates even more distasteful than those at Brienne had been. The pupils of the Ecole Militaire were sons of soldiers and provincial gentlemen, educated gratuitously, and rich young men who paid for their privileges. The practices of the school were luxurious. There was a large staff of servants, costly stables, several courses at meals. Those who were rich spent freely; most of those who were poor ran in debt. Napoleon could not pay his share in the lunches and gifts which his mates offered now and then to teachers and fellows. He saw his sister Eliza, who was at Madame de Maintenon’s school at St. Cyr, weep one day for the same reason. He would not borrow. “My mother has already too many expenses, and I have no business to increase them by extravagances which are simply imposed upon me by the stupid folly of my comrades.” But he did complain loudly to his friends. The Permons, a Corsican family living on the Quai Conti, who made Napoleon thoroughly at home, even holding a room 28at his disposal, frequently discussed these complaints. Was it vanity and envy, or a wounded pride and just indignation? The latter, said Monsieur Permon. This feeling was so profound with Napoleon, that, with his natural instinct for regulating whatever was displeasing to him, he prepared a memorial to the government, full of good, practical sense, on the useless luxury of the pupils.

A year in Paris finished Napoleon’s military education, and in October, 1785, when sixteen years old, he received his appointment as second lieutenant of the artillery in a regiment stationed at Valence. Out of the fifty-eight pupils entitled that year to the promotion of second lieutenant, but six went to the artillery; of these six Napoleon was one. His examiner said of him:

“Reserved and studious, he prefers study to any amusement, and enjoys reading the best authors; applies himself earnestly to the abstract sciences; cares little for anything else. He is silent and loves solitude. He is capricious, haughty, and excessively egotistical; talks little, but is quick and energetic in his replies, prompt and severe in his repartees; has great pride and ambitions, aspiring to anything. The young man is worthy of patronage.”

He left Paris at once, on money borrowed from a cloth merchant whom his father had patronized, not sorry, probably, that his school days were over, though it is certain that all of those who had been friendly to him in this period he never forgot in the future. Several of his old teachers at Brienne received pensions; one was made rector of the School of Fine Arts established at Compiègne, another librarian at Malmaison, where the porter was the former porter at Brienne. The professors of the Ecole Militaire were equally well taken care of, as well as many of his schoolmates. During the Consulate, learning that Madame de Montesson, wife of the Duke of Orleans, was still living, he sent for her to come to the Tuileries, and asked what he 29could do for her. “But, General,” protested Madame de Montesson, “I have no claim upon you.”

“You do not know, then,” replied the First Consul, “that I received my first crown from you. You went to Brienne with the Duke of Orleans to distribute the prizes, and in placing a laurel wreath on my head, you said: ‘May it bring you happiness.’ They say I am a fatalist, Madame, so it is quite plain that I could not forget what you no longer remember;” and the First Consul caused the sixty thousand francs of yearly income left Madame de Montesson by the Duke of Orleans, but confiscated in the Revolution, to be returned. Later, at her request, he raised one of her relatives to the rank of senator. In 1805, when emperor, Napoleon gave a life pension of six thousand francs to the son of his former protector, the Count de Marbœuf, and with it went his assurance of interest and good will in all the circumstances of the young man’s life. Generous, forbearing, even tender remembrance of all who had been associated with him in his early years, was one of Napoleon’s marked characteristics.

His new position at Valence was not brilliant. He had an annual income of two hundred and twenty-four dollars, and there was much hard work. It was independence, however, and life opened gayly to the young officer. He made many acquaintances, and for the first time saw something of society and women. Madame Colombier, whose salon was the leading one of the town, received him, introduced him to powerful friends, and, indeed, prophesied a great future for him.

The sixteen-year-old officer, in spite of his shabby clothes and big boots, became a favorite. He talked brilliantly and freely, began to find that he could please, and, for the first time, made love a little—to Mademoiselle Colombier—a frolicking boy-and-girl love, the object of whose stolen rendezvous was to eat cherries together. Mademoiselle Mion-Desplaces, a pretty Corsican girl in Valence, also received some attention from him. Encouraged by his good beginning, and ambitious for future success, he even began to take dancing lessons.

30

BONAPARTE AT VALENCE.

From a painting by François Flameng.

31Had there been no one but himself to think of, everything would have gone easily, but the care of his family was upon him. His father had died a few months before, February, 1785, and left his affairs in a sad tangle. Joseph, now nearly eighteen years of age, who had gone to Autun in 1779 with Napoleon, had remained there until 1785. The intention was to make him a priest; suddenly he declared that he would not be anything but a soldier. It was to undo all that had been done for him; but his father made an effort to get him into a military school. Before the arrangements were complete Charles Bonaparte died, and Joseph was obliged to return to Corsica, where he was powerless to do anything for his mother and for the four young children at home: Louis, aged nine; Pauline, seven; Caroline, five; Jerome, three.

Lucien, now nearly eleven years old, was at Brienne, refusing to become a soldier, as his family desired, and giving his time to literature; but he was not a free pupil, and the six hundred francs a year needful for him was a heavy tax. Eliza alone was provided for. She had entered St. Cyr in 1784 as one of the two hundred and fifty pupils supported there by his Majesty, and to be a demoiselle de St. Cyr was to be fed, taught, and clothed from seven to twenty, and, on leaving, to receive a dowry of three thousand francs, a trousseau, and one hundred and fifty francs for travelling expenses home.

Napoleon regarded his family’s situation more seriously than did his brothers. Indeed, when at Brienne he had shown an interest, a sense of responsibility, and a good 32judgment about the future of his brothers and sisters, quite amazing in so young a boy. When he was fifteen years old, he wrote a letter to his uncle, which, for its keen analysis, would do credit to the father of a family. The subject was his brother Joseph’s desire to abandon the Church and go into the king’s service. Napoleon is summing up the pros and cons:

“First. As father says, he has not the courage to face the perils of an action; his health is feeble, and will not allow him to support the fatigues of a campaign; and my brother looks on the military profession only from a garrison point of view. He would make a good garrison officer. He is well made, light-minded, knows how to pay compliments, and with these talents he will always get on well in society.

“Second. He has received an ecclesiastical education, and it is very late to undo that. Monseignor the Bishop of Autun would have given him a fat living, and he would have been sure to become a bishop. What an advantage for the family! Monseignor of Autun has done all he could to encourage him to persevere, promising that he should never repent. Should he persist, in wishing to be a soldier, I must praise him, provided he has a decided taste for his profession, the finest of all, and the great motive power of human affairs.... He wishes to be a military man. That is all very well; but in what corps? Is it the marine? First: He knows nothing of mathematics; it would take him two years to learn. Second: His health is incompatible with the sea. Is it the engineers? He would require four or five years to learn what is necessary, and at the end of that time he would be only a cadet. Besides, working all day long would not suit him. The same reasons which apply to the engineers apply to the artillery, with this exception: that he would have to work eighteen months to become a cadet, and eighteen months more to become an officer.... No doubt he wishes to join the infantry.... And what is the slender infantry officer? Three-fourths of the time a scapegrace.... A last effort will be made to persuade him to enter the Church, in default of which, father will take him to Corsica, where he will be under his eye.”

It was not strange that Charles Bonaparte considered the advice of a son who could write so clear-headed a letter as the one just quoted, or that the boy’s uncle Lucien said, 33before dying: “Remember, that if Joseph is the older, Napoleon is the real head of the house.”

Now that young Bonaparte was in an independent position, he felt still more keenly his responsibility, and it was for this reason, as well as because of ill health, that he left his regiment in February, 1787, on a leave which he extended to nearly fifteen months, and which he spent in energetic efforts to better his family’s situation, working to reëstablish salt works and a mulberry plantation in which they were concerned, to secure the nomination of Lucien to the college at Aix, and to place Louis at a French military school.

When he went back to his regiment, now stationed at Auxonne, he denied himself to send money home, and spent his leisure in desperate work, sleeping but six hours, eating but one meal a day, dressing once in the week. Like all the young men of the country who had been animated by the philosophers and encyclopedists, he had attempted literature, and at this moment was finishing a history of Corsica, a portion of which he had written at Valence and submitted to the Abbé Raynal, who had encouraged him to go on. The manuscript was completed and ready for publication in 1788, and the author made heroic efforts to find some one who would accept a dedication, as well as some one who would publish it. Before he had succeeded, events had crowded the work out of sight, and other ambitions occupied his forces. Napoleon had many literary projects on hand at this time. He had been a prodigious reader, and was never so happy as when he could save a few cents with which to buy second-hand books. From everything he read he made long extracts, and kept a book of “thoughts.” Most curious are some of these fragments, reflections on the beginning of society, on love, on nature. They show that he was passionately absorbed in forming ideas on the great questions of life and its relations.

34Besides his history of Corsica, he had already written several fragments, among them an historical drama called the “Count of Essex,” and a story, the “Masque Prophète.” He undertook, too, to write a sentimental journey in the style of Sterne, describing a trip from Valence to Mont Cenis. Later he competed for a prize offered by the Academy of Lyons on the subject: “To determine what truths and feelings should be inculcated in men for their happiness.” He failed in the contest; indeed, the essay was severely criticised for its incoherency and poor style.

The Revolution of 1789 turned Napoleon’s mind to an ambition greater than that of writing the history of Corsica—he would free Corsica. The National Assembly had lifted the island from its inferior relation and made it a department of France, but sentiment was much divided, and the ferment was similar to that which agitated the mainland. Napoleon, deeply interested in the progress of the new liberal ideas, and seeing, too, the opportunity for a soldier and an agitator among his countrymen, hastened home, where he spent some twenty-five months out of the next two and a half years. That the young officer spent five-sixths of his time in Corsica, instead of in service, and that he in more than one instance pleaded reasons for leaves of absence which one would have to be exceedingly unsophisticated not to see were trumped up for the occasion, cannot be attributed merely to duplicity of character and contempt for authority. He was doing only what he had learned to do at the military schools of Brienne and Paris, and what he saw practised about him in the army. Indeed, the whole French army at that period made a business of shirking duty. Every minister of war in the period complains of the incessant desertions among the common soldiers. Among the officers it was no better. True, they did not desert; they held their places and—did nothing. “Those who were rich and well 35born had no need to work,” says the Marshal Duc de Broglie. “They were promoted by favoritism. Those who were poor and from the provinces had no need to work either. It did them no good if they did, for, not having patronage, they could not advance.” The Comte de Saint-Germain said in regard to the officers: “There is not one who is in active service; they one and all amuse themselves and look out for their own affairs.”

Napoleon, tormented by the desire to help his family, goaded by his ambition and by an imperative inborn need of action and achievement, still divided in his allegiance between France and Corsica, could not have been expected, in his environment, to take nothing more than the leaves allowed by law.

Revolutionary agitation did not absorb all the time he was in Corsica. Never did he work harder for his family. The portion of this two and a half years which he spent in France, he was accompanied by Louis, whose tutor he had become, and he suffered every deprivation to help him. Napoleon’s income at that time was sixty-five cents a day. This meant that he must live in wretched rooms, prepare himself the broth on which he and his brother dined, never go to a café, brush his own clothes, give Louis lessons. He did it bravely. “I breakfasted off dry bread, but I bolted my door on my poverty,” he said once to a young officer complaining of the economies he must make on two hundred dollars a month.

36

BONAPARTE AT THE TUILERIES, AUGUST 10, 1792.

After a lithograph by Charlet. Lieutenant Bonaparte on the terrace of the Tuileries, watching the crowd of rioters who were hastening to the massacre of the Swiss Guards.

37Economy and privation were always more supportable to him than borrowing. He detested irregularities in financial matters. “Your finances are deplorably conducted, apparently on metaphysical principles. Believe me, money is a very physical thing,” he once said to Joseph, when the latter, as King of Naples, could not make both ends meet. He put Jerome to sea largely to stop his reckless expenditures. (At fifteen that young man paid three thousand two hundred dollars for a shaving case “containing everything except the beard to enable its owner to use it.”) Some of the most furious scenes which occurred between Napoleon and Josephine were because she was continually in debt. After the divorce he frequently cautioned her to be watchful of her money. “Think what a bad opinion I should have of you if I knew you were in debt with an income of six hundred thousand dollars a year,” he wrote her in 1813.

The methodical habits of Marie Louise were a constant satisfaction to Napoleon. “She settles all her accounts once a week, deprives herself of new gowns if necessary, and imposes privations upon herself in order to keep out of debt,” he said proudly. A bill of sixty-two francs and thirty-two centimes was once sent to him for window blinds placed in the salon of the Princess Borghese. “As I did not order this expenditure, which ought not to be charged to my budget, the princess will pay it,” he wrote on the margin.

It was not parsimony. It was the man’s sense of order. No one was more generous in gifts, pensions, salaries; but it irritated him to see money wasted or managed carelessly.

Through his long absence in Corsica, and the complaints which the conservatives of the island had made to the French government of the way he had handled his battalion of National Guards in a riot at Ajaccio, Napoleon lost his place in the French army. He came to Paris in the spring of 1792, hoping to regain it. But in the confused condition of public affairs little attention was given to such cases, and he was obliged to wait.

Almost penniless, he dined on six-cent dishes in cheap restaurants, pawned his watch, and with Bourrienne devised schemes for making a fortune. One was to rent some new houses going up in the city and to sub-let them. While he waited he saw the famous days of the “Second Revolution”—the 3820th of June, when the mob surrounded the Tuileries, overran the palace, put the bonnet rouge on Louis XVI.’s head, did everything but strike, as the agitators had intended. Napoleon and Bourrienne, loitering on the outskirts, saw the outrages, and he said, in disgust:

“Che coglione, why did they allow these brutes to come in? They ought to have shot down five or six hundred of them with cannon, and the rest would soon have run.”

He saw the 10th of August, when the king was deposed. He was still in Paris when the horrible September massacres began—those massacres in which, to “save the country,” the fanatical and terrified populace resolved to put “rivers of blood” between Paris and the émigrés. All these excesses filled him with disgust. He began to understand that the Revolution he admired so much needed a head.

In August Napoleon was restored to the army. The following June found him with his regiment in the south of France. In the interval spent in Corsica, he had abandoned Paoli and the cause of Corsican independence. His old hero had been dragged, in spite of himself, into a movement for separating the island from France. Napoleon had taken the position that the French government, whatever its excesses, was the only advocate in Europe of liberty and equality, and that Corsica would better remain with France rather than seek English aid, as it must if it revolted. But he and his party were defeated, and he with his family was obliged to flee.

The Corsican period of his life was over; the French had opened. He began it as a thorough republican. The evolution of his enthusiasm for the Revolution had been natural enough. He had been a devoted believer in Rousseau’s principles. The year 1789 had struck down the abuses which galled him in French society and government. After the flight of the king in 1791 he had taken the oath:

39“I swear to employ the arms placed in my hands for the defence of the country, and to maintain against all her enemies, both from within and from without, the Constitution as declared by the National Assembly; to die rather than to suffer the invasion of the French territory by foreign troops, and to obey orders given in accordance with the decree of the National Assembly.”

“The nation is now the paramount object,” he wrote; “my natural inclinations are now in harmony with my duties.”

The efforts of the court and the émigrés to overthrow the new government had increased his devotion to France. “My southern blood leaps in my veins with the rapidity of the Rhone,” he said, when the question of the preservation of the Constitution was brought up. The months spent at Paris in 1792 had only intensified his radical notions. Now that he had abandoned his country, rather than assist it to fight the Revolution, he was better prepared than ever to become a Frenchman. It seemed the only way to repair his and his family’s fortune.

The condition of the Bonapartes on arriving in France after their expulsion from Corsica was abject. Their property “pillaged, sacked, and burned,” they had escaped penniless—were, in fact, refugees dependent upon French bounty. They wandered from place to place, but at last found a good friend in Monsieur Clary of Marseilles, a soapboiler, with two pretty daughters, Julie and Désirée, and Joseph and Napoleon became inmates of his house.

It was not as a soldier but as a writer that Napoleon first distinguished himself in this new period of his life. An insurrection against the government had arisen in Marseilles. In an imaginary conversation called le souper de Beaucaire, Napoleon discussed the situation so clearly and justly that Salicetti, Gasparin, and Robespierre the younger, the deputies who were looking after the South, ordered the paper published at public expense, and distributed it as a campaign document. More, they promised to favor the author when they had an opportunity.

40

PORTRAIT OF BONAPARTE, DONE IN CRAYON BY ONE OF HIS SCHOOLFELLOWS.

This sketch, which used to figure in the Musée des Souverains, became afterwards the property of Monsieur de Beaudicourt, who lately presented it to the Louvre. It possesses an exceptional interest. Executed at Brienne by one of the schoolfellows of the future Cæsar, it may be considered as the first portrait of Bonaparte taken from life. Under it are these words written in pencil:

“Mio caro amico Buonaparte. Pontormini del Tournone. 1785.”

41It soon came. Toulon had opened its doors to the English and joined Marseilles in a counter-revolution. Napoleon was in the force sent against the town, and he was soon promoted to the command of the Second Regiment of artillery. His energy and skill won him favorable attention. He saw at once that the important point was not besieging the town, as the general in command was doing and the Convention had ordered, but in forcing the allied fleet from the harbor, when the town must fall of itself. But the commander-in-chief was slow, and it was not until the command was changed and an officer of experience and wisdom put in charge that Napoleon’s plans were listened to. The new general saw at once their value, and hastened to carry them out. The result was the withdrawal of the allies in December, 1793, and the fall of Toulon. Bonaparte was mentioned by the general-in-chief as “one of those who have most distinguished themselves in aiding me,” and in February, 1794, was made general of brigade.

It is interesting to note that it was at Toulon that Napoleon first came in contact with the English. Here he made the acquaintance of Junot, Marmont, and Duroc. Barras, too, had his attention drawn to him at the same time.

The circumstances which brought Junot and Napoleon together at Toulon were especially heroic. Some one was needed to carry an order to an exposed point. Napoleon asked for an under officer, audacious and intelligent. Junot, then a sergeant, was sent. “Take off your uniform and carry this order there,” said Napoleon, indicating the point.

Junot blushed and his eyes flashed. “I am not a spy,” he answered; “find some one beside me to execute such an order.”

“You refuse to obey?” said Napoleon.

42“I am ready to obey,” answered Junot, “but I will go in my uniform or not go at all. It is honor enough then for these——Englishmen.”

The officer smiled and let him go, but he took pains to find out his name.

A few days later Napoleon called for some one in the ranks who wrote a good hand to come to him. Junot offered himself, and sat down close to the battery to write the letter. He had scarcely finished when a bomb thrown by the English burst near by and covered him and his letter with earth.

“Good,” said Junot, laughing, “I shall not need any sand to dry the ink.”

Bonaparte looked at the young man, who had not even trembled at the danger. From that time the young sergeant remained with the commander of artillery.

The favors granted Napoleon for his services at Toulon were extended to his family. Madame Bonaparte was helped by the municipality of Marseilles. Joseph was made commissioner of war. Lucien was joined to the Army of Italy, and in the town where he was stationed became famous as a popular orator—“little Robespierre,” they called him. He began, too, here to make love to his landlord’s daughter, Christine Boyer, afterwards his wife.

The outlook for the refugees seemed very good, and it was made still brighter by the very particular friendship of the younger Robespierre for Napoleon. This friendship was soon increased by the part Napoleon played in a campaign of a month with the Army of Italy, when, largely by his genius, the seaboard from Nice to Genoa was put into French power. If this victory was much for the army and for Robespierre, it was more for Napoleon. He looked from the Tende, and saw for the first time that in Italy there was “a land for a conqueror.” Robespierre wrote to his brother, the real head of the government at the moment, that Napoleon possessed “transcendent merit.” He engaged him to draw up a plan for a campaign against Piedmont, and sent him on a secret mission to Genoa. The relations between the two young men were, in fact, very close, and, considering the position of Robespierre the elder, the outlook for Bonaparte was good.

44That Bonaparte admired the powers of the elder Robespierre, is unquestionable. He was sure that if he had “remained in power, he would have reëstablished order and law; the result would have been attained without any shocks, because it would have come through the quiet exercise of power.” Nevertheless, it is certain that the young general was unwilling to come into close contact with the Terrorist leader, as his refusal of an offer to go to Paris to take the command of the garrison of the city shows. No doubt his refusal was partly due to his ambition—he thought the opening better where he was—and partly due, too, to his dislike of the excesses which the government was practising. That he never favored the policy of the Terrorists, all those who knew him testify, and there are many stories of his efforts at this time to save émigrés and suspects from the violence of the rabid patriots; even to save the English imprisoned at Toulon. He always remembered Robespierre the younger with kindness, and when he was in power gave Charlotte Robespierre a pension.

Things had begun to go well for Bonaparte. His poverty passed. If his plan for an Italian campaign succeeded, he might even aspire to the command of the army. His brothers received good positions. Joseph was betrothed to Julie Clary, and life went gayly at Nice and Marseilles, where Napoleon had about him many of his friends—Robespierre and his sister; his own two pretty sisters; Marmont, and Junot, who was deeply in love with Pauline. Suddenly all this hope and happiness were shattered. On the 9th Thermidor Robespierre fell, and all who had favored him were suspected, Napoleon among the rest. His secret mission to Genoa gave a pretext for his arrest, and for thirteen days, in August, 1794, he was a prisoner, but through his friends was liberated. Soon after his release, came an appointment to join an expedition against Corsica. He set 45out, but the undertaking was a failure, and the spring found him again without a place.

In April, 1795, Napoleon received orders to join the Army of the West. When he reached Paris he found that it was the infantry to which he was assigned. Such a change was considered a disgrace in the army. He refused to go. “A great many officers could command a brigade better than I could,” he wrote a friend, “but few could command the artillery so well. I retire, satisfied that the injustice done to the service will be sufficiently felt by those who know how to appreciate matters.” But though he might call himself “satisfied,” his retirement was a most serious affair for him. It was the collapse of what seemed to be a career, the shutting of the gate he had worked so fiercely to open.

He must begin again, and he did not see how. A sort of despair settled over him. “He declaimed against fate,” says the Duchess d’Abrantès. “I was idle and discontented,” he says of himself. He went to the theatre and sat sullen and inattentive through the gayest of plays. “He had moments of fierce hilarity,” says Bourrienne.

A pathetic distaste of effort came over him at times; he wanted to settle. “If I could have that house,” he said one day to Bourrienne, pointing to an empty house near by, “with my friends and a cabriolet, I should be the happiest of men.” He clung to his friends with a sort of desperation, and his letters to Joseph are touching in the extreme.

46

NAPOLEON IN PRISON.

After a lithograph by Motte. Bonaparte, master of Toulon, had already attained fame when the events of Thermidor imposed a sudden check on his career. His relations with the younger Robespierre laid him open to suspicion; he was suspended from his functions and put under arrest by the deputies of the Convention.

47Love as well as failure caused his melancholy. All about him, indeed, turned thoughts to marriage. Joseph was now married, and his happiness made him envious. “What a lucky rascal Joseph is!” he said. Junot, madly in love with Pauline, was with him. The two young men wandered through the alleys of the Jardin des Plantes and discussed Junot’s passion. In listening to his friend, Napoleon thought of himself. He had been attracted by Désirée Clary, Joseph’s sister-in-law. Why not try to win her? And he began to demand news of her from Joseph. Désirée had asked for his portrait, and he wrote: “I shall have it taken for her; you must give it to her, if she still wants it; if not, keep it yourself.” He was melancholy when he did not have news of her, accused Joseph of purposely omitting her name from his letters, and Désirée herself of forgetting him. At last he consulted Joseph: “If I remain here, it is just possible that I might feel inclined to commit the folly of marrying. I should be glad of a line from you on the subject. You might perhaps speak to Eugénie’s [Désirée’s] brother, and let me know what he says, and then it will be settled.” He waited the answer to his overtures “with impatience”; urged his brother to arrange things so that nothing “may prevent that which I long for.” But Désirée was obdurate. Later she married Bernadotte and became Queen of Sweden.

Yet in these varying moods he was never idle. As three years before, he and Bourrienne indulged in financial speculations; he tried to persuade Joseph to invest his wife’s dot in the property of the émigrés. He prepared memorials on the political disorders of the times and on military questions, and he pushed his brothers as if he had no personal ambition. He did not neglect to make friends either. The most important of those whom he cultivated was Paul Barras, revolutionist, conventionalist, member of the Directory, and one of the most influential men in Paris at that moment. He had known Napoleon at Toulon, and showed himself disposed to be friendly. “I attached myself to Barras,” said Napoleon later, “because I knew no one else. Robespierre was dead; Barras was playing a rôle: I had to attach myself to somebody and something.” One of his plans for himself was to go to Turkey. For two or three years, in fact, Napoleon had thought of the Orient as a possible field for his genius, and his mother had often worried lest he should go. 48Just now it happened that the Sultan of Turkey asked the French for aid in reorganizing his artillery and perfecting the defences of his forts, and Napoleon asked to be allowed to undertake the work. While pushing all his plans with extraordinary enthusiasm, even writing Joseph almost daily letters about what he would do for him when he was settled in the Orient, he was called to do a piece of work which was to be of importance in his future.

The war committee needed plans for an Italian campaign; the head of the committee was in great perplexity. Nobody knew anything about the condition of things in the South. By chance, one day, one of Napoleon’s acquaintances heard of the difficulties and recommended the young general. The memorial he prepared was so excellent that he was invited into the topographical bureau of the Committee of Public Safety. His knowledge, sense, energy, fire, were so remarkable that he made strong friends and became an important personage.

Such was the impression he made, that when in October, 1795, the government was threatened by the revolting sections, Barras, the nominal head of the defence, asked Napoleon to command the forces which protected the Tuileries, where the Convention had gone into permanent session. He hesitated for a moment. He had much sympathy for the sections. His sagacity conquered. The Convention stood for the republic; an overthrow now meant another proscription, more of the Terror, perhaps a royalist succession, an English invasion.

“I accept,” he said to Barras; “but I warn you that once my sword is out of the scabbard I shall not replace it till I have established order.”

It was on the night of 12th Vendémiaire that Napoleon was appointed. With incredible rapidity he massed the men and cannon he could secure at the openings into the palace 49and at the points of approach. He armed even the members of the Convention as a reserve. When the sections marched their men into the streets and upon the bridges leading to the Tuileries, they were met by a fire which scattered them at once. That night Paris was quiet. The next day Napoleon was made general of division. On October 26th he was appointed general-in-chief of the Army of the Interior.

At last the opportunity he had sought so long and so eagerly had come. It was a proud position for a young man of twenty-six, and one may well stop and ask how he had obtained it. The answer is not difficult for one who, dismissing the prejudices and superstitions which have long enveloped his name, studies his story as he would that of an unknown individual. He had won his place as any poor and ambitious boy in any country and in any age must win his—by hard work, by grasping at every opportunity, by constant self-denial, by courage in every failure, by springing to his feet after every fall.

He succeeded because he knew every detail of his business (“There is nothing I cannot do for myself. If there is no one to make powder for the cannon I can do it”); because neither ridicule nor coldness nor even the black discouragement which made him write once to Joseph, “If this state of things continues I shall end by not turning out of my path when a carriage passes,” could stop him; because he had profound faith in himself. “Do these people imagine that I want their help to rise? They will be too glad some day to accept mine. My sword is at my side, and I will go far with it.” That he had misrepresented conditions more than once to secure favor, is true; but in doing this he had done simply what he saw done all about him, what he had learned from his father, what the oblique morality of the day justified. That he had shifted opinions and allegiance, is equally true; but he who in the French Revolution did not shift opinion was he who regarded “not what is, but what might be.” Certainly in no respect had he been worse than his environment, and in many respects he had been far above it. He had struggled for place, not that he might have ease, but that he might have an opportunity for action; not that he might amuse himself, but that he might achieve glory. Nor did he seek honors merely for himself; it was that he might share them with others.

50

PEN PORTRAIT OF BONAPARTE IN PROFILE.

By Gros. This drawing, which I discovered among the portfolios of the Louvre, is one of the most precious documents of Napoleonic portraiture. It was the gift of Monsieur Delestre, the pupil and biographer of Gros. In this clear profile we see already all that characteristic expression sought for by Gros above everything, and superbly rendered by him soon after in the portrait of Bonaparte at Arcola. I imagine that this pen sketch was preparatory to a finished portrait.—A. D.

51The first use Bonaparte made of his power after he was appointed general-in-chief of the Army of the Interior, was for his family and friends. Fifty or sixty thousand francs, assignats, and dresses go to his mother and sisters; Joseph is to have a consulship; “a roof, a table, and carriage” are at his disposal in Paris; Louis is made a lieutenant and his aide-de-camp; Lucien, commissioner of war; Junot and Marmont are put on his staff. He forgets nobody. The very day after the 13th Vendémiaire, when his cares and excitements were numerous and intense, he was at the Permons, where Monsieur Permon had just died. “He was like a son, a brother.” This relation he soon tried to change, seeking to marry the beautiful widow Permon. When she laughed merrily at the idea, for she was many years his senior, he replied that the age of his wife was a matter of indifference to him so long as she did not look over thirty.

The change in Bonaparte himself was great. Up to this time he had gone about Paris “in an awkward and ungainly manner, with a shabby round hat thrust down over his eyes, and with curls (known at that time as oreilles des chiens) badly powdered and badly combed, and falling over the collar of the iron-gray coat which has since become so celebrated; his hands, long, thin, and black, without gloves, because, he said, they were an unnecessary expense; wearing ill-made and ill-cleaned boots.” The majority of people saw in him only what Monsieur de Pontécoulant, who took 52him into the War Office, had seen at their first interview; “A young man with a wan and livid complexion, bowed shoulders, and a weak and sickly appearance.”

But now, installed in an elegant hôtel, driving his own carriage, careful of his person, received in every salon where he cared to go, the young general-in-chief is a changed man. Success has had much to do with this; love has perhaps had more.

In the five months spent in Paris before the 13th Vendémiaire, Bonaparte saw something of society. One interesting company which he often joined, was that gathered about Madame Permon at a hotel in the Rue des Filles Saint-Thomas. This Madame Permon was the same with whom he had taken refuge frequently in the days when he was in the military school of Paris, and whom he had visited later, in 1792, when lingering in town with hope of recovering his place in the army. On this latter occasion he had even exposed himself to aid her and her husband to escape the fury of the Terrorists and to fly from the city. Madame Permon had returned to Paris in the spring of 1795 for a few weeks, and numbers of her old friends had gathered about her as before the Terror, among them, Bonaparte.

Another house—and one of very different character—at which he was received, was that of Barras. The 9th Thermidor, as the fall of Robespierre is called, released Paris from a strain of terror so great that, in reaction, she plunged for a time into violent excess. In this period of decadence Barras was sovereign. Epicurean by nature, possessing the tastes, culture, and vices of the old régime, he was better fitted than any man in the government to create and direct a dissolute and luxurious society. Into this set Napoleon was introduced, and more than once he expressed his astonishment to Joseph at the turn things had taken in Paris.

54“The pleasure-seekers have reappeared, and forget, or, rather, remember only as a dream, that they ever ceased to shine. Libraries are open, and lectures on history, chemistry, astronomy, etc., succeed each other. Everything is done to amuse and make life agreeable. One has no time to think; and how can one be gloomy in this busy whirlwind? Women are everywhere—at the theatres, on the promenades, in the libraries. In the study of the savant you meet some that are charming. Here alone, of all places in the world, they deserve to hold the helm. The men are mad over them, think only of them, live only by and for them. A woman need not stay more than six months in Paris to learn what is due her and what is her empire.... This great nation has given itself up to pleasure, dancing, and theatres, and women have become the principal occupation. Ease, luxury, and bon ton have recovered their throne; the Terror is remembered only as a dream.”

Bonaparte took his part in the gayeties of his new friends, and was soon on easy terms with most of the women who frequented the salon of Barras, even with the most influential of them all, the famous Madame Tallien, the great beauty of the Directory.

Among the women whom he met in the salon of Madame Tallien and at Barras’s own house, was the Viscountess de Beauharnais (née Tascher de la Pagerie), widow of the Marquis de Beauharnais, guillotined on the 5th Thermidor, 1794. At the time of the marquis’s death his wife was a prisoner. She was released soon after and had become a intimate friend of Madame Tallien. All Madame Tallien’s circle had, indeed, become attached to Josephine de Beauharnais, and with Barras she was on terms of intimacy which led to a great amount of gossip. Without fortune, having two children to support, still trembling at the memory of her imprisonment, indolent and vain, it is not remarkable that Josephine yielded to the pleasures of the society which had saved her from prison and which now opened its arms to her, nor that she accepted the protection of the powerful Director Barras. She was certainly one of the regular habitués of his house, and every week kept court for him at her little home at Croissy, a few miles from Paris. 55The Baron Pasquier, afterwards one of the members of Napoleon’s Council of State, was at that moment living in poverty at Croissy—and was a neighbor of Josephine. In his “Memoirs” he has left a paragraph on the gay little outings taken there by Barras and his friends.

“Her house was next to ours,” says Pasquier. “She did not come out often at that time, rarely more than once a week, to receive Barras and the troop which always followed him. From early in the morning we saw the hampers coming. Then mounted gendarmes began to circulate on the route from Nanterre to Croissy, for the young Director came usually on horseback.

“Madame de Beauharnais’s house had, as is often the case among creoles, an appearance of luxury; but, the superfluous aside, the most necessary things were lacking. Birds, game, rare fruits, were piled up in the kitchen (this was the time of our greatest famine), and there was such a want of stewing-pans, glasses, and plates, that they had to come and borrow from our poor stock.”

There was much about Josephine de Beauharnais to win the favor of such a man as Barras. A creole past the freshness of youth—Josephine was thirty-two years old in 1795—she had a grace, a sweetness, a charm, that made one forget that she was not beautiful, even when she was beside such brilliant women as Madame Tallien and Madame Récamier. It was never possible to surprise her in an attitude that was not graceful. She was never ruffled or irritable. By nature she was perfection of ease and repose. Artist enough to dress in clinging stuffs made simply, which harmonized perfectly with her style, and skilful enough to use the arts of the toilet to conceal defects which care and age had brought, the Viscountess de Beauharnais was altogether one of the most fascinating women in Madame Tallien’s circle.

56

BONAPARTE, GENERAL OF THE ARMY IN ITALY.

Profile in plaster. By David d’Angers. Collection of Monsieur Paul le Roux. This energetic profile presents considerable artistic and iconographic interest. It is the first rough cast of the face of Bonaparte on the pediment of the Pantheon at Paris. Some months ago, Baron Larrey told me an interesting anecdote regarding this statue. The Baron, son of the chief surgeon to Napoleon I., and himself ex-military surgeon to Napoleon III., happening to be with the emperor at the camp of Châlons conceived the noble idea of trying to save the pediment of the Pantheon, then about to be destroyed to satisfy the Archbishop of Paris, who regarded with lively displeasure the image of Voltaire figuring on the façade of a building newly consecrated to religion. At the emperor’s table, Baron H. Larrey adroitly turned the conversation to David, and informed the sovereign, to his surprise, that the proudest effigy of Napoleon was to be seen on this pediment. Bonaparte, in fact, is represented as seizing for himself the crowns distributed by the Fatherland, while the other personages receive them. On hearing this, Napoleon III. was silent; but the next day the order was given to respect the pediment. The plaster cast I reproduce here is signed J. David, and dates from 1836. The Pantheon pediment was inaugurated in 1837.—A. D.

57The goodness of Josephine’s heart undoubtedly won her as many friends as her grace. Everybody who came to know her at all well, declared her gentle, sympathetic, and helpful. Everybody except, perhaps, the Bonaparte family, who never cared for her, and whom she never tried to win. Lucien, indeed, draws a picture of her in his “Memoirs” which, if it could be regarded as unprejudiced, would take much of her charm from her:

“Josephine was not disagreeable, or perhaps I better say, everybody declared that she was very good; but it was especially when goodness cost her no sacrifice.... She had very little wit, and no beauty at all; but there was a certain creole suppleness about her form. She had lost all natural freshness of complexion, but that the arts of the toilet remedied by candle-light.... In the brilliant companies of the Directory, to which Barras did me the honor of admitting me, she scarcely attracted my attention, so old did she seem to me, and so inferior to the other beauties which ordinarily formed the court of the voluptuous Directors, and among whom the beautiful Tallien was the true Calypso.”

But if Lucien was not attracted to Josephine, Napoleon was from the first; and when, one day, Madame de Beauharnais said some flattering things to him about his military talent, he was fairly intoxicated by her praise, followed her everywhere, and fell wildly in love with her; but by her station, her elegance, her influence, she seemed inaccessible to him, and then, too, he was looking elsewhere for a wife. When he first knew her, he was thinking of Désirée Clary; and he had known Josephine some time when he sought the hand of the widow Permon.

Though he dared not tell her his love, all his circle knew of it, and Barras at last said to him, “You should marry Madame de Beauharnais. You have a position and talents which will secure advancement; but you are isolated, without fortune and without relations. You ought to marry; it gives weight,” and he asked permission to negotiate the affair.

58Josephine was distressed. Barras was her protector. She felt the wisdom of his advice, but Napoleon frightened and wearied her by the violence of his love. In spite of her doubts she yielded at last, and on the 9th of March, 1796, they were married. Shortly before, Napoleon had been appointed commander-in-chief of the Army of Italy, and two days later he left his wife for his post.

From every station on his route he wrote her passionate letters:

“Every moment takes me farther from you, and every moment I feel less able to be away from you. You are ever in my thoughts; my fancy tires itself in trying to imagine what you are doing. If I picture you sad, my heart is wrung and my grief is increased. If you are happy and merry with your friends, I blame you for so soon forgetting the painful three days separation; in that case you are frivolous and destitute of deep feeling. As you see, I am hard to please; but, my dear, it is very different when I fear your health is bad, or that you have any reasons for being sad; then I regret the speed with which I am being separated from my love. I am sure that you have no longer any kind feeling toward me, and I can only be satisfied when I have heard that all goes well with you. When any one asks me if I have slept well, I feel that I cannot answer until a messenger brings me word that you have rested well. The illnesses and anger of men affect me only so far as I think they may affect you. May my good genius, who has always protected me amid great perils, guard and protect you! I will gladly dispense with him. Ah! don’t be happy, but be a little melancholy, and, above all, keep sorrow from your mind and illness from your body. You remember what Ossian says about that. Write to me, my pet, and a good long letter, and accept a thousand and one kisses from your best and most loving friend.”

Arrived in Italy he wrote:

“I have received all your letters, but none has made such an impression on me as the last. How can you think, my dear love, of writing to me in such a way? Don’t you believe my position is already cruel enough, without adding to my regrets and tormenting my soul? What a style! What feelings are those you describe! It’s like fire; it burns my poor heart. My only Josephine, away from you there is no happiness; away from you, the world is a desert in which I stand alone, with no chance of tasting the delicious joy of pouring out my heart. You have robbed me of more than my soul; you are the sole thought of 59my life. If I am worn out by all the torments of events, and fear the issue, if men disgust me, if I am ready to curse life, I place my hand on my heart; your image is beating there. I look at it, and love is for me perfect happiness; and everything is smiling, except the time that I see myself absent from my love. By what art have you learned how to captivate all my faculties, to concentrate my whole being in yourself? To live for Josephine! That’s the story of my life. I do everything to get to you; I am dying to join you. Fool! Do I not see that I am only going farther from you? How many lands and countries separate us! How long before you will read these words which express but feebly the emotions of the heart over which you reign!...”

“Don’t be anxious; love me like your eyes—but that’s not enough—like yourself; more than yourself, than your thoughts, your mind, your life, your all. But forgive me, I’m raving. Nature is weak when one loves....”

“I have received a letter which you interrupt to go, you say, into the country; and afterwards you pretend to be jealous of me, who am so worn out by work and fatigue. Oh, my dear!... Of course, I am in the wrong. In the early spring the country is beautiful; and then the nineteen-year old lover was there, without a doubt. The idea of wasting another moment in writing to the man three hundred leagues away, who lives, moves, exists only in memory of you; who reads your letters as one devours one’s favorite dishes after hunting for six hours!”

60

JUNOT (1771–1813).

But Napoleon had much to occupy him besides his separation from Josephine. Extraordinary difficulties surrounded his new post. Neither the generals nor the men knew anything of their new commander. “Who is this General Bonaparte? Where has he served? No one knows anything about him,” wrote Junot’s father when the latter at Toulon decided to follow his artillery commander.

In the Army of Italy they were asking the same questions, and the Directory could only answer as Junot had done: “As far as I can judge, he is one of those men of whom nature is avaricious, and that she permits upon the earth only from age to age.”

He was to replace a commander-in-chief who had sneered at his plans for an Italian campaign and who might be expected to put obstacles in his way. He was to take an army which was in the last stages of poverty and discouragement. Their garments were in rags. Even the officers were so nearly shoeless that when they reached Milan and one of them was invited to dine at the palace of a marquise, he was obliged to go in shoes without soles and tied on by cords carefully blacked. They had provisions for only a month, and half rations at that. The Piedmontese called them the “rag heroes.”

Worse than their poverty was their inactivity. “For 62three years they had fired off their guns in Italy only because war was going on, and not for any especial object—only to satisfy their consciences.” Discontent was such that counter-revolution gained ground daily. One company had even taken the name of “Dauphin,” and royalist songs were heard in camp.

Napoleon saw at a glance all these difficulties, and set himself to conquer them. With his generals he was reserved and severe. “It was necessary,” he explained afterward, “in order to command men so much older than myself.” His look and bearing quelled insubordination, restrained familiarity, even inspired fear. “From his arrival,” says Marmont, “his attitude was that of a man born for power. It was plain to the least clairvoyant eyes that he knew how to compel obedience, and scarcely was he in authority before the line of a celebrated poet might have been applied to him:

General Decrès, who had known Napoleon well at Paris, hearing that he was going to pass through Toulon, where he was stationed, offered to present his comrades. “I run,” he says, “full of eagerness and joy; the salon opens; I am about to spring forward, when the attitude, the look, the sound of his voice are sufficient to stop me. There was nothing rude about him, but it was enough. From that time I was never tempted to pass the line which had been drawn for me.”

Lavalette says of his first interview with him: “He looked weak, but his regard was so firm and so fixed that I felt myself turning pale when he spoke to me.” Augereau goes to see him at Albenga, full of contempt for this favorite of Barras who has never known an action, determined on insubordination. Bonaparte comes out, little, thin, round-shouldered, and gives Augereau, a giant among the generals, 63his orders. The big man backs out in a kind of terror. “He frightened me,” he tells Masséna. “His first glance crushed me.”

He quelled insubordination in the ranks by quick, severe punishment, but it was not long that he had insubordination. The army asked nothing but to act, and immediately they saw that they were to move. He had reached his post on March 22d; nineteen days later operations began.

The theatre of action was along that portion of the maritime Alps which runs parallel with the sea. Bonaparte held the coast and the mountains; and north, in the foot-hills, stretched from the Tende to Genoa, were the Austrians and their Sardinian allies. If the French were fully ten thousand inferior in number, their position was the stronger, for the enemy was scattered in a hilly country where it was difficult to unite their divisions.

As Bonaparte faced his enemy, it was with a youthful zest and anticipation which explains much of what follows. “The two armies are in motion,” he wrote Josephine, “each trying to outwit the other. The more skilful will succeed. I am much pleased with Beaulieu. He manœuvres very well, and is superior to his predecessor. I shall beat him, I hope, out of his boots.”

The first step in the campaign was a skilful stratagem. He spread rumors which made Beaulieu suspect that he intended marching on Genoa, and he threw out his lines in that direction. The Austrian took the feint as a genuine movement, and marched his left to the sea to cut off the French advance. But Bonaparte was not marching to Genoa, and, rapidly collecting his forces, he fell on the Austrian army at Montenotte on April 12th, and defeated it. The right and left of the allies were divided, and the centre broken.

By a series of clever feints, Bonaparte prevented the various 64divisions of the enemy from reënforcing each other, and forced them separately to battle. At Millesimo, on the 14th, he defeated one section; on the same day, at Dego, another; the next morning, near Dego, another. The Austrians were now driven back, but their Sardinian allies were still at Ceva. To them Bonaparte now turned, and, driving them from their camp, defeated them at Mondovi on the 22d.

It was phenomenal in Italy. In ten days the “rag heroes,” at whom they had been mocking for three years, had defeated two well-fed armies ten thousand stronger than themselves, and might at any moment march on Turin. The Sardinians sued for peace.

The victory was as bewildering to the French as it was terrifying to the enemy, and Napoleon used it to stir his army to new conquests.

“Soldiers!” he said, “in fifteen days you have gained six victories, taken twenty-one stands of colors, fifty-five pieces of cannon, and several fortresses, and conquered the richest part of Piedmont. You have made fifteen hundred prisoners, and killed or wounded ten thousand men.

“Hitherto, however, you have been fighting for barren rocks, made memorable by your valor, but useless to the nation. Your exploits now equal those of the conquering armies of Holland and the Rhine. You were utterly destitute, and have supplied all your wants. You have gained battles without cannons, passed rivers without bridges, performed forced marches without shoes, bivouacked without brandy, and often without bread. None but republican phalanxes—soldiers of liberty—could have borne what you have endured. For this you have the thanks of your country.

“The two armies which lately attacked you in full confidence, now fly before you in consternation.... But, soldiers, it must not be concealed that you have done nothing, since there remains aught to do. Neither Turin nor Milan is ours.... The greatest difficulties are no doubt surmounted; but you have still battles to fight, towns to take, rivers to cross....”

Not less clever in diplomacy than in battle, Bonaparte, on his own responsibility, concluded an armistice with the 65Sardinians, which left him only the Austrians to fight, and at once set out to follow Beaulieu, who had fled beyond the Po.

As adroitly as he had made Beaulieu believe, three weeks before, that he was going to march on Genoa, he now deceives him as to the point where he proposes to cross the Po, leading him to believe it is at Valenza. When certain that Beaulieu had his eye on that point, Bonaparte marched rapidly down the river, and crossed at Placentia. If an unforeseen delay had not occurred in the passage, he would have been on the Austrian rear. As it was, Beaulieu took alarm, and withdrew the body of his army, after a slight resistance to the French advance, across the Adda, leaving but twelve thousand men at Lodi.

Bonaparte was jubilant. “We have crossed the Po,” he wrote the directory. “The second campaign has commenced. Beaulieu is disconcerted; he miscalculates, and continually falls into the snares I set for him. Perhaps he wishes to give battle, for he has both audacity and energy, but not genius.... Another victory, and we shall be masters of Italy.”

Determined to leave no enemies behind him, Bonaparte now marched against the twelve thousand men at Lodi. The town, lying on the right bank of the Adda, was guarded by a small force of Austrians; but the mass of the enemy was on the left bank, at the end of a bridge some three hundred and fifty feet in length, and commanded by a score or more of cannon.

Rushing into the town on May 10th the French drove out the guarding force, and arrived at the bridge before the Austrians had time to destroy it. The French grenadiers pressed forward in a solid mass, but, when half way over, the cannon at the opposite end poured such a storm of shot at them that the column wavered and fell back. Several 66generals in the ranks, Bonaparte at their head, rushed to the front of the force. The presence of the officers was enough to inspire the soldiers, and they swept across the bridge with such impetuosity that the Austrian line on the opposite bank allowed its batteries to be taken, and in a few moments was in retreat. “Of all the actions in which the soldiers under my command have been engaged,” wrote Bonaparte to the Directory, “none has equalled the tremendous passage of the bridge at Lodi. If we have lost but few soldiers, it was merely owing to the promptitude of our attacks and the effect produced on the enemy by the formidable fire from our invincible army. Were I to name all the officers who distinguished themselves in this affair, I should be obliged to enumerate every carabinier of the advanced guard, and almost every officer belonging to the staff.”

The Austrians now withdrew beyond the Mincio, and on the 15th of May the French entered Milan. The populace greeted their conquerors as liberators, and for several days the army rejoiced in comforts which it had not known for years. While it was being fêted, Bonaparte was instituting the Lombard Republic, and trying to conciliate or outwit, as the case demanded, the nobles and clergy outraged at the introduction of French ideas. It was not until the end of May that Lombardy was in a situation to permit Bonaparte to follow the Austrians.

After Lodi, Beaulieu had led his army to the Mincio. As usual, his force was divided, the right being near Lake Garda, the left at Mantua, the centre about halfway between, at Valeggio. It was at this latter point that Bonaparte decided to attack them. Feigning to march on their right, he waited until his opponent had fallen into his trap, and then sprang on the weakened centre, broke it to pieces, and drove all but twelve thousand men, escaped to Mantua, into the Tyrol. In fifty days he had swept all but a remnant of the 67Austrians away from Italy. Two weeks later, having taken a strong position on the Adige, he began the siege of Mantua.

The French were victorious, but their position was precarious. Austria was preparing a new army. Between the victors and France lay a number of feeble Italian governments whose friendship could not be depended upon. The populace of these states favored the French, for they brought promises of liberal government, of equality and fraternity. The nobles and clergy hated them for the same reason. It was evident that a victory of the Austrians would set all these petty princes on Bonaparte’s heels. The Papal States to the south were plotting. Naples was an ally of Austria. Venice was neutral, but she could not be trusted. The English were off the coast, and might, at any moment, make an alliance which would place a formidable enemy on the French rear.

While waiting for the arrival of the new Austrian army, Bonaparte set himself to lessening these dangers. He concluded a peace with Naples. Two divisions of the army were sent south, one to Bologna, the other into Tuscany. The people received the French with such joy that Rome was glad to purchase peace. Leghorn was taken. The malcontents in Milan were silenced. By the time a fresh Austrian army of sixty thousand men, under a new general, Wurmser, was ready to fight, Italy had been effectually quieted.

The Austrians advanced against the French in three columns, one to the west of Lake Garda, under Quasdanovich, one on each side of the Adige, east of the lake, under Wurmser. Their plan was to attack the French outposts on each side of the lake simultaneously, and then envelop the army. The first movements were successful. The French on each side of the lake were driven back. Bonaparte’s army was 68inferior to the one coming against him, but the skill with which he handled his forces and used the blunders of the enemy more than compensated for lack of numbers. Raising the siege of Mantua, he concentrated his forces at the south of the lake in such a way as to prevent the reunion of the Austrians. Then, with unparalleled swiftness, he fell on the enemy piecemeal. Wherever he could engage a division he did so, providing his own force was superior to that of the Austrians at the moment of the battle. Thus, on July 31st, at Lonato, he defeated Quasdanovich, though not so decisively but that the Austrian collected his division and returned towards the same place, hoping to unite there with Wurmser, who had foolishly divided his divisions, sending one to Lonato and another to Castiglione, while he himself went off to Mantua to relieve the garrison there. Bonaparte engaged the forces at Lonato and at Castiglione on the same day (August 3d), defeating them both, and then turned his whole army against the body of Austrians under Wurmser, who, by his time, had returned from his relief expedition at Mantua. On August 5th, at Castiglione, Wurmser was beaten, driven over the Mincio and into the Tyrol. In six days the campaign has been finished. “The Austrian army has vanished like a dream,” Bonaparte wrote home.

It had vanished, true, but only for a day. Reënforcements were soon sent, and a new campaign started early in September. Leaving Davidovich in the Tyrol with twenty thousand men, Wurmser started down the Brenta with twenty-six thousand men, intending to fall on Bonaparte’s rear, cut him to pieces, and relieve Mantua. But Bonaparte had a plan of his own this time, and, without waiting to find out where Wurmser was going, he started up the Adige, intending to attack the Austrians in the Tyrol, and join the army of the Rhine, then on the upper Danube. As it 69happened, Wurmser’s plan was a happy one for Bonaparte. The French found less than half the Austrian army opposing them, and, after they had beaten it, discovered that they were actually on the rear of the other half. Of course Bonaparte did not lose the opportunity. He sped down the Brenta behind Wurmser, overtook him at Bassano on the 8th of September, and of course defeated him. The Austrians fled in terrible demoralization. Wurmser succeeded in reaching Mantua, where he united with the garrison. The sturdy old Austrian had the courage, in spite of his losses, to come out of Mantua and meet Bonaparte on the 15th, but he was defeated again, and obliged to take refuge in the fortress. If the Austrians had been beaten repeatedly, they had no idea of yielding, and, in fact, there was apparently every reason to continue the struggle. The French army was in a most desperate condition. Its number was reduced to barely forty thousand, and this number was poorly supplied, and many of them were ill. Though living in the richest of countries, the rapacity and dishonesty of the army contractors were such that food reached the men half spoiled and in insufficient quantities, while the clothing supplied was pure shoddy. Many officers were laid up by wounds or fatigue; those who remained at their posts were discouraged, and threatening to resign. The Directory had tampered with Bonaparte’s armistices and treaties until Naples and Rome were ready to spring upon the French; and Venice, if not openly hostile, was irritating the army in many ways.

Bonaparte, in face of these difficulties, was in genuine despair:

“Everything is being spoiled in Italy,” he wrote the Directory. “The prestige of our forces is being lost. A policy which will give you friends among the princes as well as among the people, is necessary. Diminish your enemies. The influence of Rome is beyond calculation. It was a great mistake to quarrel with that power. Had I been consulted I should have delayed negotiations as I did with Genoa and Venice. Whenever your general in Italy is not the centre of everything, you will run great risks. This language is not that of ambition; I have only too many honors, and my health is so impaired that I think I shall be forced to demand a successor. I can no longer get on horseback. My courage alone remains, and that is not sufficient in a position like this.”

70

“BONAPARTE A LA BATAILLE D’ARCOLE, LE 27 BRUMAIRE, AN V.”

71It was in such a situation that Bonaparte saw the Austrian force outside of Mantua, increased to fifty thousand men, and a new commander-in-chief, Alvinzi, put at its head. The Austrians advanced in two divisions, one down the Adige, the other by the Brenta. The French division which met the enemy at Trent and Bassano were driven back. In spite of his best efforts, Bonaparte was obliged to retire with his main army to Verona. Things looked serious. Alvinzi was pressing close to Verona, and the army on the Adige was slowly driving back the French division sent to hold it in check. If Davidovich and Alvinzi united, Bonaparte was lost.

“Perhaps we are on the point of losing Italy,” wrote Bonaparte to the Directory. “In a few days we shall make a last effort.” On November 14th this last effort was made. Alvinzi was close upon Verona, holding a position shut in by rivers and mountains on every side, and from which there was but one exit, a narrow pass at his rear. The French were in Verona.

On the night of the 14th of November Bonaparte went quietly into camp. Early in the evening he gave orders to leave Verona, and took the road westward. It looked like a retreat. The French army believed it to be so, and began to say sorrowfully among themselves that Italy was lost. When far enough from Verona to escape the attention of the enemy, Bonaparte wheeled to the southeast. On the morning of the 15th he crossed the Adige, intending, if possible, to reach the defile by which alone Alvinzi could escape from his position. The country into which his army 72marched was a morass crossed by two causeways. The points which it was necessary to take to command the defile were the town of Arcola and a bridge over the rapid stream on which the town lay. The Austrians discovered the plan, and hastened out to dispute Arcola and the bridge. All day long the two armies fought desperately, Bonaparte and his generals putting themselves at the head of their columns and doing the work of common soldiers. But at night Arcola was not taken, and the French retired to the right bank of the Adige, only to return on the 16th to reëngage Alvinzi, who, fearful lest his retreat be cut off, had withdrawn his army from near Verona, and had taken a position at Arcola. For two days the French struggled with the Austrians, wrenching the victory from them before the close of the 17th, and sending them flying towards Bassano. Bonaparte and his army returned to Verona, but this time it was by the gate which the Austrians, three days before, were pointing out as the place where they should enter.

It was a month and a half before the Austrians could collect a fifth army to send against the French. Bonaparte, tormented on every side by threatened uprisings in Italy; opposed by the Directory, who wanted to make peace; and distressed by the condition of his army, worked incessantly to strengthen his relations, quiet his enemies, and restore his army. When the Austrians, some forty-five thousand strong, advanced in January, 1797, against him, he had a force of about thirty-five thousand men ready to meet them. Some ten thousand of his army were watching Wurmser and twenty thousand Austrians shut up at Mantua.

Alvinzi had planned his attack skilfully. Advancing with twenty-eight thousand men by the Adige, he sent seventeen thousand under Provera to approach Verona from the east. The two divisions were to approach secretly, and to strike simultaneously.

73At first Bonaparte was uncertain of the position of the main body of the enemy. Sending out feelers in every direction, he became convinced that it must be that it approached Rivoli. Leaving a force at Verona to hold back Provera, he concentrated his army in a single night on the plateau of Rivoli, and on the morning of January 14th advanced to the attack. The struggle at Rivoli lasted two days. Nothing but Bonaparte’s masterly tactics won it, for the odds were greatly against him. His victory, however, was complete. Of the twenty-eight thousand Austrians brought to the field, less than half escaped.

While his battle was waging, Bonaparte was also directing the fight with Provera, who was intent upon reaching Mantua and attacking the French besiegers on the rear, while Wurmser left the city and engaged them in front. The attack had begun, but Bonaparte had foreseen the move, and sent a division to the relief of his men. This battle, known as La Favorita, destroyed Provera’s division of the Austrian army, and so discouraged Wurmser, whose army was terribly reduced by sickness and starvation, that he surrendered on February 2d.

The Austrians were driven utterly from Italy, but Bonaparte had no time to rest. The Papal States and the various aristocratic parties of southern Italy were threatening to rise against the French. The spirit of independence and revolt which the invaders were bringing into the country could not but weaken clerical and monarchical institutions. An active enemy to the south would have been a serious hindrance to Napoleon, and he marched into the Papal States. A fortnight was sufficient to silence the threats of his enemies, and on February 19, 1797, he signed with the Pope the treaty of Tolentino. The peace was no sooner made than he started again against the Austrians.

When Mantua fell, and Austria saw herself driven from 74Italy, she had called her ablest general, the Archduke Charles, from the Rhine, and given him an army of over one hundred thousand men to lead against Bonaparte. The French had been reënforced to some seventy thousand, and though twenty thousand were necessary to keep Italy quiet, Bonaparte had a fine army, and he led it confidently to meet the main body of the enemy, which had been sent south to protect Trieste. Early in March he crossed the Tagliamento, and in a series of contests, in which he was uniformly successful, he drove his opponent back, step by step, until Vienna itself was in sight, and in April an armistice was signed. In May the French took possession of Venice, which had refused a French alliance, and which was playing a perfidious part, in Bonaparte’s judgment, and a republic on the French model was established.

Italy and Austria, worn out and discouraged by this “war of principle,” as Napoleon called it, at last compromised, and on October 17th, one year, seven months, and seven days after he left Paris, Napoleon signed the treaty of Campo Formio. By this treaty France gained the frontier of the Rhine and the Low Countries to the mouth of the Scheldt. Austria was given Venice, and a republic called the Cisalpine was formed from Reggio, Modena, Lombardy, and a part of the States of the Pope.

The military genius that this twenty-seven-year-old commander had shown in the campaign in Italy bewildered his enemies and thrilled his friends.

“Things go on very badly,” said an Austrian veteran taken at Lodi. “No one seems to know what he is about. The French general is a young blockhead who knows nothing of the regular rules of war. Sometimes he is on our right, at others on our left; now in front, and presently in our rear. This mode of warfare is contrary to all system, and utterly insufferable.”

75It is certain that if Napoleon’s opponents never knew what he was going to do, if his generals themselves were frequently uncertain, it being his practice to hold his peace about his plans, he himself had definite rules of warfare. The most important of these were:

“Attacks should not be scattered, but should be concentrated.”

“Always be superior to the enemy at the point of attack.”

“Time is everything.”

To these formulated rules he joined marvelous fertility in stratagem. The feint by which, at the beginning of the campaign, he had enticed Beaulieu to march on Genoa, and that by which, a few days later, he had induced him to place his army near Valenza, were masterpieces in their way.

His quick-wittedness in emergency frequently saved him from disaster. Thus, on August 4th, in the midst of the excitement of the contest, Bonaparte went to Lonato to see what troops could be drawn from there. On entering he was greatly surprised to receive an Austrian parlementaire, who called on the commandant of Lonato to surrender, because the French were surrounded. Bonaparte saw at once that the Austrians could be nothing but a division which had been cut off and was seeking escape; but he was embarrassed, for there were only twelve hundred men at Lonato. Sending for the man, he had his eyes unbandaged, and told him that if his commander had the presumption to capture the general-in-chief of the army of Italy he might advance; that the Austrian division ought to have known that he was at Lonato with his whole army; and he added that if they did not lay down their arms in eight minutes he would not spare a man. This audacity saved Bonaparte, and won him four thousand prisoners with guns and cavalry.

76

“ITALIE.”

From a lithograph by Raffet.

77His fertility in stratagem, his rapidity of action, his audacity in attack, bewildered and demoralized the enemy, but it raised the enthusiasm of his imaginative Southern troops to the highest pitch.

He insisted in this campaign on one other rule: “Unity of command is necessary to assure success.” After his defeat of the Piedmontese, the Directory ordered him, May 7, 1796, to divide his command with Kellermann. Napoleon answered:

“I believe it most impolitic to divide the army of Italy in two parts. It is quite as much against the interests of the republic to place two different generals over it....

“A single general is not only necessary, but also it is essential that nothing trouble him in his march and operations. I have conducted this campaign without consulting any one. I should have done nothing of value if I had been obliged to reconcile my plans with those of another. I have gained advantage over superior forces and when stripped of everything myself, because persuaded that your confidence was in me. My action has been as prompt as my thought.

“If you impose hindrances of all sorts upon me, if I must refer every step to government commissioners, if they have the right to change my movements, of taking from me or of sending me troops, expect no more of any value. If you enfeeble your means by dividing your forces, if you break the unity of military thought in Italy, I tell you sorrowfully you will lose the happiest opportunity of imposing laws on Italy.

“In the condition of the affairs of the republic in Italy, it is indispensable that you have a general that has your entire confidence. If it is not I, I am sorry for it, but I shall redouble my zeal to merit your esteem in the post you confide to me. Each one has his own way of carrying on war. General Kellermann has more experience and will do it better than I, but both together will do it very badly.

“I can only render the services essential to the country when invested entirely and absolutely with your confidence.”

He remained in charge, and throughout the rest of the campaign continued to act more and more independently of the Directory, even dictating terms of peace to please himself.

It was in this Italian campaign that the almost superstitious adoration which Napoleon’s soldiers and most of his 78generals felt for him began. Brilliant generalship was not the only reason for this. It was due largely to his personal courage, which they had discovered at Lodi. A charge had been ordered across a wooden bridge swept by thirty pieces of cannon, and beyond was the Austrian army. The men hesitated. Napoleon sprang to their head and led them into the thickest of the fire. From that day he was known among them as the “Little Corporal.” He had won them by the quality which appeals most deeply to a soldier in the ranks—contempt of death. Such was their devotion to him that they gladly exposed their lives if they saw him in danger. There were several such cases in the battle of Arcola. The first day, when Bonaparte was exposing himself in an advance, his aide-de-camp, Colonel Muiron, saw that he was in imminent danger. Throwing himself before Bonaparte, the colonel covered him with his body, receiving a wound which was destined for the general. The brave fellow’s blood spurted into Bonaparte’s face. He literally gave his life to save his commander’s. The same day, in a final effort to take Arcola, Bonaparte seized a flag, rushed on the bridge, and planted it there. His column reached the middle of the bridge, but there it was broken by the enemy’s flanking fire. The grenadiers at the head, finding themselves deserted by the rear, were compelled to retreat; but, critical as their position was, they refused to abandon their general. They seized him by his arms, by his clothes, and dragged him with them through shot and smoke. When one fell out wounded, another pressed to his place. Precipitated into the morass, Bonaparte sank. The enemy were surrounding him when the grenadiers perceived his danger. A cry was raised, “Forward, soldiers, to save the General!” and immediately they fell upon the Austrians with such fury that they drove them off, dragged out their hero, and bore him to a safe place.

79His addresses never failed to stir them to action and enthusiasm. They were oratorical, prophetic, and abounded in phrases which the soldiers never forgot. Such was his address at Milan:

“Soldiers! you have precipitated yourselves like a torrent from the summit of the Apennines; you have driven back and dispersed all that opposed your march. Piedmont, liberated from Austrian tyranny, has yielded to her natural sentiments of peace and amity towards France. Milan is yours, and the Republican flag floats throughout Lombardy, while the Dukes of Modena and Parma owe their political existence solely to your generosity. The army which so haughtily menaced you, finds no barrier to secure it from your courage. The Po, the Ticino, and the Adda have been unable to arrest your courage for a single day. Those boasted ramparts of Italy proved insufficient. You have surmounted them as rapidly as you cleared the Apennines. So much success has diffused joy through the bosom of your country. Yes, soldiers, you have done well; but is there nothing more for you to accomplish? Shall it be said of us that we knew how to conquer, but knew not how to profit by victory? Shall posterity reproach us with having found a Capua in Lombardy? But I see you rush to arms; unmanly repose wearies you, and the days lost to glory are lost to happiness.

“Let us set forward. We have still forced marches to perform, enemies to conquer, laurels to gather, and injuries to avenge. Let those tremble who have whetted the poniards of civil war in France; who have, like dastards, assassinated our ministers, and burned our ships in Toulon. The hour of vengeance is arrived, but let the people be tranquil. We are the friends of all nations, particularly the descendants of the Brutuses, the Scipios, and those illustrious persons we have chosen for our models. To restore the Capitol, replace with honor the statues of the heroes who rendered it renowned, and rouse the Roman people, become torpid by so many ages of slavery—shall, will, be the fruit of your victories. You will then return to your homes, and your fellow-citizens when pointing to you will say, ‘He was of the army of Italy.’”

Such was his address in March, before the final campaign against the Austrians:

80

BONAPARTE.

Engraved by Bartolozzi, R.A., an Italian engraver, resident of England, after the portrait of Appiani.

81“You have been victorious in fourteen pitched battles and sixty-six combats; you have taken one hundred thousand prisoners, five hundred pieces of large cannon and two thousand pieces of smaller, four equipages for bridge pontoons. The country has nourished you, paid you during your campaign, and you have beside that sent thirty millions from the public treasury to Paris. You have enriched the Museum of Paris with three hundred chefs-d’oeuvre of ancient and modern Italy, which it has taken thirty ages to produce. You have conquered the most beautiful country of Europe. The French colors float for the first time upon the borders of the Adriatic. The kings of Sardinia and Naples, the Pope, the Duke of Parma have become allies. You have chased the English from Leghorn, Genoa, and Corsica. You have yet to march against the Emperor of Austria.”

His approval was their greatest joy. Let him speak a word of praise to a regiment, and they embroidered it on their banners. “I was at ease, the Thirty-second was there,” was on the flag of that regiment. Over the Fifty-seventh floated a name Napoleon had called them by, “The terrible Fifty-seventh.”

His displeasure was a greater spur than his approval. He said to a corps which had retreated in disorder: “Soldiers, you have displeased me. You have shown neither courage nor constancy, but have yielded positions where a handful of men might have defied an army. You are no longer French soldiers. Let it be written on their colors, ‘They no longer form part of the Army of Italy.’” A veteran pleaded that they be placed in the van, and during the rest of the campaign no regiment was more distinguished.

The effect of his genius was as great on his generals as on his troops. They were dazzled by his stratagems and manœuvres, inspired by his imagination. “There was so much of the future in him,” is Marmont’s expressive explanation. They could believe anything of him. A remarkable set of men they were to have as followers and friends—Augereau, Masséna, Berthier, Marmont, Junot.

The people and the government in Paris had begun to believe in him, as did the Army of Italy. He not only sent flags and reports of victory; he sent money and works of art. Impoverished as the Directory was, the sums which 82came from Italy were a reason for not interfering with the high hand the young general carried in his campaigns and treaties.

Never before had France received such letters from a general. Now he announces that he has sent “twenty first masters, from Correggio to Michael Angelo;” now, “a dozen millions of money;” now, two or three millions in jewels and diamonds to be sold in Paris. In return he asks only for men and officers “who have fire and a firm resolution not to make learned retreats.”

The entry into Paris of the first art acquisitions made a profound impression on the people:

“The procession of enormous cars, drawn by richly caparisoned horses, was divided into four sections. First came trunks filled with books, manuscripts, ... including the antiques of Josephus, on papyrus, with works in the handwriting of Galileo.... Then followed collections of mineral products.... For the occasion were added wagons laden with iron cages containing lions, tigers, panthers, over which waved enormous palm branches and all kinds of exotic shrubs. Afterwards rolled along chariots bearing pictures carefully packed, but with the names of the most important inscribed in large letters on the outside, as, The Transfiguration, by Raphael; The Christ, by Titian. The number was great, the value greater. When these trophies had passed, amid the applause of an excited crowd, a heavy rumbling announced the approach of massive carts bearing statues and marble groups: the Apollo Belvidere; the Nine Muses; the Laocoön.... The Venus de Medici was eventually added, decked with bouquets, crowns of flowers, flags taken from the enemy, and French, Italian, and Greek inscriptions. Detachments of cavalry and infantry, colors flying, drums beating, music playing, marched at intervals; the members of the newly established Institute fell into line; artists and savants; and the singers of the theatres made the air ring with national hymns. This procession marched through all Paris, and at the Champ de Mars defiled before the five members of the Directory, surrounded by their subordinate officers.”

The practice of sending home works of art, begun in the Italian campaign, Napoleon continued throughout his military career, and the art of France owes much to the education thus given the artists of the first part of this century. 83His agents ransacked Italy, Spain, Germany, and Flanders for chefs-d’oeuvre. When entering a country one of the first things he did was to collect information about its chief art objects, in order to demand them in case of victory, for it was by treaty that they were usually obtained. Among the works of art which Napoleon sent to Paris were twenty-five Raphaels, twenty-three Titians, fifty-three Rubenses, thirty-three Van Dykes, thirty-one Rembrandts.

In Italy rose Napoleon’s “star,” that mysterious guide which he followed from Lodi to Waterloo. Here was born that faith in him and his future, that belief that he “marched under the protection of the goddess of fortune and of war,” that confidence that he was endowed with a “good genius.”

He called Lodi the birthplace of his faith. “Vendémiaire and even Montenotte did not make me believe myself a superior man. It was only after Lodi that it came into my head that I could become a decisive actor on our political field. Then was born the first spark of high ambition.”

Trained in a religion full of mysticism, taught to believe in signs, guided by a “star,” there is a tinge of superstition throughout his active, practical, hardworking life. Marmont tells that one day while in Italy the glass over the portrait of his wife, which he always wore, was broken.

“He turned frightfully pale, and the impression upon him was most sorrowful. ‘Marmont,’ he said, ‘my wife is very ill or she is unfaithful.’” There are many similar anecdotes to show his dependence upon and confidence in omens.

In a campaign of such achievements as that in Italy there seems to be no time for love, and yet love was never more imperative, more absorbing, in Napoleon’s life than during this period.

84

“NAPOLEONE BUONAPARTE.”

“Engraved by Henry Richter from the celebrated bust by Ceracchi, lately brought from Paris and now in his possession. Published June 1, 1801, by H. Richter, No. 26 Newman Street, Oxford Street.” This bust was made in the Italian campaign by Ceracchi, a Corsican working in Rome. Ceracchi left Rome in 1799 to escape punishment for taking part in an insurrection in the city, and went to Paris, where he hoped to receive aid from the First Consul. He made the busts of several generals—Berthier, Masséna, and Bernadotte—but as orders did not multiply, and Napoleon did nothing for him, he became incensed against him, and took part in a plot to assassinate the First Consul at the opera, the 18th Brumaire, 1801. Arrested on his way to the loge in the opera, he was executed soon after.

85“Oh, my adorable wife,” he wrote Josephine in April, “I do not know what fate awaits me, but if it keeps me longer from you, I shall not be able to endure it; my courage will not hold out to that point. There was a time when I was proud of my courage; and when I thought of the harm that men might do me, of the lot that my destiny might reserve for me, I looked at the most terrible misfortunes without a quiver, with no surprise. But now, the thought that my Josephine may be in trouble, that she may be ill, and, above all, the cruel, fatal thought that she may love me less, inflicts torture in my soul, stops the beating of my heart, makes me sad and dejected, robs me of even the courage of fury and despair. I often used to say, ‘Man can do no harm to one who is willing to die;’ but now, to die without being loved by you, to die without this certainty, is the torture of hell; it is the vivid and crushing image of total annihilation. It seems to me as if I were choking. My only companion, you who have been chosen by fate to make with me the painful journey of life, the day when I shall no longer possess your heart will be that when for me the world shall have lost all warmth and all its vegetation.... I will stop, my sweet pet; my soul is sad. I am very tired, my mind is worn out, I am sick of men. I have good reason for hating them. They separate me from my love.”

Josephine was indifferent to this strong passion. “How queer Bonaparte is!” she said coldly at the evidences of his affection which he poured upon her; and when, after a few weeks separation, he began to implore her to join him she hesitated, made excuses, tried in every possible way to evade his wish. It was not strange that a woman of her indolent nature, loving flattery, having no passion but for amusement, reckless expenditure, and her own ease, should prefer life in Paris. There she shared with Madame Tallien the adoration which the Parisian world is always bestowing on some fair woman. At opera and ball she was the centre of attraction; even in the street the people knew her. Notre Dame des Victoires was the name they gave her.

In desperation at her indifference, Napoleon finally wrote her, in June, from Tortona:

“My life is a perpetual nightmare. A black presentiment makes breathing difficult. I am no longer alive; I have lost more than life, 86more than happiness, more than peace; I am almost without hope. I am sending you a courier. He will stay only four hours in Paris, and then will bring me your answer. Write to me ten pages; that is the only thing that can console me in the least. You are ill; you love me; I have distressed you; you are with child; and I do not see you.... I have treated you so ill that I do not know how to set myself right in your eyes. I have been blaming you for staying in Paris, and you have been ill there. Forgive me, my dear; the love with which you have filled me has robbed me of my reason, and I shall never recover it. It is a malady from which there is no recovery. My forebodings are so gloomy that all I ask is to see you, to hold you in my arms for two hours, and that we may die together. Who is taking care of you? I suppose that you have sent for Hortense; I love the dear child a thousand times better since I think that she may console you a little. As for me, I am without consolation, rest, and hope until I see again the messenger whom I am sending to you, and until you explain to me in a long letter just what is the matter with you, and how serious it is. If there were any danger, I warn you that I should start at once for Paris.... You! you!—and the rest of the world will not exist for me any more than if it had been annihilated. I care for honor because you care for it; for victory, because it brings you pleasure; otherwise, I should abandon everything to throw myself at your feet.”

After this letter Josephine consented to go to Italy, but she left Paris weeping as if going to her execution. Once at Milan, where she held almost a court, she recovered her gaiety, and the two were very happy for a time. But it did not last. Napoleon, obliged to be on the march, would implore Josephine to come to him here and there, and once she narrowly escaped with her life when trying to get away from the army.

Wherever she was installed she had a circle of adorers about her, and as a result she neglected writing to her husband. Reproaches and entreaties filled his letters. He begged her for only a line, and he implored her that she be less cold.

“Your letters are as cold as fifty years of age; one would think they had been written after we had been married fifteen years. They are full of the friendliness and feelings of life’s winter,... What more can you do to distress me? Stop loving me? That you have already 87done. Hate me? Well, I wish you would; everything degrades me except hatred; but indifference, with a calm pulse, fixed eyes, monotonous walk!... A thousand kisses, tender, like my heart.”

It was not merely indolence and indifference that caused Josephine’s neglect. It was coquetry frequently, and Napoleon, informed by his couriers as to whom she received at Milan or Genoa, and of the pleasures she enjoyed, was jealous with all the force of his nature. More than one young officer who dared pay homage to Josephine in this campaign was banished “by order of the commander-in-chief.” Reaching Milan once, unexpectedly, he found her gone. His disappointment was bitter.

“I reached Milan, rushed to your rooms, having thrown up everything to see you, to press you to my heart—you were not there; you are traveling about from one town to another, amusing yourself with balls.... My unhappiness is inconceivable.... Don’t put yourself out; pursue your pleasure; happiness is made for you.”

It was between such extremes of triumphant love and black despair that Napoleon lived throughout the Italian campaign.

88

BONAPARTE AT MALMAISON.

The title on the engraving reads: “Bonaparte, dédié à Madame Bonaparte.” Engraved in 1803 by Godefroy, after Isabey.

In December, 1797, he returned to Paris. His whole family were collected there, forming a “Bonaparte colony,” as the Parisians called it. There were Joseph and his wife; Lucien, now married to Christine Boyer, his old landlord’s daughter, a marriage Napoleon never forgave; Eliza, now Madame Bacciochi; Pauline, now Madame Leclerc. Madame Letitia was in the city, with Caroline; Louis and Jerome were still in school. Josephine had her daughter Hortense, a girl of thirteen, with her. Her son Eugène, though but fifteen years old, was away on a mission for Napoleon, who, in spite of the boy’s youth, had already taken him into his confidence. According to Napoleon’s express desire, all the family lived in great simplicity.

The return to Paris of the commander-in-chief of the Army of Italy was the signal for a popular ovation. The Directory gave him every honor, changing the name of the street in which he lived to rue de la Victoire, and making him a member of the Institute; but, conscious of its feebleness, and inspired by that suspicion which since the Revolution began had caused the ruin of so many men, it planned to get rid of him.

Of the coalition against France, formed in 1793, one member alone remained in arms—England. Napoleon was to be sent against her. An invasion of the island was first discussed, and he made an examination of the north coast. 90His report was adverse, and he substituted a plan for the invasion of Egypt—an old idea in the French government.

The Directory gladly accepted the change, and Napoleon was made commander-in-chief of the Army of Egypt. On the 4th of May he left Paris for Toulon.

To Napoleon this expedition was a merciful escape. He once said to Madame Rémusat:

“In Paris, and Paris is France, they never can take the smallest interest in things, if they do not take it in persons.... The great difficulty of the Directory was that no one cared about them, and that people began to care too much about me. This was why I conceived the happy idea of going to Egypt.”

He was under the influence, too, of his imagination; the Orient had always tempted him. It is certain that he went away with gigantic projects—nothing less than to conquer the whole of the East, and to become its ruler and lawgiver.

“I dreamed of all sorts of things, and I saw a way of carrying all my projects into practical execution. I would create a new religion. I saw myself in Asia, upon an elephant, wearing a turban, and holding in my hand a new Koran which I had myself composed. I would have united in my enterprise the experiences of two hemispheres, exploring for my benefit and instruction all history, attacking the power of England in the Indies, and renewing, by their conquest, my relations with old Europe. The time I passed in Egypt was the most delightful period of my life, for it was the most ideal.”

His friends, watching his irritation during the days before the campaign had been decided upon, said: “A free flight in space is what such wings demand. He will die here. He must go.” He himself said: “Paris weighs on me like a leaden mantle.”

Napoleon sailed from France on May 19, 1798; on June 9th he reached Malta, and won for France “the strongest place in Europe.” July 2d he entered Alexandria. On July 23d he entered Cairo, after the famous battle of the Pyramids.

91The French fleet had remained in Aboukir Bay after landing the army, and on August 1st was attacked by Nelson. Napoleon had not realized, before this battle, the power of the English on the sea. He knew nothing of Nelson’s genius. The destruction of his fleet, and the consciousness that he and his army were prisoners in the Orient, opened his eyes to the greatest weakness of France.

The winter was spent in reorganizing the government of Egypt and in scientific work. Over one hundred scientists had been added to the Army of Egypt, including some of the most eminent men of the day: Monge, Geoffroy-St.-Hilaire, Berthollet, Fourier, and Denon. From their arrival every opportunity was given them to carry on their work. To stimulate them, Napoleon founded the Institute of Egypt, in which membership was granted as a reward for services.

These scientists went out in every direction, pushing their investigations up the Nile as far as Philoe, tracing the bed of the old canal from Suez to the Nile, unearthing ancient monuments, making collections of the flora and fauna, examining in detail the arts and industries of the people. Everything, from the inscription on the Rosetta Stone to the incubation of chickens, received their attention. On the return of the expedition, their researches were published in a magnificent work called “Description de l’Egypte.” The information gathered by the French at this time gave a great impetus to the study of Egyptology, and their investigations on the old Suez canal led directly to the modern work.

The peaceful work of science and law-giving which Napoleon was conducting in Egypt was interrupted by the news that the Porte had declared war against France, and that two Turkish armies were on their way to Egypt. In March he set off to Syria to meet the first.

92

NAPOLEON AT THE BATTLE OF THE PYRAMIDS, JULY 21, 1798.

Engraved by Vallot in 1838, after painting by Gros (1810). The moment chosen by the artist is that when Napoleon addressed to his soldiers that short and famous harangue, “Soldiers, from the summit of these Pyramids forty centuries look down upon you.” In the General’s escort are Murat, his head bare and his sword clasped tightly; and after him, in order, Duroc, Sulkowski, Berthier, Junot, and Eugène de Beauharnais, then sub-lieutenant, all on horseback. On the right are Rampon, Desaix, Bertrand, and Lasalle. This picture was ordered for the Tuileries, and was exhibited first in 1810. Napoleon gave it to one of his generals, and it did not reappear in Paris until 1832. It is now in the gallery at Versailles. Gros regarded this picture as his best work, and himself chose Vallot to engrave it.

93This Syrian expedition was a failure, ending in a retreat made horrible not only by the enemy in the rear, but by pestilence and heat.

The disaster was a terrible disillusion for Napoleon. It ended his dream of an Oriental realm for himself, of a kingdom embracing the whole Mediterranean for France. “I missed my fortune at St. Jean d’Acre,” he told his brother Lucien afterward; and again, “I think my imagination died at St. Jean d’Acre.” The words are those of the man whose discouragement at a failure was as profound as his hope at success was high.

As Napoleon entered Egypt from Syria, he learned that the second Turkish army was near the Bay of Aboukir. He turned against it and defeated it completely. In the exchange of prisoners made after the battle, a bundle of French papers fell into his hands. It was the first news he had had for ten months from France, and sad news it was: Italy lost, an invasion of Austrians and Russians threatening, the Directory discredited and tottering.

If the Oriental empire of his imagination had fallen, might it not be that in Europe a kingdom awaited him? He decided to leave Egypt at once, and with the greatest secrecy prepared for his departure. The army was turned over to Kléber, and with four small vessels he sailed for France on the night of August 22, 1799. On October 16th he was in Paris.

For a long time nothing had been heard of Napoleon in France. The people said he had been exiled by the jealous Directory. His disappearance into the Orient had all the mystery and fascination of an Eastern tale. His sudden reappearance had something of the heroic in it. He came like a god from Olympus, unheralded, but at the critical moment.

The joy of the people, who at that day certainly preferred 94a hero to suffrage, was spontaneous and sincere. His journey from the coast to Paris was a triumphal march. Le retour du héros was the word in everybody’s mouth. On every side the people cried: “You alone can save the country. It is perishing without you. Take the reins of government.”

At Paris he found the government waiting to be overthrown. “A brain and a sword” was all that was needed to carry out a coup d’état organized while he was still in Africa. Everybody recognized him as the man for the hour. A large part of the military force in Paris was devoted to him. His two brothers, Lucien and Joseph, were in positions of influence, the former president of the Five Hundred, as one of the two chambers was called. All that was most distinguished in the political, military, legal, and artistic circles of Paris rallied to him. Among the men who supported him were Talleyrand, Sieyès, Chénier, Roederer, Monge, Cambacérès, Moreau, Berthier, Murat.

On the 18th Brumaire (the 9th of November), 1799, the plot culminated, and Napoleon was recognized as the temporary Dictator of France.

The private sorrow to which Napoleon returned, was as great as the public glory. During the campaign in Egypt he had learned beyond a doubt that Josephine’s coquetry had become open folly, and that a young officer, Hippolyte Charles, whom he had dismissed from the Army of Italy two years before, was installed at Malmaison. The liaison was so scandalous that Gohier, the president of the Directory, advised Josephine to get a divorce from Napoleon and marry Charles.

These rumors reached Egypt, and Napoleon, in despair, even talked them over with Eugène de Beauharnais. The boy defended his mother, and for a time succeeded in quieting Napoleon’s resentment. At last, however, he learned 95in a talk with Junot that the gossip was true. He lost all control of himself, and declared he would have a divorce. The idea was abandoned, but the love and reverence he had given Josephine were dead. From that time she had no empire over his heart, no power to inspire him to action or to enthusiasm.

When he landed in France from Egypt, Josephine, foreseeing a storm, started out to meet him at Lyons. Unfortunately she took one road and Napoleon another, and when he reached Paris at six o’clock in the morning he found no one at home. When Josephine arrived Napoleon refused to see her, and it was three days before he relented. Then his forgiveness was due to the intercession of Hortense and Eugène, to both of whom he was warmly attached.

But if he consented to pardon, he could never give again the passionate affection which he once had felt for her. He ceased to be a lover, and became a commonplace, tolerant, indulgent, bourgeois husband, upon whom his wife, in matters of importance, had no influence. Josephine was hereafter the suppliant, but she never regained the noble kingdom she had despised.

Napoleon’s domestic sorrow weakened in no way his activity and vigor in public affairs. He realized that, if he would keep his place in the hearts and confidence of the people, he must do something to show his strength, and peace was the gift he proposed to make to the nation. When he returned he found a civil war raging in La Vendée. Before February he had ended it. All over France brigandage had made life and property uncertain. It was stopped by his new régime.

Two foreign enemies only remained at war with France—Austria and England. He offered them peace. It was refused. Nothing remained but to compel it. The Austrians were first engaged. They had two armies in the field; one on the Rhine, against which Moreau was sent, the other in Italy—now lost to France—besieging the French shut up in Genoa.

96

“INSTALLATION OF THE COUNCIL OF STATE AT THE PALACE OF THE PETIT LUXEMBOURG, DECEMBER 29, 1799.”

By Auguste Conder. The Councillors of State having assembled in the hall which had been arranged for the occasion, the First Consul opened the séance and heard the oath taken by the sectional presidents—Boulay de la Meurthe (legislation), Brune (war), Defermont (finances), Ganteaume (marine), Roederer (interior). The first Consul drew up and signed two proclamations, to the French people and to the army. The Second Consul, Cambacérès, and the Third Consul, Lebrun, were present at the meeting. Locré, secrétaire-général du Conseil d’État, conducted the procès-verbal. This picture is at Versailles.

97Moreau conducted the campaign in the Rhine countries with skill, fighting two successful battles, and driving his opponent from Ulm.

Napoleon decided that he would himself carry on the Italian campaign, but of that he said nothing in Paris. His army was quietly brought together as a reserve force; then suddenly, on May 6, 1800, he left Paris for Geneva. Immediately his plan became evident. It was nothing else than to cross the Alps and fall upon the rear of the Austrians, then besieging Genoa.

Such an undertaking was a veritable coup de théâtre. Its accomplishment was not less brilliant than its conception. Three principal passes lead from Switzerland into Italy: Mont Cenis, the Great Saint Bernard, and the Mount Saint Gothard. The last was already held by the Austrians. The first is the westernmost, and here Napoleon directed the attention of General Melas, the Austrian commander. The central, or Mount Saint Bernard, Pass was left almost defenceless, and here the French army was led across, a passage surrounded by enormous difficulties, particularly for the artillery, which had to be taken to pieces and carried or dragged by the men.

Save the delay which the enemy caused the French at Fort Bard, where five hundred men stopped the entire army, Napoleon met with no serious resistance in entering Italy. Indeed, the Austrians treated the force with contempt, declaring that it was not the First Consul who led it, but an adventurer, and that the army was not made up of French, but of refugee Italians.

This rumor was soon known to be false. On June 2d Napoleon entered Milan. It was evident that a conflict was imminent, 98and to prepare his soldiers Bonaparte addressed them:

“Soldiers, one of our departments was in the power of the enemy; consternation was in the south of France; the greatest part of the Ligurian territory, the most faithful friends of the Republic, had been invaded. The Cisalpine Republic had again become the grotesque plaything of the feudal régime. Soldiers, you march—and already the French territory is delivered! Joy and hope have succeeded in your country to consternation and fear.

“You give back liberty and independence to the people of Genoa. You have delivered them from their eternal enemies. You are in the capital of the Cisalpine. The enemy, terrified, no longer hopes for anything, except to regain its frontiers. You have taken possession of its hospitals, its magazines, its resources.

“The first act of the campaign is terminated. Every day you hear millions of men thanking you for your deeds.

“But shall it be said that French territory has been violated with impunity? Shall we allow an army which has carried fear into our families to return to its firesides? Will you run with your arms? Very well, march to the battle; forbid their retreat; tear from them the laurels of which they have taken possession; and so teach the world that the curse of destiny is on the rash who dare insult the territory of the Great People. The result of all our efforts will be spotless glory, solid peace.”

Melas, the Austrian commander, had lost much time; but finally convinced that it was really Bonaparte who had invaded Italy, and that he had actually reached Milan, he advanced into the plain of Marengo. He had with him an army of from fifty to sixty thousand men well supplied with artillery.

Bonaparte, ignorant that so large a force was at Marengo, advanced into the plain with only a portion of his army. On June 14th Melas attacked him. Before noon the French saw that they had to do with the entire Austrian army. For hours the battle was waged furiously, but with constant loss on the side of the French. In spite of the most intrepid fighting the army gave way. “At four o’clock in the afternoon,” says a soldier who was present, “there remained in 99a radius of two leagues not over six thousand infantry, a thousand horse, and six pieces of cannon. A third of our army was not in condition for battle. The lack of carriages to transport the sick made another third necessary for this painful task. Hunger, thirst, fatigue, had forced a great number to withdraw. The sharp shooters for the most part had lost the direction of their regiments.

“He who in these frightful circumstances would have said, ‘In two hours we shall have gained the battle, made ten thousand prisoners, taken several generals, fifteen flags, forty cannons; the enemy shall have delivered to us eleven fortified places and all the territory of beautiful Italy; they will soon defile shamefaced before our ranks; an armistice will suspend the plague of war and bring back peace into our country,’—he, I say, who would have said that, would have seemed to insult our desperate situation.”

The battle was won finally by the French through the fortunate arrival of Desaix with reënforcements and the imperturbable courage of the commander-in-chief. Bonaparte’s coolness was the marvel of those who surrounded him.

“At the moment when the dead and the dying covered the earth, the Consul was constantly braving death. He gave his orders with his accustomed coolness, and saw the storm approach without seeming to fear it. Those who saw him, forgetting the danger that menaced them, said: ‘What if he should be killed? Why does he not go back?’ It is said that General Berthier begged him to do so.

100

NAPOLEON THE GREAT CROSSING MOUNT ST. BERNARD, MAY, 1800.

Engraved by Antonio Gilbert in 1809, under the direction of Longhi, after portrait painted by David in 1805. Dedicated to the Prince Eugène Napoleon of France, Viceroy of Italy. It was soon after his return from Marengo that Napoleon expressed a wish to be painted by David. The artist had long desired this work, and seized the opportunity eagerly. He asked the First Consul when he would pose for him.

“Pose!” said Bonaparte. “Do you suppose the great men of antiquity posed for their portraits?”

“But I paint you for your time, for men who have seen you. They would like to have it like you.”

“Like me! It is not the perfection of the features, a pimple on the nose, which makes resemblance. It is the character of the face that should be represented. No one cares whether the portraits of great men look like them or not. It is enough that their genius shines from the picture.”

“I have never considered it in that way. But you are right, Citizen Consul. You need not pose: I will paint you without that.” David went to breakfast daily after this with Napoleon, in order to study his face, and the Consul put at his service all the garments he had worn at Marengo. It is told that David mounted Napoleon on a mule for this picture, but that the General demurred. He sprang upon his horse, and, making him rear, said to the artist, “Paint me thus.”

101“Once General Berthier came to him to tell him that the army was giving way and that the retreat had commenced. Bonaparte said to him: ‘General, you do not tell me that with sufficient coolness.’ This greatness of soul, this firmness, did not leave him in the greatest dangers. When the Fifty-ninth Brigade reached the battle-field the action was the hottest. The First Consul advanced toward them and cried: ‘Come, my brave soldiers, spread your banners; the moment has come to distinguish yourselves. I count on your courage to avenge your comrades.’ At the moment that he pronounced these words, five men were struck down near him. He turned with a tranquil air towards the enemy, and said: ‘Come, my friends, charge them.’

“I had curiosity enough to listen attentively to his voice, to examine his features. The most courageous man, the hero the most eager for glory, might have been overcome in his situation without any one blaming him. But he was not. In these frightful moments, when fortune seemed to desert him, he was still the Bonaparte of Arcola and Aboukir.”

When Desaix came up with his division, Bonaparte took an hour to arrange for the final charge. During this time the Austrian artillery was thundering upon the army, each volley carrying away whole lines. The men received death without moving from their places, and the ranks closed over the bodies of their comrades. This deadly artillery even reached the cavalry, drawn up behind, as well as a large number of infantry who, encouraged by Desaix’s arrival, had hastened back to the field of honor. In spite of the horror of this preparation Bonaparte did not falter. When he was ready he led his army in an impetuous charge which overwhelmed the Austrians completely, though it cost the French one of their bravest generals, Desaix. It was a frightful struggle, but the perfection with which the final attack was planned, won the battle of Marengo and drove the Austrians from Italy.

The Parisians were dazzled by the campaign. Of the passage of the Alps they said, “It is an achievement greater than Hannibal’s;” and they repeated how “the First Consul had pointed his finger at the frozen summits, and they had bowed their heads.” At the news of Marengo the streets were lit with “joy fires,” and from wall to wall rang the cries of Vive la république! Vive le premier consul! Vive l’armée!

102

KLÉBER, 1753 OR 1754–1800.

Engraved by G. Fiesinger, after portrait by Guérin.

103The campaign against the Austrians was finished December 3, 1800, by the battle of Hohenlinden, won by Moreau, and in February the treaty of Lunéville established peace. England was slower in coming to terms, it not being until March, 1802, that she signed the treaty of Amiens.

At last France was at peace with all the world. She hailed Napoleon as her savior, and ordered that the 18th Brumaire be celebrated throughout the republic as a solemn fête in his honor.

The country saw in him something greater than a peacemaker. She was discovering that he was to be her law giver, for, while ending the wars, he had begun to bring order into the interior chaos which had so long tormented the French people, to reëstablish the finances, the laws, the industries, to restore public works, to encourage the arts and sciences, even to harmonize the interests of rich and poor, of church and state.

104

“LUCIEN BONAPARTE, PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL OF THE FIVE HUNDRED, 18TH BRUMAIRE, 1799.”

“Now we must rebuild, and, moreover, we must rebuild solidly,” said Napoleon to his brother Lucien the day after the coup d’état which had overthrown the Directory and made him the temporary Dictator of France.

The first necessity was a new constitution. In ten years three constitutions had been framed and adopted, and now the third had, like its predecessors, been declared worthless. At Napoleon’s side was a man who had the draft of a constitution ready in his pocket. It had been promised him that, if he would aid in the 18th Brumaire, this instrument should be adopted. This man was the Abbé Sieyès. He had been a prominent member of the Constituent Assembly, but, curiously enough, his fame there had been founded more on his silence and the air of mystery in which he enveloped himself than on anything he had done. The superstitious veneration which he had won, saved him even during the Terror, and he was accustomed to say laconically, when asked what he did in that period, “I lived.”

It was he who, when Napoleon was still in Egypt, had seen the necessity of a military dictatorship, and had urged the Directory to order Napoleon home to help him reorganize the government—an order which was never received.

Soon after the 18th Brumaire, Sieyès presented his constitution. 106No more bungling and bizarre instrument for conducting the affairs of a nation was ever devised. Warned by the experience of the past ten years, he abandoned the ideas of 1789, and declared that the power must come from above, the confidence from below. His system of voting took the suffrage from the people; his legislative body was composed of three sections, each of which was practically powerless. All the force of the government was centered in a senate of aged men. The Grand Elector, as the figurehead which crowned the edifice was called, did nothing but live at Versailles and draw a princely salary.

Napoleon saw at once the weak points of the structure, but he saw how it could be re-arranged to serve a dictator. He demanded that the Senate be stripped of its power, and that the Grand Elector be replaced by a First Consul, to whom the executive force should be confided. Sieyès consented, and Napoleon was named First Consul.

The whole machinery of the government was now centered in one man. “The state, it was I,” said Napoleon at St. Helena. The new constitution was founded on principles the very opposite of those for which the Revolution had been made, but it was the only hope there was of dragging France from the slough of anarchy and despair into which she had fallen.

Napoleon undertook the work of reconstruction which awaited him, with courage, energy, and amazing audacity. He was forced to deal at once with all departments of the nation’s life—with the finances, the industries, the émigrés, the Church, public education, the codification of the laws.

The first question was one of money. The country was literally bankrupt in 1799. The treasury was empty, and the government practised all sorts of makeshifts to get money to pay those bills which could not be put off. One day, having to send out a special courier, it was obliged to 107give him the receipts of the opera to pay his expenses. And, again, it was in such a tight pinch that it was on the point of sending the gold coin in the Cabinet of Medals to the mint to be melted. Loans could not be negotiated; government paper was worthless; stocks were down to the lowest. One of the worst features of the situation was the condition of the taxes. The assessments were as arbitrary as before the Revolution, and they were collected with greater difficulty.

To select an honest, capable, and well known financier was Napoleon’s first act. The choice he made was wise—a Monsieur Gaudin, afterward the Duke de Gaëte, a quiet man, who had the confidence of the people. Under his management credit was restored, the government was able to make the loans necessary, and the department of finance was reorganized in a thorough fashion. Napoleon’s gratitude to Monsieur Gaudin was lasting. Once when asked to change him for a more brilliant man, he said:

“I fully acknowledge all your protégé is worth; but it might easily happen that, with all his intelligence, he would give me nothing but fresh water, whilst with my good Gaudin I can always rely on having good crown pieces.”

The famous Bank of France dates from this time. It was founded under Napoleon’s personal direction, and he never ceased to watch over it jealously.

Most important of all the financial measures was the reorganization of the system of taxation. The First Consul insisted that the taxes must meet the whole expense of the nation, save war, which must pay for itself; and he so ordered affairs that never, after his administration was fairly begun, was a deficit known or a loan made. This was done, too, without the people feeling the burden of taxation. Indeed, that burden was so much lighter under his administration that it had been under the old régime, that peasant and workman, in most cases, probably did not know they were being taxed.

108

“BUONAPARTE.”

Fiesinger, engraver, after Guérin. Published “29 Vendémiaire, l’an VII.” (1799). It is of this portrait that Taine writes: “Look now at this portrait by Guérin, this lean body, these narrow shoulders in their uniform creased by his brusque motions, this neck enveloped in a high wrinkled cravat, these temples concealed by long hair falling straight over them, nothing to be seen but the face; these hard features made prominent by strong contrasts of light and shade; these cheeks as hollow as the interior angle of the eye; these prominent cheek-bones; this massive protruding chin; these curving, mobile, attentive lips; these great, clear eyes deeply set under the overarching eyebrows; this fixed, incomprehensible look, sharp as a sword; these two straight wrinkles which cross the forehead from the base of the nose like a furrow of continual anger and inflexible will.”

109“Before 1789,” says Taine, “out of one hundred francs of net revenue, the workman gave fourteen to his seignor, fourteen to the clergy, fifty-three to the state, and kept only eighteen or nineteen for himself. Since 1800, from one hundred francs income he pays nothing to the seignor or the Church, and he pays to the state, the department, and the commune but twenty-one francs, leaving seventy-nine in his pocket.” And such was the method and care with which this system was administered, that the state received more than twice as much as it had before. The enormous sums which the police and tax-collectors had appropriated now went to the state. Here is but one example of numbers which show how minutely Napoleon guarded this part of the finances. It is found in a letter to Fouché, the chief of police:

“What happens at Bordeaux happens at Turin, at Spa, at Marseilles, etc. The police commissioners derive immense profits from the gaming-tables. My intention is that the towns shall reap the benefit of the tables. I shall employ the two hundred thousand francs paid by the tables of Bordeaux in building a bridge or a canal....”

A great improvement was that the taxes became fixed and regular. Napoleon wished that each man should know what he had to pay out each year. “True civil liberty depends on the safety of property,” he told his Council of State. “There is none in a country where the rate of taxation is changed every year. A man who has three thousand francs income does not know how much he will have to live on the next year. His whole substance may be swallowed up by the taxes.”

Nearly the whole revenue came from indirect taxes applied to a great number of articles. In case of a war which did not pay its way, Napoleon proposed to raise each of 110these a few centimes. The nation would surely prefer this, to paying it to the Russians or Austrians. When possible the taxes were reduced. “Better leave the money in the hands of the citizens than lock it up in a cellar, as they do in Prussia.”

He was cautious that extra taxes should not come on the very poor, if it could be avoided. A suggestion to charge the vegetable and fish sellers for their stalls came before him. “The public square, like water, ought to be free. It is quite enough that we tax salt and wine.... It would become the city of Paris much more to think of restoring the corn market.”

An important part of his financial policy was the rigid economy which was insisted on in all departments. If a thing was bought, it must be worth what was paid for it. If a man held a position, he must do its duties. Neither purchases nor positions could be made unless reasonable and useful. This was in direct opposition to the old régime, of which waste, idleness, and parasites were the chief characteristics. The saving in expenditure was almost incredible. A trip to Fontainebleau, which cost Louis XVI. four hundred thousand dollars, Napoleon would make, in no less state, for thirty thousand dollars.

The expenses of the civil household, which amounted to five million dollars under the old régime, were now cut down to six hundred thousand dollars, though the elegance was no less.

A master who gave such strict attention to the prosperity of his kingdom would not, of course, overlook its industries. In fact, they were one of Napoleon’s chief cares. His policy was one of protection. He would have France make everything she wanted, and sell to her neighbors, but never buy from them. To simulate the manufactories, which in 1799 were as nearly bankrupt as the public treasury, he 111visited the factories himself to learn their needs. He gave liberal orders, and urged, even commanded, his associates to do the same. At one time, anxious to aid the batiste factories of Flanders, he tried to force Josephine to give up cotton goods and to set the fashion in favor of the batistes; but she made such an outcry that he was obliged to abandon the idea. For the same reason he wrote to his sister Eliza: “I beg that you will allow your court to wear nothing but silks and cambrics, and that you will exclude all cottons and muslins, in order to favor French industry.”

Frequently he would take goods on consignment, to help a struggling factory. Rather than allow a manufactory to be idle, he would advance a large sum of money, and a quantity of its products would be put under government control. After the battle of Eylau, Napoleon sent one million six hundred thousand francs to Paris, to be used in this way.

To introduce cotton-making into the country was one of his chief industrial ambitions. At the beginning of the century it was printed in all the factories of France, but nothing more. He proposed to the Council of State to prohibit the importation of cotton thread and the woven goods. There was a strong opposition, but he carried his point.

“As a result,” said Napoleon to Las Cases complacently, “we possess the three branches, to the immense advantage of our population and to the detriment and sorrow of the English; which proves that, in administration as in war, one must exercise character.... I occupied myself no less in encouraging silks. As Emperor, and King of Italy, I counted one hundred and twenty millions of income from the silk harvest.”

In a similar way he encouraged agriculture; especially was he anxious that France should raise all her own articles of diet. He had Berthollet look into maple and turnip sugar, and he did at last succeed in persuading the people to use beet sugar; though he never convinced them that Swiss tea equalled Chinese, or that chicory was as good as coffee.

112

BONAPARTE, FIRST CONSUL.

One of the best portraits of the First Consul—the truest of all, perhaps. Unlike Bouillon, Van Brée, Géhotte, Isabey, Boilly painted him in his real aspect, without any striving after the ideal. This is really the determined little Corsican, tormented by ambition and a thirst for conquest. This fine portrait has been admirably etched by Duplessis-Bertaux.—A. D.

113The works he insisted should be carried on in regard to roads and public buildings were of great importance. There was need that something be done.

“It is impossible to conceive, if one had not been a witness of it before and after the 18th Brumaire [said the chancellor Pasquier], of the widespread ruin wrought by the Revolution.... There were hardly two or three main roads [in France] in a fit condition for traffic; not a single one was there, perhaps, wherein was not found some obstacle that could not be surmounted without peril. With regard to the ways of internal communication, they had been indefinitely suspended. The navigation of rivers and canals was no longer feasible.

“In all directions, public buildings, and those monuments which represent the splendor of the state, were falling into decay. It must fain be admitted that if the work of destruction had been prodigious, that of restoration was no less so. Everything was taken hold of at one and the same time, and everything progressed with a like rapidity. Not only was it resolved to restore all that required restoring in various parts of the country, in all parts of the public service, but new, grand, beautiful and useful works were decided upon, and many were brought to a happy termination. This certainly constitutes one of the most brilliant sides of the consular and imperial régime.”

In Paris alone vast improvements were made. Napoleon began the Rue de Rivoli, built the wing connecting the Tuileries and the Louvre, erected the triumphal arch of the Carrousel, the Arc de Triomphe at the head of the Champs Elysées, the Column Vendôme, the Madeleine, began the Bourse, built the Pont d’Austerlitz, and ordered, commenced, or finished, a number of minor works of great importance to the city. The markets interested him particularly. “Give all possible care to the construction of the markets and to their healthfulness, and to the beauty of the Halle-aux-blés and of the Halle-aux-vins. The people, too, must have their Louvre.”

The works undertaken outside of Paris in France, and in 114the countries under her rule in the time that Napoleon was in power were of a variety and extent which would be incredible, if every traveller in Europe did not have the evidence of them still before his eyes. The mere enumeration of these works and of the industrial achievements of Napoleon, made by Las Cases, reads like a fairy story. “You wish to know the treasures of Napoleon? They are immense, it is true, but they are all exposed to light. They are the noble harbors of Antwerp and Flushing, which are capable of containing the largest fleets, and of protecting them against the ice from the sea; the hydraulic works at Dunkirk, Havre, and Nice; the immense harbor of Cherbourg; the maritime works at Venice; the beautiful roads from Antwerp to Amsterdam, from Mayence to Metz, from Bordeaux to Bayonne; the passes of the Simplon, of Mont Cenis, of Mount Genèvre, of the Corniche, which open a communication through the Alps in four different directions, and which exceed in grandeur, in boldness, and in skill of execution, all the works of the Romans (in that alone you will find eight hundred millions); the roads from the Pyrenees to the Alps, from Parma to Spezia, from Savona to Piedmont; the bridges of Jena, Austerlitz, Des Arts, Sèvres, Tours, Roanne, Lyons, Turin; of the Isère, of the Durance, of Bordeaux, of Rouen, etc.; the canal which connects the Rhine with the Rhone by the Doubs, and thus unites the North Sea with the Mediterranean; the canal which joins the Scheldt with the Somme, and thus joins Paris and Amsterdam; the canal which unites the Rance to the Vilaine; the canal of Arles; that of Pavia, and the canal of the Rhine; the draining of the marshes of Bourgoin, of the Cotentin, of Rochefort; the rebuilding of the greater part of the churches destroyed by the Revolution; the building of others: the institution of numerous establishments of 115industry for the suppression of mendicity; the gallery at the Louvre; the construction of public warehouses, of the Bank, of the canal of the Ourcq; the distribution of water in the city of Paris; the numerous drains, the quays, the embellishments, and the monuments of that large capital; the works for the embellishment of Rome; the reëstablishment of the manufactures of Lyons; the creation of many hundreds of manufactories of cotton, for spinning and for weaving, which employ several millions of workmen; funds accumulated to establish upwards of four hundred manufactories of sugar from beet-root, for the consumption of part of France, and which would have furnished sugar at the same price as the West Indies, if they had continued to receive encouragement for only four years longer; the substitution of woad for indigo, which would have been at last brought to a state of perfection in France, and obtained as good and as cheap as the indigo from the colonies; numerous manufactories for all kinds of objects of art, etc.; fifty millions expended in repairing and beautifying the palaces belonging to the Crown; sixty millions in furniture for the palaces belonging to the Crown in France, in Holland, at Turin, and at Rome; sixty millions of diamonds for the Crown, all purchased with Napoleon’s money; the Regent (the only diamond that was left belonging to the former diamonds of the Crown) withdrawn from the hands of the Jews at Berlin, in whose hands it had been left as a pledge for three millions. The Napoleon Museum, valued at upwards of four hundred millions, filled with objects legitimately acquired, either by moneys or by treaties of peace known to the whole world, by virtue of which the chefs-d’oeuvres, it contains were given in lieu of territory or of contributions. Several millions amassed to be applied to the encouragement of agriculture, which is the paramount consideration for the interest of France; the introduction into France of merino sheep, etc. These form a treasure of several thousand millions which will endure for ages.”

116

MEDALLION OF BONAPARTE

The following inscription, written in French, by Dutertre, the official painter of the principal personages in the Egyptian expedition, appears on the reverse side of this medallion, which frames one of the most precious gems of Napoleonic iconography. “I, Dutertre, made this drawing of the general-in-chief from nature, on board the vessel ‘L’Orient,’ during the crossing of the expedition to Egypt in the year VII. (sic) of the Republic.” A short time ago the drawing came into the possession of the Versailles Museum.

117Napoleon himself looked on these achievements as his most enduring monument. “The allied powers cannot take from me hereafter,” he told O’Meara, “the great public works I have executed, the roads which I made over the Alps, and the seas which I have united. They cannot place their feet to improve where mine have not been before. They cannot take from me the code of laws which I formed, and which will go down to posterity.”

118

MOREAU, ABOUT 1801.

Engraved by Elizabeth G. Berhan, after Guérin.

But there were wounds in the French nation more profound than those caused by lack of credit, by neglect and corruption. The body which in 1789 made up France had, in the last ten years, been violently and horribly wrenched asunder. One hundred and fifty thousand of the richest, most cultivated, and most capable of the population had been stripped of wealth and position, and had emigrated to foreign lands.

Napoleon saw that if the émigrés could be reconciled, he at once converted a powerful enemy into a zealous friend. In spite of the opposition of those who had made the Revolution and gained their positions through it, he accorded an amnesty to the émigrés, which included the whole one hundred and fifty thousand, with the exception of about one thousand, and this number, it was arranged, should be reduced to five hundred in the course of a year. More, he provided for their wants. Most of the smaller properties confiscated by the Revolution had been sold, and Napoleon insisted that those who had bought them from the state should be assured of their tenure; but in case a property had not been disposed of, he returned it to the family, though rarely in full. In case of forest lands, not over three hundred and seventy-five acres were given back. Gifts and positions were given to many émigrés, so that the majority were able to live in ease.

120A valuable result of this policy of reconciliation was the amount of talent, experience, and culture which he gained for the government. France had been run for ten years by country lawyers, doctors, and pamphleteers, who, though they boasted civic virtue and eloquence, and though they knew their Plutarch and Rousseau by heart, had no practical sense, and little or no experience. The return of the émigrés gave France a body of trained diplomats, judges, and thinkers, many of whom were promptly admitted to the government.

More serious than the amputation of the aristocracy had been that of the Church. The Revolution had torn it from the nation, had confiscated its property, turned its cathedrals into barracks, its convents and seminaries into town halls and prisons, sold its lands, closed its schools and hospitals. It had demanded an oath of the clergy which had divided the body, and caused thousands to emigrate. Not content with this, it had tried to supplant the old religion, first with a worship of the Goddess of Reason, afterwards with one of the Supreme Being.

But the people still loved the Catholic Church. The mass of them kept their crucifixes in their houses, told their beads, observed fast days. No matter how severe a penalty was attached to the observance of Sunday instead of the day which had replaced it, called the “decade,” at heart the people remembered it. “We rest on the decade,” said a workman once, “but we change our shirts on Sunday.”

Napoleon understood the popular heart, and he proposed the reëstablishment of the Catholic Church. The Revolutionists, even his warmest friends among the generals, opposed it. Infidelity was a cardinal point in the creed of the majority of the new régime. They not only rejected the Church, they ridiculed it. Rather than restore Catholicism, 121they advised Protestantism. “But,” declared Napoleon, “France is not Protestant; she is Catholic.”

In the Council of State, where the question was argued, he said: “My policy is to govern men as the greatest number wish to be governed.... I carried on the war of Vendée by becoming a Catholic; I established myself in Egypt by becoming a Mussulman; I won over the priests in Italy by becoming Ultramontane. If I governed Jews I should reëstablish the temple of Solomon.... It is thus, I think, that the sovereignty of the people should be understood.”

Evidently this was a very different way of understanding that famous doctrine from that which had been in vogue, which consisted in forcing the people to accept what each idealist thought was best, without consulting their prejudices or feelings. In spite of opposition, Napoleon’s will prevailed, and in the spring of 1802 the Concordat was signed. This treaty between the Pope and France is still in force in France. It makes the Catholic Church the state church, allows the government to name the bishops, compels it to pay the salaries of the clergy, and to furnish cathedrals and churches for public worship, which, however, remain national property. The Concordat provided for the absolution of the priests who had married in the Revolution, restored Sunday, and made legal holidays of certain fête days. This arrangement was not made at the price of intolerance towards other bodies. The French government protects and contributes towards the support of all religions within its bounds, Catholic, Protestant, Jew, or Mohammedan. The Concordat was ridiculed by many in the government and army, but undoubtedly it was one of the most statesmanlike measures carried out by Napoleon.

122

SIGNING OF CONCORDAT.

By Gérard. The original is at Versailles.

123“The joy of the overwhelming majority of France silenced even the boldest malcontents,” says Pasquier; “it became evident that Napoleon, better than those who surrounded him, had seen into the depths of the nation’s heart.”

It is certain that in reëstablishing the Church Napoleon did not yield to any religious prejudice, although the Catholic Church was the one he preferred. It was purely a question of policy. In arranging the Concordat he might have secured more liberal measures—measures in which he believed—but he refused them.

“Do you wish me to manufacture a religion of caprice for my own special use, a religion that would be nobody’s? I do not so understand matters. What I want is the old Catholic religion, the only one which is imbedded in every heart, and from which it has never been torn. This religion alone can conciliate hearts in my favor; it alone can smooth away all obstacles.”

In discussing the subject at St. Helena he said to Las Cases:

“When I came to the head of affairs, I had already formed certain ideas on the great principles which hold society together. I had weighed all the importance of religion; I was persuaded of it, and I had resolved to reëstablish it. You would scarcely believe in the difficulties that I had to restore Catholicism. I would have been followed much more willingly if I had unfurled the banner of Protestantism.... It is sure that in the disorder to which I succeeded, in the ruins where I found myself, I could choose between Catholicism and Protestantism. And it is true that at that moment the disposition was in favor of the latter. But outside the fact that I really clung to the religion in which I had been born, I had the highest motives to decide me. By proclaiming Protestantism, what would I have obtained? I should have created in France two great parties about equal, when I wished there should be longer but one. I should have excited the fury of religious quarrels, when the enlightenment of the age and my desire was to make them disappear altogether. These two parties in tearing each other to pieces would have annihilated France and rendered her the slave of Europe, when I was ambitious of making her its mistress. With Catholicism I arrived much more surely at my great results. Within, at home, the great number would absorb the small, and I promised myself to treat with the latter so liberally that it would soon have no motive for knowing the difference.

124“Without, Catholicism saved me the Pope; and with my influences and our forces in Italy I did not despair sooner or later, by one way or another, of finishing by ruling the Pope myself.”

When the Church fell in France, the whole system of education went down with her. The Revolutionary governments tried to remedy the condition, but beyond many plans and speeches little had been done. Napoleon allowed the religious bodies to reopen their schools, and thus primary instruction was soon provided again; and he founded a number of secondary and special schools. The greatest of his educational undertakings was the organization of the University. This institution was centralized in the head of the state as completely as every other Napoleonic institution. It exists to-day but little changed—a most efficient body, in spite of its rigid state control. This university did nothing for woman.

“I do not think we need trouble ourselves with any plan of instruction for young females,” Napoleon told the Council. “They cannot be brought up better than by their mothers. Public education is not suitable for them, because they are never called upon to act in public. Manners are all in all to them, and marriage is all they look to. In times past the monastic life was open to women; they espoused God, and, though society gained little by that alliance, the parents gained by pocketing the dowry.”

It was with the education of the daughters of soldiers, civil functionaries, and members of the Legion of Honor, who had died and left their children unprovided for, that he concerned himself, establishing schools of which the well known one at St. Denis is a model. The rules were prepared by Napoleon himself, who insisted that the girls should be taught all kinds of housework and needlework—everything, in fact, which would make them good housekeepers and honest women.

125The military schools were also reorganized at this time. Remembering his own experience at the Ecole Militaire, Napoleon arranged that the severest economy should be practised in them, and that the pupils should learn to do everything for themselves. They even cleaned, bedded, and shod their own horses.

The destruction of the old system of privileges and honors left the government without any means of rewarding those who rendered it a service. Napoleon presented a law for a Legion of Honor, under control of the state, which should admit to its membership only those who had done something of use to the public. The service might be military, commercial, artistic, humanitarian; no limit was put on its nature; anything which helped France in any way was to be rewarded by membership in the proposed order. In fact, it was the most democratic distinction possible, since the same reward was given for all classes of service and to all classes of people.

Now the Revolutionary spirit spurned all distinction; and as free discussion was allowed on the law, a severe arraignment of it was made. Nevertheless, it passed. It immediately became a power in the hands of the First Consul, and such it has remained until to-day in the government. Though it has been frequently abused, and never, perhaps, more flagrantly than by the present Republic, unquestionably the French “red button” is a decoration of which to be proud.

The greatest civil achievement of Napoleon was the codification of the laws. Up to the Revolution, the laws of France had been in a misty, incoherent condition, feudal in their spirit, and by no means uniform in their application. The Constituent Assembly had ordered them revised, but the work had only been begun. Napoleon believed justly that the greatest benefit he could render France would be to give her a complete and systematic code. He organized the force for this gigantic task, and pushed revision with unflagging energy.

126

NAPOLEON REVIEWING THE CONSULAR GUARDS IN THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES.

1800.

Engraved in London, by C. Turner, after a painting by J. Masquerier.

127His part in the work was interesting and important. After the laws had been well digested and arranged in preliminary bodies, they were submitted to the Council of State. It was in the discussion before this body that Napoleon took part. That a man of thirty-one, brought up as a soldier, and having no legal training, could follow the discussions of such a learned and serious body as Napoleon’s Council of State always was, seems incredible. In fact, he prepared for each session as thoroughly as the law-makers themselves. His habit was to talk over, beforehand generally with Cambacérès and Portalis, two legislators of great learning and clearness of judgment, all the matters which were to come up.

“He examined each question by itself,” says Roederer, “inquiring into all the authorities, times, experiences; demanding to know how it had been under ancient jurisprudence, under Louis XIV., or Frederick the Great. When a bill was presented to the First Consul, he rarely failed to ask these questions: Is this bill complete? Does it cover every case? Why have you not thought of this? Is that necessary? Is it right or useful? What is done nowadays and elsewhere?”

At night, after he had gone to bed, he would read or have read to him authorities on the subject. Such was his capacity for grasping any idea, that he would come to the Council with a perfectly clear notion of the subject to be treated, and a good idea of its historical development. Thus he could follow the most erudite and philosophical arguments, and could take part in them. He stripped them at once of all conventional phrases and learned terms, and stated clearly what they meant. He had no use for anything but the plain 128meaning. By thus going directly to the practical sense of a thing, he frequently cleared up the ideas of the revisers themselves.

In framing the laws, he took care that they should be worded so that everybody could understand them. Thus, when a law relating to liquors was being prepared, he urged that wholesale and retail should be defined in such a way that they would be definite ideas to the people. “Pot and pint must be inserted,” he said. “There is no objection to those words. An excise act isn’t an epic poem.”

Napoleon insisted on the greatest freedom of speech in the discussions on the laws, just as he did on “going straight to the point and not wasting time on idle talk.” This clearheadedness, energy, and grasp of subject, exercised over a body of really remarkable men, developed the Council until its discussions became famous throughout Europe. One of its wisest members, Chancellor Pasquier, says of Napoleon’s direction that “it was of such a nature as to enlarge the sphere of one’s ideas, and to give one’s faculties all the development of which they were capable. The highest legislative, administrative, and sometimes even political matters were taken up in it (the Council). Did we not see, for two consecutive winters, the sons of foreign sovereigns come and complete their education in its midst?”

It was the genius of the head of the state, however, which was the most impressive feature of the Council of State. De Molleville, a former minister of Louis XVI., said once to Las Cases:

“It must be admitted that your Bonaparte, your Napoleon, was a very extraordinary man. We were far from understanding him on the other side of the water. We could not refuse the evidence of his victories and his invasions, it is true; but Genseric, Attila, Alaric had done as much; so he made more of an impression of terror on me than of admiration. But when I came here and followed the discussions on the civil code, from that moment I had nothing but profound veneration 129for him. But where in the world had he learned all that? And then every day I discovered something new in him. Ah, sir, what a man you had there! Truly, he was a prodigy.”

The modern reader who looks at France and sees how her University, her special schools, her hospitals, her great honorary legion, her treaty with the Catholic Church, her code of laws, her Bank—the vital elements of her life, in short—are as they came from Napoleon’s brain, must ask, with De Molleville, How did he do it—he a foreigner, born in a half-civilized island, reared in a military school, without diplomatic or legal training, without the prestige of name or wealth? How could he make a nation? How could he be other than the barbaric conqueror the English and the émigrés first thought him.

Those who look at Napoleon’s achievements, and are either dazzled or horrified by them, generally consider his power superhuman. They call it divine or diabolic, according to the feeling he inspires in them; but, in reality, the qualities he showed in his career as a statesman and lawgiver are very human ones. His stout grasp on subjects; his genius for hard work; his power of seeing everything that should be done, and doing it himself; his unparalleled audacity, explain his civil achievements.

The comprehension he had of questions of government was really the result of serious thinking. He had reflected from his first days at Brienne; and the active interest he had taken in the Revolution of 1789 had made him familiar with many social and political questions. His career in Italy, which was almost as much a diplomatic as a military career, had furnished him an experience upon which he had founded many notions. In his dreams of becoming an Oriental lawgiver he had planned a system of government of which he was to be the centre. Thus, before the 18th Brumaire made him the Dictator of France, he had his ideas of centralized government all formed, just as, before he crossed the Great Saint Bernard, he had fought, over and over, the battle of Marengo, with black- and red-headed pins stuck into a great map of Italy spread out on his study floor.

130

BONAPARTE, 1^ER CONSUL DE LA RÉP. FRANÇ.

NAPOLEON WHILE FIRST CONSUL OF FRANCE.

Engraved in 1801 by Audouin, after a design by Bouillon.

131His habit of attending to everything himself explains much of his success. No detail was too small for him, no task too menial. If a thing needed attention, no matter whose business it was, he looked after it. Reading letters once before Madame Junot, she said to him that such work must be tiresome, and advised him to give it to a secretary.

“Later, perhaps,” he said, “Now it is impossible; I must answer for all. It is not at the beginning of a return to order that I can afford to ignore a need, a demand.”

He carried out this policy literally. When he went on a journey, he looked personally after every road, bridge, public building, he passed, and his letters teemed with orders about repairs here, restorations there. He looked after individuals in the same way; ordered a pension to this one, a position to that one, even dictating how the gift should be made known so as to offend the least possible the pride of the recipient.

When it came to foreign policy, he told his diplomats how they should look, whether it should be grave or gay, whether they should discuss the opera or the political situation.

The cost of the soldiers’ shoes, the kind of box Josephine took at the opera, the style of architecture for the Madeleine, the amount of stock left on hand in the silk factories, the wording of the laws, all was his business.

He thought of the flowers to be scattered daily on the tomb of General Régnier, suggested the idea of a battle hymn to Rouget de l’Isle, told the artists what expression to give him in their portraits, what accessories to use in the battle pieces, ordered everything, verified everything. “Beside him,” said those who looked on in amazement, “the most punctilious clerk would have been a bungler.”

132Without an extraordinary capacity for work, no man could have done this. Napoleon would work until eleven o’clock in the evening, and be up again at three in the morning. Frequently he slept but an hour, and came back as fresh as ever. No secretary could keep up to him, and his ministers sometimes went to sleep in the Council, worn out with the length of the session. “Come, citizen ministers,” he would cry, “we must earn the money the French nation gives us.” The ministers rarely went home from the meetings that they did not find a half-dozen letters from him on their tables to be answered, and the answer must be a clear, exact, exhaustive document. “Get your information so that when you do answer me, there shall be no ‘buts,’ no ‘ifs,’ and no ‘becauses,’” was the rule Napoleon laid down to his correspondents.

He had audacity. He dared do what he would. He had no conventional notions to tie him, no master to dictate to him. The Revolution had swept out of his way the accumulated experience of centuries—all the habits, the prejudices, the ways of doing things. He commenced nearer the bottom than any man in the history of the civilized world had ever done, worked with imperial self-confidence, with a conviction that he “was not like other men;” that the moral laws, the creeds, the conventions, which applied to them, were not for him. He might listen to others, but in the end he dared do as he would.

The centralization of France in Napoleon’s hands was not to be allowed to go on without interference. Jacobinism, republicanism, royalism, were deeply-rooted sentiments, and it was not long before they began to struggle for expression.

Early in the Consulate, plots of many descriptions were unearthed. The most serious before 1803 was that known as the “Opera Plot,” or “Plot of the 3d Nivôse” (December 24, 1800), when a bomb was placed in the street, to be exploded as the First Consul’s carriage passed. By an accident he was saved, and, in spite of the shock, went on to the opera.

Madame Junot, who was there, gives a graphic description of the way the news was received by the house:

“The first thirty measures of the oratorio were scarcely played, when a strong explosion like a cannon was heard.

“‘What does that mean?’ exclaimed Junot with emotion. He opened the door of the loge and looked into the corridor.... ‘It is strange; how can they be firing cannon at this hour?’ And then ‘I should have known it. Give me my hat; I am going to find out what it is....’

“At this moment the loge of the First Consul opened, and he himself appeared with Generals Lannes, Lauriston, Berthier, and Duroc. Smiling, he saluted the immense crowd, which mingled cries like those of love with its applause. Madame Bonaparte followed him in a few seconds....

“Junot was going to enter the loge to see for himself the serene air 134of the First Consul that I had just remarked, when Duroc came up to us with troubled face.

“‘The First Consul has just escaped death,’ he said quickly to Junot. ‘Go down and see him; he wants to talk to you.’ ... But a dull sound commenced to spread from parterre to orchestra, from orchestra to amphitheatre, and thence to the loges.

“‘The First Consul has just been attacked in the Rue Saint Nicaise,’ it was whispered. Soon the truth was circulated in the salle; at the same instant, and as by an electric shock, one and the same acclamation arose, one and the same look enveloped Napoleon, as if in a protecting love.

“What agitation preceded the explosion of national anger which was represented in that first quarter of an hour, by that crowd whose fury for so black an attack could not be expressed by words! Women sobbed aloud, men shivered with indignation. Whatever the banner they followed, they were united heart and arm in this case to show that differences of opinion did not bring with them differences in understanding honor.”

It was such attempts, and suspicion of like ones, that led to the extension of the police service. One of the ablest and craftiest men of the Revolution became Napoleon’s head of police in the Consulate, Fouché. A consummate actor and skilful flatterer, hampered by no conscience other than the duty of keeping in place, he acted a curious and entertaining part. Detective work was for him a game which he played with intense relish. He was a veritable amateur of plots, and never gayer than when tracing them.

Napoleon admired Fouché, but he did not trust him, and, to offset him, formed a private police to spy on his work. He never succeeded in finding anyone sufficiently fine to match the chief, who several times was malicious enough to contrive plots himself, to excite and mislead the private agents.

The system of espionage went so far that letters were regularly opened. It was commonly said that those who did not want their letters read, did not send them by post; and though it was hardly necessary, as in the Revolution, to send them in pies, in coat-linings, or hat-crowns, yet care 135and prudence had to be exercised in handling all political letters.

It was difficult to get officials for the post-office who could be relied on to intercept the proper letters; and in 1802, the Postmaster-General, Monsieur Bernard, the father of the beautiful Madame Récamier, was found to be concealing an active royalist correspondence, and to be permitting the circulation of a quantity of seditious pamphlets. His arrest and imprisonment made a great commotion in his daughter’s circle, which was one of social and intellectual importance. Through the intercessions of Bernadotte, Monsieur Bernard was pardoned by Napoleon. The cabinet noir, as the department of the post-office which did this work was called, was in existence when Napoleon came to the Consulate, and he rather restricted than increased its operations. It has never been entirely given up, as many an inoffensive foreigner in France can testify.

The theatre and press were also subjected to a strict censorship. In 1800 the number of newspapers in Paris was reduced to twelve; and in three years there were but eight left, with a total subscription list of eighteen thousand six hundred and thirty. Napoleon’s contempt for journalists and editors equalled that he had for lawyers, whom he called a “heap of babblers and revolutionists.” Neither class could, in his judgment, be allowed to go free.

136

“THE GENERAL OF THE GRAND ARMY.”

This pencil portrait by David is nothing but a rapid sketch, but its iconographic interest is undeniable. David doubtless executed this design towards the end of 1797, after Bonaparte’s return from Italy. It belongs to Monsieur Cheramy, a Paris lawyer.—A. D.

137The salons were watched, and it is certain that those whose habitués criticised Napoleon freely were reported. One serious rupture resulted from the supervision of the salons, that with Madame de Staël. She had been an ardent admirer of Napoleon in the beginning of the Consulate, and Bourrienne tells several amusing stories of the disgust Napoleon showed at the letters of admiration and sentiment which she wrote him even so far back as the Italian campaign. If the secretary is to be believed, Madame de Staël told Napoleon, in one of these letters, that they were certainly created for each other, that it was an error in human institutions that the mild and tranquil Josephine was united to his fate, that nature evidently had intended for a hero such as he, her own soul of fire. Napoleon tore the letter to pieces, and he took pains thereafter to announce with great bluntness to Madame de Staël, whenever he met her, his own notions of women, which certainly were anything but “modern.”

As the centralization of the government increased, Madame de Staël and her friends criticized Napoleon more freely and sharply than they would have done, no doubt, had she not been incensed by his personal attitude towards her. This hostility increased until, in 1803, the First Consul ordered her out of France. “The arrival of this woman, like that of a bird of omen, has always been the signal for some trouble,” he said in giving the order. “It is not my intention to allow her to remain in France.”

In 1807 this order was repeated, and many of Madame de Staël’s friends were included in the proscription:

“I have written to the Minister of Police to send Madame de Staël to Geneva. This woman continues her trade of intriguer. She went near Paris in spite of my orders. She is a veritable plague. Speak seriously to the Minister, for I shall be obliged to have her seized by the gendarmerie. Keep an eye upon Benjamin Constant; if he meddles with anything I shall send him to his wife at Brunswick. I will not tolerate this clique.”

But when one compares the policy of restriction during the Consulate with what it had been under the old régime and during the Revolution, it certainly was far in advance in liberty, discretion, and humanity. The republican government to-day, in its repression of anarchy, and socialism has acted with less wisdom and less respect for freedom of thought than Napoleon did at this period of his career; and that, too, in circumstances less complicated and critical. 138If there were still dull rumors of discontent, a cabinet noir, a restricted press, a censorship over the theatre, proscriptions, even imprisonments and executions, on the whole France was happy.

“Not only did the interior wheels of the machine commence to run smoothly,” says the Duchesse d’Abrantès, “but the arts themselves, that most peaceful part of the interior administration, gave striking proofs of the returning prosperity of France. The exposition at the Salon that year (1800) was remarkably fine. Guérin, David, Gérard, Girodet, a crowd of great talents, spurred on by the emulation which always awakes the fire of genius, produced works which must some time place our school at a high rank.”

The art treasures of Europe were pouring into France. Under the direction of Denon, that indefatigable dilettante and student, who had collected in the expedition in Egypt more entertaining material than the whole Institute, and had written a report of it which will always be preferred to the “Great Work,” the galleries of Paris were reorganized and opened two days of the week to the people. Napoleon inaugurated this practice himself. Not only was Paris supplied with galleries; those department museums which to-day surprise and delight the tourist in France were then created at Angers, Antwerp, Autun, Bordeaux, Brussels, Caen, Dijon, Geneva, Grenoble, Le Mans, Lille, Lyons, Mayence, Marseilles, Montpellier, Nancy, Nantes, Rennes, Rouen, Strasburg, Toulouse, and Tours. The prix de Rome, for which there had been no money in the treasury for some time, was reëstablished.

Every effort was made to stimulate scientific research. The case of Volta is one to the point. In 1801 Bonaparte called the eminent physicist to Paris to repeat his experiments before the Institute. He proposed that a medal should be given him, with a sum of money, and in his honor he established 139a prize of sixty thousand francs, to be awarded to any one who should make a discovery similar in value to Volta’s.^[1] An American—Robert Fulton—was about the same time encouraged by the First Consul. Fulton was experimenting with his submarine torpedo and diving boat, and for four years had been living in Paris and besieging the Directory to grant him attention and funds. Napoleon took the matter up as soon as Fulton brought it to him, ordered a commission appointed to look into the invention, and a grant of ten thousand francs for the necessary experiments.

The Institute was reorganized, and to encourage science and the arts he founded, in 1804, twenty-two prizes, nine of which were of ten thousand francs each, and thirteen of five thousand francs each. They were to be awarded every ten years by the emperor himself, on the 18th Brumaire. The first distribution of these prizes was to have taken place in 1809, but the judges could not agree on the laureates; and before a conclusion was reached, the empire had fallen.

140

BONAPARTE AS GENERAL, CONSUL, MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE.

These busts are in Sèvres biscuit. The first, which is much superior to the other two, is attributed to Boizot. The manufactory of Sèvres produced many such busts, especially in the consular period, and Bonaparte, anxious to see his face everywhere, encouraged the production and diffusion of them. I have before me an official document which shows that from the commencement of the year VI. to the end of the year IX. the factory produced more than four hundred busts and thirteen hundred medallions of Bonaparte.—A. D.

141In literature and in music, as in art and science, there was a renewal of activity. A circle of poets and writers gathered about the First Consul. Paisiello was summoned to Paris to direct the opera and conservatory of music. There was a revival of dignity and taste in strong contrast to the license and carelessness of the Revolution. The incroyable passed away. The Greek costume disappeared from the street. Men and women began again to dress, to act, to talk, according to conventional forms. Society recovered its systematic ways of doing things, and soon few signs of the general dissolution which had prevailed for ten years were to be seen.

Once more the traveller crossed France in peace; peasant and laborer went undisturbed about their work, and slept without fear. Again the people danced in the fields and “sang their songs as they had in the days before the Revolution.” “France has nothing to ask from Heaven,” said Regnault de Saint Jean d’Angély, “but that the sun may continue to shine, the rain to fall on our fields, and the earth to render the seed fruitful.”

142

NAPOLEON IN 1803.

Painted by A. Gérard in 1803. Engraved by Richomme in 1835.

In the spring of 1803 the treaty of Amiens, which a year before had ended the long war with England, was broken. Both countries had many reasons for complaint. Napoleon was angry at the failure to evacuate Malta. The perfect freedom allowed the press in England gave the pamphleteers and caricaturists of the country an opportunity to criticize and ridicule him. He complained bitterly to the English ambassadors of this free press, an institution in his eyes impractical and idealistic. He complained, too, of the hostile émigrés allowed to collect in Jersey; of the presence in England of such a notorious enemy of his as Georges Cadoudal; and of the sympathy and money the Bourbon princes and many nobles of the old régime received in London society. Then, too, he regarded the country as his natural and inevitable enemy. England to Napoleon was only a little island which, like Corsica and Elba, naturally belonged to France, and he considered it part of his business to get possession of her.

England, on the other hand, looked with distrust at the extension of Napoleon’s influence on the Continent. Northern Italy, Switzerland, Holland, Parma, Elba, were under his protectorate. She had been deeply offended by a report published in Paris, on the condition of the Orient, in which the author declared that with six thousand men the French could reconquer Egypt; she resented the violent articles in 144the official press of Paris in answer to those of the free press of England; her aristocratic spirit was irritated by Napoleon’s success; she despised this parvenu, this “Corsican scoundrel,” as Nelson called him, who had had the hardihood to rise so high by other than the conventional methods for getting on in the world which she sanctioned.

Real and fancied aggressions continued throughout the year of the peace; and when the break finally came, though both nations persisted in declaring that they did not want war, both were in a thoroughly warlike mood.

Napoleon’s preparations against England form one of the most picturesque military movements in his career. Unable to cope with his enemy at sea, he conceived the audacious notion of invading the island, and laying siege to London itself. The plan briefly was this—to gather a great army on the north shore of France, and in some port a flotilla sufficient to transport it to Great Britain. In order to prevent interference with this expedition, he would keep the enemy’s fleet occupied in the Mediterranean, or in the Atlantic, until the critical moment. Then, leading the English naval commander by stratagem in the wrong direction, he would call his own fleet to the Channel to protect his passage. He counted to be in London, and to have compelled the English to peace, before Nelson could return from the chase he would have led him.

The preparations began at once. The port chosen for the flotilla was Boulogne; but the whole coast from Antwerp to the mouth of the Seine bristled with iron and bronze. Between Calais and Boulogne, at Cape Gris Nez, where the navigation was the most dangerous, the batteries literally touched one another. Fifty thousand men were put to work at the stupendous excavations necessary to make the ports large enough to receive the flotilla. Large numbers of troops were brought rapidly into the neighborhood: 145fifty thousand men to Boulogne, under Soult; thirty thousand to Etaples, under Ney; thirty thousand to Ostend, under Davoust; reserves to Arras, Amiens, Saint-Omer.

The work of preparing the flat-bottomed boats, or walnut-shells, as the English called them, which were to carry over the army, went on in all the ports of Holland and France, as well as in interior towns situated on rivers leading to the sea. The troops were taught to row, each soldier being obliged to practise two hours a day so that the rivers of all the north of France were dotted with land-lubbers handling the oar, the most of them for the first time.

In the summer of 1803, Napoleon went to the north to look after the work. His trip was one long ovation. Le Chemin d’Angleterre was the inscription the people of Amiens put on the triumphal arch erected to his honor, and town vied with town in showing its joy at the proposed descent on the old-time enemy.

Such was the interest of the people, that a thousand projects were suggested to help on the invasion, some of them most amusing. In a learned and thoroughly serious memorial, one genius proposed that while the flotilla was preparing, the sailors be employed in catching dolphins, which should be shut up in the ports, tamed, and taught to wear a harness, so as to be driven, in the water, as horses are on land. This novel power was to transport the French to the opposite side of the Channel.

Napoleon occupied himself not only with the preparations at Boulogne and with keeping Nelson busy elsewhere. Every project which could possibly facilitate his undertaking or discomfit his enemies, he considered. Fulton’s diving boat, the “Nautilus,” and his submarine torpedoes, were at that time attracting the attention of the war departments of civilized countries. Already Napoleon had granted ten thousand francs to help the inventor. From the camp at Boulogne he again ordered the matter to be looked into. Fulton promised him a machine which “would deliver France and the whole world from British oppression.”

146

GRAY REDINGOTE AND PETIT CHAPEAU WORN BY NAPOLEON.

147“I have just read the project of Citizen Fulton, engineer, which you have sent me much too late,” he wrote, “since it is one that may change the face of the world. Be that as it may, I desire that you immediately confide its examination to a commission of members chosen by you among the different classes of the Institute. There it is that learned Europe would seek for judges to resolve the question under consideration. A great truth, a physical, palpable truth, is before my eyes. It will be for these gentlemen to try and seize it and see it. As soon as their report is made, it will be sent to you, and you will forward it to me. Try and let the whole be determined within eight days, as I am impatient.”

He had his eye on every point of the earth where he might be weak, or where he might weaken his enemy. He took possession of Hanover. The Irish were promised aid in their efforts for freedom. “Provided that twenty thousand united Irishmen join the French army on its landing,” France is to give them in return twenty-five thousand men, forty thousand muskets, with artillery and ammunition, and a promise that the French government will not make peace with England until the independence of Ireland has been proclaimed.

An attack on India was planned, his hope being that the princes of India would welcome an invader who would aid them in throwing off the English yoke. To strengthen himself in the Orient, he sought by letters and envoys to win the confidence, as well as to inspire the awe, of the rulers of Turkey and Persia.

The sale of Louisiana to the United States dates from this time. This transfer, of such tremendous importance to us, was made by Napoleon purely for the sake of hurting England. France had been in possession of Louisiana but three years. She had obtained it from Spain only on the condition that it should “at no time, under no pretext, and 148in no manner, be alienated or ceded to any other power.” The formal stipulation of the treaties forbade its sale. But Napoleon was not of a nature to regard a treaty, if the interest of the moment demanded it to be broken. To sell Louisiana now would remove a weak spot from France, upon which England would surely fall in the war. More, it would put a great territory, which he could not control, into the hands of a country which, he believed, would some day be a serious hindrance to English ambition. He sold the colony for the same reason that former French governments had helped the United States in her struggles for independence—to cripple England. It would help the United States, but it would hurt England. That was enough; and with characteristic eagerness he hurried through the negotiations.

“I have just given England a maritime rival which, sooner or later, will humble her pride,” he said exultingly, when the convention was signed. The sale brought him twelve million dollars, and the United States assumed the French spoliation claims.

This sale of Louisiana caused one of the first violent quarrels between Lucien Bonaparte and Napoleon. Lucien had negotiated the return of the American territory to France in 1800. He had made a princely fortune out of the treaty, and he was very proud of the transaction; and when his brother Joseph came to him one evening in hot haste, with the information that the General wanted to sell Louisiana, he hurried around to the Tuileries in the morning to remonstrate.

Napoleon was in his bath, but, in the mode of the time, he received his brothers. He broached the subject himself, and asked Lucien what he thought.

“I flatter myself that the Chambers will not give their consent.”

149“You flatter yourself?” said Napoleon. “That’s good, I declare.”

“I have already said the same to the First Consul,” cried Joseph.

“And what did I answer?” said Napoleon, splashing around indignantly in the opaque water.

“That you would do it in spite of the Chambers.”

“Precisely. I shall do it without the consent of anyone whomsoever. Do you understand?”

Joseph, beside himself, rushed to the bathtub, and declared that if Napoleon dared do such a thing he would put himself at the head of an opposition and crush him in spite of their fraternal relations. So hot did the debate grow that the First Consul sprang up shouting: “You are insolent! I ought——” but at that moment he slipped and fell back violently. A great mass of perfumed water drenched Joseph to the skin, and the conference broke up.

An hour later, Lucien met his brother in his library, and the discussion was resumed, only to end in another scene, Napoleon hurling a beautiful snuff-box upon the floor and shattering it, while he told Lucien that if he did not cease his opposition he would crush him in the same way. These violent scenes were repeated, but to no purpose. Louisiana was sold.

150

NAPOLEON THE GREAT (“NAPOLEON LE GRAND”) IN CORONATION ROBES. 1805.

Painted and engraved by order of the Emperor. Engraved by Desnoyers, after portrait painted by Gérard in 1805.

While the preparation for the invasion was going on, the feeling against England was intensified by the discovery of a plot against the life of the First Consul. Georges Cadoudal, a fanatical royalist, who was accused of being connected with the plot of the 3d Nivôse (December 24), and who had since been in England, had formed a gigantic conspiracy, having as its object nothing less than the assassination of Napoleon in broad daylight, in the streets of Paris.

He had secured powerful aid to carry out his plan. The Bourbon princes supported him, and one of them was to land on the north coast and put himself at the head of the royalist sympathizers as soon as the First Consul was killed. In this plot was associated Pichegru, who had been connected with the 18th Fructidor. General Moreau, the hero of Hohenlinden, was suspected of knowing something of it.

It came to light in time, and a general arrest was made of those suspected of being privy to it. The first to be tried and punished was the Duc d’Enghien, who had been seized at Ettenheim, in Baden, a short distance from the French frontier, on the supposition that he had been coming secretly to Paris to be present at the meetings of the conspirators. His trial at Vincennes was short, his execution immediate. There is good reason to believe that Napoleon had no suspicion that the Duc d’Enghien would be executed so soon as 152he was, and even to suppose that he would have lightened the sentence if the punishment had not been pushed on with an irregularity and inhumanity that recalls the days of the Terror.

The execution was a severe blow to Napoleon’s popularity, both at home and abroad. Fouché’s cynical remark was just: “The death of the Duc d’Enghien is worse than a crime; it is a blunder.” Chateaubriand, who had accepted a foreign embassy, resigned at once, and a number of the old aristocracy, such as Pasquier and Molé, who had been saying among themselves that it was their duty to support Napoleon’s splendid work of reorganization, went back into obscurity. In society the effect was distressing. The members of Napoleon’s own household met him with averted faces and sad countenances, and Josephine wept until he called her a child who understood nothing of politics. Abroad there was a revulsion of sympathy, particularly in the cabinets of Russia, Prussia, and Austria.

The trial of Cadoudal and Moreau followed. The former with several of his accomplices was executed. Moreau was exiled for two years. Pichegru committed suicide in the Temple.

This plot showed Napoleon and his friends that a Jacobin or royalist fanatic might any day end the life upon which the scheme of reorganization depended. It is true he had already been made First Consul for life by a practically unanimous vote, but there was need of strengthening his position and providing a succession. In March, six days after the death of the Duc d’Enghien, the Senate proposed to him that he complete his work and take the throne. In April the Council of State and the Tribunate took up the discussion. The opinion of the majority was voiced by Regnault de Saint Jean d’Angély: “It is a long time since all reasonable men, all true friends of their country, have wished that the First 153Consul would make himself emperor, and reëstablish, in favor of his family, the old principles of hereditary succession. It is the only means of securing permanency for his own fortune, and to the men whom merit has raised to high offices. The Republic, which I loved passionately, while I detested the crimes of the Revolution, is now in my eyes a mere Utopia. The First Consul has convinced me that he wishes to possess supreme power only to render France great, free, and happy, and to protect her against the fury of factions.”

The Senate soon after proceeded in a body to the Tuileries. “You have extricated us from the chaos of the past,” said the spokesman; “you enable us to enjoy the blessings of the present; guarantee to us the future.” On the 18th of May, 1804, when thirty-five years old, Napoleon was first addressed as “sire,” and congratulated on his elevation to the throne of the French people.

Immediately his household took on the forms of royalty. His mother was Madame Mère; Joseph, Grand Elector, with the title of Imperial Highness; Louis, Constable, with the same title; his sisters were Imperial Highnesses. Titles were given to all officials; the ministers were excellencies; Cambacérès and Le Brun, the Second and Third Consuls, became Arch-Chancellor and Arch-Treasurer of the Empire. Of his generals, Berthier, Murat, Moncey, Jourdan, Masséna, Augereau, Bernadotte, Soult, Brune, Lannes, Mortier, Ney, Davoust, and Bessières were made marshals. The red button of the Legion of Honor was scattered in profusion. The title of citoyen, which had been consecrated by the Revolution, was dropped, and hereafter everybody was called monsieur.

Two of Napoleon’s brothers, unhappily, had no part in these honors. Jerome, who had been serving as lieutenant in the navy, had, in 1803, while in the United States, married 154a Miss Elizabeth Patterson of Baltimore. Napoleon forbade the recording of the marriage, and declared it void. As Jerome had not as yet given up his wife, he had no share in the imperial rewards. Lucien was likewise omitted, and for a similar reason. His first wife had died in 1801, and much against Napoleon’s wishes he had married a Madame Jouberthon, to whom he was deeply attached; nothing could induce him to renounce his wife and take the Queen of Etruria, as Napoleon wished. The result of his refusal was a violent quarrel between the brothers, and Lucien left France.

This rupture was certainly a grief to Napoleon. Madame de Rémusat draws a pathetic little picture of the effect upon him of the last interview with Lucien:

“It was near midnight when Bonaparte came into the room; he was deeply dejected, and, throwing himself into an arm-chair, he exclaimed in a troubled voice, ‘It is all over! I have broken with Lucien, and ordered him from my presence.’ Madame Bonaparte began to expostulate. ‘You are a good woman,’ he said, ‘to plead for him.’ Then he rose from his chair, took his wife in his arms, and laid her head softly on his shoulder, and with his hand still resting on the beautiful head, which formed a contrast to the sad, set countenance so near it, he told us that Lucien had resisted all his entreaties, and that he had resorted equally in vain to both threats and persuasion. ‘It is hard, though,’ he added, ‘to find in one’s own family such stubborn opposition to interests of such magnitude. Must I, then, isolate myself from every one? Must I rely on myself alone? Well! I will suffice to myself; and you, Josephine—you will be my comfort always.’”

A fever of etiquette seized on all the inhabitants of the imperial palace of Saint Cloud. The ponderous regulations of Louis XIV. were taken down from the shelves in the library, and from them a code began to be compiled. Madame Campan, who had been First Bedchamber Woman to Marie Antoinette, was summoned to interpret the solemn law, and to describe costumes and customs. Monsieur de Talleyrand, who had been made Grand Chamberlain, was an authority who was consulted on everything.

155“We all felt ourselves more or less elevated,” says Madame de Rémusat. “Vanity is ingenious in its expectations, and ours were unlimited. Sometimes it was disenchanting, for a moment, to observe the almost ridiculous effect which this agitation produced upon certain classes of society. Those who had nothing to do with our brand new dignities said with Montaigne, ‘Let us avenge ourselves by railing at them.’ Jests, more or less witty, and puns, more or less ingenious, were lavished on these new-made princes, and somewhat disturbed our brilliant visions; but the number of those who dare to censure success is small, and flattery was much more common than criticism.”

No one was more severe in matters of etiquette than Napoleon himself. He studied the subject with the same attention that he did the civil code, and in much the same way. “In concert with Monsieur de Ségur,” he wrote De Champagny, “you must write me a report as to the way in which ministers and ambassadors should be received.... It will be well for you to enlighten me as to what was the practice at Versailles, and what is done at Vienna and St. Petersburg. Once my regulations adopted, everyone must conform to them. I am master, to establish what rules I like in France.”

He had some difficulty with his old comrades-in-arms, who were accustomed to addressing him in the familiar second singular, and calling him Bonaparte, and who persisted, occasionally, even after he was “sire,” in using the language of easy intimacy. Lannes was even removed for some time from his place near the emperor for an indiscretion of this kind.

In August, 1804, the new emperor visited Boulogne to receive the congratulations of his army and distribute decorations. His visit was celebrated by a magnificent fête. Those who know the locality of Boulogne, remember, north 156of the town, an amphitheatre-like plain, in the centre of which is a hill. In this plain sixty thousand men were camped. On the elevation was erected a throne. Hereby stood the chair of Dagobert; behind it the armor of Francis I.; and around rose scores of blood-stained, bullet-shot flags, the trophies of Italy and Egypt. Beside the emperor was the helmet of Bayard, filled with the decorations to be distributed. Up and down the coast were the French batteries; in the port lay the flotilla; to the right and left stretched the splendid army.

Just as the ceremonies were finished, a fleet of over a thousand boats came sailing into the harbor to join those already there, while out in the Channel English officers and sailors, with levelled glasses, watched from their vessels the splendid armament, which was celebrating its approaching descent on their shores.

On December 1st the Senate presented the emperor the result of the vote taken among the people as to whether hereditary succession should be adopted. There were two thousand five hundred and seventy-nine votes against; three million five hundred and seventy-five thousand for—a vote more nearly unanimous than that for the life consulate, there being something like nine thousand against him then.

The next day Napoleon was crowned at Notre Dame. The ceremony was prepared with the greatest care. Grand Master of Ceremonies de Ségur, aided by the painter David, drew up the plan and trained the court with great severity in the etiquette of the occasion. He had the widest liberty, it even being provided that “if it be indispensable, in order that the cortége arrive at Notre Dame with greater facility, to pull down some houses,” it should be done. By a master stroke of diplomacy Napoleon had persuaded Pope Pius VII. to cross the Alps to perform for him the solemn and ancient service of coronation.

157Of this ceremony we have no better description than that of Madame Junot:

“Who that saw Notre Dame on that memorable day can ever forget it? I have witnessed in that venerable pile the celebration of sumptuous and solemn festivals; but never did I see anything at all approximating in splendor the spectacle exhibited at Napoleon’s coronation. The vaulted roof re-echoed the sacred chanting of the priests, who invoked the blessing of the Almighty on the ceremony about to be celebrated, while they awaited the arrival of the Vicar of Christ, whose throne was prepared near the altar. Along the ancient walls covered with magnificent tapestry were ranged, according to their rank, the different bodies of the state, the deputies from every city; in short, the representatives of all France assembled to implore the benediction of Heaven on the sovereign of the people’s choice. The waving plumes which adorned the hats of the senators, counsellors of state, and tribunes; the splendid uniforms of the military; the clergy in all their ecclesiastical pomp; and the multitude of young and beautiful women, glittering in jewels, and arrayed in that style of grace and elegance which is only seen in Paris;—altogether presented a picture which has, perhaps, rarely been equalled, and certainly never excelled.

“The Pope arrived first; and at the moment of his entering the Cathedral, the anthem Tu es Petrus was commenced. His Holiness advanced from the door with an air at once majestic and humble. Ere long, the firing of a cannon announced the departure of the procession from the Tuileries. From an early hour in the morning the weather had been exceeding unfavorable. It was cold and rainy, and appearances seemed to indicate that the procession would be anything but agreeable to those who joined it. But, as if by the especial favor of Providence, of which so many instances are observable in the career of Napoleon, the clouds suddenly dispersed, the sky brightened up, and the multitudes who lined the streets from the Tuileries to the Cathedral, enjoyed the sight of the procession without being, as they had anticipated, drenched by a December rain. Napoleon, as he passed along, was greeted by heartfelt expressions of enthusiastic love and attachment.

158

NAPOLEON WITH THE IRON CROWN OF LOMBARDY.

Designed and engraved by Longhi, in 1812, for “Vite e Ritratti di illustri Italiani.”

159“On his arrival at Notre Dame, Napoleon ascended the throne, which was erected in front of the grand altar. Josephine took her place beside him, surrounded by the assembled sovereigns of Europe. Napoleon appeared singularly calm. I watched him narrowly, with a view of discovering whether his heart beat more highly beneath the imperial trappings than under the uniform of the guards; but I could observe no difference, and yet I was at the distance of only ten paces from him. The length of the ceremony, however, seemed to weary him; and I saw him several times check a yawn. Nevertheless, he did everything he was required to do, and did it with propriety. When the Pope anointed him with the triple unction on his head and both hands, I fancied, from the direction of his eyes, that he was thinking of wiping off the oil rather than of anything else; and I was so perfectly acquainted with the workings of his countenance, that I have no hesitation in saying that was really the thought that crossed his mind at that moment. During the ceremony of anointing, the Holy Father delivered that impressive prayer which concluded with these words: ‘Diffuse, O Lord, by my hands, the treasures of your grace and benediction on your servant Napoleon, whom, in spite of our personal unworthiness, we this day anoint emperor, in your name.’ Napoleon listened to this prayer with an air of pious devotion; but just as the Pope was about to take the crown, called the Crown of Charlemagne, from the altar, Napoleon seized it, and placed it on his own head. At that moment he was really handsome, and his countenance was lighted up with an expression of which no words can convey an idea.

“He had removed the wreath of laurel which he wore on entering the church, and which encircles his brow in the fine picture of Gérard. The crown was, perhaps, in itself, less becoming to him; but the expression excited by the act of putting it on, rendered him perfectly handsome.

“When the moment arrived for Josephine to take an active part in the grand drama, she descended from the throne and advanced towards the altar, where the emperor awaited her, followed by her retinue of court ladies, and having her train borne by the Princesses Caroline, Julie, Eliza, and Louis. One of the chief beauties of the Empress Josephine was not merely her fine figure, but the elegant turn of her neck, and the way in which she carried her head; indeed, her deportment altogether was conspicuous for dignity and grace. I have had the honor of being presented to many real princesses, to use the phrase of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, but I never saw one who, to my eyes, presented so perfect a personification of elegance and majesty. In Napoleon’s countenance I could read the conviction of all I have just said. He looked with an air of complacency at the empress as she advanced towards him; and when she knelt down, when the tears, which she could not repress, fell upon her clasped hands, as they were raised to Heaven, or rather to Napoleon, both then appeared to enjoy one of those fleeting moments of pure felicity which are unique in a lifetime, and serve to fill up a lustrum of years. The emperor performed, with peculiar grace, every action required of him during the ceremony; but his manner of crowning Josephine was most remarkable: after receiving the small crown, surmounted by the cross, he had first to place it on his own head, and then to transfer it to that of the empress. When the moment arrived for placing the crown on the head of the woman whom 160popular superstition regarded as his good genius, his manner was almost playful. He took great pains to arrange this little crown, which was placed over Josephine’s tiara of diamonds; he put it on, then took it off, and finally put it on again, as if to promise her she should wear it gracefully and lightly.”

The fate of France had no sooner been settled, as Napoleon believed, than it became necessary to decide on what should be done with Italy. The crown was offered to Joseph, who refused it. He did not want to renounce his claim to that of France, and finally Napoleon decided to take it himself. A new constitution was prepared for the country by the French Senate, and, when all was arranged, Napoleon started on April 1st for Italy. A great train accompanied him, and the trip was of especial interest. The party crossed the Alps by Mont Cenis, and the road was so bad that the carriages had to be taken to pieces and carried over, while the travellers walked. This trip really led to the fine roads which now cross Mont Cenis. At Alessandria Napoleon halted, and on the field of Marengo ordered a review of the manœuvres of the famous battle. At this review he even wore the coat and hat he had worn on that famous day four years before.

By the time the imperial party was ready to enter Milan, on May 13, it had increased to a triumphal procession, and the entry was attended by most enthusiastic demonstrations. On May 26 the coronation took place. The iron crown, used so long for the coronation of the Lombard kings, had been brought out for the occasion. When the point in the ceremony was reached where the crown was to be placed on Napoleon’s head, he seized it, and with his own hands placed it on his head, repeating in a loud voice the words inscribed on the crown: “God gives it to me; beware who touches it.” Josephine was not crowned Queen of Italy, but watched the scene from a gallery above the altar.

161Napoleon remained in Italy for another month, engaged in settling the affairs of the country. The order of the Crown of Iron was created, the constitution settled, Prince Eugène was made viceroy, and Genoa was joined to the Empire.

162

NAPOLEON REVIEWING HIS GUARDS.

Lithograph by Raffet.

Austria looked with jealousy on this increase of power, and particularly on the change in the institutions of her neighbors. In assuming control of the Italian and Germanic States, Napoleon gave the people his code and his methods; personal liberty, equality before the law, religious toleration, took the place of the unjust and narrow feudal institutions. These new ideas were quite as hateful to Austria as the disturbance in the balance of power, and more dangerous to her system. Russia and Prussia felt the same suspicion of Napoleon as Austria did. All three powers were constantly incited to action against France by England, who offered unlimited gold if they would but combine with her. In the summer of 1805 Austria joined England and Russia in a coalition against France. Prussia was not yet willing to commit herself.

The great army which for so many months had been gathering around Boulogne, preparing for the descent on England, waited anxiously for the arrival of the French fleet to cover its passage. But the fleet did not come; and, though hoping until the last that his plan would still be carried out, Napoleon quietly and swiftly made ready to transfer the army of England into the Grand Army, and to turn its march against his continental enemies.

Never was his great war rule, “Time is everything,” more thoroughly carried out. “Austria will employ fine phrases 164in order to gain time,” he wrote Talleyrand, “and to prevent me accomplishing anything this year; ... and in April I shall find one hundred thousand Russians in Poland, fed by England, twenty thousand English at Malta, and fifteen thousand Russians at Corfu. I should then be in a critical position. My mind is made up.” His orders flew from Boulogne to Paris, to the German States, to Italy, to his generals, to his naval commanders. By the 28th of August the whole army had moved. A month later it had crossed the Rhine, and Napoleon was at its head.

The force which he commanded was in every way an extraordinary one. Marmont’s enthusiastic description was in no way an exaggeration:

“This army, the most beautiful that was ever seen, was less redoubtable from the number of its soldiers than from their nature. Almost all of them had carried on war and had won victories. There still existed among them something of the enthusiasm and exaltation of the Revolutionary campaigns; but this enthusiasm was systematized. From the supreme chief down—the chiefs of the army corps, the division commanders, the common officers and soldiers—everybody was hardened to war. The eighteen months in splendid camps had produced a training, an ensemble, which has never existed since to the same degree, and a boundless confidence. This army was probably the best and the most redoubtable that modern times have seen.”

The force responded to the imperious genius of its commander with a beautiful precision which amazes and dazzles one who follows its march. So perfectly had all been arranged, so exactly did every corps and officer respond, that nine days after the passage of the Rhine, the army was in Bavaria, several marches in the rear of the enemy. The weather was terrible, but nothing checked them. The emperor himself set the example. Day and night he was on horseback in the midst of his troops; once for a week he did not take off his boots. When they lagged, or the enemy harassed them, he would gather each regiment into a circle, explain to it the position of the enemy, the imminence of a 165great battle, and his confidence in his troops. These harangues sometimes took place in driving snowstorms, the soldiers standing up to their knees in icy slush. By October 13th, such was the extraordinary march they had made, the emperor was able to issue this address to the army:

“Soldiers, a month ago we were encamped on the shores of the ocean, opposite England, when an impious league forced us to fly to the Rhine. Not a fortnight ago that river was passed; and the Alps, the Neckar, the Danube, and the Lech, the celebrated barriers of Germany, have not for a minute delayed our march.... The enemy, deceived by our manœuvres and the rapidity of our movements, is entirely turned.... But for the army before you, we should be in London to-day, have avenged six centuries of insult, and have liberated the sea.

“Remember to-morrow that you are fighting against the allies of England.

Four days after this address came the capitulation of Ulm—a “new Caudine Forks,” as Marmont called it. It was, as Napoleon said, a victory won by legs, instead of by arms. The great fatigue and the forced marches which the army had undergone had gained them sixty thousand prisoners, one hundred and twenty guns, ninety colors, more than thirty generals, at a cost of but fifteen hundred men, two-thirds of them but slightly wounded.

But there was no rest for the army. Before the middle of November it had so surrounded Vienna that the emperor and his court had fled to Brünn, seventy or eighty miles north of Vienna, to meet the Russians, who, under Alexander I., were coming from Berlin. Thither Napoleon followed them, but the Austrians retreated eastward, joining the Russians at Olmütz. The combined force of the allies was now some ninety thousand men. They had a strong reserve, and it looked as if the Prussian army was about to join them. Napoleon at Brünn had only some seventy or eighty thousand men, and was in the heart of the enemy’s country. Alexander, flattered by his aides, and confident that he was able to defeat the French, resolved to leave his strong position at Olmütz and seek battle with Napoleon.

166

NAPOLEON, 1805.

Engraved in 1812 by Massard, after Bouillon.

167The position the French occupied can be understood if one draws a rough diagram of a right-angled triangle, Brünn being at the right angle formed by two roads, one running south to Vienna, by which Napoleon had come, and the other running eastward to Olmütz. The hypotenuse of this angle, running from northeast to southwest, is formed by Napoleon’s army.

When the allies decided to leave Olmütz their plan was to march southwestward, in face of Napoleon’s line, get between him and Vienna, and thus cut off what they supposed was his base of supplies (in this they were mistaken, for Napoleon had, unknown to them, changed his base from Vienna to Bohemia), separate him from his Italian army, and drive him, routed, into Bohemia.

On the 27th of November the allies advanced, and their first encounter with a small French vanguard was successful. It gave them confidence, and they continued their march on the 28th, 29th, and 30th, gradually extending a long line facing westward and parallel with Napoleon’s line. The French emperor, while this movement was going on, was rapidly calling up his reserves and strengthening his position. By the first day of December Napoleon saw clearly what the allies intended to do, and had formed his plan. The events of that day confirmed his ideas. By nine o’clock in the evening he was so certain of the plan of the coming battle that he rode the length of his line, explaining to his troops the tactics of the allies, and what he himself proposed to do.

Napoleon’s appearance before the troops, his confident assurance of victory, called out a brilliant demonstration from the army. The divisions of infantry raised bundles of 168blazing straw on the ends of long poles, giving him an illumination as imposing as it was novel. It was a happy thought, for the day was the anniversary of his coronation.

The emperor remained in bivouac all night. At four o’clock of the morning of the 2d of December he was in the saddle. When the gray fog lifted he saw the enemy’s divisions arranged exactly as he had divined. Three corps faced his right—the southwest part of the hypotenuse. These corps had left a splendid position facing his centre, the heights of Pratzen.

This advance of the enemy had left their centre weak and unprotected, and had separated the body of the army from its right, facing Napoleon’s left. The enemy was in exactly the position Napoleon wished for the attack he had planned.

It was eight o’clock in the morning when the emperor galloped up his line, proclaiming to the army that the enemy had exposed himself, and crying out: “Close the campaign with a clap of thunder.” The generals rode to their positions, and at once the battle opened. Soult, who commanded the French centre, attacked the allies’ centre so unexpectedly that it was driven into retreat. The Emperor Alexander and his headquarters were in this part of the army, and though the young czar did his best to rouse his forces, it was a hopeless task. The Russian centre was defeated and the wings divided. At the same time the allies’ left, where the bulk of their army was massed in a marshy country of which they knew little, was engaged and held in check by Davoust, and their right was overcome by Lannes, Murat, and Bernadotte. As soon as the centre and right of the allies had been driven into retreat, Napoleon concentrated his forces on their left, the strongest part of his enemy. In a very short time the allies were driven back into the canals and lakes of the country, and many men and nearly all 169the artillery lost. Before night the routed enemy had fallen back to Austerlitz.

Of all Napoleon’s battles, Austerlitz was the one of which he was the proudest. It was here that he showed best the “divine side of war.”

The familiar note in which Napoleon announced to his brother Joseph the result of the battle, is a curious contrast to the oratorical bulletins which for some days flowed to Paris. His letter is dated Austerlitz, December 3, 1805:

“After manœuvring for a few days I fought a decisive battle yesterday. I defeated the combined armies commanded by the Emperors of Russia and Germany. Their force consisted of eighty thousand Russians and thirty thousand Austrians. I have made forty thousand prisoners, taken forty flags, one hundred guns, and all the standards of the Russian Imperial Guard.... Although I have bivouacked in the open air for a week, my health is good. This evening I am in bed in the beautiful castle of Monsieur de Kaunitz, and have changed my shirt for the first time in eight days.”

The battle of Austerlitz obliged Austria to make peace (the treaty was signed at Presburg on December 26, 1805), compelled Russia to retire disabled from the field, transformed the haughty Prussian ultimatim which had just been presented into humble submission, and changed the rejoicings of England over the magnificent naval victory of Trafalgar (October 21st) into despair. It even killed Pitt. Napoleon it enabled to make enormous strides in establishing a kingdom of the West. Naples was given to Joseph, the Bavarian Republic was made a kingdom for Louis, and the states between the Lahn, the Rhine, and the Upper Danube were formed into a league, called the Confederation of the Rhine, and Napoleon was made Protector.

170

1806. BATTLE OF JENA.

After the picture by Meissonier in the collection of Monsieur Edmond Simon.

171At the beginning of 1806 Napoleon was again in Paris. He had been absent but three months. Eight months of this year were spent in fruitless negotiations with England and in an irritating correspondence with Prussia. The latter country had many grievances against Napoleon, the sum of them all being that “French politics had been the scourge of humanity for the last fifteen years,” and that an “insatiable ambition was still the ruling passion of France.” By the end of September war was declared, and Napoleon, whose preparations had been conducted secretly, it being given out that he was going to Compiègne to hunt, suddenly joined his army.

The first week of October the Grand Army advanced from southern Germany towards the valley of the Saale. This movement brought them on the flanks of the Prussians, who were scattered along the upper Saale. The unexpected appearance of the French army, which was larger and much better organized than the Prussians, caused the latter to retreat towards the Elbe. The retreating army was in two divisions; the first crossing the Saale to Jena, the second falling back towards the Unstrut. As soon as Napoleon understood these movements he despatched part of his force under Davoust and Bernadotte to cut off the retreat of the second Prussian division, while he himself hurried on to Jena to force battle on the first. The Prussians were encamped at the foot of a height known as the Landgrafenberg. To command this height was to command the Prussian forces. By a series of determined and repeated efforts Napoleon reached the position desired, and by the morning of the 14th of October had his foes in his power. Advancing from the Landgrafenberg in three divisions, he turned the Prussian flanks at the same moment that he attacked their centre. The Prussians never fought better, perhaps, than at Jena. The movements of their cavalry awakened even Napoleon’s admiration, but they were surrounded and outnumbered, and the army was speedily broken into pieces and driven into a retreat.

While Napoleon was fighting at Jena, to the right at 172Auerstadt, Davoust was engaging Brunswick and his seventy thousand men with a force of twenty-seven thousand. In spite of the great difference in numbers the Prussians were unable to make any impression on the French; and Brunswick falling, they began to retreat towards Jena, expecting to join the other division of the army, of whose route they were ignorant. The result was frightful. The two flying armies suddenly encountered each other, and, pursued by the French on either side, were driven in confusion towards the Elbe.

On October 25th the French were at Berlin. Their entry was one of the great spectacles of the campaign. One particularly interesting incident was the visit paid to Napoleon by the Protestant and Calvinist French clergy. There were at that time twelve thousand French refugees in Berlin, victims of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. They were received with kindness by Napoleon, who told them they had good right to protection, and that their privileges and worship should be respected.

Jena brought Napoleon something like one hundred and sixty million francs in money, an enormous number of prisoners, guns, and standards, the glory of the entry of Berlin, and a great number of interesting articles for the Napoleon Museum of Paris, among them the column from the field of Rosbach, the sword, the ribbon of the black eagle, and the general’s sash of Frederick the Great, and the flags carried by his guards during the Seven Years’ War. But it did not secure him peace. The King of Prussia threw himself into the arms of Russia, and Napoleon advanced boldly into Poland to meet his enemy.

The Poles welcomed the French with joy. They hoped to find in Napoleon the liberator of their country, and they poured forth money and soldiers to reënforce him. “Our entry into Varsovia,” wrote Napoleon, “was a triumph, 173and the sentiments that the Poles of all classes show since our arrival cannot be expressed. Love of country and the national sentiment are not only entirely conserved in the heart of the people, but it has been intensified by misfortune. Their first passion, their first desire, is again to become a nation. The rich come from their châteaux, praying for the reëstablishment of the nation, and offering their children, their fortunes, and their influence.” Everything was done during the months the French remained in Poland, to flatter and aid the army.

The campaign against the Russians was carried on in Old Prussia, to the southeast of the Gulf of Dantzic. Its first great engagement was the battle of Eylau on February 8, 1807. This was the closest drawn battle Napoleon had ever fought. His loss was enormous, and he was saved only by a hair’s-breadth from giving the enemy the field of battle. After Eylau the main army went into winter quarters to repair its losses, while Marshal Lefebvre besieged Dantzic, a siege which military critics declare to be, after Sebastopol, the most celebrated of modern times. Dantzic capitulated in May. On June 14th the battle of Friedland was fought. This battle on the anniversary of Marengo, was won largely by Napoleon’s taking advantage of a blunder of his opponent. The French and the Russian armies were on the opposite banks of the Alle. Benningsen, the Russian commander, was marching towards Königsberg by the eastern bank. Napoleon was pursuing by the western bank. The French forces, however, were scattered; and Benningsen, thinking that he could engage and easily rout a portion of the army by crossing the river at Friedland, suddenly led his army across to the western bank. Napoleon utilized this unwise movement with splendid skill. Calling up his re-enforcements he attacked the enemy solidly. As soon as the Russian centre was broken, defeat was inevitable, for the retreating army was driven into the river, and thousands lost. Many were pursued through the streets of Friedland by the French, and slaughtered there. The battle was hardly over when Napoleon wrote to Josephine:

174

MEETING OF FREDERICK WILLIAM III., KING OF PRUSSIA, NAPOLEON, AND ALEXANDER I., EMPEROR OF RUSSIA, AT TILSIT. THE FIGURE ON THE LEFT IS FREDERICK WILLIAM; THAT ON THE RIGHT IS ALEXANDER.

Engraved by Gügel, after a drawing by Wolff. The meeting occurred June 26, 1807, in the pavilion which had been erected for that purpose on the River Nieman.

“My Dear: I write you only a few words, for I am very tired. I have been bivouacking for several days. My children have worthily celebrated the anniversary of Marengo. The battle of Friedland will be just as celebrated and as glorious for my people. The whole Russian army routed, eighty guns captured, thirty thousand men taken prisoners or killed, with twenty-five generals; the Russian guard annihilated; it is the worthy sister of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Jena. The bulletin will tell you the rest. My loss is not large. I successfully out-manœuvred the enemy.

Friedland ended the war. Directly after the battle Napoleon went to Tilsit, which for the time was made neutral ground, and here he met the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia, and the map of Europe was made over.

The relations between the royal parties seem to have been for the most part amiable. Napoleon became very fond of Alexander I. at Tilsit. “Were he a woman I think I should make love to him,” he wrote Josephine once. Alexander, young and enthusiastic, had a deep admiration for Napoleon’s genius, and the two became good comrades. The King of Prussia, overcome by his losses, was a sorrowful figure in their company. It was their habit at Tilsit to go out every day on horseback, but the king was awkward, always crowding against Napoleon, beside whom he rode, and making his two companions wait for him to climb from the saddle when he returned. Their dinners together were dull, and the emperors, very much in the style of two careless, fun-loving youths, bored by a solemn elderly relative, were accustomed after dinner to make excuses to go home early but later to meet at the apartments of one or the other, and to talk together until after midnight.

176

NAPOLEON RECEIVING QUEEN LOUISE OF PRUSSIA, JULY 6, 1807.

By Gosse. Versailles gallery.

177Just before the negotiation were completed, Queen Louise arrived, and tried to use her influence with Napoleon to obtain at least Magdeburg. Napoleon accused the queen to Las Cases of trying to win him at first by a scene of high tragedy. But when they came to meet at dinner, her policy was quite another. “The Queen of Prussia dined with me to-day,” wrote Napoleon to the empress on July 7th. “I had to defend myself against being obliged to make some further concessions to her husband; ...” and the next day, “The Queen of Prussia is really charming; she is full of coquetterie towards me. But do not be jealous; I am an oilcloth, off which all that runs. It would cost me too dear to play the galant.”

The intercessions of the queen really hurried on the treaty. When she learned that it had been signed, and her wishes not granted, she was indignant, wept bitterly, and refused to go to the second dinner to which Napoleon had invited her. Alexander was obliged to go himself to decide her. After the dinner, when she withdrew, Napoleon accompanied her. On the staircase she stopped.

“Can it be,” she said, “that after I have had the happiness of seeing so near me the man of the age and of history, I am not to have the liberty and satisfaction of assuring him that he has attached me for life?...”

“Madame, I am to be pitied,” said the emperor gravely. “It is my evil star.”

By the treaty of Tilsit the map of the continent was transformed. Prussia lost half her territory. Dantzic was made a free town. Magdeburg went to France. Hesse-Cassel and the Prussian possessions west of the Elbe went to form the kingdom of Westphalia. The King of Saxony received the grand duchy of Warsaw. Finland and the Danubian principalities were to go to Alexander in exchange for certain Ionian islands and the Gulf of Cattaro in Dalmatia.

178Of far more importance than this change of boundaries was the private understanding which the emperors came to at Tilsit. They agreed that the Ottoman Empire was to remain as it was unless they saw fit to change its boundaries. Russia might occupy the principalities as far as the Danube. Peace was to be made, if possible, with England, and the two powers were to work together to bring it about. If they failed, Russia was to force Sweden to close her ports to Great Britain, and Napoleon was to do the same in Denmark, Portugal, and the States of the Pope. Nothing was to be done about Poland by Napoleon.

According to popular belief, the secret treaty of Tilsit included plans much more startling: the two emperors pledged themselves to drive the Bourbons from Spain and the Braganzas from Portugal, and to replace them by Bonapartes; give Russia Turkey in Europe and as much of Asia as she wanted; end the temporal power of the Pope; place France in Egypt; shut the English from the Mediterranean; and to undertake several other equally ambitious enterprises.

Napoleon’s influence in Europe was now at its zenith. He was literally “king of kings,” as he was popularly called, and the Bonaparte family was rapidly displacing the Bourbon. Joseph had been made King of Naples in 1806. Eliza was Princess of Lucques and Piombino. Louis, married to Hortense, had been King of Holland since 1806. Pauline had been the Princess Borghese since 1803; Caroline, the wife of Murat, was Grand Duchess of Cleves and Berg; Jerome was King of Westphalia; Eugène de Beauharnais, Viceroy of Italy, was married to a princess of Bavaria.

The members of Napoleon’s family were elevated only on condition that they act strictly in accordance with his plans. They must marry so as to cement the ties necessary to his kingdom. They must arrange their time, form their friendships, spend their money, as it best served the interests of his great scheme of conquest. The interior affairs of their kingdoms were in reality centralized in his hands as perfectly as those of France. He watched the private and public conduct of his kings and nobles, and criticised them with absolute frankness and extraordinary common sense. The ground on which he protected them is well explained in the following letter, written in January, 1806, to Count Miot de Mélito:

180

JOSEPH BONAPARTE IN HIS CORONATION ROBES. 1808.

Engraved by C. S. Pradier in 1813, after Gérard.

181“You are going to rejoin my brother. You will tell him that I have made him King of Naples; that he will continue to be Grand Elector, and that nothing will be changed as regards his relations with France. But impress upon him that the least hesitation, the slightest wavering, will ruin him entirely. I have another person in my mind who will replace him should he refuse.... At present all feelings of affection yield to state reasons. I recognize only those who serve me as relations. My fortune is not attached to the name of Bonaparte, but to that of Napoleon. It is with my fingers and with my pen that I make children. To-day I can love only those whom I esteem. Joseph must forget all our ties of childhood. Let him make himself esteemed. Let him acquire glory. Let him have a leg broken in battle. Then I shall esteem him. Let him give up his old ideas. Let him not dread fatigue. Look at me: the campaign I have just terminated, the movement, the excitement, have made me stout. I believe that if all the kings of Europe were to coalesce against me, I should have a ridiculous paunch.”

Joseph, bent on being a great king, boasted now and then to Napoleon of his position in Naples. His brother never failed to silence him with the truth, if it was blunt and hard to digest.

“When you talk about the fifty thousand enemies of the queen, you make me laugh.... You exaggerate the degree of hatred which the queen has left behind at Naples: you do not know mankind. There are not twenty persons who hate her as you suppose, and there are not twenty persons who would not surrender to one of her smiles. The strongest feeling of hatred on the part of a nation is that inspired by another nation. Your fifty thousand men are the enemies of the French.”

With Jerome, Napoleon had been particularly incensed because of his marriage with Miss Patterson. In 1804 he wrote of that affair:

“... Jerome is wrong to think that he will be able to count upon any weakness on my part, for, not having the rights of a father, I cannot entertain for him the feeling of a father; a father allows himself to be blinded, and it pleases him to be blinded because he identifies his son with himself.... But what am I to Jerome? Sole instrument of my destiny, I owe nothing to my brothers. They have made an abundant harvest out of what I have accomplished in the way of glory; but for all that, they must not abandon the field and deprive me of the aid I have a right to expect from them. They will cease to be anything for me, directly they take a road opposed to mine. If I exact so much from my brothers who have already rendered many services, if I have abandoned the one who, in mature age [Lucien], refused to follow my advice, what must not Jerome, who is still young, and who is known only for his neglect of duty, expect? If he does nothing for me, I shall see in this the decree of destiny, which has decided that I shall do nothing for him....”

182

JEROME BONAPARTE. 1808.

“Engraved by I. G. Müller, knight, and Frederich Müller, son, engravers to his majesty the King of Würtemberg. After a design made at Cassel by Madame Kinson.”

183Jerome yielded later to his brother’s wishes, and in 1807 was rewarded with the new kingdom of Westphalia. Napoleon kept close watch of him, however, and his letters are full of admirable counsels. The following is particularly valuable, showing, as it does, that Napoleon believed a government would be popular and enduring only in proportion to the liberty and prosperity it gave the citizens.

“What the German peoples desire with impatience [he told Jerome], is that persons who are not of noble birth, and who have talents, shall have an equal right to your consideration and to public employment (with those who are of noble birth); that every sort of servitude and of intermediate obligations between the sovereign and the lowest class of the people should be entirely abolished. The benefits of the Code Napoleon, the publicity of legal procedure, the establishment of the jury system, will be the distinctive characteristics of your monarchy.... I count more on the effect of these benefits for the extension and strengthening of your kingdom, than upon the result of the greatest victories. Your people ought to enjoy a liberty, an equality, a well-being, unknown to the German peoples.... What people would wish to return to the arbitrary government of Prussia, when it has tasted the benefits of a wise and liberal administration? The peoples of Germany, France, Italy, Spain, desire equality, and demand that liberal ideas should prevail.... Be a constitutional king.”

Louis in Holland was never a king to Napoleon’s mind. He especially disliked his quarrels with his wife. In 1807 Napoleon wrote Louis, apropos of his domestic relations, a letter which is a good example of scores of others he sent to one and another of his kings and princes about their private affairs.

184

MARIE PAULINE BONAPARTE, PRINCESS BORGHESE.

This graceful portrait of the most beautiful of Napoleon’s sisters, is from the brush of Madame Benoit, and belongs to the Versailles collection.

185“You govern that country too much like a Capuchin. The goodness of a king should be full of majesty.... A king orders, and asks nothing from any one.... When people say of a king that he is good, his reign is a failure.... Your quarrels with the queen are known to the public. You should exhibit at home that paternal and effeminate character you show in your manner of governing.... You treat a young wife as you would command a regiment. Distrust the people by whom you are surrounded; they are nobles.... You have the best and most virtuous of wives and you render her miserable. Allow her to dance as much as she likes; it is in keeping with her age. I have a wife who is forty years of age; from the field of battle I write to her to go to balls, and you wish a young woman of twenty to live in a cloister, or, like a nurse, to be always washing her children.... Render the mother of your children happy. You have only one way of doing so, by showing her esteem and confidence. Unfortunately you have a wife who is too virtuous: if you had a coquette, she would lead you by the nose. But you have a proud wife, who is offended and grieved at the mere idea that you can have a bad opinion of her. You should have had a wife like some of those whom I know in Paris. She would have played you false, and you would have been at her feet....

With his sisters he was quite as positive. While Josephine adapted herself with grace and tact to her great position, the Bonaparte sisters, especially Pauline, were constantly irritating somebody by their vanity and jealousy. The following letter to Pauline shows how little Napoleon spared them when their performances came to his ears:

“Madame and Dear Sister: I have learned with pain that you have not the good sense to conform to the manners and customs of the city of Rome; that you show contempt for the inhabitants, and that your eyes are unceasingly turned towards Paris. Although occupied with vast affairs, I nevertheless desire to make known my wishes, and I hope that you will conform to them.

“I love your husband and his family, be amiable, accustom yourself to the usages of Rome, and put this in your head: that if you follow bad advice you will no longer be able to count upon me. You may be sure that you will find no support in Paris, and that I shall never receive you there without your husband. If you quarrel with him, it will be your fault, and France will be closed to you. You will sacrifice your happiness and my esteem.

186

ELISA BACCIOCHI, GRAND DUCHESS OF TUSCANY, ELDEST SISTER OF NAPOLEON (1777–1820).

Engraved by Morghen in 1814, after Counis.

187This supervision of policy, relations, and conduct extended to his generals. The case of General Berthier is one to the point. Chief of Napoleon’s staff in Italy, he had fallen in love at Milan with a Madame Visconti, and had never been able to conquer his passion. In Egypt Napoleon called him “chief of the lovers’ faction,” that part of the army which, because of their desire to see wives or sweethearts, were constantly revolting against the campaign, and threatening to desert.

In 1804 Berthier had been made marshal, and in 1806 Napoleon wished to give him the princedom of Neufchatel; but it was only on condition that he give up Madame de Visconti, and marry.

“I exact only one condition, which is that you get married. Your passion has lasted long enough. It has become ridiculous; and I have the right to hope that the man whom I have called my companion in arms, who will be placed alongside of me by posterity, will no longer abandon himself to a weakness without example.... You know that no one likes you better than I do, but you know also that the first condition of my friendship is that it must be made subordinate to my esteem.”

Berthier fled to Josephine for help, weeping like a child; but she could do nothing, and he married the woman chosen for him. Three months after the ceremony, the husband of Madame de Visconti died and Berthier, broken-hearted, wrote to the Prince Borghese:

“You know how often the emperor pressed me to obtain a divorce for Madame de Visconti. But a divorce was always repugnant to the feelings in which I was educated, and therefore I waited. To-day Madame de Visconti is free, and I might have been the happiest of men. But the emperor forced me into a marriage which hinders me from uniting myself to the only woman I ever loved. Ah, my dear prince, all that the emperor has done and may yet do for me, will be no compensation for the eternal misfortunes to which he has condemned me.”

Never was Napoleon more powerful than at the end of the period we have been tracing so rapidly, never had he so looked the emperor. An observer who watched him through 188the Te Deum sung at Notre Dame in his honor, on his return from Tilsit, says: “His features, always calm and serious, recalled the cameos which represent the Roman emperors. He was small; still his whole person, in this imposing ceremony, was in harmony with the part he was playing. A sword glittering with precious stones was at his side, and the glittering diamond called the “Regent” formed its pommel. Its brilliancy did not let us forget that this sword was the sharpest and the most victorious that the world had seen since those of Alexander and Cæsar.”

Certainly he never worked more prodigiously. The campaigns of 1805–1807 were, in spite of their rapid movement,—indeed, because of it,—terribly fatiguing for him; that they were possible at all was due mainly to the fact that they had been made on paper so many times in his study. When he was consul the only room opening from his study was filled with enormous maps of all the countries of the world. This room was presided over by a competent cartographer. Frequently these maps were brought to the study and spread upon the floor. Napoleon would get down upon them on all fours, and creep about, compass and red pencil in hand, comparing and measuring distances, and studying the configuration of the land. If he was in doubt about anything, he referred it to his librarian, who was expected to give him the fullest details.

Attached to his cabinet were skilful translators, whose business was not only to translate diplomatic correspondence, but to gather from foreign sources full information about the armies of his enemies. Méneval declares that the emperor knew the condition of foreign armies as well as he did that of his own.

The amount of information he had about other lands was largely due to his ability to ask questions. When he sent to an agent for a report, he rattled at him a volley of questions, 189always to the point; and the agent knew that it would never do to let one go unanswered.

While carrying on the Austrian and Prussian campaigns of 1805–1807, Napoleon showed, as never before, his extraordinary capacity for attending to everything. The number of despatches he sent out was incredible. In the first three months of 1807, while he was in Poland, he wrote over seventeen hundred letters and despatches.

It was not simply war, the making of kingdoms, the directions of his new-made kings; minor affairs of the greatest variety occupied him. While at Boulogne, tormented by the failure of the English invasion and the war against Austria, he ordered that horse races should be established “in those parts of the empire the most remarkable for the horses they breed; prizes shall be awarded to the fleetest horses.” The very day after the battle of Friedland, he was sending orders to Paris about the form and site of a statue to the memory of the Bishop of Vannes. He criticised from Poland the quarrels of Parisian actresses, ordered canals, planned there for the Bourse and the Odeon Theatre. The newspapers he watched as he did when in Paris, reprimanded this editor, suspended that, forbade the publication of news of disasters to the French navy, censured every item honorable to his enemies. To read the bulletins issued from Jena to Friedland, one would believe that the writer had no business other than that of regulating the interior affairs of France. This care of details went, as Pasquier says, to the “point of minuteness, or, to speak plainly, to that of charlatanism;” but it certainly did produce a deep impression upon France. That he could establish himself five hundred leagues from Paris, in the heart of winter, in a country encircled by his enemies, and yet be in daily communication with his capital, could direct even its least important affairs as if he were present, could know what every person of influence, from 190the Secretary of State to the humblest newspaper man, was doing, caused a superstitious feeling to rise in France, and in all Europe, that the emperor of the French people was not only omnipotent, but omnipresent.

When Napoleon, in 1805, was obliged to abandon the descent on England and turn the magnificent army gathered at Boulogne against Austria, he by no means gave up the idea of one day humbling his enemy. Persistently throughout the campaigns of 1805–1807 his despatches and addresses remind Frenchmen that vengeance is only deferred.

In every way he strives to awaken indignation and hatred against England. The alliance which has compelled him to turn his armies against his neighbors on the Continent, he characterizes as an “unjust league fomented by the hatred and gold of England.” He tells the soldiers of the Grand Army that it is English gold which has transported the Russian army from the extremities of the universe to fight them. He charges the horrors of Austerlitz upon the English. “May all the blood shed, may all these misfortunes, fall upon the perfidious islanders who have caused them! May the cowardly oligarchies of London support the consequences of so many woes!” From now on, all the treaties he makes are drawn up with a view to humbling “the eternal enemies of the Continent.”

192

THE QUEEN OF NAPLES AND MARIE MURAT.

By Madame Vigée-Lebrun. This canvas, executed in 1807, is in the museum of Versailles. Caroline of Naples is represented with her eldest child, Marie Lætitia Josèphe Murat, afterwards Countess Pepoli.

193Negotiation for peace went on, it is true, in 1806, between the two countries. Napoleon offered to return Hanover and Malta. He offered several things which belonged to other people, but England refused all of his combinations; and when, a few days after Jena, he addressed his army, it was to tell them: “We shall not lay down our arms until we have obliged the English, those eternal enemies of our nation, to renounce their plan of troubling the Continent and their tyranny of the seas.”

A month later—November 21, 1806—he proclaimed the famous Decree of Berlin, his future policy towards Great Britain. As she had shut her enemies from the sea, he would shut her from the land. The “continental blockade,” as this struggle of land against sea was called, was only using England’s own weapon of war; but it was using it with a sweeping audacity, thoroughly Napoleonic in conception and in the proposed execution. Henceforth, all communication was forbidden between the British Isles and France and her allies. Every Englishman found under French authority—and that was about all the Continent as the emperor estimated it—was a prisoner of war. Every dollar’s worth of English property found within Napoleon’s boundaries, whether it belonged to rich trader or inoffensive tourist, was prize of war. If one remembers the extent of the seaboard which Napoleon at that moment commanded, the full peril of this menace to English commerce is clear. From St. Petersburg to Trieste there was not a port, save those of Denmark and Portugal, which would not close at his bidding. At Tilsit he and Alexander had entered into an agreement to complete this seaboard, to close the Baltic, the Channel, the European Atlantic, and the Mediterranean to the English. This was nothing else than asking Continental Europe to destroy her commerce for their sakes.

194

JOACHIM MURAT (1771–1815).

Engraved by Ruotte, after Gros.

195There were several serious uncertainties in the scheme. What retaliation would England make? Could Napoleon and Alexander agree long enough to succeed in dividing the valuable portions of the continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa? Would the nations cheerfully give up the English cottons and tweeds they had been buying, the boots they had been wearing, the cutlery and dishes they had been using? Would they cheerfully see their own products lie uncalled for in their warehouses, for the sake of aiding a foreign monarch—although the most brilliant and powerful on earth—to carry out a vast plan for crushing an enemy who was not their enemy? It remained to be seen.

In the meantime there was the small part of the coast line remaining independent to be joined to the portion already blockaded to the English. There was no delay in Napoleon’s action. Denmark was ordered to choose between war with England and war with France. Portugal was notified that if her ports were not closed in forty days the French and Spanish armies would invade her. England gave a drastic reply to Napoleon’s measures. In August she appeared before Copenhagen, seized the Danish fleet, and for three days bombarded the town. This unjustifiable attack on a nation with which she was at peace horrified Europe, and it supported the emperor in pushing to the uttermost the Berlin Decree. He made no secret of his determination. In a diplomatic audience at Fontainebleau, October 14, 1807, he declared:

“Great Britain shall be destroyed. I have the means of doing it, and they shall be employed. I have three hundred thousand men devoted to this object, and an ally who has three hundred thousand to support them. I will permit no nation to receive a minister from Great Britain until she shall have renounced her maritime usages and tyranny; and I desire you, gentlemen, to convey this determination to your respective sovereigns.”

Such an alarming extent did the blockade threaten to take, that even our minister to France, Mr. Armstrong, began to be nervous. His diplomatic acquaintances told him cynically, “You are much favored, but it won’t last;” and, in fact, it was not long before it was evident that the United 196States was not to be allowed to remain neutral. Napoleon’s notice to Mr. Armstrong was clear and decisive:

“Since America suffers her vessels to be searched, she adopts the principle that the flag does not cover the goods. Since she recognizes the absurd blockades laid by England, consents to having her vessels incessantly stopped, sent to England, and so turned aside from their course, why should the Americans not suffer the blockade laid by France? Certainly France is no more blockaded by England than England by France. Why should Americans not equally suffer their vessels to be searched by French ships? Certainly France recognizes that these measures are unjust, illegal, and subversive of national sovereignty; but it is the duty of nations to resort to force, and to declare themselves against things which dishonor them and disgrace their independence.”

The attempt to force Portugal to close her ports caused war. In all but one particular she had obeyed Napoleon’s orders: she had closed her ports, detained all Englishmen in her borders, declared war; but her king refused to confiscate the property of British subjects in Portugal. This evasion furnished Napoleon an excuse for refusing to believe in the sincerity of her pretensions. “Continue your march,” he wrote to Junot, who had been ordered into the country a few days before (October 12, 1807). “I have reason to believe that there is an understanding with England, so as to give the British troops time to arrive from Copenhagen.”

Without waiting for the results of the invasion, he and the King of Spain divided up Portugal between them. If their action was premature, Portugal did nothing to gainsay them; for when Junot arrived at Lisbon in December, he found the country without a government, the royal family having fled in fright to Brazil. There was only one thing now to be done; Junot must so establish himself as to hold the country against the English, who naturally would resent the injury done their ally. From St. Petersburg to Trieste, Napoleon now held the seaboard.

197But he was not satisfied. Spain was between him and Portugal. If he was going to rule Western Europe he ought to possess her. There is no space here to trace the intrigues with the weak and vicious factions of the Spanish court, which ended in Napoleon’s persuading Charles IV. to cede his rights to the Spanish throne and to become his pensioner, and Ferdinand, the heir apparent, to abdicate; and which placed Joseph Bonaparte, King of Naples, on the Spanish throne, and put Murat, Charlotte Bonaparte’s husband, in Joseph’s place.

From beginning to end the transfer of the Spanish crown from Bourbon to Bonaparte was dishonorable and unjustifiable. It is true that the government of Spain was corrupt. No greater mismanagement could be conceived, no more scandalous court. Unquestionably the country would have been far better off under Napoleonic institutions. But to despoil Spain was to be false to an ally which had served him for years with fidelity, and at an awful cost to herself. It is true that her service had been through fear, not love. It is true that at one critical moment (when Napoleon was in Poland, in 1807) she had tried to escape; but, nevertheless, it remained a fact that for France Spain had lost colonies, sacrificed men and money, and had seen her fleet go down at Trafalgar. In taking her throne, Napoleon had none of the excuses which had justified him in interfering in Italy, in Germany, in Holland, in Switzerland. This was not a conquest of war, not confiscation on account of the perfidy of an ally, not an attempt to answer the prayers of a people for a more liberal government.

If Spain had submitted to the change, she would have been purchasing good government at the price of national honor. But Spain did not submit. She, as well as all disinterested lookers-on in Europe, was revolted by the baseness of the deed. No one has ever explained better the feeling 198which the intrigues over the Spanish throne caused than Napoleon himself:

“I confess I embarked badly in the affair [he told Las Cases at St. Helena]. The immorality of it was too patent, the injustice far too cynical, and the whole thing too villainous; hence I failed. The attempt is seen now only in its hideous nudity, stripped of all that is grand, of all the numerous benefits which I intended. Posterity would have extolled it, however, if I had succeeded, and rightly, perhaps, because of its great and happy results.”

It was the Spanish people themselves, not the ruling house, who resented the transfer from Bourbon to Bonaparte.

No sooner was it noised through Spain that the Bourbons had really abdicated, and Joseph Bonaparte had been named king, than an insurrection was organized simultaneously all over the country. Some eighty-four thousand French troops were scattered through the Peninsula, but they were powerless before the kind of warfare which now began. Every defile became a battle-ground, every rock hid a peasant, armed and waiting for French stragglers, messengers, supply parties. The remnant of the French fleets escaped from Trafalgar, and now at Cadiz, was forced to surrender. Twenty-five thousand French soldiers laid down their arms at Baylen, but the Spaniards refused to keep their capitulation treaties. The prisoners were tortured by the peasants in the most barbarous fashion, crucified, burned, sawed asunder. Those who escaped the popular vengeance were sent to the Island of Cabrera, where they lived in the most abject fashion. It was only in 1814 that the remnant of this army was released. King Joseph was obliged to flee to Vittoria a week after he reached his capital.

The misfortunes of Spain were followed by greater ones in Portugal. Junot was defeated by an English army at Vimeiro in August, 1808, and capitulated on condition that his army be taken back to France without being disarmed.

Napoleon amazed at this unexpected popular uprising in Spain, and angry that the spell of invincibility under which his armies had fought, was broken, resolved to undertake the Peninsular war himself. But before a campaign in Spain could be entered upon, it was necessary to know that all the inner and outer wheels of the great machine he had devised for dividing the world and crushing England were revolving perfectly.

Since the treaty of Tilsit he had done much at home for this machine. The finances were in splendid condition. Public works of great importance were going on all over the kingdom; the court was luxurious and brilliant, and the money it scattered, encouraged the commercial and manufacturing classes. Never had fêtes been more brilliant than those which welcomed Napoleon back to Paris in 1807; never had the season at Fontainebleau been gayer or more magnificent than it was that year.

All of those who had been instrumental in bringing prosperity and order to France were rewarded in 1807 with splendid gifts from the indemnities levied on the enemies. The marshals of the Grand Army received from eighty thousand to two hundred thousand dollars apiece; twenty-five generals were given forty thousand dollars each; the civil functionaries were not forgotten; thus Monsieur de Ségur received forty thousand dollars as a sign of the emperor’s 200gratification at the way he had administered etiquette in the young court.

It was at this period that Napoleon founded a new nobility as a further means of rewarding those who had rendered brilliant services to France. This institution was designed, too, as a means of reconciling old and new France. It created the title of prince, duke, count, baron, and knight; and those receiving these titles were at the same time given domains in the conquered provinces, sufficient to permit them to establish themselves in good style.

The drawing up of the rules which were to govern this new order occupied the gravest men of the country, Cambacérès, Saint-Martin, Hauterive, Portalis, Pasquier. Among other duties they had to prepare the armorial bearings. Napoleon refused to allow the crown to go on the new escutcheons. He wished no one but himself to have a right to use that symbol. A substitute was found in the panache, the number of plumes showing the rank.

Napoleon used the new favors at his command freely, creating in all, after 1807, forty-eight thousand knights, one thousand and ninety barons, three hundred and eighty-eight counts, thirty-one dukes, and three princes. All members of the old nobility who were supporting his government were given titles, but not those which they formerly held. Naturally this often led to great dissatisfaction, the bearers of ancient names preferring a lower rank which had been their family’s for centuries to one higher, but unhallowed by time and tradition. Thus Madame de Montmorency rebelled obstinately against being made a countess,—she had been a baroness under the old régime,—and, as the Montmorencys claimed the honor of being called the first Christian barons, she felt justly that the old title was a far prouder one than any Napoleon could give her. But a countess she had to remain.

201In his efforts to win for himself the services of all those whom blood and fortune had made his natural supporters, the emperor tried again to reconcile Lucien. In November, 1807, Napoleon visited Italy, and at Mantua a secret interview took place between the brothers. Lucien, in his “Memoirs,” gives a dramatic description of the way in which Napoleon spread the kingdoms of half a world before him and offered him his choice.

“He struck a great blow with his hand in the middle of the immense map of Europe which was extended on the table, by the side of which we were standing. ‘Yes, choose,’ he said; ‘you see I am not talking in the air. All this is mine, or will soon belong to me; I can dispose of it already. Do you want Naples? I will take it from Joseph, who, by the by, does not care for it; he prefers Mortefontaine, Italy—the most beautiful jewel in my imperial crown? Eugène is but viceroy, and, far from despising it, he hopes only that I shall give it to him, or, at least, leave it to him if he survives me; he is likely to be disappointed in waiting, for I shall live ninety years. I must, for the perfect consolidation of my empire. Besides, Eugène will not suit me in Italy after his mother is divorced. Spain? Do you not see it falling into the hollow of my hand, thanks to the blunders of my dear Bourbons, and to the follies of your friend, the Prince of Peace? Would you not be well pleased to reign there, where you have been only ambassador? Once for all, what do you want? Speak! Whatever you wish, or can wish, is yours, if your divorce precedes mine.’”

Until midnight the two brothers wrestled with the question between them. Neither would abandon his position; and when Lucien finally went away, his face was wet with tears. To Méneval, who conducted him to his inn in the town, he said, in bidding him carry his farewell to the emperor, “It may be forever.” It was not. Seven years later the brothers met again, but the map of Europe was forever rolled up for Napoleon.

The essential point in carrying out the Tilsit plan was, the fidelity of Alexander; and Napoleon resolved, before going into the Spanish war, to meet the Emperor of Russia. This was the more needful, because Austria had begun to show signs of hostility.

202

ALEXANDER I. OF RUSSIA. 1805.

203The meeting took place in September, 1807, at Erfurt, in Saxony, and lasted a month. Napoleon acted as host, and prepared a splendid entertainment for his guests. The company he had gathered was most brilliant. Beside the Russian and French emperors, with ambassadors and suites, were the Kings of Saxony, Bavaria, and Würtemberg, the Prince Primate, the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of Baden, the Dukes of Saxony, and the Princes of the Confederation of the Rhine.

The palaces where the emperors were entertained, were furnished with articles from the Garde-Meuble of France. The leading actors of the Théâtre Français gave the best French tragedies to a house where there was, as Napoleon had promised Talma, a “parterre full of kings.” There was a hare hunt on the battle-field of Jena, to which even Prince William of Prussia was invited, and where the party breakfasted on the spot where Napoleon had bivouacked in 1806, the night before the battle. There were balls where Alexander danced, “but not I,” wrote the emperor to Josephine; “forty years are forty years.” Goethe and Wieland were both presented to Napoleon at Erfurt, and the emperor had long conversations with them.

In spite of these gayeties Napoleon and Alexander found time to renew their Tilsit agreement. They were to make war and peace together. Alexander was to uphold Napoleon in giving Joseph the throne of Spain, and to keep the continent tranquil during the Peninsular war. Napoleon was to support Alexander in getting possession of Finland, Moldavia, and Wallachia. The two emperors were to write and sign a letter inviting England to join them in peace negotiations.

204

MARSHAL LEFEBVRE. ABOUT 1796.

Engraved in 1798 by Fiesinger, after Mengelberg.

205This was done promptly; but when England insisted that representatives of the government which was acting in Spain in the name of Ferdinand VII. should be admitted to the proposed meeting, the peace negotiations abruptly ended. Under the circumstances Napoleon could not recognize that government.

The emperor was ready to conduct the Spanish war. His first move was to send into the country a large body of veterans from Germany. Before this time the army had been made up of young recruits upon whom the Spanish looked with contempt. The men, inexperienced and demoralized by the kind of guerrilla warfare which was waged against them, had become discouraged. The worst feature of their case was that they did not believe in the war. That brave story-teller Marbot relates frankly how he felt:

“As a soldier I was bound to fight any one who attacked the French army, but I could not help recognizing in my inmost conscience that our cause was a bad one, and that the Spaniards were quite right in trying to drive out strangers who, after coming among them in the guise of friends, were wishing to dethrone their sovereign and take forcible possession of the kingdom. This war, therefore, seemed to me wicked; but I was a soldier, and I must march or be charged with cowardice. The greater part of the army thought as I did, and, like me, obeyed orders all the same.”

The appearance of the veterans and the presence of the emperor at once put a new face on the war; the morale of the army was raised, and the respect of the Spaniards inspired.

The emperor speedily made his way to Madrid, though he had to fight three battles to get there, and began at once a work of reorganization. Decree followed decree. Feudal rights were abolished, the inquisition was ended, the number of convents was reduced, the custom-houses between the various provinces were done away with, a political and military programme was made out for King Joseph. Many bulletins were sent to the Spanish people. In all of them they were told that it was the English who were their enemies, 206not their allies; that they came to the Peninsular not to help, but to inspire to false confidence, and to lead them astray. Napoleon’s plan and purpose could not be mistaken.

“Spaniards [he proclaimed at Madrid], your destinies are in my hands. Reject the poison which the English have spread among you; let your king be certain of your love and your confidence, and you will be more powerful and happier than ever. I have destroyed all that was opposed to your prosperity and greatness; I have broken the fetters which weighed upon the people; a liberal constitution gives you, instead of an absolute, a tempered and constitutional monarchy. It depends upon you that this constitution shall become law. But if all my efforts prove useless, and if you do not respond to my confidence, it will only remain for me to treat you as conquered provinces, and to find my brother another throne. I shall then place the crown of Spain on my own head, and I shall know how to make the wicked tremble; for God has given me the power and the will necessary to surmount all obstacles.”

But a flame had been kindled in Spain which no number of Napoleonic bulletins could quench—a fanatical frenzy inspired by the priests, a blind passion of patriotism. The Spaniards wanted their own, even if it was feudal and oppressive. A constitution which they had been forced to accept, seemed to them odious and shameful, if liberal.

The obstinacy and horror of their resistance was nowhere so tragic and so heroic as at the siege of Saragossa, going on at the time Napoleon, at Madrid, was issuing his decrees and proclamations. Saragossa had been fortified when the insurrection against King Joseph broke out. The town was surrounded by convents, which were turned into forts. Men, women, and children took up arms, and the priests, cross in hand, and dagger at the belt, led them. No word of surrender was tolerated within the walls. At the beginning Napoleon regarded the defence of Saragossa as a small affair, and wished to try persuasion on the people. There was at Paris a well known Aragon noble whom he urged to go to Saragossa and calm the popular excitement. The man 207accepted the mission. When he arrived in the town the people hurried forth to meet him, supposing he had come to aid in the resistance. At the first word of submission he spoke he was assailed by the mob, and for nearly a year lay in a dungeon.

The peasants of the vicinity of Saragossa were quartered in the town, each family being given a house to defend. Nothing could drive them from their posts. They took an oath to resist until death, and regarded the probable destruction of themselves and their families with stoical indifference. The priests had so aroused their religious exultation, and were able to sustain it at such a pitch, that they never wavered before the daily horrors they endured.

The French at first tried to drive them from their posts by sallies made into the town, but the inhabitants rained such a murderous fire upon them from towers, roofs, windows, even the cellars, that they were obliged to retire. Exasperated by this stubborn resistance they resolved to blow up the town, inch by inch. The siege was begun in the most terrible and destructive manner, but the people were unmoved by the danger. “While a house was being mined, and the dull sound of the rammers warned them that death was at hand, not one left the house which he had sworn to defend, and we could hear them singing litanies. Then, at the moment the walls flew into the air and fell back with a crash, crushing the greater part of them, those who had escaped would collect about the ruins, and sheltering themselves behind the slightest cover, would recommence their sharpshooting.”

Marshal Lannes commanded before Saragossa. Touched by the devotion and the heroism of the defenders, he proposed an honorable capitulation. The besieged scorned the proposition, and the awful process of undermining went on until the town was practically blown to pieces.

208

BERNADOTTE. ABOUT 1798.

Engraved by Fiesinger, after Guérin.

209For such resistance there was no end but extermination. For the first time in his career Napoleon had met sublime popular patriotism, a passion before which diplomacy, flattery, love of gain, force, lose their power.

It was for but a short time that the emperor could give his personal attention to the Spanish war. Certain wheels in his great machine were not revolving smoothly. In his own capital, Paris, there was friction among certain influential persons. The peace of the Continent, necessary to the Peninsular war, and which Alexander had guaranteed, was threatened. Under these circumstances it was impossible to remain in Spain.

210

THE EYE OF THE MASTER.

After Raffet.

Two unscrupulous and crafty men, both of singular ability, caused the interior trouble which called Napoleon from Spain. These men were Talleyrand and Fouché. The latter we saw during the Consulate as Minister of Police. Since, he had been once dismissed because of his knavery, and restored, largely for the same quality. His cunning was too valuable to dispense with. The former, Talleyrand, made Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1799, had handled his negotiations with the extraordinary skill for which he was famous, until, in 1807, Napoleon’s mistrust of his duplicity, and Talleyrand’s own dislike for the details of his position, led to the portfolio being taken from him, and he being made Vice-Grand Elector. He evidently expected, in accepting this change, to remain as influential as ever with Napoleon. The knowledge that the emperor was dispensing with his services made him resentful, and his devotion to the imperial cause fluctuated according to the attention he received.

Now, Napoleon’s course in Spain had been undertaken at the advice of Talleyrand, largely, and he had repeated constantly, in the early negotiations, that France ought not to allow a Bourbon to remain enthroned at her borders. Yet, as the affair went on, he began slyly to talk against the enterprise. At Erfurt, where Napoleon had been impolitic enough to take him, he initiated himself into Alexander’s 212good graces, and prevented Napoleon’s policy towards Austria being carried out. When Napoleon returned to Spain, Talleyrand and Fouché, who up to this time had been enemies, became friendly, and even appeared in public, arm in arm. If Talleyrand and Fouché had made up, said the Parisians, there was mischief brewing.

Napoleon was not long in knowing of their reconciliation. He learned more, that the two crafty plotters had written Murat that in the event of “something happening,” that is, of Napoleon’s death or overthrow, they should organize a movement to call him to the head of affairs; that, accordingly, he must hold himself ready.

Napoleon returned to Paris immediately, removed Talleyrand from his position at court, and, at a gathering of high officials, treated him to one of those violent harangues with which he was accustomed to flay those whom he would disgrace and dismiss.

“You are a thief, a coward, a man without honor; you do not believe in God; you have all your life been a traitor to your duties; you have deceived and betrayed everybody; nothing is sacred to you; you would sell your own father. I have loaded you down with gifts, and there is nothing you would not undertake against me. For the past ten months you have been shameless enough, because you supposed, rightly or wrongly, that my affairs in Spain were going astray, to say to all who would listen to you that you always blamed my undertakings there; whereas it was you yourself who first put it into my head, and who persistently urged it. And that man, that unfortunate [he meant the Duc d’Enghien], by whom was I advised of the place of his residence? Who drove me to deal cruelly with him? What, then, are you aiming at? What do you wish for? What do you hope? Do you dare to say? You deserve that I should smash you like a wineglass. I can do it, but I despise you too much to take the trouble.”

All of this was undoubtedly true, but, after having publicly said it, there was but one safe course for Napoleon—to put Talleyrand where he could no longer continue his plotting. He made the mistake, however, of leaving him at large.

213The disturbance of the Continental peace came from Austria. Encouraged by Napoleon’s absence in Spain, and the withdrawal of troops from Germany, and urged by England to attempt to again repair her losses, Austria had hastily armed herself, hoping to be able to reach the Rhine before Napoleon could collect his forces and meet her. At this moment Napoleon could command about the same number of troops as the Austrians, but they were scattered in all directions, while the enemy’s were already consolidated. The question became, then, whether he could get his troops together before the Austrians attacked. From every direction he hurried them across France and Germany towards Ratisbonne. On the 12th of April he heard in Paris that the Austrians had crossed the Inn. On the 17th the emperor was in his headquarters at Donauwörth, his army well in hand. “Neither in ancient or modern times,” says Jomini, “will one find anything which equals in celerity and admirable precision the opening of this campaign.”

In the next ten days a series of combats broke the Austrian army, drove the Archduke Charles, with his main force, north of the Danube, and opened the road to Vienna to the French. On the 12th of May, one month from the day he left Paris, Napoleon wrote from Schönbrunn, “We are masters of Vienna.” The city had been evacuated.

Napoleon lay on the right bank of the Danube; the Austrian army under the Archduke Charles was coming towards the city by the left bank; it was to be a hand-to-hand struggle under the walls of Vienna. The emperor was uncertain of the archduke’s plans, but he was determined that he should not have a chance to reënforce his army. The battle must be fought at once, and he prepared to go across the river to attack him. The place of crossing he chose was south of Vienna, where the large island Lobau divides the stream. Bridges had to be built for the passage, and it was with the greatest difficulty that the work was accomplished, for the river was high and the current swift, and anchors and boats were scarce. Again and again the boats broke apart. Nevertheless, about thirty thousand of the French got over, and took possession of the villages of Aspern and Essling, where they were attacked on May 21st by some eighty thousand Austrians.

214

BATTLE OF WAGRAM.

This picture, by Horace Vernet, was first exhibited in the Salon of 1836. It now hangs in the Hall of Battles at Versailles.

215The battle which followed lasted all day, and the French sustained themselves heroically. That night reënforcements were gotten over, so that the next day some fifty-five thousand men were on the French side. Napoleon fought with the greatest obstinacy, hoping that another division would soon succeed in getting over, and would enable him to overcome the superior numbers of the Austrians. Already the battle was becoming a hand-to-hand fight, when the terrible news came that the bridge over the Danube had gone down. The Austrians had sent floating down the swollen river great mills, fire-boats, and masses of timber fastened together in such a way as to become battering-rams of frightful power when carried by the rapid stream. All hope of aid was gone, and, as the news spread, the army resigned itself to perish sword in hand. The carnage which followed was horrible. Towards evening one of the bravest of the French marshals, Lannes, was fatally wounded. It seemed as if fortune had determined on the loss of the French, and Napoleon decided to retreat to the island of Lobau, where he felt sure that he could maintain his position, and secure supplies from the army on the right bank, until he had time to build bridges and unite his forces.

Communications were soon established with the right bank, but the isle of Lobau was not deserted; it was used, in fact, as a camp for the next few weeks, while Napoleon was sending to Italy, to France, and to Germany, for 216new troops. A heavy reënforcement came to him from Italy with news which did much to encourage him. When the war began, an Austrian army had invaded Italy, and at first had success in its engagements against the French under the Viceroy of Italy, Eugène de Beauharnais. The news of the ill-luck of the Austrians at home, and of the march on Vienna, had discouraged the leader, Archduke John, brother of Archduke Charles, and he had retreated, Eugène following. Such were the successes of the French on this retreat, that the Austrians finally retired out of their way, leaving them a free route to Vienna, and Eugène soon united his army to that of the emperor.

With the greatest rapidity the French now secured and strengthened their communications with Italy and with France, and gathered troops about Vienna. The whole month of June was passed in this way, hostile Europe repeating the while that Napoleon was shut in by the Austrians and could not move, and that he was idling his time in luxury at the castle of Schönbrunn, where he had established his headquarters. But this month of apparent inactivity was only a feint. By the 1st of July the French Army had reached one hundred and fifty thousand men. They were in admirable condition, well drilled, fresh, and confident. Their communications were strong, their camps good, and they were eager for battle.

The Austrians were encamped at Wagram, to the north of the Danube. They had fortified the banks opposite the island of Lobau in a manner which they believed would prevent the French from attempting a passage; but in arranging their fortification they had completely neglected a certain portion of the bank on which Napoleon seemed to have no designs. But this was the point, naturally, which Napoleon chose for his passage, and on the night of July 4th he effected it. On the morning of the 5th his whole army of 217one hundred and fifty thousand men, with four hundred batteries, was on the left bank. In the midst of a terrible storm this great mass of men, with all its equipments, had crossed the main Danube, several islands and channels, had built six bridges, and by daybreak had arranged itself in order. It was an unheard-of feat.

Pushing his corps forward, and easily sweeping out of his way the advance posts, Napoleon soon had his line facing that of the Austrians, which stretched from near the Danube to a point east of Wagram. At seven o’clock on the evening of July 5th the French attacked the left and centre of the enemy, but without driving them from their position. The next morning it was the Archduke Charles who took the offensive, making a movement which changed the whole battle. He attacked the French left, which was nearest the river, with fifty thousand men, intending to get on their line of communication and destroy the bridges across the Danube. The troops on the French centre were obliged to hurry off to prevent this, and the army was weakened for a moment, but not long. Napoleon determined to make the Archduke Charles, who in person commanded this attack on the French left, return, not by following him, but by breaking his centre; and he turned his heavy batteries against this portion of the army, and followed them by a cavalry attack, which routed the enemy. At the same time their left was broken, and the troops which had been engaging it were free to hurry off against the Austrian right, which was trying to reach the bridges, and which were being held in check with difficulty at Essling. As soon as the archduke saw what had happened to his left and centre he retired, preferring to preserve as much as possible of his army in good order. The French did not pursue. The battle had cost them too heavily. But if the Austrians escaped from Wagram with their army, and if their opponents gained little more than the name of a victory, they were too discouraged to continue the war, and the emperor sued for peace.

218

THE LITTLE CORPORAL.

This statue of Napoleon in the costume of the Petit Caporal, from the chisel of Seurre, was placed on the column of the Place Vendome, on July 28, 1835. It succeeded on the pedestal the white flag of the Bourbons, which in its turn had replaced the original statue of “Napoléon en César Romain,” by Chaudet. An interesting detail, unknown to most Parisians, is that the equestrian statue of Henri IV. on the Pont Neuf was cast with the bronze of Chaudet’s Napoleon. When Napoleon III. ascended the throne, he replaced the “Petit Caporal” of Seurre (whose decorative appearance he did not consider “assez dynastique”) by a copy of Chaudet’s “César,” made by the sculptor Drumont. That figure still crowns the summit of the column, which was re-erected after the desecration by the Commune.—A. D.

219This peace was concluded in October. Austria was forced to give up Trieste and all her Adriatic possessions, to cede territory to Bavaria and to the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, and to give her consent to the continental system.

220

MARIE LOUISE IN ROYAL ROBES. 1810.

“Marie Louise, Archduchess d’Autriche, Impératrice, Reine, et Régente.” Engraved by Mecou, after Isabey.

To further the universal peace he desired, to prevent plots among his subordinates who would aspire to his crown in case of his sudden death, and to assure a succession, Napoleon now decided to take a step long in mind—to divorce Josephine, by whom he no longer hoped to have heirs.

In considering Napoleon’s divorce of Josephine, it must be remembered that stability of government was of vital necessity to the permanency of the Napoleonic institutions. Napoleon had turned into practical realities most of the reforms demanded in 1789. True, he had done it by the exercise of despotism, but nothing but the courage, the will, the audacity of a despot could have aroused the nation in 1799. Napoleon felt that these institutions had been so short a time in operation that in case of his death they would easily topple over, and his kingdom go to pieces as Alexander’s had. If he could leave an heir, this disaster would, he believed, be averted.

Then, would not a marriage with a foreign princess calm the fears of his Continental enemies? Would they not see in such an alliance an effort on the part of new, liberal France to adjust herself harmoniously to the system of government which prevailed on the Continent?

Thus, by a new marriage, he hoped to prevent at his death a series of fresh revolutions, save the splendid organization he had created, and put France in greater harmony 222with her environment. It is to misunderstand Napoleon’s scheme, to attribute this divorce simply to a gigantic egotism. To assure his dynasty, was to assure France of liberal institutions. His glorification was his country’s. In reality there were the same reasons for divorcing Josephine that there had been for taking the crown in 1804.

Josephine had long feared a separation. The Bonapartes had never cared for her, and even so far back as the Egyptian campaign had urged Napoleon to seek a divorce. Unwisely, she had not sought in her early married life to win their affection any more than she had to keep Napoleon’s; and when the emperor was crowned, they had done their best to prevent her coronation. When, for state reasons, the divorce seemed necessary, Josephine had no supporters where she might have had many.

Her grief was more poignant because she had come to love her husband with a real ardor. The jealousy from which he had once suffered she now felt, and Napoleon certainly gave her ample cause for it. Her anxiety was well known to all the court, the secretaries Bourrienne and Méneval, and Madame de Rémusat being her special confidants. Since 1807 it had been intense, for it was in that year that Fouché, probably at Napoleon’s instigation, tried to persuade the empress to suggest the divorce herself as her sacrifice to the country.

After Wagram it became evident to her that at last her fate was sealed; but though she beset Méneval and all the members of her household for information, it was only a fortnight before the public divorce that she knew her fate. It was Josephine’s own son and daughter, Eugène and Hortense, who broke the news to her; and it was on the former that the cruel task fell of indorsing the divorce in the Senate in the name of himself and his sister.

Josephine was terribly broken by her disgrace, but she 223bore it with a sweetness and dignity which does much to make posterity forget her earlier frivolity and insincerity.

“I can never forget [says Pasquier] the evening on which the discarded empress did the honors of her court for the last time. It was the day before the official dissolution. A great throng was present, and supper was served, according to custom, in the gallery of Diana, on a number of little tables. Josephine sat at the centre one, and the men went around her, waiting for that particularly graceful nod which she was in the habit of bestowing on those with whom she was acquainted. I stood at a short distance from her for a few minutes, and I could not help being struck with the perfection of her attitude in the presence of all these people who still did her homage, while knowing full well that it was for the last time; that in an hour she would descend from the throne, and leave the palace never to reënter it. Only women can rise superior to such a situation, but I have my doubts as to whether a second one could have been found to do it with such perfect grace and composure. Napoleon did not show so bold a front as did his victim.”

There is no doubt but that Napoleon suffered deeply over the separation. If his love had lost its illusion, he was genuinely attached to Josephine, and in a way she was necessary to his happiness. After the ceremony of separation, he was to go to Saint Cloud, she to Malmaison. While waiting for his carriage, he returned to his study in the palace. For a long time he sat silent and depressed, his head on his hand. When he was summoned he rose, his face distorted with pain, and went into the empress’s apartment. Josephine was alone.

When she saw the emperor, she threw herself on his neck, sobbing aloud. He pressed her to his bosom, kissed her again and again, until overpowered with emotion, she fainted. Leaving her to her women, he hurried to his carriage.

Méneval, who saw this sad parting, remained with Josephine until she became conscious. When he left, she begged him not to let the emperor forget her, and to see that he wrote her often.

224

NAPOLEON.

Engraved in 1841 by Louis, after a painting made in 1837 by Delaroche, now in the Standish collection, and called the “Snuff-box.” Probably the finest engraving ever made of a Napoleon portrait.

225“I left her,” that naïve admirer and apologist of Napoleon goes on, “grieved at so deep a sorrow and so sincere an affection. I felt very miserable all along my route, and I could not help deploring that the rigorous exactions of politics should violently break the bonds of an affection which had stood the test of time, to impose another union full of uncertainty.”

Josephine returned to Malmaison to live, but Napoleon took care that she should have, in addition, another home, giving her Navarre, a château near Evreux, some fifty miles from Paris. She had an income of some four hundred thousand dollars a year, and the emperor showed rare thoughtfulness in providing her with everything she could want. She was to deny herself nothing, take care of her health, pay no attention to the gossip she heard, and never doubt of his love. Such were the recommendations of the frequent letters he wrote her. Sometimes he went to see her, and he told her all the details of his life. It is certain that he neglected no opportunity of comforting her, and that she, on her side, finally accepted her lot with resignation and kindliness.

Over two years before the divorce a list of the marriageable princesses of Europe had been drawn up for Napoleon. This list included eighteen names in all, the two most prominent being Marie Louise of Austria, and Anna Paulowna, sister of Alexander of Russia. At the Erfurt conference the project of a marriage with a Russian princess had been discussed, and Alexander had favored it; but now that an attempt was made to negotiate the affair, there were numerous delays, and a general lukewarmness which angered Napoleon. Without waiting for the completion of the Russian negotiations, he decided on Marie Louise.

226

MARRIAGE OF THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON AND MARIE LOUISE, ARCHDUCHESS OF AUSTRIA, AT THE PALACE OF THE LOUVRE, APRIL 2, 1810.

By Rouget in 1836. On the emperor’s right hand and at the lower end of the platform, stood the King of Holland; the King of Westphalia; the Prince Borghese; Murat, King of Naples; Prince Eugène Napoleon, Viceroy of Italy; the hereditary Grand Duke of Baden; the Prince Arch-chancellor; the Prince Arch-treasurer; the Prince Vice-constable; the Prince Vice-Grand Elector. To the left of the empress, Madame mère; the Queen of Spain; the Queen of Holland; the Queen of Westphalia; the Grand Duchess of Tuscany; the Princess Pauline; the Queen of Naples; the Grand Duke of Würzburg; the Vice-Queen of Italy; the Grand Duchess of Baden. The nuptial benediction was given by Cardinal Fesch. This picture was exhibited in the Salon of 1832.

227The marriage ceremony was performed in Vienna on March 12, 1810, the Archduke Charles acting for Napoleon. The emperor first saw his new wife some days later on the road between Soissons and Compiègne, where he had gone to meet her in most unimperial haste, and in contradiction to the pompous and complicated ceremony which had been arranged for their first interview. From the beginning he was frankly delighted with Marie Louise. In fact, the new empress was a most attractive girl, young, fresh, modest well-bred, and innocent. She entirely filled Napoleon’s ideal of a wife, and he certainly was happy with her.

Marie Louise in marrying Napoleon had felt that she was a kind of sacrificial offering, for she had naturally a deep horror of the man who had caused her country so much woe; but her dread was soon dispelled, and she became very fond of her husband. Outside of the court the two led an amusingly simple life, riding together informally early in the morning, in a gay Bohemian way; sitting together alone in the empress’s little salon, she at her needlework, he with a book. They even indulged now and then in quiet little larks of their own, as one day when Marie Louise attempted to make an omelet in her apartments. Just as she was completely engrossed in her work, the emperor came in. The empress tried to conceal her culinary operations, but Napoleon detected the odor.

“What is going on here? There is a singular smell, as if something was being fried. What, you are making an omelet! Bah! you don’t know how to do it. I will show you how it is done.”

And he set to work to instruct her. They got on very well until it came to tossing it, an operation Napoleon insisted on performing himself, with the result that he landed it on the floor.

On March 20, 1811, the long desired heir to the French throne was born. It had been arranged that the birth of the child should be announced to the people by cannon shot; 228twenty-one if it were a princess, one hundred and one if a prince. The people who thronged the quays and streets about the Tuileries waited with inexpressible anxiety as the cannon boomed forth; one—two—three. As twenty-one died away the city held its breath; then came twenty-two. The thundering peals which followed it were drowned in the wild enthusiasm of the people. For days afterward, enervated by joy and the endless fêtes given them, the French drank and sang to the King of Rome.

In all these rejoicings none were so touching as at Navarre, where Josephine, on hearing the cannon, called together her friends and said, “We, too, must have a fête. I shall give you a ball, and the whole city of Evreux must come and rejoice with us.”

Napoleon was the happiest of men, and he devoted himself to his son with pride. Reports of the boy’s condition appear frequently in his letters; he even allowed him to be taken without the empress’s knowledge to Josephine, who had begged to see him.

“This child in concert with our Eugène will constitute our happiness and that of France,” so Napoleon had written Josephine after the birth of the King of Rome, but it soon became evident that he was wrong. There were causes of uneasiness and discontent in France which had been operating for a long time, and which were only aggravated by the apparent solidity that an heir gave to the Napoleonic dynasty.

First among these was religious disaffection. Towards the end of 1808, being doubtful of the Pope’s loyalty, Napoleon had sent French troops to Rome; the spring following, without any plausible excuse, he had annexed four Papal States to the kingdom of Italy; and in 1809 the Pope had been made a prisoner at Savona. When the divorce was asked, it was not the Pope, but the clergy, of Paris, who had granted it. When the religious marriage of Marie Louise and Napoleon came to be celebrated, thirteen cardinals refused to appear; the “black cardinals” they were thereafter called, one of their punishments for non-appearance at the wedding being that they could no longer wear their red gowns. To the pious all this friction with the fathers of the Church was a deplorable irritation. It was impossible to show contempt for the authority of Pope and cardinals and not wound one of the deepest sentiments of France, and one which ten years before Napoleon had braved most to satisfy.

230

NAPOLEON AND POPE PIUS VII. IN CONFERENCE AT FONTAINEBLEAU.

Engraved by Robinson, after a painting made in 1836 by Wilkie.

231To the irritation against the emperor’s church policy was added bitter resentment against the conscription, that tax of blood and muscle demanded of the country. Napoleon had formulated and attempted to make tolerable the principle born of the Revolution, which declared that every male citizen of age owed the state a service of blood in case it needed him. The wisdom of his management of the conscription had prevented discontent until 1807; then the draft on life had begun to be arbitrary and grievous. The laws of exemptions were disregarded. The “only son of his mother” no longer remained at her side. The father whose little children were motherless must leave them; aged and helpless parents no longer gave immunity. Those who had bought their exemption by heavy sacrifices were obliged to go. Persons whom the law made subject to conscription in 1807, were called out in 1806; those of 1808, in 1807. So far was this premature drafting pushed, that the armies were said to be made up of “boy soldiers,” weak, unformed youths, fresh from school, who wilted in a sun like that of Spain, and dropped out in the march.

At the rate at which men had been killed, however, there was no other way of keeping up the army. Between 1804 and 1811 one million seven hundred thousand men had perished in battle. What wonder that now the boys of France were pressed into service! At the same time the country was overrun with the lame, the blind, the broken-down, who had come back from war to live on their friends or on charity. It was not only the funeral crape on almost every door which made Frenchmen hate the conscription, it was the crippled men whom they met at every corner.

232

THE KING OF ROME. 1811.

Engraved by Desnoyers, after Gérard. “His Majesty the King of Rome. Dedicated to her Majesty Imperial and Royal, Marie Louise.”

233While within, the people fretted over the religious disturbances and the abuses of the conscription, without, the continental blockade was causing serious trouble between Napoleon and the kings he ruled. In spite of all his efforts English merchandise penetrated everywhere. The fair at Rotterdam in 1807 was filled with English goods. They passed into Italy under false seals. They came into France on pretence that they were for the empress. Napoleon remonstrated and threatened, but he could not check the traffic. The most serious trouble caused by this violation of the Berlin Decree was with Louis, King of Holland. In 1808 Napoleon complained to his brother that more than one hundred ships passed between his kingdom and England every month, and a year later he wrote in desperation, “Holland is an English province.”

The relations of the brothers grew more and more bitter. Napoleon resented the half support Louis gave him, and as a punishment he took away his provinces, filled his forts with French troops, threatened him with war if he did not break up the trade. So far did these hostilities go, that in the summer of 1810 King Louis abdicated in favor of his son and retired to Austria. Napoleon tried his best to persuade him at least to return into French territory, but he refused. This break was the sadder because Louis was the brother for whom Napoleon had really done most.

Joseph was not happier than Louis. The Spanish war still went on, and no better than in 1808. Joseph, humbled and unhappy, had even prayed to be freed of the throne.

The relations with Sweden were seriously strained. Since 1810 Bernadotte had been by adoption the crown prince of that country. Although he had emphatically refused, in accepting the position, to agree never to take up arms against France, as Napoleon wished him to do, he had later consented to the continental blockade, and had declared war against England; but this declaration both England and Sweden considered simply as a façon de parler. Napoleon, conscious that Bernadotte was not carrying out the blockade, and irritated by his persistent refusal to enter into French combinations, and pay tribute to carry on French wars, had suppressed his revenues as a French prince—Bernadotte had been created Prince of Ponte-Corvo in 1806—had refused to communicate with him, and when the King of Rome was born had sent back the Swedish decoration offered. Finally, in January, 1812, French troops invaded certain Swedish possessions, and the country concluded an alliance with England and Russia.

234

“NAPOLEON IN HIS CABINET.” THE CHILD AT HIS SIDE IS HIS SON, THE KING OF ROME.

The manuscript on the floor of the cabinet bears the date “1811.” Engraved by Weber, after Steuben.

235With Russia, the “other half” of the machine, the ally upon whom the great plan of Tilsit and Erfurt depended, there was such a bad state of feeling that, in 1811, it became certain that war would result. Causes had been accumulating upon each side since the Erfurt meeting.

The continental system weighed heavily on the interests of Russia. The people constantly rebelled against it and evaded it in every way. The business depressions from which they suffered they charged to Napoleon, and a strong party arose in the empire which used every method of showing the czar that the “unnatural alliance,” as they called the agreement between Alexander and Napoleon, was unpopular. The czar could not refuse to listen to this party. More, he feared that Napoleon was getting ready to restore Poland. He was offended by the haste with which his ally had dismissed the idea of marriage with his sister and had taken up Marie Louise. He complained of the changes of boundaries in Germany. Napoleon, on his part, saw with irritation that English goods were admitted into Russia. He resented the failure of Alexander to join heartily in the wide-sweeping application he had made of the Berlin and Milan Decrees, and to persecute neutral flags of all nations, even of those so far away from the Continent as the United States. He remembered that Russia had not supported him loyally in 1809. He was suspicious, too, of the good understanding which seemed to be growing between Sweden, Russia, and England.

236

THE DUKE OF REICHSTADT.

Engraved by W. Bromley, after Sir Thomas Lawrence.

237During many months the two emperors remained in a half-hostile condition, but the strain finally became too great. War was inevitable, and Napoleon set about preparing for the struggle. During the latter months of 1811 and the first of 1812 his attention was given almost entirely to the military and diplomatic preparations necessary before beginning the Russian campaign. By the 1st of May, 1812, he was ready to join his army, which he had centred at Dresden. Accompanied by Marie Louise he arrived at Dresden on the 16th of May, 1812, where he was greeted by the Emperor of Austria, the King of Prussia, and other sovereigns with whom he had formed alliances.

The force Napoleon had brought to the field showed graphically the extension and the character of the France of 1812. The “army of twenty nations,” the Russians called the host which was preparing to meet them, and the expression was just, for in the ranks there were Spaniards, Neapolitans, Piedmontese, Slavs, Kroats, Bavarians, Dutchmen, Poles, Romans, and a dozen other nationalities, side by side with Frenchmen. Indeed, nearly one-half the force was said to be foreign. The Grand Army, as the active body was called, numbered, to quote the popular figures, six hundred and seventy-eight thousand men. It is sure that this is an exaggerated number, though certainly over half a million men entered Russia. With reserves, the whole force numbered one million one hundred thousand. The necessity for so large a body of reserves is explained by the length of the line of communication Napoleon had to keep. From the Nieman to Paris the way must be open, supply stations guarded, fortified towns equipped. It took nearly as many men to insure the rear of the Grand Army as it did to make up the army itself.

238

PORTRAIT OF THE KING OF ROME.

Painting by Lawrence. Collection of the Duc de Bassano. This portrait of Napoleon II. is an exquisite work of art, a bright and fresh color-harmony. Lawrence must have executed this portrait while travelling in Europe, whither he was sent by his sovereign George IV., and paid twenty-five thousand francs a year, to paint for the great Windsor gallery the portraits of all the heroes “du grand hasard de Waterloo.”—A. D.

239With this imposing force at his command, Napoleon believed that he could compel Alexander to support the continental blockade, for come what might that system must succeed. For it the reigning house had been driven from Portugal, the Pope despoiled and imprisoned, Louis gone into exile, Bernadotte driven into a new alliance. For it the Grand Army was led into Russia. It had become, as its inventor proclaimed, the fundamental law of the empire.

Until he crossed the Nieman, Napoleon preserved the hope of being able to avoid war. Numerous letters to the Russian emperor, almost pathetic in their overtures, exist. But Alexander never replied. He simply allowed his enemy to advance. The Grand Army was doomed to make the Russian campaign.

240

NAPOLEON READING.

By Girodet. From the collection of Monsieur Cheramy of Paris.

If one draws a triangle, its base stretching along the Nieman from Tilsit to Grodno, its apex on the Elbe, he will have a rough outline of the “army of twenty nations” as it lay in June, 1812. Napoleon, some two hundred and twenty-five thousand men around him, was at Kowno, hesitating to advance, reluctant to believe that Alexander would not make peace.

When he finally moved, it was not with the precision and swiftness which had characterized his former campaigns. When he began to fight, it was against new odds. He found that his enemies had been studying the Spanish campaigns, and that they had adopted the tactics which had so nearly ruined his armies in the Peninsula: they refused to give him a general battle retreating constantly before him; they harassed his separate corps with indecisive contests; they wasted the country as they went. The people aided their soldiers as the Spaniards had done. “Tell us only the moment, and we will set fire to our buildings,” said the peasants.

242

MARSHAL NEY (“LE MARECHAL NEY, DUC D’ELCHINGEN, PRINCE DE LA MOSKOWA, PAIR DE FRANCE”).

Engraved by Tardieu, after Gérard.

243By the 12th of August, Napoleon was at Smolensk, the key of Moscow. At a cost of twelve thousand men killed and wounded, he took the town, only to find, instead of the well-victualled shelter he hoped, a smoking ruin. The French army had suffered frightfully from sickness, from scarcity of supplies, and from useless fighting on the march from the Nieman to Smolensk. They had not had the stimulus of a great victory; they began to feel that this steady retreat of the enemy was only a fatal trap into which they were falling. Every consideration forbade them to march into Russia so late in the year, yet on they went towards Moscow, over ruined fields and through empty villages. This terrible pursuit lasted until September 7th, when the Russians, to content their soldiers, who were complaining loudly because they were not allowed to engage the French, gave battle at Borodino, the battle of the Moskova, as the French call it.

At two o’clock in the morning of this engagement, Napoleon issued one of his stirring bulletins:

“Soldiers! Here is the battle which you have so long desired! Henceforth the victory depends upon you; it is necessary for us. It will give you abundance, good winter quarters, and a speedy return to your country! Behave as you did at Austerlitz, at Friedland, at Vitebsk, at Smolensk, and the most remote posterity will quote with pride your conduct on this day; let it say of you: he was at the great battle under the walls of Moscow.”

The French gained the battle at Borodino, at a cost of some thirty thousand men, but they did not destroy the Russian army. Although the Russians lost fifty thousand men, they retreated in good order. Under the circumstances, a victory which allowed the enemy to retire in order was of little use. It was Napoleon’s fault, the critics said; he was inactive. But it was not sluggishness which troubled Napoleon at Borodino. He had a new enemy—a headache. On the day of the battle he suffered so that he was obliged to retire to a ravine to escape the icy wind. In this sheltered spot he paced up and down all day, giving his orders from the reports brought him.

244

ATTENTION! THE EMPEROR HAS HIS EYE ON US.

By Raffet.

245Moscow was entered on the 15th of September. Here the French found at last food and shelter, but only for a few hours. That night Moscow burst into flames, set on fire by the authorities, by whom it had been abandoned. It was three days before the fire was arrested. It would cost Russia two hundred years of time, two hundred millions of money, to repair the loss which she had sustained, Napoleon wrote to France.

Suffering, disorganization, pillage, followed the disaster. But Napoleon would not retreat. He hoped to make peace. Moscow was still smoking when he wrote a long description of the conflagration to Alexander. The closing paragraph ran:

“I wage war against your Majesty without animosity; a note from you before or after the last battle would have stopped my march, and I should even have liked to sacrifice the advantage of entering Moscow. If your Majesty retains some remains of your former sentiments, you will take this letter in good part. At all events, you will thank me for giving you an account of what is passing at Moscow.”

“I will never sign a peace as long as a single foe remains on Russian ground,” the Emperor Alexander had said when he heard that Napoleon had crossed the Nieman. He kept his word in spite of all Napoleon’s overtures. The French position grew worse from day to day. No food, no fresh supplies, the cold increasing, the army disheartened, the number of Russians around Moscow growing larger. Nothing but a retreat could save the remnant of the French. It began on October 19th, one hundred and fifteen thousand men leaving Moscow. They were followed by forty thousand vehicles loaded with the sick and with what supplies they could get hold of. The route was over the fields devastated a month before. The Cossacks harassed them night and day, and the cruel Russian cold dropped from the skies, cutting them down like a storm of scythes. Before Smolensk was reached, thousands of the retreating army were dead.

246

NAPOLEON AFTER THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN.

247Napoleon had ordered that provisions and clothing should be collected at Smolensk. When he reached the city he found that his directions had not been obeyed. The army, exasperated beyond endurance by this disappointment, fell into complete and frightful disorganization, and the rest of the retreat was like the falling back of a conquered mob.

There is no space here for the details of this terrible march and of the frightful passage of the Beresina. The terror of the cold and starvation wrung cries from Napoleon himself.

“Provisions, provisions, provisions,” he wrote on November 29th from the right bank of the Beresina. “Without them there is no knowing to what horrors this undisciplined mass will proceed.”

And again: “The army is at its last extremity. It is impossible for it to do anything, even if it were a question of defending Paris.”

The army finally reached the Nieman. The last man over was Marshal Ney. “Who are you?” he was asked. “The rear guard of the Grand Army,” was the sombre reply of the noble old soldier.

Some forty thousand men crossed the river, but of these there were many who could do nothing but crawl to the hospitals, asking for “the rooms where people die.” It was true, as Desprez said, the Grand Army was dead.

It was on this horrible retreat that Napoleon received word that a curious thing had happened in Paris. A general and an abbé, both political prisoners, had escaped, and actually had succeeded in the preliminaries of a coup d’état overturning the empire, and substituting a provisional government.

They had carried out their scheme simply by announcing that Napoleon was dead, and by reading a forged proclamation from the senate to the effect that the imperial government was at an end and a new one begun. The authorities 248to whom these conspirators had gone had with but little hesitation accepted their orders. They had secured twelve hundred soldiers, had locked up the prefect of police, and had taken possession of the Hôtel de Ville.

The foolhardy enterprise went, it is true, only a little way, but far enough to show Paris that the day of easy revolution had not passed, and that an announcement of the death of Napoleon did not bring at once a cry of “Long live the King of Rome!” The news of the Malet conspiracy was an astonishing revelation to Napoleon himself of the instability of French public sentiment. He saw that the support on which he had depended most to insure his institutions, that is, an heir to his throne, was set aside at the word of a worthless agitator. The impression made on his generals by the news was one of consternation and despair. The emperor read in their faces that they believed his good fortune was waning. He decided to go to Paris as soon as possible.

On December 5th he left the army, and after a perilous journey of twelve days reached the French capital. It took as great courage to face France now as it had taken audacity to attempt the invasion of Russia. The grandest army the nation had ever sent out was lying behind him dead. His throne had tottered for an instant in sight of all France. Hereafter he could not believe himself invincible. Already his enemies were suggesting that since his good genius had failed him once, it might again.

No one realized the gravity of the position as Napoleon himself, but he met his household, his ministers, the Council of State, the Senate, with an imperial self-confidence and a sang froid which are awe-inspiring under the circumstances. The horror of the situation of the army was not known in Paris on his arrival, but reports came in daily until the truth was clear to everybody. But Napoleon never lost countenance. The explanations necessary for him to give 249to the Senate, to his allies, and to his friends, had all the serenity and the plausibility of a victor—a victor who had suffered, to be sure, but not through his own rashness or mismanagement. The following quotation from a letter to the King of Denmark illustrates well his public attitude towards the invasion and the retreat from Moscow:

“The enemy were always beaten, and captured neither an eagle nor a gun from my army. On the 7th of November the cold became intense; all the roads were found impracticable; thirty thousand horses perished between the 7th and the 16th. A portion of our baggage and artillery wagons was broken and abandoned; our soldiers, little accustomed to such weather, could not endure the cold. They wandered from the ranks in quest of shelter for the night, and, having no cavalry to protect them, several thousands fell into the hands of the enemy’s light troops. General Sanson, chief of the topographic corps, was captured by some Cossacks while he was engaged in sketching a position. Other isolated officers shared the same fate. My losses are severe, but the enemy cannot attribute to themselves the honor of having inflicted them. My army has suffered greatly, and suffers still, but this calamity will cease with the cold.”

To every one he declared that it was the Russians, not he, who had suffered. It was their great city, not his, which was burnt; their fields, not his, which were devastated. They did not take an eagle, did not win a battle. It was the cold, the Cossacks, which had done the mischief to the Grand Army; and that mischief? Why, it would be soon repaired. “I shall be back on the Nieman in the spring.”

But the very man who in public and private calmed and reassured the nation, was sometimes himself so overwhelmed at the thought of the disaster which he had just witnessed, that he let escape a cry which showed that it was only his indomitable will which was carrying him through; that his heart was bleeding. In the midst of a glowing account to the legislative body of his success during the invasion, he suddenly stopped. “In a few nights everything changed. I have suffered great losses. They would have broken my heart if I had been accessible to any other feelings than the interest, the glory, and the future of my people.”

250

THEY GRUMBLED, BUT THEY FOLLOWED ALWAYS.

Raffet shows us a Napoleon worn out by the disastrous excess even of his victories, marching under a sad, rainy sky, at the head of his little army, which, although hopeful, decreased daily in numbers after repeated fights—all of them victorious. The legend chosen by the artist sums up the state of mind of these old grognards—always discontented, and yet always ready, in spite of wearing fatigue and increasing discouragements, to run even to death on a sign from their emperor. Meissonier meditated long and earnestly before this beautiful picture, inspired by the campaign of France, previous to painting his immortal canvas, “1814.”—A. D.

251In the teeth of the terrible news coming daily to Paris, Napoleon began preparations for another campaign. To every one he talked of victory as certain. Those who argued against the enterprise he silenced temporarily. “You should say,” he wrote Eugène, “and yourself believe, that in the next campaign I shall drive the Russians back across the Nieman.” With the first news of the passage of the Beresina chilling them, the Senate voted an army of three hundred and fifty thousand men; the allies were called upon; even the marine was obliged to turn men over to the land force.

But something besides men was necessary. An army means muskets and powder and sabres, clothes and boots and headgear, wagons and cannon and caisson; and all these it was necessary to manufacture afresh. The task was gigantic; but before the middle of April it was completed, and the emperor was ready to join his army.

The force against which Napoleon went in 1813 was the most formidable, in many respects, he had ever encountered. Its strength was greater. It included Russia, England, Spain, Prussia, and Sweden, and the allies believed Austria would soon join them. An element of this force more powerful than its numbers was its spirit. The allied armies fought Napoleon in 1813 as they would fight an enemy of freedom. Central Europe had come to feel that further French interference was intolerable. The war had become a crusade. The extent of this feeling is illustrated by an incident in the Prussian army. In the war of 1812 Prussia was an ally of the French, but at the end of the year General Yorck, who commanded a Prussian division, went over to the enemy. It was a dishonorable action from a military point of view, but his explanation that he deserted as “a patriot acting for the welfare of his country” touched 252Prussia; and though the king disavowed the act, the people applauded it.

Throughout the German states the feeling against Napoleon was bitter. A veritable crusade had been undertaken against him by such men as Stein, and most of the youth of the country were united in the Tagendbund, or League of Virtue, which had sworn to take arms for German freedom.

When Alexander followed the French across the Nieman, announcing that he came bringing “deliverance to Europe,” and calling on the people to unite against the “common enemy,” he found them quick to understand and respond.

Thus, in 1813 Napoleon did not go against kings and armies, but against peoples. No one understood this better than he did himself, and he counselled his allies that it was not against the foreign enemy alone that they had to protect themselves. “There is one more dangerous to be feared—the spirit of revolt and anarchy.”

The campaign opened May 2, 1813, southwest of Leipsic, with the battle of Lützen. It was Napoleon’s victory, though he could not follow it up, as he had no cavalry. The moral effect of Lützen was excellent in the French army. Among the allies there was a return to the old dread of the “monster.” By May 8th the French occupied Dresden; from there they crossed the Elbe, and on the 21st fought the battle of Bautzen, another incomplete victory for Napoleon. The next day, in an engagement with the Russian rear guard, Marshal Duroc, one of Napoleon’s warmest and oldest friends, was killed. It was the second marshal lost since the campaign began, Bessières having been killed at Lützen.

The French obtained Breslau on June 1st, and three days later an armistice was signed, lasting until August 10th. It was hoped that peace might be concluded during this armistice. At that moment Austria held the key to the situation. The allies saw that they were defeated if they could not persuade her to join them. Napoleon, his old confidence restored by a series of victories, hoped to keep his Austrian father-in-law quiet until he had crushed the Prussians and driven the Russians across the Nieman. Austria saw her power, and determined to use it to regain territory lost in 1805 and 1809, and Metternich came to Dresden to see Napoleon. Austria would keep peace with France, he said if Napoleon would restore Illyria and the Polish provinces, would send the Pope back to Rome, give up the protectorate of the Confederation of the Rhine, restore Naples and Spain. Napoleon’s amazement and indignation were boundless.

254

THE DUKE OF REICHSTADT.

Engraved by Benedetti, after Daffinger.

255“How much has England given you for playing this rôle against me, Metternich?” he asked.

A semblance of a congress was held at Prague soon after, but it was only a mockery. Such was the exasperation and suffering of Central Europe, that peace could only be reached by large sacrifices on Napoleon’s part. These he refused to make. There is no doubt but that France and his allies begged him to compromise; that his wisest counsellors advised him to do so. But he repulsed with irritation all such suggestions. “You bore me continually about the necessity of peace,” he wrote Savary. “I know the situation of my empire better than you do; no one is more interested in concluding peace than myself, but I shall not make a dishonorable peace, or one that would see us at war again in six months.... These things do not concern you.”

By the middle of August the campaign began. The French had in the field some three hundred and sixty thousand men. This force was surrounded by a circle of armies, Swedish, Russian, Prussian, and Austrian, in all some eight hundred thousand men. The leaders of this hostile force included, besides the natural enemies of France, Bernadotte, crown prince of Sweden, who had fought with Napoleon in Italy, and General Moreau, the hero of Hohenlinden. Moreau was on Alexander’s staff. He had reached the army the night that the armistice expired, having sailed from the United States on the 21st of June, at the invitation of the Russian emperor, to aid in the campaign against France. He had been greeted by the allies with every mark of distinction. Another deserter on the allies’ staff was the 256eminent military critic Jomini. In the ranks were stragglers from all the French corps, and the Saxons were threatening to leave the French in a body, and go over to the allies.

The second campaign of 1813 opened brilliantly for Napoleon, for at Dresden he took twenty thousand prisoners, and captured sixty cannon. The victory turned the anxiety of Paris to hopefulness, and their faith in Napoleon’s star was further revived by the report that Moreau had fallen, both legs carried off by a French bullet. Moreau himself felt that fate was friendly to the emperor. “That rascal Bonaparte is always lucky,” he wrote his wife, just after the amputation of his legs.

But there was something stronger than luck at work; the allies were animated by a spirit of nationality, indomitable in its force, and they were following a plan which was sure to crush Napoleon in the long run. It was one laid out by Moreau; a general battle was not to be risked, but the corps of the French were to be engaged one by one, until the parts of the army were disabled. In turn Vandamme, Oudinot, MacDonald, Ney, were defeated, and in October the remnants of the French fell back to Leipsic. Here the horde that surrounded them was suddenly enlarged. The Bavarians had gone over to the allies.

A three days’ battle at Leipsic exhausted the French, and they were obliged to make a disastrous retreat to the Rhine, which they crossed November 1st. Ten days later the emperor was in Paris.

The situation of France at the end of 1813 was deplorable. The allies lay on the right bank of the Rhine. The battle of Vittoria had given the Spanish boundary to Wellington, and the English and Spanish armies were on the frontier. The allies which remained with the French were not to be trusted. “All Europe was marching with us a year ago,” Napoleon said; “to-day all Europe is marching against us.” 257There was despair among his generals, alarm in Paris. Besides, there seemed no human means of gathering up a new army. Where were the men to come from? France was bled to death. She could give no more. Her veins were empty.

“This is the truth, the exact truth, and such is the secret and the explanation of all that has since occurred,” says Pasquier. “With these successive levies of conscriptions, past, present, and to come; with the Guards of Honor; with the brevet of sub-lieutenant forced on the young men appertaining to the best families, after they had escaped the conscript, or had supplied substitutes in conformity with the provisions of the law, there did not remain a single family which was not in anxiety or in mourning.”

Yet hedged in as he was by enemies, threatened by anarchy, supported by a fainting people, Napoleon dallied over the peace the allies offered. The terms were not dishonorable. France was to retire, as the other nations, within her natural boundaries, which they designated as the Rhine, the Alps, and the Pyrenees. But the emperor could not believe that Europe, whom he had defeated so often, had power to confine him within such limits. He could not believe that such a peace would be stable, and he began preparations for resistance. Fresh levies of troops were made. The Spanish frontier he attempted to secure by making peace with Ferdinand, recognizing him as King of Spain. He tried to settle his trouble with the Pope.

While he struggled to simplify the situation, to arouse national spirit, and to gather reënforcements, hostile forces multiplied and closed in upon him. The allies crossed the Rhine. The corps législatif took advantage of his necessity to demand the restoration of certain rights which he had taken from them. In his anger at their audacity, the emperor alienated public sympathy by dissolving the body. 258“I stood in need of something to console me,” he told them, “and you have sought to dishonor me. I was expecting that you would unite in mind and deed to drive out the foreigner; you have bid him come. Indeed, had I lost two battles, it would not have done France any greater evil.” To crown his evil day, Murat, Caroline’s husband, now King of Naples, abandoned him. This betrayal was the more bitter because his sister herself was the cause of it. Fearful of losing her little glory as Queen of Naples, Caroline watched the course of events until she was certain that her brother was lost, and then urged Murat to conclude a peace with England and Austria.

This accumulation of reverses, coming upon him as he tried to prepare for battle, drove Napoleon to approach the allies with proposals of peace. It was too late. The idea had taken root that France, with Napoleon at her head, would never remain in her natural limits; that the only hope for Europe was to crush him completely. This hatred of Napoleon had become almost fanatical, and made any terms of peace with him impossible.

By the end of January, 1814, the emperor was ready to renew the struggle. The day before he left Paris, he led the empress and the King of Rome to the court of the Tuileries, and presented them to the National Guard. He was leaving them what he held dearest in the world, he told them. The enemy were closing around; they might reach Paris; they might even destroy the city. While he fought without to shield France from this calamity, he prayed them to protect the priceless trust left within. The nobility and sincerity of the feeling that stirred the emperor were unquestionable; tears flowed down the cheeks of the men to whom he spoke, and for a moment every heart was animated by the old emotion, and they took with eagerness the oath he asked.

The next day he left Paris. The army he commanded did 259not number more than sixty thousand men. He led it against a force which, counting only those who had crossed the Rhine, numbered nearly six hundred thousand.

In the campaign of two months which followed, Napoleon several times defeated the allies. In spite of the terrible disadvantages under which he fought, he nearly drove them from the country. In every way the campaign was worthy of his genius. But the odds against him were too tremendous. The saddest phase of his situation was that he was not seconded. The people, the generals, the legislative bodies, everybody not under his personal influence seemed paralyzed. Augereau, who was at Lyons, did absolutely nothing, and the following letter to him shows with what energy and indignation Napoleon tried to arouse his stupefied followers.

260

1814.

Etched by Ruet, after Meissonier. Original in Walters’s gallery, Baltimore. Meissonier was fond of short titles, and very often in his historical works made choice of only a simple date. Among such titles are 1806, 1807, 1814, which might very well be replaced by Battle of Jena, Friedland, and Campaign of France. This last subject he treated twice under different aspects. First, in the famous canvas, his great masterpiece, where we see a gloomy, silent Napoleon, with face contracted by anguish, slowly riding at the head of his discouraged staff across the snowy plains of Champagne. This important work forms part of the collection of Monsieur Chauchard of Paris, who bought it for eight hundred thousand francs. The second picture is the one reproduced here, in which Napoleon is represented at the same period, but only at the outset of this terrible campaign—the last act but one of the Napoleonic tragedy. The carefully studied face shows as yet no expression of discouragement, but rather a determined hope of success. Napoleon wears the traditionary gray overcoat over the costume of the Chasseurs de la Garde, and rides his faithful little mare Marie, painted with a living, nervous effect that cannot be too much admired. Meissonier, inaccessible to the poetic seductions of symbolism, has nevertheless indicated here in a superb manner the gloomy future of the hero, by surrounding his luminous form with darkness, and casting on his brow the shadow of a stormy, threatening sky.—A. D.

261The terror and apathy of Paris exasperated him beyond measure. To his great disgust, the court and some of the counsellors had taken to public prayers for his safety. “I see that instead of sustaining the empress,” he wrote Cambacérès, “you discourage her. Why do you lose your head like that? What are these misereres and these prayers forty hours long at the chapel? Have people in Paris gone mad?”

The most serious concern of Napoleon in this campaign was that the empress and the King of Rome should not be captured. He realized that the allies might reach Paris at any time, and repeatedly he instructed Joseph, who had been appointed lieutenant-general in his absence, what to do if the city was threatened.

“Never allow the empress or the King of Rome to fall into the hands of the enemy.... As far as I am concerned, I would rather see my son slain than brought up at Vienna as an Austrian prince; and I have a sufficiently good opinion of the empress to feel persuaded that she thinks in the same way, as far as it is possible for a woman and a mother to do so. I never saw Andromaque represented without pitying Astyanax surviving his family, and without regarding it as a piece of good fortune that he did not survive his father.”

Throughout the two months there were negotiations for peace. They varied according to the success or failure of the emperor or the allies. Napoleon had reached a point where he would gladly have accepted the terms offered at the close of 1813. But those were withdrawn. France must come down to her limits in 1789. “What!” cried Napoleon, “leave France smaller than I found her? Never.”

The frightful combination of forces closed about him steadily, with the deadly precision of the chamber of torture, whose adjustable walls imperceptibly, but surely, draw together, day by day, until the victim is crushed. On the 30th of March Paris capitulated. The day before, the Regent Marie Louise with the King of Rome and her suite had left the city for Blois. The allied sovereigns entered Paris on the 1st of April. As they passed through the streets, they saw multiplying, as they advanced, the white cockades which 262the grandes dames of the Faubourg St. Germain had been making in anticipation of the entrance of the foreigner, and the only cries which greeted them as they passed up the boulevards were, “Long live the Bourbons! Long live the sovereigns! Long live the Emperor Alexander.”

The allies were in Paris, but Napoleon was not crushed. Encamped at Fontainebleau, his army about him, the soldiers everywhere faithful to him, he had still a large chance of victory, and the allies looked with uneasiness to see what move he would make. It was due largely to the wit of Talleyrand that the standing ground which remained to the emperor was undermined. That wily diplomat, whose place it was to have gone with the empress to Blois, had succeeded in getting himself shut into Paris, and, on the entry of the allies, had joined Alexander, whom he had persuaded to announce that the allied powers would not treat with Napoleon nor with any member of his family. This was eliminating the most difficult factor from the problem. By his fine tact Talleyrand brought over the legislative bodies to this view.

From the populace Alexander and Talleyrand feared nothing; it was too exhausted to ask anything but peace. Their most serious difficulty was the army. All over the country the cry of the common soldiers was, “Let us go to the emperor.” “The army,” declared Alexander, “is always the army; as long as it is not with you, gentlemen, you can boast of nothing. The army represents the French nation; if it is not won over, what can you accomplish that will endure?”

Every influence of persuasion, of bribery, of intimidation, was used with the soldiers and generals. They were told in phrases which could not but flatter them; “You are the most noble of the children of the country, and you cannot belong to the man who has laid it waste.... You are no longer the soldiers of Napoleon; the Senate and all France release you from your oaths.”

263The older officers on Napoleon’s staff at Fontainebleau were unsettled by adroit communications sent from Paris. They were made to believe that they were fighting against the will of the nation and of their comrades. When this disaffection had become serious, one of Napoleon’s oldest and most trusted associates, Marmont, suddenly deserted. He led the vanguard of the army. This treachery took away the last hope of the imperial cause, and on April 11, 1814, Napoleon signed the act of abdication at Fontainebleau. The act read:

“The allied powers having proclaimed that the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte is the only obstacle to the reëstablishment of peace in Europe, the Emperor Napoleon, faithful to his oath, declares that he renounces, for himself and his heirs, the thrones of France and Italy, and that there is no personal sacrifice, even that of his life, which he is not ready to make in the interest of France.”

For only a moment did the gigantic will waver under the shock of defeat, of treachery, and of abandonment. Uncertain of the fate of his wife and child, himself and his family denounced by the allies, his army scattered, he braved everything until Marmont deserted him, and he saw one after another of his trusted officers join his enemies; then for a moment he gave up the fight and tried to end his life. The poison he took had lost its full force, and he recovered from its effects. Even death would have none of him, he groaned.

But this discouragement was brief. No sooner was it decided that his future home should be the island of Elba, and that its affairs should be under his control, than he began to prepare for the journey to his little kingdom with the same energy and zest which had characterized him as emperor. On the 20th of April he left the palace of Fontainebleau.

264

NAPOLEON AT FONTAINEBLEAU THE EVENING AFTER HIS ABDICATION, APRIL 11, 1814.

François, after Delaroche, 1845.

A week after bidding his Guard farewell, Napoleon sent from Fréjus his first address to the inhabitants of Elba:

“Circumstances having induced me to renounce the throne of France, sacrificing my rights to the interests of the country, I reserved for myself the sovereignty of the island of Elba, which has met with the consent of all the powers. I therefore send you General Drouot, so that you may hand over to him the said island, with the military stores and provisions, and the property which belongs to my imperial domain. Be good enough to make known this new state of affairs to the inhabitants, and the choice which I have made of their island for my sojourn in consideration of the mildness of their manners and the excellence of their climate. I shall take the greatest interest in their welfare.

The Elbans received their new ruler with all the pomp which their means and experience permitted. The entire population celebrated his arrival as a fête. The new flag which the emperor had chosen—white ground with red bar and three yellow bees—was unfurled, and saluted by the forts of the nation and by the foreign vessels in port. The keys of the chief town of the island were presented to him, a Te Deum was sung. If these honors seemed poor and contemptible to Napoleon in comparison with the splendor of the fêtes to which he had become accustomed, he gave no sign, and played his part with the same seriousness as he had when he received his crown.

266His life at Elba was immediately arranged methodically, and he worked as hard and seemingly with as much interest as he had at Paris. The affairs of his new state were his chief concern, and he set about at once to familiarize himself with all their details. He travelled over the island in all directions, to acquaint himself with its resources and needs. At one time he made the circuit of his domain, entering every port, and examining its condition and fortifications. Everywhere that he went he planned and began works which he pushed with energy. Fine roads were laid out; rocks were levelled; a palace and barracks were begun. From his arrival his influence was beneficial. There was a new atmosphere at Elba, the islanders said.

The budget at Elba was administered as rigidly as that of France had been, and the little army was drilled with as great care as the Guards themselves. After the daily review of his troops, he rode on horseback, and this promenade became a species of reception, the islanders who wanted to consult him stopping him on his route. It is said that he invariably listened to their appeals.

Elba was enlivened constantly during Napoleon’s residence by tourists who went out of their way to see him. The majority of these curious persons were Englishmen; with many of them he talked freely, receiving them at his house, and letting them carry off bits of stone or of brick from the premises as souvenirs.

His stay was made more tolerable by the arrival of Madame mère and of the Princess Pauline and the coming of twenty-six members of the National Guard who had crossed France to join him. But his great desire that Marie Louise and the King of Rome should come to him was never gratified. It is told by one of his companions on the island, that he kept carefully throughout his stay a stock of fireworks which had fallen into his possession, planning 267to use them when his wife and boy should arrive, but, sadly enough, he never had an occasion to celebrate that event.

While to all appearances engrossed with the little affairs of Elba, Napoleon was, in fact, planning the most dramatic act of his life. On the 26th of February, 1815, the guard received an order to leave the island. With a force of eleven hundred men, the emperor passed the foreign ships guarding Elba, and on the afternoon of the 1st of March landed at Cannes on the Gulf of Juan. At eleven o’clock that night he started towards Paris. He was trusting himself to the people and the army. If there never was an example of such audacious confidence, certainly there never was such a response. The people of the South received him joyfully, offering to sound the tocsin and follow him en masse. But Napoleon refused; it was the soldiers upon whom he called.

“We have not been conquered [he told the army]. Come and range yourselves under the standard of your chief; his existence depends upon you; his interests, his honor, and his glory are yours. Victory will march at double-quick time. The eagle with the national colors will fly from steeple to steeple to the towers of Notre Dame. Then you will be able to show your scars with honor; then you will be able to boast of what you have done; you will be the liberators of the country....”

At Grenoble there was a show of resistance. Napoleon went directly to the soldiers, followed by his guard.

“Here I am; you know me. If there is a soldier among you who wishes to kill his emperor, let him do it.”

“Long live the emperor!” was the answer; and in a twinkle six thousand men had torn off their white cockades and replaced them by old soiled tricolors. They drew them from the inside of their caps, where they had been concealing them since the exile of their hero. “It is the same that I wore at Austerlitz,” said one as he passed the emperor. “This,” said another, “I had at Marengo.”

268

NAPOLEON’S RETURN FROM THE ISLAND OF ELBA, MARCH, 1815.

269From Grenoble the emperor marched to Lyons, where the soldiers and officers went over to him in regiments. The royalist leaders who had deigned to go to Lyons to exhort the army found themselves ignored; and Ney, who had been ordered from Besançon to stop the emperor’s advance, and who started out promising to “bring back Napoleon in an iron cage,” surrendered his entire division. It was impossible to resist the force of popular opinion, he said. From Lyons the emperor, at the head of what was now the French army, passed by Dijon, Autun, Avallon, and Auxerre, to Fontainebleau, which he reached on March 19th. The same day Louis XVIII. fled from Paris.

The change of sentiment in these few days was well illustrated in a French paper which, after Napoleon’s return, published the following calendar gathered from the royalist press.

February 25.—“The exterminator has signed a treaty offensive and defensive. It is not known with whom.”

February 26.—“The Corsican has left the island of Elba.”

March 1.—“Bonaparte has debarked at Cannes with eleven hundred men.”

March 7.—“General Bonaparte has taken possession of Grenoble.”

March 10.—“Napoleon has entered Lyons.”

March 19.—“The emperor reached Fontainebleau to-day.”

March 19.—“His Imperial Majesty is expected at the Tuileries to-morrow, the anniversary of the birth of the King of Rome.”

270

BEFORE WATERLOO.

After a lithograph by Charlet.

271Two days before the flight of the Bourbons, the following notice appeared on the door of the Tuileries:

“The emperor begs the king to send him no more soldiers; he has enough.”

“What was the happiest period of your life as emperor?” O’Meara asked Napoleon once at St. Helena.

“The march from Cannes to Paris,” he replied immediately.

His happiness was short-lived. The overpowering enthusiasm which had made that march possible could not endure. The bewildered factions which had been silenced or driven out by Napoleon’s reappearance recovered from their stupor. The royalists, exasperated by their own flight, reorganized. Strong opposition developed among the liberals. It was only a short time before a reaction followed the delirium which Napoleon’s return had caused in the nation. Disaffection, coldness, and plots succeeded. In face of this revulsion of feeling, the emperor himself underwent a change. The buoyant courage, the amazing audacity which had induced him to return from Elba, seemed to leave him. He became sad and preoccupied. No doubt much of this sadness was due to the refusal of Austria to restore his wife and child, and to the bitter knowledge that Marie Louise had succumbed to foreign influences and had promised never again to see her husband.

If the allies had allowed the French to manage their affairs in their own way, it is probable that Napoleon would have mastered the situation, difficult as it was. But this they did not do. In spite of his promise to observe the treaties made after his abdication, to accept the boundaries fixed, to abide by the Congress of Vienna, the coalition treated him with scorn, affecting to mistrust him. He was the disturber of the peace of the world, a public enemy; he must be put beyond the pale of society, and they took up arms, not against France, but against Napoleon. France, as it appeared, was not to be allowed to choose her own rulers.

272

“MARENGO,” NAPOLEON’S WAR-HORSE, LAST RIDDEN BY HIM AT THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO, AND AFTERWARDS THE PROPERTY OF CAPTAIN HOWARD.

Painted and engraved by James Ward, R. A. The skeleton of “Marengo” is now preserved in the museum of the Royal United Service Institution, London, and stands under the picture painted by Ward from which this engraving is taken. “A hoof of Marengo, made into a snuff-box, makes its nightly round after dinner at the Queen’s Guard in St. James’s Palace. In the lid is the legend: ‘Hoof of Marengo, barb charger of Napoleon, ridden by him at Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Wagram, in the Russian campaign, and finally at Waterloo.’ Around the hoof the legend continues: ‘Marengo was wounded in the near hip at Waterloo, when his master was on him in the hollow road in advance of the French position. He had been frequently wounded before in many battles.’”

273The position in which Napoleon found himself on the declaration of war was of exceeding difficulty, but he mastered the opposition with all his old genius and resources. Three months after the landing at Cannes he had an army of two hundred thousand men ready to march. He led it against at least five hundred thousand men.

On June 15th, Napoleon’s army met a portion of the enemy in Belgium, near Brussels, and on July 16th, 17th, and 18th were fought the battles of Ligny, Quatre Bras, and Waterloo, in the last of which he was completely defeated. The limits and nature of this sketch do not permit a description of the engagement at Waterloo. The literature on the subject is perhaps richer than that on any other subject in military science. Thousands of books discuss the battle, and each succeeding generation takes it up as if nothing had been written on it. But while Waterloo cannot be discussed here, it is not out of place to notice that among the reasons for its loss are certain ones which interest us because they are personal to Napoleon. He whose great rule in wars was, “Time is everything,” lost time at Waterloo. He who had looked after everything which he wanted well done, neglected to assure himself of such an important matter as the exact position of his enemy. He who once had been able to go a week without sleep, was ill. Again, if one will compare carefully the Bonaparte of Guérin (page 108) with the Napoleon of Girodet (page 240), he will understand, at least partially, why the battle of Waterloo was lost.

274

THE EIGHT EPOCHS OF THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON.

This original series of hats presented in different significant positions is from the pencil of Steuben, one of the most fertile painters of the First Empire, and symbolizes the eight principal epochs in Napoleon’s career.

1. Vendémiaire.
2. Consulate.
3. Empire.
4. Austerlitz.
5. Wagram.
6. Moscow.
7. Waterloo.
8. St. Helena.

275The defeat was complete; and when the emperor saw it, he threw himself into the battle in search of death. As eagerly as he had sought victory at Arcola, Marengo, Austerlitz, he sought death at Waterloo. “I ought to have died at Waterloo,” he said afterwards; “but the misfortune is that when a man seeks death most he cannot find it. Men were killed around me, before, behind—everywhere. But there was no bullet for me.”

He returned immediately to Paris. There was still force for resistance in France. There were many to urge him to return to the struggle, but such was the condition of public sentiment that he refused. The country was divided in its allegiance to him; the legislative body was frightened and quarrelling; Talleyrand and Fouché were plotting. Besides, the allies proclaimed to the nation that it was against Napoleon alone that they waged war. Under these circumstances Napoleon felt that loyalty to the best interest of France required his abdication; and he signed the act anew, proclaiming his son emperor under the title of Napoleon II.

Leaving Paris, the fallen emperor went to Malmaison, where Josephine had died only thirteen months before. A few friends joined him—Queen Hortense, the Duc de Rovigo, Bertrand, Las Cases, and Méneval. He remained there only a few days. The allies were approaching Paris, and the environs were in danger. Napoleon offered his services to the provisional government, which had taken his place, as leader in the campaign against the invader, promising to retire as soon as the enemy was repulsed, but he was refused. The government feared him, in fact, more than it did the allies, and urged him to leave France as quickly as possible. In his disaster he turned to America as a refuge, and gave his family rendezvous there.

Various plans were suggested for getting to the United States. Among the offers of aid to carry out his desire which were made to Napoleon, Las Cases speaks of one coming from an American in Paris, who wrote:

“While you were at the head of a nation you could perform any 276miracle, you might conceive any hopes; but now you can do nothing more in Europe. Fly to the United States! I know the hearts of the leading men and the sentiments of the people of America. You will there find a second country and every source of consolation.”

Mr. S. V. S. Wilder, an American shipping merchant who lived in France during the time of Napoleon’s power, and who had been much impressed by the changes brought about in society and politics under his rule, offered to help him to escape. He proposed that the emperor disguise himself as a valet for whom he had a passport. On board the ship the emperor was to conceal himself in a hogshead until the danger-line was crossed. This hogshead was to have a false compartment in it. From the end in view, water was to drip incessantly. Mr. Wilder proposed to take Napoleon to his own home in Bolton, Massachusetts, when they arrived in America. It is said that the emperor seriously considered this scheme, but finally declined, because he would leave his friends behind him, and for them Mr. Wilder could not possibly provide. Napoleon explained one day to Las Cases at St. Helena what he intended to do if he had reached America. He would have collected all his relatives around him, and thus would have formed the nucleus of a national union, a second France. Such were the sums of money he had given them that he thought they might have realized at least forty millions of francs. Before the conclusion of a year, the events of Europe would have drawn to him a hundred millions of francs and sixty thousand individuals, most of them possessing wealth, talent, and information.

“America [he said] was, in all respects, our proper asylum: It is an immense continent, possessing the advantage of a peculiar system of freedom. If a man is troubled with melancholy, he may get into a coach and drive a thousand leagues, enjoying all the way the pleasures of a common traveller. In America you may be on a footing of equality with everyone; you may, if you please, mingle with the 277crowd without inconvenience, retaining your own manners, your own language, your own religion.”

On June 29th, a week after his return to Paris from Waterloo, Napoleon left Malmaison for Rochefort, hoping to reach a vessel which would carry him to the United States; but the coast was so guarded by the English that there was no escape.

278

NAPOLEON EMBARKING ON THE “BELLEROPHON.”

Designed and engraved by Baugeau.

When it became evident that it was impossible to escape to the United States, Napoleon considered two courses—to call upon the country and renew the conflict, or seek an asylum in England. The former was not only to perpetuate the foreign war, it was to plunge France into civil war; for a large part of the country had come to the conclusion of the allies—that as long as Napoleon was at large, peace was impossible. Rather than involve France in such a disaster, the emperor resolved at last to give himself up to the English, and sent the following note to the regent:

“Royal Highness: Exposed to the factions which divide my country and to the hostility of the greatest powers of Europe, I have closed my political career. I have come, like Themistocles to seek the hospitality of the British nation. I place myself under the protection of their laws, which I claim from your Royal Highness as the most powerful, the most constant, and the most generous of my enemies.

On the 15th of July he embarked on the English ship, the “Bellerophon,” and a week later he was in Plymouth.

280

NAPOLEON ON BOARD THE “NORTHUMBERLAND.”

Engraved by Steele, after Orchardson.

281Napoleon’s surrender to the English was made, as he says, with full confidence in their hospitality. Certainly hospitality was the last thing to expect of England under the circumstances, and there was something theatrical in the demand for it. The “Bellerophon” was no sooner in the harbor of Plymouth than it became evident that he was regarded not as a guest, but as a prisoner. Armed vessels surrounded the ship he was on; extraordinary messages were hurried to and fro; sinister rumors ran among the crew. The Tower of London, a desert isle, the ends of the earth, were talked of as the hospitality England was preparing.

But if there was something theatrical, even humorous, in the idea of expecting a friendly welcome from England, there was every reason to suppose that she would receive him with dignity and consideration. Napoleon had been an enemy worthy of English metal. He had been defeated only after years of struggle. Now that he was at her feet, her own self-respect demanded that she treat him as became his genius and his position. To leave him at large was, of course, out of the question; but surely he could have been made a royal prisoner and been made to feel that if he was detained it was because of his might.

The British government no sooner realized that it had its hands on Napoleon than it was seized with a species of panic. All sense of dignity, all notions of what was due a foe who surrendered, were drowned in hysterical resentment. The English people as a whole did not share the government’s terror. The general feeling seems to have been similar to that which Charles Lamb expressed to Southey: “After all, Bonaparte is a fine fellow, as my barber says, and I should not mind standing bareheaded at his table to do him service in his fall. They should have given him Hampton Court or Kensington, with a tether extending forty miles round London.”

282

LONGWOOD, NAPOLEON’S HOUSE AT ST. HELENA.

Etching by Chienon.

283But the government could see nothing but danger in keeping such a force as Napoleon within its limits. It evidently took Lamb’s whimsical suggestion, that if Napoleon were at Hampton the people might some day eject the Brunswick in his favor, in profound seriousness. On July 30th it sent a communication to General Bonaparte—the English henceforth refused him the title of emperor, though permitting him that of general, not reflecting, probably, that if one was spurious the other was, since both had been conferred by the same authority—notifying him that as it was necessary that he should not be allowed to disturb the repose of England any longer, the British government had chosen the island of St. Helena as his future residence, and that three persons with a surgeon would be allowed to accompany him. A week later he was transferred from the “Bellerophon” to the “Northumberland,” and was en route for St. Helena, where he arrived in October, 1815.

The manner in which the British carried out their decision was irritating and unworthy. They seemed to feel that guarding a prisoner meant humiliating him, and offensive and unnecessary restrictions were made which wounded and enraged Napoleon.

The effect of this treatment on his character is one of the most interesting studies in connection with the man, and, on the whole, it leaves one with increased respect and admiration for him. He received the announcement of his exile in indignation. He was not a prisoner, he was the guest of England, he said. It was an outrage against the laws of hospitality to send him into exile, and he would never submit voluntarily. When he became convinced that the British were inflexible in their decision, he thought of suicide, and even discussed it with Las Cases. It was the most convenient solution of his dilemma. It would injure no one, and his friends would not be forced then to leave their families. It was easier because he had no scruples which opposed it. The idea was finally given up. A man ought to live out his destiny, he said, and he decided that his should be fulfilled.

284

NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENA.

By Delaroche.

285The most serious concern Napoleon felt in facing his new life was that he would have no occupation. He saw at once that St. Helena would not be an Elba. But he resolutely made occupations. He sought conversation, studied English, played games, began to dictate his memoirs. It is to this admirable determination to find something to do, that we owe his clear, logical commentaries, his essays on Cæsar, Turenne, and Frederick, his sketch of the Republic, and the vast amount of information in the journals of his devoted comrades, O’Meara, Las Cases, Montholon.

But no amount of forced occupation could hide the desolation of his position. The island of St. Helena is a mass of jagged, gloomy rocks; the nearest land is six hundred miles away. Isolated and inaccessible as it is, the English placed Napoleon in its most sombre and remote part—a place called Longwood, at the summit of a mountain, and to the windward. The houses at Longwood were damp and unhealthy. There was no shade. Water had to be carried some three miles.

The governor, Sir Hudson Lowe, was a tactless man, with a propensity for bullying those whom he ruled. He was haunted by the idea that Napoleon was trying to escape, and he adopted a policy which was more like that of a jailer than of an officer. In his first interview with the emperor he so antagonized him that Napoleon soon refused to see him. Napoleon’s antipathy was almost superstitious. “I never saw such a horrid countenance,” he told O’Meara. “He sat on a chair opposite to my sofa, and on the little table between us there was a cup of coffee. His physiognomy made such an unfavorable impression upon me that I thought his evil eye had poisoned the coffee, and I ordered Marchand to throw it out of the window. I could not have swallowed it for the world.”

Aggravated by Napoleon’s refusal to see him, Sir Hudson 286Lowe became more annoying and petty in his regulations. All free communication between Longwood and the inhabitants of the island was cut off. The newspapers sent Napoleon were mutilated; certain books were refused; his letters were opened. A bust of his son brought to the island by a sailor was withheld for weeks. There was incessant haggling over the expenses of his establishment. His friends were subjected to constant annoyance. All news of Marie Louise and of his son was kept from him.

It is scarcely to be wondered at that Napoleon was often peevish and obstinate under this treatment, or that frequently, when he allowed himself to discuss the governor’s policy with the members of his suite, his temper rose, as Montholon said, “to thirty-six degrees of fury.” His situation was made more miserable by his ill health. His promenades were so guarded by sentinels and restricted to such limits that he finally refused to take exercise, and after that his disease made rapid marches.

His fretfulness, his unreasonable determination to house himself, his childish resentment at Sir Hudson Lowe’s conduct, have led to the idea that Napoleon spent his time at St. Helena in fuming and complaining. But if one will take into consideration the work that the fallen emperor did in his exile, he will have a quite different impression of this period of his life. He lived at St. Helena from October, 1815, to May, 1821. In this period of five and a half years he wrote or dictated enough matter to fill the four good-sized volumes which complete the bulky correspondence published by the order of Napoleon III., and he furnished the great collection of conversations embodied in the memoirs published by his companions.

This means a great amount of thinking and planning; for if one will go over these dictations and writings to see 287how they were made, he will find that they are not slovenly in arrangement or loose in style. On the contrary, they are concise, logical, and frequently vivid. They are full of errors, it is true, but that is due to the fact that Napoleon had not at hand any official documents for making history. He depended almost entirely on his memory. The books and maps he had, he used diligently, but his supply was limited and unsatisfactory.

It must be remembered, too, that this work was done under great physical difficulties. He was suffering keenly much of the time after he reached the island. Even for a well man, working under favorable circumstances, the literary output of Napoleon at St. Helena would be creditable. For one in his circumstances it was extraordinary. A look at it is the best possible refutation of the common notion that he spent his time at St. Helena fuming at Sir Hudson Lowe and “stewing himself in hot water,” to use the expression of the governor.

Before the end of 1820 it was certain that he could not live long. In December of that year the death of his sister Eliza was announced to him. “You see, Eliza has just shown me the way. Death, which had forgotten my family, has begun to strike it. My turn cannot be far off.” Nor was it. On May 5, 1821, he died.

His preparations for death were methodical and complete. During the last fortnight of April all his strength was spent in dictating to Montholon his last wishes. He even dictated, ten days before the end, the note which he wished sent to Sir Hudson Lowe to announce his death. The articles he had in his possession at Longwood he had wrapped up and ticketed with the names of the persons to whom he wished to leave them. His will remembered numbers of those whom he had loved or who had served him. Even the Chinese laborers then employed about the place were remembered. “Do not let them be forgotten. Let them have a few score of napoleons.”

288

NAPOLEON’S LAST DAY.

From a sculpture by Véla. This superb statue was exhibited in Paris at the Exhibition Universelle of 1867 (Italian section), and obtained the gold medal. It was purchased by the French Government, and is now at Versailles.

289The will included a final word on certain questions on which he felt posterity ought distinctly to understand his position. He died, he said, in the apostolical Roman religion. He declared that he had always been pleased with Marie Louise, whom he besought to watch over his son. To this son, whose name recurs repeatedly in the will, he gave a motto—All for the French people. He died prematurely, he said, assassinated by the English oligarchy. The unfortunate results of the invasion of France he attributed to the treason of Marmont, Augereau, Talleyrand, and Lafayette. He defended the death of the Duc d’Enghien. “Under similar circumstances I should act in the same way.” This will is sufficient evidence that he died as he had lived, courageously and proudly, and inspired by a profound conviction of the justice of his own cause. In 1822 the French courts declared the will void.

They buried him in a valley beside a spring he loved, and though no monument but a willow marked the spot, perhaps no other grave in history is so well known. Certainly the magnificent mausoleum which marks his present resting place in Paris has never touched the imagination and the heart as did the humble willow-shaded mound in St. Helena.

290

NAPOLEON LYING DEAD.

“From the original drawing of Captain Crockatt, taken the morning after Napoleon’s decease.” Published July 18, 1821, in London.

291The peace of the world was insured. Napoleon was dead. But though he was dead, the echo of his deeds was so loud in the ears of France and England that they tried every device to turn it into discord or to drown it by another and a newer sound. The ignoble attempt was never entirely successful, and the day will come when personal and partisan considerations will cease to influence judgments on this mighty man. For he was a mighty man. One may be convinced that the fundamental principles of his life were despotic; that he used the noble ideas of personal liberty, of equality, and of fraternity, as a tyrant; that the whole tendency of his civil and military system was to concentrate a power in a single pair of hands, never to distribute it where it belonged, among the people; one may feel that he frequently sacrificed personal dignity to a theatrical desire to impose on the crowd as a hero of classic proportions, a god from Olympus; one may groan over the blood he spilt. But he cannot refuse to acknowledge that no man ever comprehended more clearly the splendid science of war; he cannot fail to bow to the genius which conceived and executed the Italian campaign, which fought the classic battles of Austerlitz, Jena, and Wagram. These deeds are great epics. They move in noble, measured lines, and stir us by their might and perfection. It is only a genius of the most magnificent order which could handle men and materials as Napoleon did.

He is even more imposing as a statesman. When one confronts the France of 1799, corrupt, crushed, hopeless, false to the great ideals she had wasted herself for, and watches Napoleon firmly and steadily bring order into this chaos, give the country work and bread, build up her broken walls and homes, put money into her pocket and restore her credit, bind up her wounds and call back her scattered children, set her again to painting pictures and reading books, to smiling and singing, he has a Napoleon greater than the general.

Nor were these civil deeds transient. France to-day is largely what Napoleon made her, and the most liberal institutions of continental Europe bear his impress. It is only a mind of noble proportions which can grasp the needs of a people, and a hand of mighty force which can supply them.

292

WAX CAST OF THE FACE OF NAPOLEON, MADE AT ST. HELENA IN 1821, BY DR. ARNOTT.

293But he was greater as a man than as a warrior or statesman; greater in that rare and subtle personal quality which made men love him. Men went down on their knees and wept at sight of him when he came home from Elba—rough men whose hearts were untrained, and who loved naturally and spontaneously the thing which was lovable. It was only selfish, warped, abnormal natures, which had been stifled by etiquette and diplomacy and self-interest, who abandoned him. Where nature lived in a heart, Napoleon’s sway was absolute. It was not strange. He was in everything a natural man; his imagination, his will, his intellect, his heart, were native, untrained. They appealed to unworldly men in all their rude, often brutal strength and sweetness. If they awed them, they won them.

This native force of Napoleon explains, at least partially, his hold on men; it explains, too, the contrasts of his character. Never was there a life lived so full of lights and shades, of majors and minors. It was a kaleidoscope, changing at every moment. Beside the most practical and commonplace qualities are the most idealistic. No man ever did more drudgery, ever followed details more slavishly; yet who ever dared so divinely, ever played such hazardous games of chance? No man ever planned more for his fellows, yet who ever broke so many hearts? No man ever made practical realities of so many of liberty’s dreams, yet it was by despotism that he gave liberal and beneficent laws. No man was more gentle, none more cruel. Never was there a more chivalrous lover until he was disillusioned; a more affectionate husband, even when faith had left him; yet no man ever trampled more rudely on womanly delicacy and reserve.

He was valorous as a god in danger, loved it, played with it; yet he would turn pale at a broken mirror, cross himself if he stumbled, fancy the coffee poisoned at which an enemy had looked.

294He was the greatest genius of his time, perhaps of all time, yet he lacked the crown of greatness—that high wisdom born of reflection and introspection which knows its own powers and limitations, and never abuses them; that fine sense of proportion which holds the rights of others in the same solemn reverence it demands for its own.

It is my wish that my ashes may repose on the banks of the Seine, in the midst of the French people, whom I have loved so well.—Testament of Napoleon, 2d Clause.

On May 12, 1840, Louis Philippe being king of the French people, the Chamber of Deputies was busy with a discussion on sugar tariffs. It had been dragging somewhat, and the members were showing signs of restlessness. Suddenly the Count de Rémusat, then Minister of the Interior, appeared, and asked a hearing for a communication from the government.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “the king has ordered his Royal Highness Monseigneur the Prince de Joinville^[2] to go with his frigate to the island of St. Helena, there to collect the remains of the Emperor Napoleon.”

A tremor ran over the House. The announcement was utterly unexpected. Napoleon to come back! The body seemed electrified, and the voice of the minister was drowned for a moment in applause. When he went on it was to say:

296

DEATH MASK OF NAPOLEON, MADE BY DR. ANTOMMARCHI AT ST. HELENA, 1821.

Calamatta, 1834. Calamatta produced the mask from the cast taken by Dr. Antommarchi, the physician of Napoleon at St. Helena, in 1834, grouping around it portraits (chiefly from Ingres’s drawings) of Madame Dudevant and others.

297“We have come to ask for an appropriation which shall enable us to receive the remains in a fitting manner, and to raise an enduring tomb to Napoleon.”

“Très bien! Très bien!” cried the House.

“The government, anxious to discharge a great national duty, asked England for the precious treasure which fortune had put into her hands.

“The thought of France was welcomed as soon as expressed. Listen to the reply of our magnanimous ally:

“‘The government of her Majesty hopes that the promptness of her response will be considered in France as a proof of her desire to efface the last traces of those national animosities which armed France and England against each other in the life of the emperor. The government of her Majesty dares to hope that if such sentiments still exist in certain quarters, they will be buried in the tomb where the remains of Napoleon are to be deposited.’”

The reading of this generous and dignified communication caused a profound sensation, and cries of “Bravo! bravo!” re-echoed through the hall. The minister, so well received, grew eloquent.

“England is right, gentlemen; the noble way in which restitution has been made will knit the bonds which unite us. It will wipe out all traces of a sorrowful past. The time has come when the two nations should remember only their glory. The frigate freighted with the mortal remains of Napoleon will return to the mouth of the Seine. They will be placed in the Invalides. A solemn celebration and grand religious and military ceremonies will consecrate the tomb which must guard them forever.

“It is important, gentlemen, that this august sepulchre should not remain exposed in a public place, in the midst of a noisy and inappreciative populace. It should be in a silent and sacred spot, where all those who honor glory and genius, grandeur and misfortune, can visit it and meditate.

298“He was emperor and king. He was the legitimate sovereign of our country. He is entitled to burial at Saint-Denis. But the ordinary royal sepulchre is not enough for Napoleon. He should reign and command forever in the spot where the country’s soldiers repose, and where those who are called to defend it will seek their inspiration. His sword will be placed on his tomb.

“Art will raise beneath the dome of the temple consecrated to the god of battles a tomb worthy, if that be possible, of the name which shall be engraved upon it. This monument must have a simple beauty, grand outlines, and that appearance of eternal strength which defies the action of time. Napoleon must have a monument lasting as his memory....

“Hereafter France and France alone, will possess all that remains of Napoleon. His tomb, like his fame, will belong to no one but his country. The monarchy of 1830 is the only and the legitimate heir of the past of which France is so proud. It is the duty of this monarchy, which was the first to rally all the forces and to conciliate all the aspirations of the French Revolution, fearlessly to raise and honor the statue and the tomb of the popular hero. There is one thing, one only, which does not fear comparison with glory—that is liberty.”

Throughout this speech, every word of which was an astonishment to the Chamber, sincere and deep emotion prevailed. At intervals enthusiastic applause burst forth. For a moment all party distinctions were forgotten. The whole House was under the sway of that strange and powerful emotion which Napoleon, as no other leader who ever lived, was able to inspire.

When the minister followed his speech by the draft of a law for a special credit of one million francs, a member, beside himself with excitement, moved that rules be laid 299aside and the law voted without the legal preliminaries. The president refused to put so irregular a motion, but the House would not be quiet. The deputies left their places, formed in groups in the hemicycle, surrounded the minister, congratulating him with fervor. They walked up and down, gesticulating and shouting. It was fully half an hour before the president was able to bring them to order, and then they were in anything but a working mood.

“The president must close this session,” cried an agitated member; “the law which has just been proposed has caused too great emotion for us to return now to discussing sugar.” But the president replied very properly, and a little sententiously, that the Chamber owed its time to the country’s business, and that it must give it. And, in spite of their excitement, the members had to go back to their sugar.

But how had it come about that the French government had dared burst upon the country with so astounding a communication. There were many explanations offered. A curious story which went abroad took the credit from the king and gave it to O’Connell, the Irish agitator. As the story went, O’Connell had warned Lord Palmerston that he proposed to present a bill in the Commons for returning Napoleon’s remains to France.

“Take care,” said Lord Palmerston. “Instead of pleasing the French government, you may embarrass it seriously.”

“That is not the question,” answered O’Connell. “The question for me is what I ought to do. Now, my duty is to propose to the Commons to return the emperor’s bones. England’s duty is to welcome the motion. I shall make my propositions, then, without disturbing myself about whom they will flatter or wound.”

“So be it,” said Lord Palmerston. “Only give me fifteen days.”

300“Very well,” answered O’Connell.

Immediately Lord Palmerston wrote to Monsieur Thiers, then at the head of the French Ministry, that he was about to be forced to tell the country that England had never refused to return the remains of Napoleon to France, because France had never asked that they be returned. As the story goes, Monsieur Thiers advised Louis Philippe to forestall O’Connell, and thus it came about that Napoleon’s remains were returned to France.

The grande pensée, as the idea was immediately called, seems, however, to have originated with Monsieur Thiers, who saw in it a means of reawakening interest in Louis Philippe. He believed that the very audacity of the act would create admiration and applause. Then, too, it was in harmony with the claim of the régime; that is, that the government of 1830 united all that was best in all the past governments of France, and so was stronger than any one of them. The mania of both king and minister for collecting and restoring made them think favorably of the idea. Already Louis Philippe had inaugurated galleries at Versailles, and hung them with miles of canvas, celebrating the victories of all his predecessors. In the gallery of portraits he had placed Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI. beside Madame Roland, Charlotte Corday, Robespierre, and Napoleon and his marshals.

He had already replaced the statue of Napoleon on the top of the Column Vendôme. He had restored cathedrals, churches, and châteaux, put up statues and monuments, and all this he had done with studied indifference to the politics of the individuals honored.

Yet while so many little important personages were being exalted, the remains of the greatest leader France had ever known, were lying in a far away island. Louis Philippe 301felt that no monument he could build to the heroes of the past would equal restoring Napoleon’s remains.

The matter was simpler, because it was almost certain that England would not block the path. The entente cordiale, whose base had been laid by Talleyrand nearly ten years earlier, had become a comparatively solid peace, and either nation was willing to go out of the way, if necessary, to do the other a neighborly kindness. France was so full of good will that she was even willing to ask a favor. Her confidence was well placed. Two days after Guizot, then the French minister to England, had explained the project to Lord Palmerston, and made his request, he had his reply.

The remains of the “emperor” were at the disposition of the French. Of the “emperor,” notice! After twenty-five years England recalled the act of her ministers in 1815, and recognized that France made Napoleon emperor as well as general.

The announcement that Napoleon’s remains were to be brought back, produced the same effect upon the country at large that it had upon the Chamber—a moment of acute emotion, of all-forgetting enthusiasm. But in the Chamber and the country the feeling was short-lived. The political aspects of the bold movement were too conspicuous. A chorus of criticisms and forebodings arose. It was more of Monsieur Thiers’ clap-trap, said those opposed to the English policy of the government. What particularly angered this party, was the words “magnanimous ally” in the minister’s address.

The Bonapartes feigned to despise the proposed ceremony. It was insufficient for the greatness of their hero. One million francs could not possibly produce the display the object demanded. Another point of theirs was more serious. The emperor was the legitimate sovereign of the 302country, they said, quoting from the minister’s speech to the Chamber, and they added: “His title was founded on the senatus consultum of the year 12, which, by an equal number of suffrages, secured the succession to his brother Joseph. It was then unquestionably Joseph Bonaparte who was proclaimed emperor of the French by the Minister of the Interior, and amid the applause of the deputies.”

Scoffers said that Louis Philippe must have discovered that his soft mantle of popularity was about worn out, if he was going to make one of the old gray redingote of a man whom he had called a monster. The Legitimists denied that Napoleon was a legitimate sovereign with a right to sleep at Saint-Denis like a Bourbon or a Valois. The Orleanists were wounded by the hopes they saw inspired in the Bonapartists by this declaration. The Republicans resented the honor done to the man whom they held up as the greatest of all despots.

There was a conviction among many that the restoration was premature, and probably would bring on the country an agitation which would endanger the stability of the throne. It was tempting the Bonaparte pretensions certainly, and perhaps arousing a tremendous popular sentiment to support them.

While the press and government, the clubs and cafés, discussed the political side of the question, the populace quietly revived the Napoleon legend. Within two days after the government had announced its intentions, commerce had begun to take advantage of the financial possibilities in the approaching ceremony. New editions of the “Lives” of Napoleon which Vernet and Raffet had illustrated, were advertised. Dumas’ “Life” and Thiers’ “Consulate and Empire” were announced. Memoirs of the period, like those of the Duchesse d’Abrantès and of Marmont, were revived.

303As on the announcement of Napoleon’s death in 1821, there was an inundation of pamphlets in verse and prose; of portraits and war compositions, lithographs, engravings, and wood-cuts; of thousands of little objects such as the French know so well how to make. The shops and street carts were heaped with every conceivable article à la Napoléon. The legend grew as the people gazed.

On July 7th the “Belle Poule,” the vessel which was to conduct the Prince de Joinville, the commander of the expedition, to St. Helena, sailed from Toulon accompanied by the “Favorite.” In the suite of the Prince were several old friends of Napoleon: the Baron las Cases, General Gourgaud, Count Bertrand, and four of his former servants. All these persons had been with him at St. Helena.

The Prince de Joinville had not received his orders to go on the expedition with great pleasure. Two of his brothers had just been sent to Africa to fight, and he envied them their opportunities for adventures and glory; and, besides, he was sick of a most plebeian complaint, the measles. “One day as I lay in high fever,” he says in his “Memoirs,” “I saw my father appear, followed by Monsieur de Rémusat, then Minister of the Interior. This unusual visit filled me with astonishment, and my surprise increased when my father said, ‘Joinville, you are to go out to St. Helena and bring back Napoleon’s coffin.’ If I had not been in bed already I should have fallen down flat, and at first blush I felt no wise flattered when I compared the warlike campaign my brothers were on with the undertaker’s job I was being sent to perform in the other hemisphere. But I served my country, and I had no right to discuss my orders.”

If the young prince was privately a little ashamed of his task, publicly he adapted himself admirably to the occasion.

304

NAPOLEON’S TOMB AT ST. HELENA.

From a recent photograph.

305A voyage of sixty-six days brought the “Belle Poule,” on October 8th, to St. Helena, where she was welcomed by the English with every honor. Indeed, throughout the affair the attitude of the English was dignified and generous. They showed plainly their desire to satisfy and flatter the pride and sentiment of the French.

It had been decided that the exhumation of the body and its transfer to the French should take place on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the arrival of Napoleon at the island. The disinterment was begun at midnight on October 15th, the English conducting the work, and a number of the French, including those of the party who had been with Napoleon at his death, being present. The work was one of extraordinary difficulty, for the same remarkable precautions against escape were taken in Napoleon’s death as had been in his life.

The grave in the Valley of Napoleon, as the place had come to be called, was surrounded by an iron railing set in a heavy stone curb. Over the grave was a covering of six-inch stone which admitted to a vault eleven feet deep, eight feet long, and four feet eight inches broad. The vault was apparently filled with earth, but digging down some seven feet a layer of Roman cement was found; this broken, laid bare a layer of rough-hewn stone ten inches thick, and fastened together by iron clamps. It took four and one-half hours to remove this layer. The stone up, the slab forming the lid of the interior sarcophagus was exposed, enclosed in a border of Roman cement strongly attached to the walls of the vault. So stoutly had all these various coverings been sealed with cement and bound by iron bands, that it took the large party of laborers ten hours to reach the coffin.

As soon as exposed the coffin was purified, sprinkled with holy water, consecrated by a De Profundis, and then raised 306with the greatest care, and carried into a tent which had been prepared for it. After the religious ceremonies, the inner coffins were opened. “The outermost coffin was slightly injured,” says an eye witness; “then came one of lead, which was in good condition, and enclosed two others—one of tin and one of wood. The last coffin was lined inside with white satin, which, having become detached by the effect of time, had fallen upon the body and enveloped it like a winding-sheet, and had become slightly attached to it.

“It is difficult to describe with what anxiety and emotion those who were present waited for the moment which was to expose to them all that was left of the Emperor Napoleon. Notwithstanding the singular state of preservation of the tomb and coffins, we could scarcely hope to find anything but some misshapen remains of the least perishable part of the costume to evidence the identity of the body. But when Dr. Guillard raised the sheet of satin, an indescribable feeling of surprise and affection was experienced by the spectators, many of whom burst into tears. The emperor himself was before their eyes! The features of the face, though changed, were perfectly recognizable; the hands extremely beautiful; his well known costume had suffered but little, and the colors were easily distinguished. The attitude itself was full of ease, and but for the fragments of satin lining which covered, as with fine gauze, several parts of the uniform, we might have believed we still saw Napoleon lying on his bed of state.”

A solemn procession was now formed, and the coffin borne over the rugged hills of St. Helena to the quay. “We were all deeply impressed,” says the Prince de Joinville, “when the coffin was seen coming slowly down the mountain side to the firing of cannon, escorted by British infantry with arms reversed, the band playing, to the dull rolling 307accompaniment of the drums, that splendid funeral march which English people call the Dead March in Saul.”

At the head of the quay, the Prince de Joinville, attended by the officers of the French vessels, was waiting to receive the remains of the emperor. In the midst of the most solemn military funeral rites the French embarked with their precious charge. “The scene at that moment was very fine,” continues the prince. “A magnificent sunset had been succeeded by a twilight of the deepest calm. The British authorities and the troops stood motionless on the beach, while our ship’s guns fired a royal salute. I stood in the stern of my long-boat, over which floated a magnificent tricolor flag, worked by the ladies of St. Helena. Beside me were the generals and superior officers. The pick of my topmen, all in white, with crape on their arms, and bareheaded like ourselves, rowed the boat in silence, and with the most admirable precision. We advanced with majestic slowness, escorted by the boats bearing the staff. It was very touching, and a deep national sentiment seemed to hover over the whole scene.”

But no sooner did the coffin reach the French cutter than mourning was changed to triumph. Flags were unfurled, masts squared, drums set a-beating, and salvos poured from ports and vessels. The emperor had come back to his own!

Three days later the “Belle Poule” was en route for France. One incident alone marked her return. A passing vessel brought the news that war had been declared between France and England. The Prince de Joinville was only twenty-two, a hot-headed youth, and the news of war immediately convinced him that England had her fleet out watching for him, ready to carry off Napoleon again. He rose to the height of his fears. The elegant furnishings of the saloons of his vessel were torn out and thrown overboard 308to make room for the batteries; the men were made ready for fighting, and everybody on board was compelled to take an oath to sink the vessel before allowing the remains to be taken. This done, the “Belle Poule” went her way peacefully to Cherbourg, where she arrived on November 30th, forty-three days after leaving St. Helena.

The town of Cherbourg owes much to Napoleon—her splendid harbors, and great tracts of land rescued from the sea—and she honored the return of his remains with every pomp. Even the poor of the town were made to rejoice by lavish gifts in the emperor’s honor; and one of the chief squares—one he had redeemed from the sea—became the Place Napoleon.

The vessels lay eight days at Cherbourg, for the arrival had been a fortnight earlier than was anticipated, and nothing was ready for the celebration at Paris; but the time was none too long for the thousands who flocked in interminable processions to the vessels. When the vessels left for Havre, Cherbourg was so excited that she did what must have seemed to the nervous inhabitants an extravagance, even in Napoleon’s honor, she fired a thousand guns!

The passage of the flotilla from Cherbourg to Paris took seven days. At almost every town and hamlet elaborate demonstrations were made. At Havre and Rouen they were especially magnificent.

A striking feature of the river cortége was the ceremonies at the various bridges under which the vessels passed. The most elaborate of these was at Rouen, where the central arch of the suspension bridge had been formed into an immense arch of triumph. The decorations were the exclusive work of wounded legionary officers and soldiers of the Empire. When the vessel bearing the coffin passed under, the veterans showered down upon it wreaths of flowers and branches of laurel.

309These elaborate and grandiose ceremonies were not, however, the really touching feature of the passage. The hill-sides and river-banks were crowded with people from all the surrounding country, who sometimes even pressed into the river in order better to see the vessels. Those on the flotilla saw aged peasants firing salutes with ancient muskets, old men kneeling with uncovered heads on the sod, and others, their heads in their hands weeping—these men were veterans of the Empire paying homage to the passage of their hero.

It was on the afternoon of December 14th, just as the sun was setting radiantly behind Mt. Valerian, that the flotilla reached Courbevoie, a few miles from Paris, where Napoleon’s body was first to touch French soil. The bridge at Courbevoie, the islands of Neuilly, the hills which rise from the Seine, were crowded, far as the eye could reach, with a throng drawn from the entire country around.

The flotilla as it approached was a brilliant sight. At the head was the “Dorade,” a cross at her prow, and, behind, the coffin. It was draped in purple velvet, surrounded by flags and garlands of oak and cypress, and surmounted by a canopy of black velvet ornamented with silver and masses of floating black plumes. Between cross and coffin stood the Prince de Joinville in full uniform, and behind him Generals Bertrand and Gourgaud and the Abbé Coquereau, almoner of the expedition. The vessels following the “Dorade” bore the crews of the “Belle Poule” and the “Favorite” and the military bands. A magnificent funeral boat, on whose deck there was a temple of bronzed wood, hung with splendid draperies of purple and gold, brought up the official procession. Behind followed numberless craft of all descriptions. Majestic funeral marches and salvos of artillery accompanied the advance.

310

THE FUNERAL PROCESSION IN PARIS. FUNERAL CAR PASSING DOWN THE CHAMPS ELYSÉES.

311At Courbevoie the flotilla anchored. Notwithstanding the intense cold, thousands of people camped all night on the hill-sides and shores, their bivouac fires illuminating the landscape.

Only those who have seen Paris on the day of a great fête or ceremony can picture to themselves the 15th of December, 1840. The day was intensely cold, eight degrees below the freezing point, but at five o’clock in the morning, when the drums began beating, and the guns booming, the populace poured forth, taking up their positions along the line of the expected procession. This line was fully three miles in length, and ran from Courbevoie to the Arc de Triomphe by way of Neuilly, thence down the Champs Elysées, across the Place and Bridge de la Concorde, and along the quai to the Esplanade des Invalides. From one end to the other it was packed on either side a hundred deep, before nine o’clock. The journals of the day compute the number of visitors expected in Paris as about half a million. Inside and outside of the Hôtel des Invalides alone, thirty-six thousand places were given to the Minister of the Interior, and that did not cover one-tenth of the requests he received. It is certain that nearly a million persons saw the entry of Napoleon’s remains. The people hung from the trees, crowded the roofs, stood on ladders of every description, filled the windows, and literally swarmed over the walks and grass plots. A brisk business went on in elevated positions. A ladder rung cost five francs ($1.00); the man who had a cart across which he had laid boards, rented standing-room at from five to ten francs. As for windows and balconies—they sold for fabulous prices, in spite of the fact that the placard fenêtrés et balcons à louer appeared in almost every house from Neuilly to the Invalides, even in many a magnificent hotel of the Champs Elysées. Fifty francs ($10.00) was the price of the meanest window; a good one cost one hundred francs ($20.00); three thousand francs ($600.00) 312were paid for good balconies. One speculator rented a vacant house for the day for five thousand francs ($1,000.00), and made money on his investment.

The crowd made every preparation to keep warm; some of them carried foot-stoves filled with live coals, others little hand-warmers. At intervals along the procession great masses of the spectators danced to keep up their circulation. Vendors of all sorts of articles did a thriving business. Every article was, of course, Napoleonized; one even bought gauffrettes and Madeleines cut out in the shape of Napoleons. There were badges of every form—imperial eagles, bees, crowns, even the petit chapeau. Many pamphlets in prose and verse had a great sale, especially those of Casimir Delavigne, Victor Hugo, and Barthélemy; though all these stately odes were far outstripped by one song, thousands upon thousands of copies of which were sold. It ran:

The cortége which had brought this crowd together was magnificent in the extreme. A brilliant military display formed the first portion: gendarmerie, municipal guards, officers, infantry, cavalry, artillery, cadets from the important schools, national guards. But this had little effect on the crowd. The genuine interest began when Marengo, Napoleon’s famous battle-horse appeared—it was not Marengo, but it looked like him, which for spectacular purposes was just as well; and the saddle and bridle were genuine. The defile now became exciting. The commission of St. 313Helena appeared in carriages, then the Marshals of France, the Prince de Joinville, the crews of the vessels which had been to St. Helena, finally the funeral car, a magnificent creation over thirty feet high, its design and ornaments symbolic. Sixteen black horses in splendid trappings drew the car, whose funeral pall was held by a marshal and an admiral of France, by the Duc de Reggio and General Bertrand.

The passing of the car was everywhere greeted with sincere emotion, profound reverence. Even the opposition recognized the genuineness of the feeling; many of them owned to sharing it for one moment of self-forgetfulness, and they began to ask themselves, as Lamartine had asked the Chamber six months before, what they had been thinking of to allow the French heart and imagination to be so fired? Even cynical Englishmen who looked on with stern or contemptuous countenances, said to themselves meditatively that night, as they sat by their fire resting, “Something good must have been in this man, something loving and kindly, that has kept his name so cherished in the popular memory and gained him such lasting reverence and affection.”

Following the car came those who had been intimately associated with the emperor in his life—his aides-de-camp and civil and military officers. Many of them had been with him in famous battles; some were at Fontainebleau in 1814, others at Malmaison in 1815. The veterans of the Imperial Guard followed; behind them a deputation from Ajaccio.

From Courbevoie to the Hôtel des Invalides, one walked through a hedge of elaborate decorations—of bees, eagles, crowns, N’s; of bucklers, banners, and wreaths bearing the names of famous victories; of urns blazing with incense; of rostral columns; masts bearing trophies of arms and clusters of flags; flaming tripods; allegorical statues; triumphal arches; great banks of seats draped in imperial 314purple and packed with spectators, and phalanges of soldiers.

On the top of the Arc de Triomphe was an imposing apotheosis of Napoleon. Each side of the Pont de la Concorde was adorned with huge statues. On the Esplanade des Invalides the car passed between an avenue of thirty-two statues of great French kings, heroes, and heroines—Charles Martel, Charlemagne, Clovis, Bayard, Jeanne d’Arc, Latour d’Auvergne, Ney. The chivalry and valor of France welcomed Napoleon home. Oddly enough, this hedge of statues ended in one of Napoleon himself; the incongruity of the arrangements struck even the gamins. “Tiens,” cried one urchin, “voilà comme l’empereur fait la queue à lui-mème.” (“Hello, see there how the emperor brings up his own procession.”)

The procession passed quietly from one end to the other of the route, to the great relief of the authorities. Difficulty was anticipated from several sources: from the Anglophobes, the Revolutionists, the Legitimists, the Bonapartists, and the great mass of dissatisfied, who, no matter what form of rule they are under, are always against the government. The greatest fear seems to have been on the part of the English. Thackeray, who was in town at the time, gives an amusing picture of his own nervousness on the morning of the 15th.

“Did the French nation, or did they not, intend to offer up some of us English over the imperial grave? And were the games to be concluded by a massacre? It was said in the newspapers that Lord Granville had despatched circulars to all the English residents in Paris, begging them to keep their homes. The French journals announced this news, and warned us charitably of the fate intended for us. Had Lord Granville written? Certainly not to me. Or had he written to all except me? And was I the victim—the doomed one?—to be seized directly I showed my face in the Champs Elysées, and torn in pieces by French patriotism to the frantic chorus of the 315Marseillaise? Depend on it, Madame, that high and low in this city on Tuesday were not altogether at their ease, and that the bravest felt no small tremor. And be sure of this, that as his Majesty Louis Philippe took his nightcap off his royal head that morning, he prayed heartily that he might at night put it on in safety.”

Fortunately Thackeray’s courage conquered, and so we have the entertaining “Second Funeral of Napoleon,” by “Michael Angelo Titmarsh.”

In spite of all forebodings, the hostile displays were nothing more than occasional cries of “A bas les Anglais,” a few attempts to promenade the tricolor flag and drown Le Premier Capitaine du Monde by the Marseillaise, and a strong indignation when it was learned that the representatives of the allies had refused to be present at the final ceremony.

Most of the observers of the funeral attributed the good order of the crowd to the cold. A correspondent of the “National Intelligence” of that date says:

“If this business had fallen in the month of June or July, with all its excitements, spontaneous and elaborate, I should have deemed a sanguinary struggle between the government and the mob certain or highly probable. The present military array might answer for an approaching army of Cossacks. Forty or fifty thousand troops remain in the barracks within and camps without, besides the regular soldiery and National Guards in the field, ready to act against the domestic enemy.

“Providentially the cold increased to the utmost keenness; the genial currents of the insurrectionary and revolutionary soul were frozen.”

The climax of the pageant was in the temple of the Invalides. The spacious church was draped in the most magnificent and lavish fashion, and adorned with a perfect bewilderment of imperial emblems. The light was shut out by hangings of violet velvet; tripods blazing with colored flames, and thousands upon thousands of waxen candles in brilliant candelabra lighted the temple. Under the dome, in the place of the altar, stood the catafalque which was to receive the coffin.

316

THE FUNERAL MASS IN THE CHURCH OF THE HOTEL DES INVALIDES. THE CATAFALQUE ON WHICH THE COFFIN RESTS IS SEEN IN THE DISTANCE.

317From early in the morning the galleries, choir, and tribunes of the Invalides were packed by a distinguished company. There were the Deputies and Senators—neither of which had been represented in the cortége—the judicial and educational bodies, the officers of army and navy, the ambassadors and representatives of foreign governments, the king, and the court.

But none of these dignitaries were of more than passing interest that day. The centre of attention, until the coffin entered, was the few old soldiers of the Empire to be seen in the company; most prominent of these was Marshal Moncey, the decrepit governor of the Invalides.

It was two o’clock in the afternoon when the Archbishop of Paris, preceded by a splendid cross-bearer, and followed by sixteen incense boys and long rows of white-clad priests, left the church to meet the procession. They returned soon. Following them were the Prince de Joinville and a select few from the grand cortége without, attending Napoleon’s coffin.

As it passed, the great assemblage was swayed by an extraordinary emotion. There is no one of those who have described the day who does not speak of the sudden, intense agitation which thrilled the company, whether he refers to it half-humorously as Thackeray, who told how “everybody’s heart was thumping as hard as possible,” or cries with Victor Hugo:

The king descended from his throne and advanced to meet the cortége. “Sire,” said the Prince de Joinville, “I 318present to you the body of Napoleon, which, in accordance with your commands, I have brought back to France.”

“I receive it in the name of France,” replied Louis Philippe.

Such at least is what the “Moniteur” affirms was said, but the “Moniteur” is an official journal whose business is, not to tell what really happens, but what the government would prefer to have happen. The Prince de Joinville gives a different version: “The king received the body at the entrance to the nave, and there rather a comical scene took place. It appears that a little speech which I was to have delivered when I met my father, and also the answer he was to give me, had been drawn up in council, only the authorities had omitted to inform me concerning it. So when I arrived I simply saluted with my sword, and then stood aside. I saw, indeed, that this silent salute, followed by retreat, had thrown something out; but my father after a moment’s hesitation, improvised some appropriate sentence, and the matter was arranged in the ‘Moniteur.’”

Beside the king stood an officer, bearing a cushion; on it lay the sword of Austerlitz. Marshal Soult handed it to the king, who, turning to Bertrand, said:

“General, I commission you to place the emperor’s glorious sword on the bier.”

And Bertrand, trembling with emotion, laid the sword reverently on his idol’s coffin. The great company watched the scene in deepest silence. The only sound which broke the stillness was the half-stifled sobs of the gray-haired soldiers of the Invalides, who stood in places of honor near the catafalque.

The king and the procession returned to their places, and then followed a majestic funeral mass. The Requiem of Mozart, as rendered that day by all the great singers of Paris, is one of the historic musical performances of France. 319The archbishop then sprinkled the coffin with holy water, the king taking the brush from him for the same sacred duty.

The funeral was over. Napoleon lay at last “on the banks of the Seine, among the people whom he had so loved.” For eight days after the ceremony the church remained open to the public, and in spite of the terrible cold thousands stood from morning until night waiting patiently their turn to enter. After hours of waiting, they frequently were sent away, only to come back earlier the next day. In this company were numbers of veterans of the imperial army who had made the journey to Paris from distant parts of the kingdom. In the delegation from Belgium were many who had walked part of the way, not being able to pay full coach fare.

Banquets and dinners followed the funeral. At one of these, a “sacred toast to the immortal memory” was drunk kneeling. In a dozen theatres of Paris the translation of the remains was dramatized. At the Porte Saint-Martin, the actor who took the part of Sir Hudson Lowe had a season of terror, he being in constant danger of violence from the wrought-up audience.

The advertising columns of the newspapers of the day blazed for weeks with announcements of Napoleonized articles; the holiday gifts prepared for the booths of the boulevards and squares, and for the magnificent shops of the Palais Royal and the fashionable streets, whatever their nature—to eat, to wear, to look at—were made up as memorials. Paris seemed to be Napoleon-mad.

In the February following the funeral, the coffin of Napoleon was transferred from the catafalque in the centre of the church to a chapelle ardente in the basement at one side. The chapel was richly draped in silk and gold, and hung with trophies. On the coffin lay the imperial crown, 320the emperor’s sword, and the hat which he had worn at Eylau, and which he had given to Gros when he ordered the battle of Eylau painted. Over the coffin waved the flags taken at Austerlitz.

Here Napoleon’s body lay until the mausoleum was finished. This magnificent structure was designed by Visconti, the eminent architect, who had planned the entire decorations of the 15th of December. Visconti utterly ignored the appropriations in executing the monument, ordering what he wanted, regardless of its cost. For the marble from which Pradier made the twelve colossal figures around the tomb, he sent to Carrara; the porphyry which was used to inclose the coffin, he obtained in Finland.

In this magnificent sepulchre Napoleon still sleeps. Duroc and Bertrand lie on either side of the entrance to the chamber, guarding him in death as in life; and to the right and left of the entrance to the church are the tombs of his brothers Jerome and Joseph. On the stones about him are inscribed the names he made glorious! over him are draped scores of trophies; attending him are the veterans of the Invalides.

322

JOSEPHINE, EMPRESS OF THE FRENCH.

Reproduction of the model of the marble statue exhibited in the Salon of 1857, and executed for the town of St. Pierre (Martinique), the native country of Josephine. This statue as by the sculptor Vital-Dubray. The plaster cast is in the Versailles museum.

CHAPTER I
 
FAMILY—EARLY SURROUNDINGS—EUGENE DE BEAUHARNAIS—MARRIAGE—SEPARATION FROM HER HUSBAND

The proudest monument in the Island of Martinique, in the French West Indies, so any inhabitant will tell you, is the statue of a woman in the town of St. Pierre. The woman thus honored is Josephine, once Empress of the French People, who, so the legend on the pedestal of the statue relates was born at the hamlet of Trois Ilets, Martinique, on June 23, 1763.

If one searches in the legends of the island for an explanation of the position to which the child of this humble spot arose, he will find nothing more serious than the prophecy of an old negress, made to the little girl herself, that one day she would be Queen of France. If he looks in the chronicles of the island for an explanation, he will find nothing to indicate that she could ever rise higher than the life of an indolent creole, a life narrowed by poverty and made tolerable chiefly by the beauty of the nature about her and by her own happy indifference of temperament.

Joseph Tascher de la Pagerie, the child’s father, was the eldest son of a noble of Blois, France, who went to Martinique in the first quarter of the eighteenth century chiefly because he could not succeed in anything in his own country. 326He did no better in Martinique than he had done in France and was only able to start his children in life by dint of soliciting favors for them from his well-to-do relatives at home. For Joseph he obtained a small military position, but the lad was no better at improving his opportunities than his father had been and returned to Martinique after a few years a lieutenant of marines—without a place.

When soliciting failed, nothing was left in those days for a nobleman who did not relish work but marriage, and Joseph succeeded, by help of his friends, in making a very good one with Mlle. Rose-Claire des Vergers de Sannois, whose father was of noble descent and, what was more to the point, was prosperous and of good standing in Martinique. Joseph went to live on a charming plantation belonging to his father-in-law, just back from the sea and near the village of Trois Ilets. Soon after this, war with the English called him into service as a defender of the French West Indies. The war was not long, and for his services he secured a pension of 450 livres (about ninety dollars). It came none too soon, for a passing hurricane devastated the plantation at Trois Ilets in 1766, and drove the family into one of the sugar houses to live. M. de la Pagerie was never able to repair the damages to his plantation done by the storm or build another home for his family. He never, indeed, followed any steady employment, but idled his life away in gaming, intrigue, and soliciting—always in debt, always in bad odor among honest men—his only asset his birth.

But to the happiness of little Josephine it mattered very little in those days whether her home was a sugar-house or a palace, her father an honest man or a sycophant. Her days were spent under the brilliant skies, in the forests or the open fields, chasing birds and butterflies, and gathering the gorgeous tropical flowers which to the end of her life 327she passionately loved. Almost her only companions were the negroes of the plantations, who gave her willing admiration and obedience. Untaught, unrestrained, idolized by slaves, knowing nothing but the tropical luxury and beauty of the nature about her, she developed like the birds and the negroes, becoming, it is true, a graceful, beautiful little animal, but with hardly more moral sense than they and with even less sense of responsibility.

Josephine was ten years old before it occurred to anybody to send her to school. So far her only instruction had been what little she had gathered from a mother occupied with younger children; from the priest of Trois Ilets, who, it is fair to suppose, must have at least tried to teach her the catechism, and from the curious lore and gossip of the negroes. At ten, however, she was sent to a convent at Fort Royale, where she remained some four years. Here she was taught such rudimentary knowledge as enabled her to read,—if not understand, to write a polite note, to dance,—not very well, to sing, and play the guitar a little. It was a small equipment, but no doubt as good as most young girls of Martinique possessed in that day. Indeed many a noble-born maid in France started out with less in the eighteenth century, and it was quite as much as one would suppose from her position that she would need—more than she used indeed, for little Yeyette, as Josephine was called, if amiable and obedient when she left the convent, was indolent and vain, loving far better her childish play of decorating herself with brilliant flowers and watching her own image in the clear water of the pools on the plantation, than she did books and music; and the loving flattery of her old nurse was dearer to her than any amusement she found in the meager society of the island, where she now was to take her place and, her parents hoped, help retrieve the bad fortunes of the family by a good marriage.

328The opportunity came quickly. Josephine had been but a few months out of the convent when one day her father laid before her what must have been a bewildering and, one would suppose, a terrifying proposition—would she like to leave Martinique and go to France, there to marry Alexander de Beauharnais. The boy was not unknown to her. Like herself, he was born in Martinique, and though he had left there when she was only seven years old and he ten, it is not unlikely that she had seen him occasionally at the home of her grandmother who cared for him in the absence of his father and mother in France.

The influence which had led the father of Alexander de Beauharnais to ask for the hand of a daughter of M. de la Pagerie for his son was not altogether creditable. The two families had never known each other until 1757, when M. de Beauharnais came to Martinique as its governor. The elder M. de la Pagerie was not slow in seeking the new governor’s acquaintance and support for his family, for the latter was rich and in favor with the king at Versailles. The relation prospered sufficiently for M. de la Pagerie to secure a place in the household of the governor for one of his daughters. He could have done nothing better for his family. This daughter was not long in gaining an important influence over both M. and Mme. de Beauharnais, and in winning as a husband M. Renaudin, an excellent man and prosperous. This for herself. For her family, she secured so many favors from the governor that it became a matter of serious criticism and finally, added to other indiscretions, led to a divorce between her and M. Renaudin. All this scandal did not influence the governor, however, and when, in 1761, he left Martinique, on account of the dissatisfaction with his administration there, and hurried to France with his wife to make his peace at Versailles, Mme. Renaudin went, too. There she prospered, buying a home and laying aside 329money. It was M. de Beauharnais’s money, people said. However this may be, it is certain that she exercised great influence over him, that for her he neglected his wife, and that after the latter’s death the friendship or liaison continued until his death.

From all this it will be seen that Mme. Renaudin was a clever woman, intent on making the most out of the one really strong relation she had been able to form in her life. She was clever enough to see, when Alexander was brought to France after his mother’s death, that his love and gratitude would be one of her strongest cards with the father in the future. She set to work to win the boy’s heart, and she succeeded admirably. In his eyes, she took his mother’s place, and her influence over him was almost unlimited.

By the time he was seventeen, Alexander de Beauharnais was a most attractive youth. He had been well educated in the manner of his time, having been, with his elder brother, under the care of an excellent tutor for a number of years, two of which, at least, were passed in Germany. After his brother entered the army, Alexander and his tutor joined the household of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld and there studied with the latter’s nephews. In this aristocratic atmosphere he imbibed all the new liberal ideas of the day; he learned, at the same time, the graces of the most exquisite French society and the philosophy of Rousseau. Alexander was seventeen years old when his education was pronounced finished, and a search was made for a place for him suitable to his birth, his relations, and his ambition. Thanks, largely, to the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, he was made a lieutenant in the army.

No sooner was his position in the world fixed, than Mme. Renaudin made up her mind that he must marry one of her nieces in Martinique. It mattered not at all that Alexander had not yet thought of marriage. Mme. Renaudin persuaded 330him it would be a good thing—not a difficult task for her since at marriage the youth was to come into a much larger income than he then enjoyed. Alexander satisfied, she soon persuaded his father to write to M. de la Pagerie. The letter shows the whole situation:—“My children,” wrote M. de Beauharnais, “each enjoy an annual income of 40,000 livres (about $8,000). You are free to give me your daughter to share the fortune of my chevalier. The respect and affection he has for Mme. Renaudin make him eager to marry one of her nieces. You see that I consent freely to his wishes by asking the hand of your second daughter, whose age is more suited to his. If your eldest daughter (Josephine) had been a few years younger, I certainly should have preferred her, as she is pictured quite as favorably to me as the other; but my son, who is only seventeen and a half, thinks that a young lady of fifteen is too near his own age.”

Now, just before this letter reached Martinique, the second daughter of M. de la Pagerie had died of fever. The chance was not to be missed, however, and the father hastened to write to M. de Beauharnais that he might have either of the two daughters remaining; Josephine or Marie, the latter then a child of between eleven and twelve years. From the long correspondence which followed, one gathers that it is the elders in the transaction who really count. Alexander is resigned, little Marie absolutely refuses to leave her mother, and Josephine, of whom little is said, seems to be willing, even eager for the adventure. The upshot of it was that, in October, 1779, M. de la Pagerie sailed for France with Josephine. He arrived at Brest in November, worn out by the passage, and there his sister, Mme. Renaudin, came with Alexander to meet them. If the first impression of his fiancée did not arouse any enthusiasm in Alexander, it at least offered no reason for breaking the 331engagement. “She is not so pretty as I expected,” he wrote to his father; “but I can assure you that the frankness and sweetness of her character are beyond anything we have been told.”

From Brest the little party travelled together to Paris, where the marriage took place on December 12. The young pair at once went to live with the Marquis de Beauharnais, and that winter Josephine was introduced into the brilliant society of the capital. She seems to have made but a poor impression, for in spite of the 20,000 livres that Mme. Renaudin had spent on her trousseau, she had after all a provincial air which irritated her husband, accustomed as he was to the ease and elegance of aristocratic Paris. What was worse in his eyes, she seemed to have no desire to improve herself on the models he laid down. Poor little Josephine had no head for the exaggerated sentiment, the fine speculations, and the chatter about liberty, nature and the social contract which flowed so glibly from every French tongue in those days. She loved pretty gowns and jewels and childish amusements; above all, she demanded to be loved exclusively and passionately by her handsome young husband. When he scolded her, she cried, and when he devoted himself to brighter women, she was jealous; and so before the first six months of their married life was over, Josephine was seeing many unhappy hours, and the Viscount gladly left her behind when he was called to his regiment. Nevertheless, in his absence, he wrote her long letters, largely of advice on what she should study, and took pains to laugh at her jealousy and her complaints. The birth of their first child, in September, 1781, a boy, who received the name of Eugène, did little to restore peace between the two. The Viscount continued to spend much time away from Paris, either with his regiment or in travel, and when at home, he did not always share his pleasures with 332his wife. The tactics with which Josephine met his restlessness and his indifference were the worst possible to be used on a man whose passion was for ideas, for elevated sentiments, for bold and brilliant actions—she was amiable and indolent as a kitten until a new neglect came, and then she gave up to a continuous weeping.

One reason, no doubt, of the restlessness of Beauharnais was his failure to advance in his profession as fast as he desired. He had been made a captain, but he wished for a regiment; and when late in 1782 a descent of the English on Martinique threatened, he enlisted for service there. Peace was made between France and England before he had an opportunity to distinguish himself, but he remained in Martinique some time. He had fallen in love there; and unhappily his new mistress had persuaded him that Josephine had had love affairs of her own before she left Martinique to marry him. There was never any proof of the truth of any of the stories she retailed to him; but Beauharnais was glad to have a reason for deserting his wife, and he wrote her a brutal letter, in which he justified his demand for a divorce by the righteous indignation which had seized him when he heard of her follies. The letter reached Josephine in the summer of 1783. In the April before, she had given birth to a daughter, christened Hortense-Eugénie. It was the first word she had received from her husband since her confinement.

Beauharnais reached Paris in October (his mistress had preceded him); and in spite of the efforts of his family and friends, all of whom took Josephine’s part, he secured a separation. She, however, received from the courts the fullest reparation possible, considering the Viscount’s means—a pension for herself and the children; the custody of Eugène, until he was five years old, and permanent possession of Hortense.

333Josephine now went to live at the Abbey de Panthemont, a refuge for women of the French nobility who had suffered in one way or another. Here her youth, beauty, sweetness of disposition, and her misfortune made her a favorite with many a noble dame; and she soon learned in this atmosphere more of the ways of aristocratic society than she had learned in all her previous married life.

After nearly a year in the Abbey, Josephine returned to her father-in-law, who was living at Fontainebleau. The life she here took up pleased her very well. She had an income for herself and children of something over $2,000 a year, she was free, she knew many amusing people, she had admirers, many say, lovers,—we should be surprised more if she had not had them than if she had, it was the way of her world. She was devoted to her children, she cared for the Marquis de Beauharnais and Mme. Renaudin in their illnesses, and she corresponded regularly with her husband—whom she never saw—concerning their children. In 1788, she broke the monotony of her life by a trip to Martinique, taking Hortense with her. She remained some two years in the island—a sad two years, for both her father and her sister were very ill at the time, and both died soon after her return to Paris, in the fall of 1790.

When Josephine returned to Paris in 1790, she found the city in full revolution. In the two years she had been gone the States Generals had met, the Bastile had fallen, the National Assembly had begun to make France over. In the front of all this activity moved her husband, Viscount de Beauharnais. Like his patron, the Duke de la Rouchefoucauld, Beauharnais was an ardent advocate of liberty and equality. Sent to the States General by his friends at Blois, he had joined the few noblemen there who in 1789 espoused the cause of the Revolution, and soon was one of the leaders of the faction. Later he was sent to the National Assembly, where he took an active part in framing the constitution. He was a power even in the Jacobin Society.

At this date the revolution was still the fashion among the elegant in Paris, and the Viscount really was one of the most popular and influential young noblemen in the town. His success, the ardor with which he preached the fine theories of the day, perhaps a growing realization that his treatment of his wife was too baldly inconsistent with his profession, softened the Viscount’s heart towards Josephine, and when she returned he went to see her. A kind of reconciliation followed. They continued to live apart, but they saw each other constantly in society. The Viscount no doubt was the more willing to sustain the relation of a good 335friend and advisor to his wife, when he saw that in the years since their separation she had developed into a most charming woman of the world, and that her beauty, grace, tact, and readiness to oblige had won her a large circle of friends, including many in that aristocratic circle of which he vaunted himself on being a member. This good understanding with Beauharnais did much for Josephine’s peace of mind. It was in a way a victory, and her friends congratulated her. At the same time any honors which came to the Viscount reflected on her, and she steadily became more noticed.

In June, 1791, Beauharnais was elected president of the Constituent Assembly. A few days later, the King and Queen fled to Varennes. As the head of the Assembly, the Viscount was the leader of France for the time. It was he who sat for one hundred and twenty-six and one-half consecutive hours on the bench during the violent session which followed the King’s flight; it was he who questioned the captured King, when he was returned, and directed the distracted proceedings which followed. Indeed, until the dissolution of the body in September, he was one of the most prominent men in France.

Josephine had her share of his glory, and in these months added largely to her circle of acquaintances from the motley crowd which the levelling of things had brought together in French society. She met many of the aristocrats unknown to her until then; but what was vastly more important, she made acquaintances among the “true patriots”, those who had been born in the third estate, and who were already beginning to consider themselves the only part of the population fit to conduct the general regeneration of France. In 1792, war breaking out, Beauharnais went to the front, where he made a respectable record, which he himself reported frequently to the Assembly in glowing letters, filled with good advice to that body. He was steadily 336advanced until, in May, 1793, he was made general-in-chief of the Army of the North. During all this period Josephine was in Paris or the vicinity, and there were few more active women there than she. Whether advised by her husband or not she had the wit to make the acquaintance of the men of each new party as fast as it came into power. Thus, when the Girondins were at the helm in 1792, she hastened to interview them one by one, to demonstrate to them her devotion to the new civism, to extol the patriotism of her husband, General de Beauharnais. The acquaintance made, she immediately had a favor to ask—this friend was in prison, that one wanted a passport. All through the agitated winter of 1792 and 1793 Josephine was busy getting her friends out of prison and out of France. She seems to have had no fear for herself. As a matter of fact, the men who helped her were so convinced of her simple goodness of heart that they granted her much which would have been denied a more intelligent woman, and they did not question her loyalty. Was she not, too, the wife of General de Beauharnais? That fact did not, however, hold value for many months. Beauharnais’s conduct came into question before the Assembly; he resigned, offering to go into the line. The privilege was denied him, and he was retired from the army. He went at once to his family home near Blois, and threw himself actively into the work of the municipality and of the Jacobins. Josephine, warned of possible danger from her husband’s downfall and fearing the new law against the suspected, decided to leave Paris. She rented, in the winter, a little house at Croissy, not far out of the city, and near many of her friends, and there lived as quietly as she could. One method that she took of showing her devotion to democratic principles was to bind Eugène, who had been in school for several years, as an apprentice to a 337carpenter; and it is said that Hortense was placed with a dressmaker to learn the trade.

The Viscount escaped arrest until the spring of 1794; then the committee of Public Safety remembered him. There seems to have been no reason for his arrest other than that he was a noble—certainly no man in France had surpassed him in vehement republicanism or had been more fertile in schemes for saving the country. He was taken immediately to Paris, and confined in the prison of les Carmes. A month later, Josephine followed him. Her activity for her friends had continued after the retirement of her husband and the efforts she began at once to make to save him when he was arrested, caused a virtuous patriot to suggest anonymously to the authorities that she too ought to be looked after. She was promptly arrested.

For three months husband and wife lived side by side in that awful prison, the walls of which still bore the red imprints made in the September massacre, and in garden of which blood still oozed, it was believed, from the roots of the tree where murdered men had been stacked up by the score. With them were confined men from every rank of life, princes, merchants, sailors, chimney-sweeps, along with women and children. Almost daily a group was called to die, but their places were quickly filled. The awful tragedy of their lot drew Josephine and her husband no closer together. It is a terrible comment on the times that no one thought it strange that Beauharnais should have paid court here at the gate of death to a beautiful woman, a prisoner like himself, or that Josephine should have been so intimate with General Hoche, also a prisoner, that history has made a record of the fact.

Many efforts were made to save the Viscount and his wife, chiefly under their direction, for they were allowed 338to see their friends, and also their children. It is quite possible that certain petitions in their favor which have been found in the French archives, bearing the names of Eugène and Hortense, were dictated by the Viscount himself. But every effort was useless, and on July 21 Beauharnais was taken to the Conciergerie: the next day he was tried; the next guillotined. To the end he was brave and self-controlled. In his final words to Josephine, he even charged his death to the plots of the aristocrats, upholding the republic even as it struck him.

None of the Viscount de Beauharnais’s courage was shared by Josephine in her imprisonment. It is true that the majority of the women who suffered death in the French Revolution faced it bravely. Josephine was not of their blood. From the beginning of her imprisonment, she wept continually before everybody, and her favorite occupation was reading her fortune with cards; and yet cowardly as she was, no one was better loved. There was reason enough for this. No one was kinder, no one more willing to do a service, no one had been more active for others than she, when at liberty. All the good will of the prison came out in full when, on August 6, less than a fortnight after her husband’s death, she was set free. There was as general rejoicing as there would have been over the release of a child.

It is not certain through whose influence Josephine obtained her freedom. Mme. Tallien has generally been credited with securing it, but Masson in his delving has found dates which make it improbable that the legend current can be true. According to this, Mme. Tallien (then Mme. de Fontenay) and Josephine were fellow-prisoners, and it was at les Carmes that their friendship began. However, the prison records show that Mme. Tallien was never confined at les Carmes, but at la Petite Force; so 339that a part at least of the legend is impossible. That she may have interested herself in Josephine’s behalf is quite possible, even probable. She may have known Mme. de Beauharnais before her imprisonment. It is well known that, as soon as she received her own freedom she became an ardent advocate of that clemency which was made possible by the fall of Robespierre on the ninth Thermidor and that she rescued many persons. She may very well have included Josephine among the first of those she sought to save. Her task in this case would not have been difficult, for Josephine was known to most of the members of the Terrorist Government and was probably on terms of intimacy with some of them. At all events, Josephine was set free on August 6, and she immediately went to Croissy to pass the autumn.

The problems which now confronted Josephine were serious enough for the most practical and resourceful of women. The chaos in French business affairs made it very difficult for her to get her hand on money coming to her. Her husband’s property was tied up by his death so that she could realize nothing from it, and the value of what she did secure of her income must have been sadly reduced by the general depreciation which had resulted from the Reign of Terror and from the war, and by the exorbitant prices of even the commonest necessaries of life—bread at this time was over twenty francs a pound. Her situation was still more difficult because the personal property of herself, her children, and husband was all in the hands of the authorities. She had no linen, furniture, silver, clothing, nothing needful in her daily life. To keep house in the simplest way, she had to beg and borrow, and it was many months before she was able to secure her own articles of clothing and her household furniture.

340With two children to care for and with a town apartment and a country cottage on her hands, she was in a very difficult position.

That Josephine was able to keep her homes, care for her children, and retain her position in the society of the Directory was due to the friendship and protection of two men, Hoche and Barras. Hoche had been liberated from les Carmes before Josephine, and put in charge of an army, and he at once took Eugène on his staff, thus freeing Josephine’s mind of that care. For a few months she managed by diligent borrowing and mortgaging to keep things going. In all of her efforts to repair her fortune and secure to her children the estate of Beauharnais, she enlisted her friends, especially Mme. Tallien, who just then was at the height of her power. The two became very intimate, and the Viscountess de Beauharnais was soon one of the women oftenest seen at the functions given by the members of the Directory as well as at all the more intimate gatherings of that society. She became as great a favorite among the dissipated and prodigal company as she had been among the aristocratic ladies of the Abbey de Panthemont or in the motley company at les Carmes. It was to be expected that she could not long be an intimate of Mme. Tallien’s salon without finding a protector. She found him in Barras, a member of the Directory, its most influential member in fact, a prince of corruption, but a man of elegance, and ability.

It is probable that the liaison with Barras began in 1795, for in August of that year Josephine took a little house in Paris, furnishing it largely from the apartment in town which she had kept so long. She put Hortense in Mme. Campan’s school, and taking Eugène from Hoche sent him to college. She entertained constantly in her new home, and once a week at least received Barras and his friends at 341her country place at Croissy. It was an open secret that the money for all this was supplied by Barras.

Although Barras was himself notoriously corrupt, he was a man of elegant and highly cultivated tastes, and he always made strenuous efforts to keep his inner circle exclusive. He wished only persons of wit, elegance, and ease about him, when he was at leisure, and as a rule he allowed no others. Now and then, however, the necessities of politics brought into his house a man unused either to its polite refinements or its elegant dissipations. Such a man was admitted in the fall of 1795—a young Corsican, a member of the army who had distinguished himself at the siege of Toulon, and who had recently put Barras and the whole government, in fact, under obligations. The man’s name was Bonaparte—Napoleon Bonaparte. He had come to Paris in the spring of 1795, under orders to join the Western Army, but had fallen into disgrace because he refused to obey. He succeeded, however, through Barras, who had known him at Toulon, in making an impression at the War Office. He was more than an ordinary man, the authorities who listened to his talk and examined his plans of campaign said. A chance came in October to try his metal as a commanding officer. The sections of Paris, dissatisfied with the Convention, had planned an attack for a certain night. The Committee of Defence asked Bonaparte to take command of the guard which was to defend the Tuileries, where the Convention sat. The result was a quick and effectual repulse of the attack of the sections, and Bonaparte was rewarded the next day by being made a general-of-division.

One of the first acts to follow the attack on the Convention was a law ordering that all citizens should be disarmed. Now, Josephine had in her apartment the sword of General de Beauharnais, and in obedience to the new law she at once carried it to the proper authority. Eugène, 342knowing her intention, hastened there too, and passionately protested against his father’s sword being given up. He would die first, he declared, with boyish vehemence. His youth (he was but fourteen), his genuine emotion touched the commissioner, who hesitated and finally said that Eugène might go to the general in charge of the section, the newly made General Bonaparte, and present his petition. The boy hastened to the General, and with shining eyes and trembling lips, begged that his father’s sword might be returned. Bonaparte, moved by the lad’s earnestness and agitation, ordered that his request be granted. Mme. de Beauharnais, on hearing the story from Eugène, went to the General’s office to thank him. The interview ended by her inviting him to call upon her. It is probable that Barras had felt it wise to admit Bonaparte to his inner circle at about this time, and before long the young general was on good terms with the entire society.

At the time when Bonaparte began to frequent the houses of Barras and Josephine he was, beside most of the men and women he met there—certainly beside Barras and Josephine—a paragon of virtue. They were disciples of pleasure; he of the strenuous life. Up to this time the pleasures of the world had never invited him. He had looked on them as a young philosopher might, bent on seeing and understanding all, but he had never sought them, never been allured by them. To make a place and name for himself was all that Napoleon Bonaparte, up to this time, had desired.

Not only did he here, for the first time, come into a circle which cultivated pleasure as an end; but here, for the first time, he saw the refinements, the luxury, the delights of highly developed society. Beautiful, graceful, and witty women he had never known before; he had never set foot before in rooms such as these in which he found Josephine, Mme. Tallien, and Barras. Dinners like these they offered 343him were an amazement. Not only was he astonished by his surroundings, he was intoxicated by the attention he received. That Josephine, who seemed to him the perfect type of the grande dame, should invite him to her home, write him flattering little notes when his visits were delayed, admire his courage, listen to his impetuous talk, prophesy a great future for him, excited his imagination and hope as nothing ever had before. A month had not passed before he was paying her an impassioned court. That she was six years his senior and a widow with two children; that she had no certain income and was of another rank; that he had nothing but his “cloak and sword” and was hardly started in his career, though with a mother and several brothers and sisters looking to him to see them through life—these and all other practical considerations seem to have been thrust aside. He loved Josephine and meant to marry her. All through the fall and winter of 1795 and 1796 he was at her side pressing his suit.

But Josephine, though pleased by Napoleon’s devotion, and certainly encouraging him, hesitated. Certainly marriage with the young Corsican was a venture at which a more courageous woman than she might have hesitated, and she, poor woman, had had enough of ventures. Every one so far had ended in disaster—her marriage had ended in separation, her reconciliation with her husband in his death, her property had been lost in a revolution. All she asked of life was an opportunity to settle Eugène and Hortense, and freedom and money enough to be gay. Could she expect this from a marriage with Bonaparte? She herself analyzed her feelings admirably in a letter to a friend:

I am urged, my dear, to marry again by the advice of all my friends (I may almost say), by the commands of my aunt, and the prayers of my children. Why are you not here to help me by your advice on this important occasion, and to tell me whether I ought or ought not to consent 344to a union, which certainly seems calculated to relieve me from the discomfort of my present situation? Your friendship would render you clear-sighted to my interests, and a word from you would suffice to bring me to a decision.

Among my visitors you have seen General Bonaparte; he is the man who wishes to become a father to the orphans of Alexander de Beauharnais and a husband to his widow.

“Do you love him?” is naturally your first question.

My answer is, “perhaps—No.”

“Do you dislike him?”

“No,” again; but the sentiments I entertain towards him are of that lukewarm kind which true devotees think worst of all in matters of religion. Now, love being a sort of religion, my feelings ought to be very different from what they really are. This is the point on which I want your advice, which would fix the wavering of my irresolute disposition. To come to a decision has always been too much for my Creole inertness, and I find it easier to obey the wishes of others.

I admire the General’s courage; the extent of his information on every subject on which he converses; his shrewd intelligence, which enables him to understand the thoughts of others before they are expressed; but I confess I am somewhat fearful of that control which he seems anxious to exercise over all about him. There is something in his scrutinizing glance that cannot be described; it awes even our directors, therefore it may well be supposed to intimidate a woman. He talks of his passion for me with a degree of earnestness which renders it impossible to doubt his sincerity; yet this very circumstance, which you would suppose likely to please me, is precisely that which has withheld me from giving the consent which I have often been on the very point of uttering.

My spring of life is past. Can I, then, hope to preserve for any length of time that ardor of affection which in the General amounts almost to madness? If his love should cool, as it certainly will, after our marriage, will he not reproach me for having prevented him from forming a more advantageous connection? What, then, shall I say? What shall I do? I may shut myself up and weep. Fine consolation, truly! methinks I hear you say. But unavailing as I know it is, weeping is, I assure you, my only consolation whenever my poor heart receives a wound. Write me quick, and pray scold me if you think me wrong. You know everything is welcome that comes from you.

Barras assures me if I marry the General, he will get him appointed commander-in-chief of the Army of Italy. This favor, though not yet granted, occasions some murmuring among Bonaparte’s brother officers. When speaking to me yesterday on the subject, the General said.—

“Do they think I cannot get forward without their patronage. One 345day or other they will all be too happy if I grant them mine. I have a good sword by my side, which will carry me on.”

What do you think of this self-confidence? Does it not savor of excessive vanity? A general of brigade to talk of patronizing the chiefs of the Government? It is very ridiculous! Yet I know not how it happens, his ambitious spirit sometimes wins upon me so far that I am almost tempted to believe in the practicability of any project he takes into his head—and who can foresee what he may attempt?

It is probable that, if it had not been for Barras, Josephine would not have consented, for many of her friends advised against the marriage. Barras urged it, however. He says in explanation, with the brutal frankness for which his memoirs are distinguished, that he was “tired and bored” with her. She, no doubt, felt that Barras’s protection was uncertain and that it would be better for her not to offend him.

At last Barras and Bonaparte between them overcame Josephine’s indecision, and on March 8, 1796, the marriage contract was signed. Barras and Tallien were the two chief witnesses at the civil ceremony which took place the next day. The religious marriage was dispensed with.

Just a week before the marriage of Napoleon with Josephine he had been appointed general-in-chief of the Army of Italy, and two days after the marriage he left for his command. Josephine remained in Paris, at her home in the Rue Chantereine, a little relieved, probably, at the departure of her tempestuous lover. Certainly she was not sufficiently in love to be able to keep pace with the ardent letters which he sent her from every post on his route. She read them, to be sure; even showed them to her friends, pronouncing them drôle; but her answers equalled them neither in number nor in warmth. Napoleon’s suffering and reproaches and prayers disturbed her peace. She could not love like this. Soon he began to beg her to come to Italy. The campaign was well started; he was winning victories. There was no reason why she should not join him; or come at least to Nice—to Milan. “You will come,” he begs, “and quick. If you hesitate, if you delay, you will find me ill. Fatigue and your absence are too much for me.... Take wings, come—come!”

But Josephine did not want to leave Paris. Particularly now when she was reaping the first fruits of her young husband’s glory in an homage such as she had never known, but of which there is no doubt she had dreamed from childhood. 347Napoleon’s victories had driven the Parisians wild with joy, and they asked nothing better than to adore the wife of the hero of the campaign. Scarcely two months, in fact, had passed, after leaving Paris before Napoleon sent back, by his brother Joseph and his aide Junot, twenty-one flags taken from the enemy. They were received at a public session of the Directory. Josephine was present with Mme. Tallien, and when the two beautiful women, accompanied by Junot, left the Luxembourg, where the presentation had taken place, there was such a demonstration as Paris had not seen over a woman in many a day. “Look,” they cried, “it is his wife! Isn’t she beautiful! Long live General Bonaparte! Long live the Citizeness Bonaparte! Long live Notre Dame des Victoires!”

New triumphs followed, and to celebrate them there was held a grand fête on May 29. There were balls at the Luxembourg, gala nights at the theaters. And everywhere Josephine, the wife of the conquering general, was queen. And yet almost every night, when she returned from opera or ball, she found awaiting her a passionate appeal from Bonaparte to come to Italy. Several weeks she put him off, she pleaded the hardship of the trip, the dangers and discomforts she might have to undergo there, a hundred excuses; and Bonaparte, in reply, only begged the more fiercely that she come.

At last she could resist no longer, but she took no pains to conceal her sorrow at going. “Her chagrin was extreme, when she saw there was no longer any way of escaping,” Arnault says, “she thought more of what she was going to leave than what she was going to find. She would have given the palace at Milan which had been prepared for her, she would have given all the palaces of the world, for her house in the Rue Chantereine.... She started for Italy from the Luxembourg, where she had 348supped with some friends. Poor woman, she burst into tears and sobbed as if she was going to punishment—she who was going to reign.”

It was the end of June before Josephine arrived in Milan. The palace which awaited her was the princely home of the Duke de Serbelloni;—the society the choicest of Italy. She at once found herself literally living like a princess. Unhappily for her, however, there was no opportunity to remain long quietly at Milan and enjoy the pleasures open to her. Bonaparte was in active campaign—unable to stay but a couple of days after her arrival, and he soon began to beg that she join him in the field. At the end of July, she did go to Brescia, where she experienced a series of exciting adventures. The Austrians were pressing close on the French—closer than Napoleon realized; twice he and she narrowly escaped capture together; once she was under fire. Finally Bonaparte was obliged to send her, by way of Bologna and Ferrara to Lucques, a journey that she made in safety, but in tears.

Henceforth Josephine had an excellent reason for not joining her husband in the field. And Napoleon did not ask her to do so. All he asked now was letters, letters, letters. “Your health and your face are never out of my mind. I cannot be at peace until your letters are received. I wait them impatiently. You cannot conceive my unrest.” And again, “I do not love you at all; on the contrary, I detest you. You are a wretched, awkward, stupid little thing. You do not write me any more at all; you do not love your husband. You know the pleasure that your letters give me, and yet write me not more than six lines and that by chance. What are you doing all day long, Madame? But seriously, I am very much disturbed, my dear, at not hearing from you. Write me four pages quickly of those kind of things which fill my heart with pleasure.” A few days later he writes, 349“No letters from you. Truly that disturbs me. I am told you are well and that you have even been to Lake Como. I look impatiently every day for the courier who will bring me news of you.” And again, “I write you very often, my dear, and you write me so rarely.” And so it went on through the entire summer and fall of 1796. While she received at Milan the honors due the wife of a conqueror who held the fate of states in his hands, he in the field exhausted himself in a frenzied struggle for victory—not victory for himself, so he told Josephine, and so for a time, perhaps, he persuaded himself; but victory because it pleased her that he win it; honor because she set store by it; otherwise, said he, “I should leave all to throw myself at your feet.”

All this impetuous passion wearied Josephine more and more. No response was awakened in her heart. That she was proud of his love, there is no doubt. She told everybody of his devotion, as well she might: it was her passport to power. But she could not answer it in kind, and she found excuses for her neglect in her health, which was not good at this time, and in the social requirements of her brilliant and conspicuous position, and frequently, too, in the fact that the life at Milan, gay as it was, did not please her. She was homesick for Paris. “Monsieur de Serbelloni will tell you, my dear aunt,” she wrote early in September, “how I have been received in Italy, fêted wherever I have gone, all the princes of Italy entertaining me, even the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Ah, well! I would rather be a simple private individual in France; I do not like the honors of this country, I am bored to death. It is true that my health does much to make me sad; I am not well at all. If happiness could bring health, I ought to be well. I have the kindest husband that one could possibly find; I have not time to want anything; my will is his; he is on his knees before me all day long, as if I were a divinity. One could not have a better husband. M. de Serbelloni will tell you how much I am loved; he writes often to my children and is very fond of them.”

350

JOSEPHINE.

By J. B. Isabey. (Collection of M. Edmond Taigny.) This portrait in crayon, lightly touched with color, was executed at Malmaison, probably in the course of the year 1798. It is very little known. Isabey, whose pencil was quick and sure, must have requested Josephine to pose for a few minutes after a walk in the park. This sketch was given to M. Taigny by Isabey himself.—A. D.

351Not only did Josephine neglect to write to this “best husband in the world”, as she herself called Bonaparte, but she spent many hours at Milan in conspicuous flirtations with young officers who were glad enough to pay her court. Vague rumors of these flirtations came to Napoleon’s ears, no doubt, though it is certain he thought little of them. There are references in his letters which might be attributed to jealousy, but it is clear that his confidence in Josephine at this time was such that a denial from her, an aggrieved look, a tear of reproach, made him sue for pardon and forget his fears.

Aside from her carelessness about writing to him, the gravest complaint that he had against her was her willingness to receive valuable gifts. The treasures of Italy were open to the French, and Bonaparte was sending quantities of rare art objects to Paris; but he declared it highly improper that any of these things or any private gifts should go to him or his suite. Josephine, however, had no scruples about gifts, and accepted gladly the jewels, pictures, and bibelots which were sent her. More than one scene resulted from this indiscretion, but it always ended in her keeping the treasure. She learned before she had been long in Italy not to tell the General what had been given her, or if he accused her of receiving gifts, to deny it.

But unhappy as Josephine made Bonaparte in his absence by her neglect and her flirtations, she more than compensated for it by her amiability when he returned. He had reason soon, too, to see that by her tact she did much to help his cause in Italy. She was the embodiment of grace and cheerfulness, she was familiar with the ways of good 352society, she had tact with the republican element of the country, which prided itself on its ideals and patriotism, and she appeased the nobles, who felt that she was one of them. Napoleon had reason to say of Josephine’s influence in Italy what he said later of her influence in Paris—that without it, he could never have accomplished what he did. Her value in his plans was particularly evident in the spring and summer of 1797, which they passed together, partly at the palace of Serbelloni and partly at the chateau of Montebello. Their life at this time was rather that of two crowned heads than that of a general of an army and his wife. They lived in the greatest state, protected by strict etiquette and surrounded by the officers of the army of Italy and representatives from Austria and the Italian states. Audiences with the General were daily sought by the greatest men of Italy. In all this pageant of power Josephine moved as naturally and easily as if she had been born to it. On every side she won friends; no one came to the chateau who did not go away to praise her good taste, her simplicity, her anxiety to please. She never interfered in politics either, they said, though she was ever willing to help a friend in securing the General’s favor; and all this praise was deserved. Josephine’s good will was born of a kind heart. It was not merely the complacency of indolence; she had no malice, she felt kindly toward the whole world, she had all her life been willing to exhaust every resource in her power for her friends. She was willing to do so now, and she remained of this disposition to the end of her life. Such a character makes a man or woman loved in any age, in any society, whatever his faults. It made Josephine loved particularly in her age and her society, where genuine kindness was rare and where her peculiar faults—vices, perhaps one should say—were readily overlooked, particularly if they were handled discreetly.

353The fall of 1797, Napoleon passed in negotiations with Austria. For a time Josephine was with him. Then restless and eager to see Italy, she left him in October and went to Venice, where a splendid reception was given her. From there she travelled as her fancy dictated in Northern Italy. Everywhere she went she was received royally, and loaded with gifts. She did not reach Paris until the first of January, 1798, nearly a month after Napoleon.

She came back to find her husband the most talked of man in Europe. She found, too, that her return was eagerly looked for because the General absolutely refused to be lionized—even to appear at public functions, without her. Her coming was thus the signal for a round of gaieties, where, it must be confessed, Bonaparte played rather the part of a bear. He would not leave Josephine’s side; he wanted to talk with her alone, and he openly declared that he would rather stay at home with her than go to the most brilliant reception Paris could offer. “I love my wife,” he said seriously to those who chaffed him or remonstrated. With all his dreams of ambition, it is certain that she filled his life as completely now as she had nearly two years before, when he married her. As for Josephine herself, she seems to have been completely satisfied now that she was in Paris. She was the centre of an admiring circle; she was loaded daily with presents, not only from cities and statesmen, but from shop-keepers and manufacturers, eager to have her approval, to use her name. Not since her marriage had she been so contented.

This satisfactory state of affairs was interrupted in May, when Bonaparte sailed for Egypt. Josephine went to Toulon to see him off, promising that she would soon follow him, and then retired to the springs at Plombières for a season. It was fall before she returned to Paris. When she did return, it was to plunge into a round of frivolity and 354extravagance. The most conspicuous of her indiscretions was the attentions she accepted from a young man—Hippolyte Charles—a former adjutant to one of Napoleon’s generals. She had known him before she went to Italy; indeed he had been in her party when she left for Milan in 1796. At Milan he had paid her so assiduous court and had been so encouraged that the news came to Napoleon’s ears, and Charles was suddenly dismissed from the service. He had found a place in Paris—through Josephine’s influence, the gossips said. At all events, this young man reappeared now that Bonaparte was in Egypt, and became a constant visitor at her house; and when, the summer following, she bought Malmaison and took possession, Charles was her first guest. “You had better get a divorce from Bonaparte and marry Charles,” some of her plain-speaking friends told her.

When people as little scrupulous as Josephine herself reproved her, it can be imagined what the effect would be on the Bonaparte family, most of whom were now established in or near Paris. They had never cared for Josephine, and never had had much to do with her. Lucien and Joseph were the only members of the family who had seen her before her marriage to Napoleon, and to all of them the marriage came as a shock, Bonaparte not having announced it even to his mother. They looked upon her as an interloper—one who might deprive them of some of the rewards of Bonaparte’s genius: these rewards the entire family seem to have felt from the first belonged to them and to them alone. No one of them had had, until this winter, much opportunity to study Josephine. They were irritated to find her so evidently a woman of higher rank than themselves; they were disgusted at her extravagance and indiscretion. Josephine, on her side, took little trouble to win them. After all, they were only Corsicans, and not amusing like 355Napoleon. No doubt, she felt a little towards them as Alexander de Beauharnais had felt towards her when she first arrived in Paris—an untrained little islander, the province speaking in every gesture. To Josephine’s credit, let it be said, she never was guilty of trying to undermine the place of his family in her husband’s affections; she never opposed their advancement; she always, to the best of her ability, aided Napoleon in any plans he had for them. It is much more than can be said of the Bonapartes’ attitude towards the Beauharnais.

Shocking to the Bonapartes as were Josephine’s flirtations, they looked on her extravagance with even more horror. To Madame Bonaparte, especially, it was an unforgivable sin; and, in fact, extravagance could scarcely have gone farther. Bonaparte was not rich. Indeed he prided himself on having returned from Italy poor. But he had left a fair income in his brother Joseph’s hands—a part of which was to go to Josephine. She, in utter disregard of the amount of this income, lived in luxury, entertaining royally, and buying prodigally everything that pleased her fancy. To meet her pressing demands, she borrowed right and left. Finally, in the summer of 1799, she purchased Malmaison, a country seat at which she and Napoleon had looked before he left for Egypt. The purchasing price was about $50,000, and she had to borrow $3,000 for the advance payment. She went immediately to the place, running in debt for repairs and furnishings.

Joseph Bonaparte was deeply disgusted by Josephine’s reckless expenditures, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that she was able to get any money from him. He was the more disobliging because he and other members of the family believed that they now had proofs which surely would convince Napoleon that Josephine was faithless and would cause him to secure a divorce as soon as he returned 356from Italy. And, indeed their cause had already advanced in Egypt far beyond their knowledge. Joseph had, before Napoleon’s sailing, put such suspicions of Josephine’s infidelity into his mind and referred him to such members of his own staff for proof, that the General once at sea had investigated the matter and become convinced of the truth of the charges. The revelation caused him weeks of gloom. There was nothing left to live for, he wrote Joseph. At twenty-nine he was disillusioned. Honors wearied him, glory was colorless, sentiment dead, men without interest. He should return to France and retire to the country. But he could not abandon his post at once, and as the weeks went on recklessness succeeded to gloom. If his wife was faithless, why should he be faithful? From that time Josephine’s exclusive sway was broken. The man who had for her sake spurned all women rode openly through the streets of Cairo with a pretty little madame whose husband had been sent suddenly to France. The glory of love was gone forever for Bonaparte, and poor Josephine had lost the rarest jewel of her life. Perhaps the saddest of it all was that she had never realized what she possessed, never knew her loss.

How much Josephine knew of her husband’s change of feeling towards her is uncertain. There is a letter in existence purporting to be hers, written at this time in answer to accusations which Napoleon had made from Egypt, in which she repels the charges with virtuous indignation and attributes them to her enemies, presumably the Bonapartes:—

It is impossible, General (she writes), that the letter I have just received comes from you? I can scarcely credit it when I compare that letter with others now before me, to which your love imparts so many charms! My eyes, indeed, would persuade me that your hand traced these lines; but my heart refuses to believe that a letter from you could 357ever have caused the mortal anguish I experience on perusing these expressions of your displeasure, which afflict me the more when I consider how much pain they must have cost you.

I know not what I have done to provoke some malignant enemy to destroy my peace by disturbing yours; but certainly a powerful motive must influence some one in continually renewing calumnies against me, and giving them a sufficient appearance of probability to impose on the man who has hitherto judged me worthy of his affection and confidence. These two sentiments are necessary to my happiness, and if they are to be so soon withdrawn from me, I can only regret that I was ever blest in possessing them or knowing you....

Instead of listening to traducers, who, for reasons which I cannot explain, seek to disturb our happiness, why do you not silence them by enumerating the benefits you have bestowed on a woman whose heart could never be reproached with ingratitude? The knowledge of what you have done for my children would check the malignity of these calumniators, for they would then see that the strongest link of my attachment for you depends on my character as a mother. Your subsequent conduct, which has claimed the admiration of all Europe, could have no other effect than to make me adore the husband who gave me his hand when I was poor and unfortunate. Every step you take adds to the glory of the name I bear; yet this is the moment that has been selected for persuading you that I no longer love you! Surely nothing can be more wicked and absurd than the conduct of those who are about you, and are jealous of your marked superiority!

Yes, I still love you, and no less tenderly than ever. Those who allege the contrary know that they speak falsely. To those very persons I have frequently written to enquire about you and to recommend them to console you by their friendship for the absence of her who is your best and truest friend.

Yet what has been the conduct of the men in whom you repose confidence, and on whose testimony you form so unjust an opinion of me? They conceal from you every circumstance calculated to alleviate the anguish of our separation, and they seek to fill your mind with suspicion in order to drive you from a country with which they are dissatisfied. Their object is to make you unhappy. I see this plainly, though you are blind to their perfidious intentions. Being no longer their equal, you have become their enemy, and every one of your victories is a fresh ground of envy and hatred.

I know their intrigues, and I disdain to avenge myself by naming the men whom I despise, but whose valor and talents may be useful to you in the great enterprise which you have so propitiously commenced. When you return, I will unmask these enemies of your glory—but no; 358the happiness of seeing you again will banish from my recollection the misery they are endeavoring to inflict upon me, and I shall think only of what they have done to promote the success of your projects.

I acknowledge that I see a great deal of company; for every one is eager to compliment me on your success, and I confess I have not resolution to close my door against those who speak of you. I also confess that a great portion of my visitors are gentlemen. Men understand your bold projects better than women, and they speak with enthusiasm of your glorious achievements, while my female friends only complain of you for having carried away their husbands, brothers or fathers. I take no pleasure in their society if they do not praise you; yet there are some among them whose hearts and understandings claim my highest regard because they entertain sincere friendship for you. In this number I may distinguish Mesdames d’Aiguillon, Tallien, and my aunt. They are almost constantly with me, and they can tell you, ungrateful as you are, whether I have been coquetting with everybody. These are your words, and they would be hateful to me were I not certain that you have disavowed them and are sorry for having written them....

I sometimes receive honors here which cause me no small degree of embarrassment. I am not accustomed to this sort of homage, and I see it is displeasing to our authorities, who are always suspicious and fearful of losing their newly-gotten power. Never mind them, you will say; and I should not, but that I know they will try to injure you, and I cannot endure the thought of contributing in any way to those feelings of enmity which your triumphs sufficiently account for. If they are envious now, what will they be when you return crowned with fresh laurels? Heavens knows to what lengths their malignity will then carry them! But you will be here, and then nothing can vex me....

For my part, my time is occupied in writing to you, hearing your praises, reading the journals, in which your name appears in every page, thinking of you, looking forward to the time when I may see you hourly, complaining of your absence, and longing for your return; and when my task is ended, I begin it over again. Are all these proofs of indifference? You will never have any others from me, and if I receive no worse from you, I shall have no great reason to complain, in spite of the ill-natured stories I hear about a certain lady in whom you are said to take a lively interest. But why should I doubt you? You assure me that you love me, and, judging of your heart by my own, I believe you.

Josephine seems not to have doubted her power to propitiate Napoleon on his return. She did not count, however, on his brothers seeing him before she did; but so it 359turned out. Bonaparte, with an eye to effect, landed unexpectedly in France on October 6, 1799. The Bonaparte brothers, as soon as they heard of his arrival, hurried southward without notifying Josephine, whose first knowledge of his coming was while she was dining out on October 10. She immediately started to meet him, but took the wrong route. Returning to Paris alone, she found that her husband had reached home twelve hours ahead of her.

Hastening to the little house in the rue de la Victoire,—a street that had latterly changed its name in honor of him; and the house in which she had first received him, which he had bought subsequently because of its associations, and which he had declared, after his disillusion in Egypt, that he should always keep,—Josephine found Napoleon locked in his room. Joseph and Lucien had improved their opportunity, and wrung from him a promise to see his wife no more—to secure a divorce. Throwing herself on her knees before the door, Josephine wept and begged for hours, until the door opened; and then, aided by Hortense and Eugène, she sued for pardon. The power she still had over the man was too great for him to resist long. The next morning, when the Bonaparte brothers called, they found a reconciled household.

How complete the reconciliation was they realized when they saw Napoleon paying the $200,000 and more due at Malmaison and settling the debts to servants, merchants, jewelers, caterers, florists, liverymen, everybody, in fact, which Josephine had contracted right and left in his absence. Not only did he pay her obligations with little more than a grimace, but he entered heartily into her plans for repairing and beautifying their new home. The two appeared constantly together in public, where their evident happiness coming so close upon the rumors of a divorce, caused endless gossip.

Josephine realized fully that if her victory over her brothers-in-law was complete, it could endure only during her own good behavior—that, if she ever again gave them reason for complaining of her conduct, she probably would have to suffer the full penalty of her wrongdoing. She must have realized, too, that the supreme power she had once exercised over Napoleon was at an end, that he could get along very well without her. The absorbing passion of the Italian campaign had become the comfortable, unexacting affection which would have been so welcome to her in 1796. The change, if more peaceable, brought its dangers, she well knew. It meant that if she kept him now, she not only must be irreproachable in her life, but she must foster his affection by her devotion, amuse him, stand by him in his ambition; she must be the suitor now. There was no question in her mind that he was worth it. If there ever had been, the wonderful enthusiasm of the people on his return from Egypt would have dissipated the doubt. Her course was evident, and she adopted it immediately, and applied herself to it with more seriousness than she ever had given to anything before in her life. Indeed, the only serious purpose consistently followed which is to be found in Josephine’s life is the resolve taken after the Egyptian campaign, unconsciously, no doubt, to keep what remained to her of Napoleon’s affection, to make herself necessary to him.

361An opportunity to show him how useful she might be in his career came very soon. The coup d’état of the 18th and 19th Brumaire (9th and 10th November, 1799) resulted in Napoleon’s being made First Consul in the new government which took the place of the Directory. The Bonapartes went at once to the Luxembourg Palace to live, and remained there until February, when the Tuileries was made the Government House. As the First Lady of the Land, Josephine was in a position where she could be an infinite harm or help to her husband. Any flippancy, self-will, or malice in managing the crowds of people she saw from day to day would have been fatal both to her and to Napoleon. The tact she showed from the first in playing the hostess of France was exquisite. That a woman who for thirty-seven years had been the plaything of fate, who had shown no moral principle or high purpose in meeting the crises of her life, whose chief aim had always been pleasure, and whose only weapons had been her sweet temper and her tears, should preside over the official society of a newly-formed government and not only make no mistakes, but every day knit the discordant elements of that society more close, is one of the marvels of feminine intuition and adaptability.

No doubt but that with Josephine her perfect goodness of heart was at the bottom of her tact. She had no malice, she much preferred to see even her enemies happy rather than miserable, and though she might weep and complain of their unkindness, if she had an opportunity she would do them a favor. Her goodness impressed everybody. The most disgruntled, after passing a few moments with the wife of the First Consul, went away mollified, if not satisfied; and a second visit usually satisfied them. She flattered the rough soldiers, when Napoleon, always eager to show attention to the army, presented them to her, by her knowledge 362of their deeds. She softened the suspicions of the radical Republicans by her affectation of sans-culottism and her familiarity with the members of the Girondin and Terrorist governments. She aroused hope among the aristocrats that she would secure them favors from the government—was she not one of themselves? Was not her first husband a viscount and a victim of the guillotine. She really wanted everybody to be pleased, and by her mere amiability she came as near as a human being can to pleasing everybody.

She was wise, too, in her dealings with people. She never pretended to know anything about politics—that was Napoleon’s business; but if she could do them a favor, she would; and straightway she wrote a note or took her carriage to intercede, personally, for them. If she was refused, she explained with much pains just why it was; if she succeeded, she was as pleased as a child. Hundreds of her little notes soliciting favors, are to be seen in the collections in Europe. Napoleon allowed her a free hand in this matter, for he appreciated how purely it was good will, not any desire to mix in politics, which animated her. He realized, too, how valuable to the First Consul it was to have some one who always made a friend, whether she secured a favor or not.

No doubt much of Josephine’s influence was due to her personal charm. She was never strictly a beautiful woman, but her grace was so exquisite, her toilet so perfect, her expression so winning, that defects were forgotten in the delight of her personality. Madame de Remusat, in describing Josephine, says that without being beautiful, she possessed a peculiar charm. Her features were fine and harmonious; her expression was pleasant; her mouth, which was small, concealed skilfully her poor teeth; her complexion, which was rather dark, was helped out by rouge and powder; her form was perfect, her limbs being supple and 363delicate, and every movement of her body was easy. “I never knew anyone,” Mme. de Remusat writes, “to whom one could apply more appropriately La Fontaine’s verse, ‘Et la grâce, plus belle encore que la beauté.’”

One of Josephine’s greatest charms was her voice: it was soft, well modulated, and very musical; it always put Napoleon under a peculiar spell. She was an excellent reader, and seemed never to tire of reading aloud. In the intimacy of their apartments she spent much time reading aloud to Napoleon, and often, when he was sleepless after a hard day, she would sit by his bed with a book until he fell asleep. Many of those who heard her read have said that the charm of her voice was such that one forgot entirely what she was saying and listened simply to the music of the sound.

Constant says, in describing Josephine: “She was of medium height and of a rarely perfect form; her movements were supple and light, making her walk something fairylike, without preventing a certain majesty becoming to a sovereign; her face changed with every thought of her soul, and never lost its charming sweetness; in pleasure as in sorrow she was always beautiful to look upon. There never was a woman who demonstrated better than she that ‘the eyes are the mirror of the soul;’ hers were of a deep blue, and almost always half closed by her long lids, which were slightly arched and bordered with the most beautiful lashes in the world. Her hair was very beautiful, long and soft; she liked to dress it in the morning with a red Madras handkerchief, which gave her a Creole air, most piquant to see.”

364

JOSEPHINE AT MALMAISON.

By Prud’hon. This charming portrait, which is one of Prud’hon’s most successful works, and also one of the most graceful and faithful likenesses of Josephine, was doubtless executed at the same time as Isabey’s picture of Napoleon wandering, a solitary dreamer, in the long alleys at Malmaison (1798). (See page 88.) Prud’hon shows us Josephine in the garden of the château she loved so well, and in which she spent the happiest moments of her life, before seeking it as a final refuge in her grief and despair. The empress presents a full-length portrait, turned to the left; she is seated on a stone bench amid the groves of the park, in an attitude of reverie, and wears a white décolletté robe embroidered in gold. A crimson shawl is draped round her.—A. D.

365Josephine showed her wisdom, from the beginning of the Consulate, in yielding to Napoleon’s wishes about whom she should receive. The First Consul’s notions of official society were severe and well-matured. Nobody should be admitted that did not support his government. At least, if they criticised, they must do so quietly. The army must be honored there before all. The Republicans must be made to feel, of course, that this was their society. The aristocrats must be encouraged just as far as it could be done without giving the people alarm. A fusion of all elements was really what he aimed at, but nobody dared mention that fact. Josephine’s intuition seems to have guided her almost unerringly through the difficult task of giving just the right amount of encouragement and attention to each.

Above all, in this new society there must be no irregularities, no scandals. The government must be respectable. There should be no speculators, no contractors, no fakirs, no persons of immorality of any sort; only honest people, and they must behave. Order, decency, and dignity were to prevail in the Consulate. No more impromptu suppers for Josephine, no more dinners with Barras and Mme. Tallien and their like, no more moonlight walks in the garden at Malmaison. La vie Bohème was ended, and she was wise enough to accept the situation and make the most of it.

For nearly two years the entertainments over which Josephine presided as wife of the First Consul were very simple. There were balls and parades and fêtes, but they were conducted like such functions in a great private house, where there is only the necessary etiquette to insure order and comfort. It was a republican court which was held at the Tuileries and at Malmaison—for the country home of the Bonapartes had come to be almost an official residence, so much of their time was spent there and so many were the visitors who came there. The place was a great delight to Josephine. She was having the chateau rebuilt and the gardens laid out over again, and she was indulging her caprices fully in doing it. She must have a new dining-room, large enough to seat a great diplomatic dinner party, if necessary. There 366must be a new billiard room, a new library, new private apartments, more room for guests and servants, more stable room. But to build over an old house in this elaborate way was no easy task, particularly when the proprietor enlarged and changed his plans each month. The architects warned Bonaparte that it would be cheaper to pull down the old chateau than to rebuild, but the work was under way, and it must go on. A year and a half after the repairs began, and before anything was completed, the bills were sent in—$120,000 had already been spent. “For what?” demanded the enraged First Consul. Protest as he would the work had to continue. For years Malmaison was a constant expense—for Josephine, never satisfied, was always enlarging and changing. In the end, the chateau was nearly double its original size, but its exterior never had any real distinction. The interior, however, was most interesting from the great number of rare and beautiful art objects which it contained and which, for the most part, Josephine had either received as gifts or had brought from Italy. There was a wonderful mantel of white marble, ornamented with mosaic, given to her by the Pope, and there were vases of Berlin from the King of Prussia. There were rare specimens of the ancient and modern works of all the Italian painters, sculptors, potters, metal workers, and there were pictures by all the great French artists of the day, among them many portraits of Napoleon—in Egypt, in Italy, crossing the Alps.

Josephine took even more interest in the park and gardens at Malmaison than in the chateau. She was passionately fond of flowers, and immediately undertook to cultivate at Malmaison a garden of rare plants, similar to that which Marie Antoinette had started at the Petit Trianon. This soon became, at the suggestion of the professional botanists she called in to assist her in collecting her plants, a veritable 367Botanical Garden. She gathered from the world over, and her fancy becoming known, ambassadors, merchants, and travellers, foreign and French, exerted themselves to please her. In the end, thanks to the skilful gardeners she secured, her plants became of large public value and interest. Masson says that between 1804 and 1814, 184 new species of plants found their way into the country through Josephine’s garden. The eucalyptus, hybiscus, catalpa, and camelia were first cultivated by her, not to speak of many varieties of heather, myrtle, geranium, cactus, and rhododendron.

When she first owned Malmaison, the land was in park or in vines, and there were some long avenues of fine trees. There was none of the complicated English gardening which was then in fashion. Josephine would have nothing else. So the fine allées and lawns were destroyed, and groups of shrubs, long rows of hedges, a brook, lakes, winding paths, a Swiss village, a temple of love, grottoes, a cascade, an endless variety of artificial and sentimental devices, took their place. To decorate this park of Malmaison to Josephine’s liking, the government turned over to her dozens of bronze and marble busts, vases, columns, and statues, some of them of great value.

One curious and amusing feature of the park was the animals it contained. Josephine was as fond of pets as of flowers. She always had one or more dogs from which she was never separated—not even Napoleon could make her give them up, much as he detested them. At Malmaison, she gave free rein to her liking. Birds were her chief delight, and she bought scores. In three years her bill for birds from one dealer was over $4,500. The lakes were filled with swans, black and white, and ducks from America and China; in the parks were kangaroos, deer, gazelles, a chamois; there were monkeys everywhere; and there were no end of trained pets of all kinds—usually gifts. None of these animals were of any practical use; to be sure there was a flock of valuable sheep, but these were kept merely as a decoration to a certain field, the shepherds who guarded them having been brought in their native costumes from Switzerland.

368

MALMAISON.

369Josephine’s interest in her garden and flowers and animals was beyond that of the mere prodigal who buys for the sake of buying and loses his interest in possessing. One of the delights of her life at Malmaison was visiting daily her animals, in each of which she took the liveliest interest. Her flowers she watched carefully, and she took great delight in distributing them. Many gardens in France to-day contain plants and trees which are said to be grown from cuttings sent to some dead-and-gone ancestor by Josephine.

During the first two years of the Consulate, in spite of all the changes going on, Malmaison was the source of much brilliant life. Here when the news of Marengo reached Paris, Josephine had tents spread, and gave a great fête in honor of the victory; here gathered all the artists and writers and musicians of the day; here eminent travellers came. There was great simplicity in all entertaining, and when only the private circle of the Consul was present, there was much went on which looked like romping, Bonaparte and Josephine leading in the games.

The favorite amusement was private theatricals. Bonaparte was very fond of the drama, had studied it carefully for many years, and he gave much attention to the performances at Malmaison. The little company there was very good, Hortense de Beauharnais and Bourrienne, Bonaparte’s secretary, being actors of more than ordinary ability. Something of the care that was given to the preparation of an entertainment is indicated by the fact that Talma himself used to come to the rehearsals to criticise. Theatricals took such a place in the life at Malmaison that finally a little theatre 370was built. It would seat perhaps 200 persons, and was connected with the salons of the chateau by a long gallery.

At the Tuileries, the Bonapartes were in a Government House; at Malmaison they were at home, and they never anywhere were so gay, so busy, and so happy together. Certainly in these two years Josephine succeeded admirably in her purpose of repairing the mischief she had done by her past indiscretions. It was not alone her tact in society and its value to him which had won Napoleon. It was that she had been to him an incessant delight and comfort. She yielded to his will unquestioningly and willingly, and this pliability was the more welcome because his own family were in incessant opposition to his wishes. She was always on hand, ready to walk, to drive, to go with him where he would. She was tireless in her efforts to please the people he wanted pleased, to carry off successfully the burdensome functions of official life, to provide the entertainment he liked. She studied his tastes and foresaw his wants. She tried to please him in the least detail. Napoleon loved to see her in white, hence she wore no other kind of gown so often. He liked to hear her read, and no matter how tired she was she would sit at his bedside by the hour, if he wished, and read uncomplainingly. Little wonder that as the weeks went Josephine grew dearer and dearer to Napoleon or that she, seeing her hold, watched carefully that nothing loosen it.

The first real threat to Josephine’s position came in a political question. In order to give an appearance of stability to the new government, it was proposed to give the First Consul the right to appoint a successor. But if Napoleon had this right, would he not wish for a son upon whom to confer it, would he not desire to establish a hereditary office? Josephine had given him no children. He was only thirty-one; might he not, in spite of all his affection, divorce her for the sake of this succession, which, he declared, was essential to the future of the Consulate. Josephine turned all her power of cajoling upon Napoleon. “Do not make yourself king,” she begged; and when he laughed at her, and told her that securing to himself the right to appoint a successor in the Consulate was nothing of that sort—only a device to prevent the overthrow of the government in case of his absence at the head of the army, or in case of his sudden death, she was not convinced. She began, indeed, to talk of the advisability of bringing back the Bourbons, and called herself a royalist.

Napoleon’s decision was taken, however. He must appoint a successor, and it should be one of his own family. But which one? Joseph had no head for affairs. With Lucien he had quarreled. But there was Louis, who had none of his brothers’ faults and all of their good qualities. Louis it should be. The knowledge that Napoleon undoubtedly 372favored Louis as his successor determined Josephine to arrange a marriage between him and her daughter Hortense.

At this time, 1800, Hortense was seventeen years old, though the exceptional experiences of her childhood had given her a thoughtfulness quite superior to her years. She had been but ten when her mother, lest a suspicion of her patriotism might be roused because she brought up her children in idleness, had apprenticed her to a dressmaker. She was but eleven years old when her parents were imprisoned, and when in the costumes of laborers’ children she and Eugène had made frequent visits to les Carmes and had gone together more than once to beg of persons in authority for the lives of their father and mother. After the Revolution, Hortense had been placed in Mme. Campan’s school at St. Germain—a school established to give the young girls of the better class whose parents had been scattered or guillotined in the Revolution, an opportunity to learn the ways and the graces of that society which for so long the patriots had been trying to uproot. At Mme. Campan’s, Hortense had distinguished herself by her gentleness and her goodness, by the quickness with which she learned everything taught, and by her enthusiasm and ideals. She had left the school a thoroughly charming and accomplished girl, to join her mother, now the wife of the First Consul. She had all of Josephine’s charms of person, her grace and suppleness, her beautiful form, her interesting and mobile face; but she was more vivacious than Josephine and more intelligent. As for her accomplishments, they were many. She played the piano and the harp, and sang well. Her drawing and embroidery were not bad, as many specimens still preserved show. She danced with exquisite grace; she, even at this time, had literary aspirations, and she was 373the star of the company which put on so many pieces at the little theatre at Malmaison.

Hortense was a favorite of Napoleon. He had loved her first because she was Josephine’s daughter. After she left school and was constantly of the household, he grew more and more attached to her, more and more anxious for her happiness. Hortense, though she never ceased to fear Napoleon, loved him with the enthusiasm of a young girl for a conquering hero. She seems never to have questioned his will—never to have doubted his affection for her.

Hortense’s marriage was, of course, an important question with the Bonapartes, and various suitors had been considered. The girl herself was not ambitious. Neither wealth nor station obscured her judgment. She wanted to marry for love, she declared. At one time she had a strong feeling for Duroc, and Napoleon favored the marriage strongly. Duroc was of good family and a brave soldier, and Hortense loved him; what better? Josephine opposed it. She had set her heart on Louis Bonaparte, in spite of the fact that Hortense felt something like an antipathy to the young man. Louis himself did not take to the marriage at first. He had imbibed from his mother and brothers the idea that the Beauharnais were the natural enemies of the Bonapartes, and a marriage with Hortense they all declared, would be disloyal. However, in September, 1801, when Louis returned to Paris after several months absence and saw Hortense at a ball, he was so impressed by her charm that he yielded at once to Josephine’s wishes, and asked for her hand. Napoleon consented with a little regret; Hortense obeyed as a matter of duty, urged to it as she was both by her mother and Mme. Campan. The marriage took place early in January, 1802. It was a victory for Josephine over the Bonapartes, so her friends said, and so 374the Bonapartes felt bitterly. But, alas, it was a victory for which Hortense paid the price. Before the end of the year, it was evident that Mme. Louis Bonaparte was very unhappy; her husband was jealous and exacting, and constantly tried to turn her against her mother in the family feud. Not even the birth of a son, in October, silenced his grievances for long, though to Napoleon and to Josephine the coming of the little Napoleon-Charles, as he was named, was an inexpressible joy. To Josephine the child was a new support to her position, a new reason why a succession could be established without divorcing her and re-marrying. It was a succession through her, too, since this was her daughter’s child.

Napoleon himself soon became more devoted to the child than its father ever was. In a way, his own ardent desire for fatherhood was satisfied by the presence of the baby, which he kept by him as much as he could, riding it on his back, trotting it on his foot, rolling with it on the floor, lying beside it at night until it slept—a touching proof of this extraordinary man’s passion to possess a love which was faithful and disinterested. As time went on and the question of the succession came into the senate, the struggle between the brothers as to how the heredity should be regulated reached its climax. Napoleon determined to adopt Hortense’s child and make him his heir. Joseph, Lucien, and Louis himself refused to resign what they called their rights, and each had important supporters in his position. Lucien, in the struggle, broke entirely with Napoleon.

But if the succession was to be settled to Josephine’s satisfaction, there were other matters which worried her at the beginning of the life Consulate. Chief among these was that Napoleon insisted upon leaving Malmaison for St. Cloud. Josephine’s interest in the former place was so great, her life there had been so happy, that she was 375violently opposed to any change. St. Cloud was too large; it smacked too much of royalty, the idea of which was awaking such vague alarms in her mind; its associations were too sad. But her opposition availed nothing whatever. Bonaparte felt that a larger residence was necessary. Malmaison was a private home, St. Cloud belonged to the State, and he, as the head of the State, wished to occupy its palaces. They had no sooner taken St. Cloud than their whole mode of life changed; the simple, informal ways of Malmaison were laid aside, and a rigid etiquette adopted. There is a governor of the palace, there are prefects of the palace, there are ladies of the palace. Josephine and Napoleon no longer receive everybody of the household at their table, but eat alone, inviting, two or three times a week, those persons whom they may care particularly to distinguish. The ladies and gentlemen belonging to the palace have tables of their own quite apart. There is a military household annexed to St. Cloud, with four generals and a large guard, an elaborate suite which accompanies the First Consul when he goes forth. Every Sunday, a great crowd of dignitaries—senators, cardinals, bishops, ambassadors, everybody of note in Paris—flock to the First Consul’s receptions. After paying their respects to him, they pass into the apartment of Madame Bonaparte. It is the former apartment of Marie Antoinette, and that Queen herself did not receive in more state than the wife of the First Consul. It is the same at the services in the chapel, which are held every Sunday, and which Bonaparte insists everybody shall attend. At the theatre of the palace, where the little plays which they so much enjoyed at Malmaison are still repeated, there is the same increase of etiquette. Josephine and Bonaparte no longer are seated with their friends, but occupy a loge apart; and when they enter, the whole assembly rises and salutes. People are there by invitation, too, and no 376one pretends to applaud unless the signal is given by the First Consul.

Day by day Josephine bemoaned this new departure; and as hostile criticisms and sneers reached her, she set her face against the changes. Her protests were useless: “Josephine, you are tiresome—you know nothing about these things,” Napoleon finally told her, and Fouché, her friend, finally silenced her by his cynical advice. “Be quiet, Madame; you annoy your husband uselessly. He will be Consul for life, King or Emperor, all that he can be. Your fears disturb him; your advice would wound him. Keep your proper place, and let the events which neither you nor I know how to prevent work out.”

She did accept, and took her part. If it was true that Napoleon was going to make himself Emperor, she must, before all, so conduct herself that he would prefer her on the throne at his side to all the world. As the weeks went on and it became evident that an Empire would soon be proclaimed, Josephine had increasing need of discretion. The Bonaparte family had set themselves again to prevent the succession going to a Beauharnais. Josephine should be divorced, they said; Eugène, to whom Napoleon was greatly attached, should be sent off with his mother. As for his adopting little Napoleon-Charles, the child of Hortense, neither Joseph nor Louis, the father, would hear to it. “Why should I give up to my son a part of your succession?” said Louis to his brother. “What have I done that I should be disinherited? What will be my place when this child has become yours and finds himself in a position far superior to mine, independent of me, outranking me, looking upon me with suspicion and perhaps with contempt? No, I will never consent to it, and rather than consent to bow my head before my son I will leave France; I will take 377Napoleon away with me, and we will see if you will dare to steal a child from his father.”

Napoleon’s sisters, particularly Caroline, Mme. Murat, were no less determined than the brothers to secure all the advantages possible from his glory. In their eagerness, they showed such envy and bitterness that Napoleon was deeply disgusted, and gave them no satisfaction as to his intentions. He even took some pains to tease them. One day when the family were together and he was playing with little Napoleon, he said, “Do you know, little one, that you are in danger of being King one of these days?”

“And Achille?” Murat exclaimed, referring to his own son.

“Oh, Achille will make a good soldier,” answered Napoleon laughing, and when he saw the black looks of both Caroline and Murat, he added: “At all events, my poor little one, I advise you, if you want to live, to accept no meals that your cousins offer you.”

In spite of all the plotting and protesting of the Bonapartes, Josephine was proclaimed Empress, and the law of succession was passed as it pleased Napoleon:—“The French people desire the inheritance of the Imperial dignity in the direct natural or adoptive line of descent from Napoleon Bonaparte and in the direct natural, legitimate line of descent from Joseph Bonaparte and from Louis Bonaparte.” Napoleon was free to adopt either Eugène or Napoleon-Charles and make him his heir. The law mentioned neither Joseph nor Louis as heir. Josephine’s victory in this instance was as much due to the fact that she had made no protests about the succession and had asked nothing, as to anything else. Her seeming confidence (as a matter of fact, she feared the worst for herself) and her generous pleasure in the satisfaction those about took in their new 378honors offered such a contrast to the jealousy and faultfinding of the Bonapartes that Napoleon felt more and more, as he had often said to her in family quarrels: “You are my only comfort, Josephine.” Not only Josephine, but Hortense and Eugène showed themselves in all this period wise and generous. The two latter apparently felt sincerely that Napoleon did more for them than they had a right to expect. The gratitude and disinterestedness they showed was indeed one of the few real satisfactions of Napoleon’s life, for he seems to have believed always that they were genuine, something he never felt about the expressions of his own family.

Not only was the law of succession fixed to Josephine’s satisfaction; but to her unspeakable joy, Napoleon finally told her that she was to be crowned at the same time as he. In the new government she had no political rights, but in this supreme ceremony she should share. Here again it may have been as much family opposition as love for Josephine and desire to associate her with himself in this greatest of royal spectacles that finally led Napoleon to this decision. Just as before the proclamation of the Empire the Bonapartes quarreled about the succession, now they tormented the Emperor about their positions and their privileges. “One would think,” he said testily one day to Caroline, when she was upbraiding him for not according to his sisters the honors due them, “that I had robbed you of the inheritance of the late King, our father.” Joseph did not hesitate to say sarcastic things, even in official gatherings, about the impropriety of crowning a woman who had given her husband no successor. Napoleon stood it for some time, and finally in a violent outburst of passion silenced him at least for the time. The announcement that Josephine was to be crowned, and that her sisters-in-law were to carry the train 379of her robe, caused still further heart-burnings, but the fiat had gone forth and everybody finally submitted.

However, the new court was too busy in the summer and fall of 1804 to give overmuch time to quarreling. The mere matter of familiarizing themselves with the new code of etiquette sufficiently well not to incur the ridicule of those who had been brought up to court usages, was serious enough to absorb most of their time and energies. They succeeded fairly well, though the aristocrats of the Faubourg St. Germain told endless tales of the blunders they made, stories which were circulated industriously in the courts of Europe. Their failure was not for lack of effort, however. Josephine and her ladies took up the code with energy—it was a new amusement, and for weeks they studied their parts and went through their rehearsals as if they were preparing a play for the stage. Before the time of the coronation they had become fairly at home with court usages and were ready to take up the rehearsals for that ceremony with fresh energy.

Indeed, for a month at least, all Paris was absorbed in preparations for the coronation. Fontainebleau was to be put in order to receive the Pope. Notre Dame, where the ceremony was to take place, was to be superbly decorated. Magnificent carriages and trappings for horses and livery were to be provided. Robes and uniforms were to be made ready for the actors. All of the decorators, jewelers, costume-makers, merchants of all sorts in the city were busy night and day. As for the court itself, there one heard nothing talked but the coming spectacle. Under the direction of the Grand Master, the ceremonies had been planned down to the most trivial detail, and everybody was busy learning and practicing his part.

380

THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE.

From a pencil sketch made by David in the Cathedral of Notre Dame at the time of Josephine’s coronation, and presented to his son. The original is now in the Museum of Versailles.

381By the time the Pope arrived at Fontainebleau, on November 25, everything was practically ready. The court had gone to Fontainebleau to meet His Holiness, and in the few days it remained there before going to Paris, Josephine achieved a victory which completed her happiness for the time. No religious marriage between her and Napoleon had ever been celebrated, and although it had been a part of Napoleon’s policy since he came into power to restore the church, and although he had insisted on an observation of all its ceremonies, he had always refused Josephine’s request for a religious marriage. Now, however, she obtained a powerful advocate—the Pope—to whom, at confession, she told her trouble. He declared he could not officiate at the coronation unless a religious marriage was performed. The night before the coronation, Napoleon gave his consent, and the service was held at the Tuileries in profound secrecy, only two witnesses being present.

December 2nd had been set for the coronation. The Tuileries, from which the royal party was to go to Notre Dame, was astir very early, for the Pope was to leave the palace at nine; the Emperor and Empress an hour later. The morning was given to dressing—a long task in Josephine’s case, but one which justified the labor and thought which had been given to her costume. Never had she looked more beautiful than when she joined the Emperor and her ladies. Napoleon was delighted at her appearance, and Mme. de Remusat declared that she did not look over twenty-five.

Josephine’s coronation gown was of white satin, elaborately embroidered in silver and gold; it hung from the shoulders, and was confined by a girdle set with gems. A train of white velvet embroidered in gold and silver was fastened to this gown. The neck was low and square, and the sleeves were long. A ruff, stiff with gold, was set into the top of the sleeves, and rose high behind her head. The narrow 382corsage and the top of the sleeves were decorated with diamonds. She wore a magnificent necklace of sculptured stones surrounded with diamonds, and on her head was a diadem of pearls and diamonds. Her shoes were of white velvet, embroidered in gold; on her hands she wore white gloves, embroidered in gold. The cost of the pieces of this costume are interesting—the gown is estimated to have cost $2,000; the velvet train, $1,400; the shoes, $130.

The pontifical procession had been gone from the Palace over an hour when Napoleon and Josephine, accompanied by Joseph and Louis Bonaparte, descended, and entered the gorgeous state carriage drawn by eight horses in rich harness. As the sides of the vehicle were entirely of glass, the spectators could look easily upon the magnificence of the party inside. From the Tuileries, the party proceeded slowly to the Archbishop’s palace, along streets crowded with people and decorated with every device which skill and money could provide. During the entire procession, salvos of artillery at intervals greeted the Emperor. At the palace of the Archbishop, the party entered, and here Napoleon put on his coronation robe and Josephine finished her costume by changing her diadem for one of amethysts and by fastening to her left shoulder a royal mantle of red velvet, embroidered in golden bees and in the imperial N surrounded by garlands, and bordered and lined with ermine. This mantle fell from the shoulders, and trailed for fully two yards on the floor.

These changes of toilet made, the cortège started—pages, cuirassiers and heralds, the Grand Master of Ceremonies and his aides,—a marshal bearing a cushion on which was placed the ring for the Empress, another marshal carrying the crown on a cushion. Following the Empress and her attendants, came the cortège of the Emperor; first the marshals bearing the crown, sceptre, and sword of Charlemagne, and the ring and globe belonging to Napoleon; then the 383Emperor, crowned with a wreath of gold laurel leaves, the sceptre in one hand, and in the other a baton—emblem of justice, his heavy royal mantle carried by several princes, a guard of richly dressed ornamental personages following.

On entering the cathedral, both the Emperor and the Empress were presented with holy water, and then began their slow journey up the aisle of the cathedral to the high altar, where the service took place. The sceptre, crown, sword, ring and globe of the Emperor were placed upon the altar, and beside them were placed the crown, ring, and mantle of the Empress. The Pope then anointed the Emperor’s head and hands with oil, and the same service was used immediately after in anointing Josephine. The mass followed, during which the Pope blessed the imperial ornaments of both Napoleon and Josephine.

At the close of this service, the Emperor mounted the steps to the altar, on which the imperial crown was placed, lifted it, and put it himself on his head; then taking the crown of the Empress in his hands, he descended the steps to the place where Josephine was kneeling. With a gesture at once so gentle and so proud that it impressed the whole splendid audience, he put the crown upon her head, while the Pope pronounced the orison: “May God crown you with the crown of glory and justice; may He give you strength and courage that, through this benediction, and by your own faith and the multiplied fruits of your good works, you may attain the crown of the eternal kingdom, through the grace of Him whose reign and empire extends from age to age.”

384

THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON I. BESTOWING THE CROWN ON THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE, DECEMBER 2, 1804.

385As the last words of the prayer died away the cortège turned from the high altar and proceeded slowly down the nave to the point where the throne had been placed. At the top of a staircase of some twenty-nine steps was a large platform, on which a sumptuous arm-chair, richly decorated with embroideries and golden symbols, had been placed for Napoleon. To the right of this seat, and one step lower, was a smaller chair, with similar decorations, for Josephine. The Emperor and Empress mounted the steps and seated themselves. They were followed by the Pope, who blessed them, and then, kissing the Emperor on the cheek, turned to the assembly, and pronounced the words, “Vivat imperator in æternum.” The Te Deum, the prayers, the reading of the Scriptures, the offering, followed; and then, the mass finished, the oath taken, Napoleon and Josephine descended and attended by their suites, left the cathedral, and entered their carriage. The ceremony, from the time of leaving the Tuileries, had taken five hours. It was three and a half hours more before the long procession was ended and they were back again in the palace.

That night Napoleon and Josephine dined alone, the Empress wearing her crown, at her husband’s request, so pleased was he with the grace and dignity with which she carried it.

Consecrated by the Pope, crowned by Napoleon, Josephine’s position seemed impregnable in the eyes of all the world. It was one of dazzling splendor. The little creole whose youth had been spent in a sugar-house, who had passed months in a prison cell, who many a time had borrowed money to pay her rent, now had become the mistress, not of a palace, but of palaces—of Fontainebleau, the Tuileries, Versailles, Rambouillet. She who for so many years had begged favors at the doors of others, was now the center of a great machine, called a “Household,” devoted to serving her. There were a First Almoner, a Maid of Honor, a Lady of the Bedchamber, numbers of Ladies of the Palace, a First Chamberlain, a First Equery, a Private Secretary, a Chief Steward—all of them having their respective attendants; and there were, besides these, valets, footmen, pages, and servants of all grades. Her life, so long one of unthinking freedom, was now regulated to the last detail. The apartments in the palace devoted to her own uses were two—the apartment of honor and the private apartment. Before the door of the ante-chamber of the apartment of honor stood, day and night, a door-keeper; within were four valets, two huissiers, two pages (to do errands), from twelve to twenty-six footmen, ready to do honor to the incoming and outgoing guests. In the salons, where visitors waited, were other decorative footmen and pages—a retinue ten times larger than actual service required, 387but none too large to the eye accustomed to court etiquette. It was through this hedge of attendants that the supplicant, flatterer or friend who would see Josephine now must work his way—a slow way, often only to be made by fair address, strong relations, and judicious gifts. Josephine by nature the most accessible of mortals, was now obliged to turn away old friends because they did not please His Majesty, the Emperor. That he was oftentimes quite right, the following frank little letter of hers shows:—

“I am sorry, my dear friend, that my wishes cannot be fulfilled, as you and my other old friends imagine they can. You seem to think that if I do not see you it is because I have forgotten you. Alas! no, on the contrary, my memory is more tenacious than I wish. The more I think of what I am, the more I am mortified at not being able to obey the dictates of my heart. The Empress of France is the veriest slave in the Empire, and she cannot acquit the debt which Madame de Beauharnais owes. This makes me miserable, and it will explain why you are not near me; why I do not see Madame Tallien; why, in short, many of my former friends would be forgotten by me, but that my memory is faithful.

“The Emperor, displeased at the prevailing laxity of morals, and anxious to check its progress, wishes that his palace should present an example of virtuous and religious conduct. Anxious to consolidate the religion which he has restored, and having no power to alter laws to which he has given his assent, he has determined to exclude from Court all persons who have taken advantage of the law of divorce. He has given this promise to the Pope, and he cannot break it. This reason alone has obliged him to refuse the favor I solicited of having you about me. His refusal afflicts me, but it is too positive to admit of any hope of its being retracted.”

388The apartment of honor was devoted to receiving, and Josephine’s movements there were prescribed in detail. The costume she should wear, the chair in which she should sit, the rank of the person who should be allowed in the room when she received, who should announce, who carry a note, who bring a glass of water, all of this was ordered and performed precisely. In her private apartment there was greater appearance of freedom, though it was arranged by the code at what hour she should take her morning cup of tea and by whose hand it should be presented, who should admit her pet dog, what should be her costume for the morning, and who should arrange it.

When the Empress left the palace, the forms were multiplied. Attended by her ladies of waiting, she passed over a carpet spread for her passage, through the file of liveried servants which decorated all the apartments. Before her marched the younger of the two pretty pages always waiting in the outer salon, while the elder bore the train of her robe. At the door, the magnificent portier d’appartement struck the floor with his halberd as she passed. One of the dozen carriages in her stables drawn usually by eight horses awaited her. Before, beside, and behind as she drove were servants in gorgeous livery, mounted or afoot; a brilliant spectacle for the passer-by, but a wearisome one for poor Josephine.

It was no better when she travelled, as she did a great deal, especially in the first two years after the coronation. Thus in the spring of 1805, she accompanied Napoleon to Milan, where he was to be crowned King of Italy. The journey was a long series of brilliant functions—at Lyons, a triumphal arch, a reception by the Empress, an entertainment at the theater; at Turin, flattering ceremonies; on the field of Marengo, mimic manœuvres of the battle, led by Murat, Lannes, and Bessières, and watched by Napoleon 389and Josephine from a throne, and after the manœuvres, the laying of a corner-stone to those who lost their lives on the field; at Milan, on May 26, the coronation of Napoleon, which Josephine watched from the gallery of the cathedral, followed by splendid public fêtes lasting for days; a mimic representation on the battle-field of Castiglione; visits to Bologna, Modena, Parma, Geneva, Turin, all attended by the most extravagant festivities. This journey lasted from April 4th to July 18th, the date of their return to St. Cloud, and through it all Josephine was scarcely free for an hour from the fatiguing duties of a great sovereign.

Napoleon returned to Paris from Italy to prepare for war with Austria, and in September he set out on the campaign. Josephine went with him as far as Strasburg, where she transferred her household to the Imperial Palace which had been established there for Napoleon’s use. For two months she remained at Strasburg, while Napoleon dazzled Europe by the campaign which, on Dec. 2nd, culminated at Austerlitz. Alone she conducted her court as she would have done in Paris, as magnificently and as brilliantly. In November, she left Strasburg to go to Munich—a triumphal march, really, for everywhere she received royal honors. Her approach to every city through which she was to pass en route was announced by the ringing of bells and salvos of artillery; great processions of dignitaries went out to meet her; arches of triumph were erected for her; beautiful gifts were presented; there were illuminations, balls, and state performances of all sorts. She reached Munich on December 5th, and here remained until after January 14th, on which day another great ceremony, her son’s marriage with Princess Augusta of Baden, was celebrated.

From the manner of its arrangement one might have expected nothing but misery from this alliance. The young princess was violently opposed to it, and only consented at 390her father’s entreaty—“a sacrifice to father, family and country,” she said. Eugène knew nothing of the proposed marriage until he arrived, at Napoleon’s order, in Munich. The two young people never saw each other until four days before the wedding. Fortunately they fell in love at once, and their married life was one of exceptional devotion and happiness. Napoleon was so pleased with the course things took that he adopted Eugène at the time of the celebration of the marriage—a great blow to the Bonapartes and a new happiness for Josephine.

The fatiguing duties attendant upon official journeys in foreign countries and upon holding a court in a strange city were repeated again in 1806. In January, after Eugène’s marriage, Josephine came back to Paris with the Emperor; but in September he left for the campaign against Prussia and Russia, and she went to Mayence to establish her court. This time the journey was not according to the code, for Napoleon had wished the Empress to remain in Paris during his absence, and it was only at the last moment that, overcome by her grief, he consented that she go with him in his carriage. Only a single maid accompanied her—the royal household not being able to start its cumbersome self for several days. At Mayence Josephine remained until January. Hortense, now Queen of Holland (Louis had been made King in 1806), was with her, with her two little sons, and in many ways the court was agreeable; but Josephine wished to join the Emperor, and it was only when he commanded her to go to Paris, that she consented to return and open her court there.

The tact and good sense with which Josephine conducted herself in her exacting and slavish position—the grace and patience with which she wore her royal harness, are as pathetic as they are marvelous. To rule her household, with all the jealousies and meannesses natural to such a combination 391of women, so that there would be no scandals, and that the members would respect and love her, was a delicate task; but she never failed in it. She kept their love, and she kept her supremacy—even the supremacy of beauty. There were many of the young women received by the First Consul who were glad enough to try to outshine Josephine; but she almost always outwitted them. An amusing example of her skill is an encounter that occurred between her and her sister-in-law, Pauline. Pauline, who was young, vivacious, and very pretty, always resented a little the charm that Josephine exercised, and she took no small pleasure in trying to outdo her. In 1803, she was married to the Prince Borghese, at the chateau of Joseph Bonaparte, Mortefontaine. A few days after her marriage, she appeared in Paris, where she was presented officially at St. Cloud. It was natural enough that Pauline should desire to outshine everybody at this presentation, but Josephine desired particularly that she herself should not be so thrown into the shadow that Napoleon would notice it. She did a very clever thing. Although it was winter, she put on a light robe of white Indian muslin, the garment which always became her best and in which Napoleon delighted to see her. The gown was made very simply, and her only ornaments were enamelled lion’s heads which caught up the sleeves on her shoulder and which formed a buckle to her girdle. Her arms and neck were bare, and her hair was done on the top of her head. She made an altogether charming picture; and when the First Consul saw her, he said, “Why, Josephine, what does this mean? I am jealous, you have gotten yourself up for somebody. What makes you so beautiful to-day?” Even after they were in the salon, his compliments continued. The Princess Borghese was a little late in arriving. When she did appear, she was resplendent; her dress was a bright green velvet, embroidered with diamonds; 392at her side was a great bouquet of brilliants; on her head, a diadem of emeralds and diamonds. Josephine in her simple robe stood at the end of the salon waiting exactly as if she had been a sovereign, to let her sister-in-law come to her. Pauline was obliged to go the length of the salon to salute her. After the presentation, she said to Madame Junot, who tells the story, “My sister-in-law thought she would be disagreeable when she made me cross the salon; in fact, she delighted me, because otherwise the train of my gown could not have been seen.” Presently, however, Pauline was thrown into despair. She had forgotten entirely that the grand salon where they were received was furnished in blue, and that while it made a charming background for Josephine’s white muslin, for her green velvet it was something deplorable. Josephine, of course, could not be accused of having planned this; it was Pauline’s own forgetfulness which had wrought her confusion. The white gown and the regal manner were a favorite device of Josephine when she suspected that some young and fascinating woman was preparing to outshine her.

One very difficult task for Josephine in her court was holding her own with the women of noble birth who were gradually being admitted, but she did it by a combination of graciousness, deference, and majesty which was not to be analyzed, and which only an all but infinite tact explain. It was tact born of good will—a good will which everybody about her admitted. “No one ever denied the exquisite goodness of Madame Bonaparte,” Mlle. Avrillon says. “She was extremely affable with everybody about her. I do not believe that there ever was a woman who made her companions feel their dependence less than she.” Madame de Remusat says that to goodness she joined a remarkably even disposition, and the faculty of forgetting any evil that any one had done to her. Another member of her household 393has said of her goodness, that it was as inseparable from her character as grace from her person; “she was good to excess, sensitive beyond all expression, generous to prodigality; she tried to make everybody happy about her, and no woman was ever more loved by those who served her and merited it more.... As she had known unhappiness, she knew how to sympathize with the troubles of others. Her temper was always sweet, always even, as obliging for her enemies as for her friends; she made peace wherever there was trouble or discord.”

Josephine was no less happy when on her journeys than at home. She won everybody. No one was presented who did not go away feeling that in some way the Empress had especially distinguished him. As a matter of fact, she prepared herself carefully for her meetings with foreigners by employing an instructor who informed her about their families, their deeds, their books, their diplomatic victories. She mastered this instruction so thoroughly that she always had some flattering reference at her tongue’s end. The diligence and energy she showed in preparing herself for official functions is the more surprising when one remembers her natural indolence.

Josephine had few resources in which she could find relief from her burden of etiquette. She cared little for books—out-of-door sports wearied her, and the hunt, on which she often accompanied the Emperor, was a sore trial. She was afraid, to begin with, and she never failed to cry over a wounded beast. She was a poor musician. She embroidered, to be sure, but not because she cared for it, she did like cards, and played tric-trac whenever etiquette allowed it. She played a good hand of whist, too; and she was very fond of telling her own fortune with cards—hardly a day passed, indeed, that she did not try to read the future from cards.

394

JOSEPHINE, EMPRESS OF THE FRENCH AND QUEEN OF ITALY. 1805.

Designed by Buguet.

395The one real pleasure in her life was undoubtedly her toilet. She had always been extravagantly fond of personal decoration—she loved brilliant stones, gay silks, fine laces, soft cashmeres; and when she found herself an Empress, with every reason and every opportunity for indulging her love of finery, she abandoned herself to the pleasure until her wardrobe became the chief amusement of her life.

Almost every day men and women, bearing stuffs of all sorts—jewels, models, laces, everything, in short, that French fancy could devise for a woman’s toilet—found their way to Josephine’s private apartments. Before these wily tradespeople she had no self-restraint—one should say, perhaps, no self-respect,—for almost invariably she allowed herself to be wheedled into buying. The numbers of pieces added to her wardrobe each year indicates a startling prodigality. Thus, in one year, she bought one hundred and thirty-six dresses, twenty cashmere shawls, seventy-three corsets, forty-eight pieces of elegant stuffs, eighty-seven hats, seventy-one pairs of silk stockings, nine hundred and eighty pairs of gloves, five hundred and twenty pairs of shoes. If this had been an unusual purchase, it might be explained; but it was not. With every season there was the same thoughtless buying of all that struck her fancy. It was out of the question for her to wear all she bought, for Josephine was not one who prided herself on never appearing twice in the same costume. Many of the things she bought she never put on at all; and when her wardrobes were overburdened, she made a little fête of the task of lightening them, giving away piece after piece of uncut lace, pattern after pattern of velvet, silk or muslin, rich gowns, hats, stockings, shoes. Anything and everything was scattered in the same reckless fashion in which it had been acquired. Not that her giving of personal articles was confined to this occasional clearing out of stock; she gave as one of her royal 396prerogatives, whenever it pleased her to do so. Often she took from her shoulders a delicate scarf or superb cashmere shawl to throw about some one of her ladies whom she heard admiring it, and not infrequently she sent a gown to one who had complimented her on its beauty. Mlle. Ducrest says that one day she heard a gentleman of the household, in admiring a cashmere gown which the Empress wore, remark that the pattern would do very well for a waistcoat. Josephine picked up a pair of scissors, and cutting the skirt of her dress into three pieces, gave one to each of the three gentlemen in the room.

Josephine’s prodigality caused great confusion in her budget. She was allowed, at the beginning of her reign, $72,000 a year for her toilet, and later this was increased to $90,000. But there was never a year during the time that she did not far over-reach her allowance and oblige the Emperor to come to her relief. According to the estimate Masson has made, Josephine spent on an average $220,000 yearly on her toilet during her reign. It is only by going over her wardrobe article by article and noting the cost and number of each piece that one can realize how a woman could spend this amount. Take the simple item of her hose—which were almost always white silk, often richly embroidered or in open work. She kept 150 or more pairs on hand, and they cost from $4.00 to $8.00 a pair. She employed two hair-dressers—one for every day, at $1,200 a year; the other for great occasions, at $2,000 a year; and she paid them each from one thousand to two thousand dollars a year for furnishings. It was the same for all the smaller items of her toilet.

Coming to gowns, the sums they cost were enormous. Her simple muslin gowns, of which her wardrobe always contained two hundred and more, cost from one hundred to four hundred dollars apiece. Her cashmere and velvet 397gowns were much more costly, ornamented as many of them were with ermine and with buckles, buttons, and girdles set with precious stones. One of her great extravagances was cashmere shawls. She never had enough of them—it is true she gave away many—and she rarely appeared without one within reach. Her collection of shawls is said to have been the most valuable ever seen in Europe. Many of them were made after patterns which she sent herself to the Orient. They were of every delicate shade of color, and in texture they were like gossamer. Her coquetry with these beautiful drapes was like the coquetry of the Spanish signora with a fan. She said everything with them.

A large lump of Josephine’s yearly allowance for dress went into jewels. Her extravagance in this particular was less justifiable than in any other, because she already owned a large quantity of precious stones of all sorts when she became Empress, many of them gifts to her in Italy, and because as Empress she had at her command the magnificent crown jewels—$1,000,000 worth of gems, in fact, were hers when she wished. Nevertheless, she bought—evidently for the mere pleasure of buying and laying away—innumerable ornaments of every description, scores of which she probably never put on; rings, bracelets, necklaces, girdles, buckles, all by the hundreds. No stone known to commerce but was represented in her collection. No form into which gold and silver can be fashioned which was not found there. She had specimens of the ornaments of all ages and all countries, and of the novelties of the times she bought by the score. She not only added incessantly, but she exchanged, reset, recut, carried on, in fact, a trade. To the end of her life she kept her interest in her jewels, and loved to show them to her companions, to play with them, to decorate herself with them. They were kept together for many years after her death, but were finally sold by Hortense. 398When experts came to value them, it was found that according to the prices they set—fully one-third below the cost price—the large pieces alone, such as her diadem of diamonds and her splendid pearl necklace, were worth nearly a million dollars; and as for the small pieces—the innumerable trinkets of every size and kind and style—their value was never computed.

The effect on the Emperor of Josephine’s prodigality can be imagined. He appreciated as she never could the lack of dignity in her reckless spending, and did his utmost to persuade her to keep her accounts in order. He even resorted to severe measures, turning out of the palace tradespeople who he knew hung about her apartments watching an opportunity to show her a novelty in modes or in ornamentation, a rare jewel or a rich shawl. He ordered that her expenses be regulated by a person especially appointed for that purpose and that Josephine herself be not allowed to buy anything without supervision. None of these means effected anything. Annually there was a great debt run up by her, and when the settlement could be put off no longer, Josephine would confess. She always put the amount far below what it actually was, and only after much badgering could Napoleon get at the real state of things. Then there was a scene, ending always in tears from Josephine. Invariably they conquered Napoleon. “Come, come, pet, dry your tears,” he would beg, “don’t worry;” and he paid the debts, and raised her income. In twelve months the scene was repeated.

For two years after she mounted the throne, Josephine felt tolerably secure in its possession. It was not until the winter of 1806–1807, when Napoleon was busy with war against Russia and Prussia, that the spectre which had alarmed her at the beginning of the Life Consulate and again at the proclamation of the Empire, arose again. Her first alarm came from the fact that when she wanted to go to the Emperor from Mayence, whither she had taken her household, he put her off. Sometimes he even rebuked her for her persistence in clinging to the idea. “Talleyrand comes, and tells me that you do nothing but cry,” he wrote her on November 1st. “But what do you want? You have your daughter, your grandchildren, and good news; certainly you have the materials for happiness and contentment.” More often he flattered and petted, as when, on November 28th, he wrote from Warsaw: “All the Polish women are Frenchwomen, but there is only one woman for me. Do you know her? I could draw her portrait for you; but I should have to flatter it too much for you to recognize it; nevertheless, to tell the truth, my heart would have only good things to tell you.” And again, a few days later: “I have your letter of November 26th. I notice two things: you say, ‘I don’t read your letters’; that is unjust. I am sorry for your bad opinion. You tell me you are not 400jealous. I have long observed that people who are angry always say that they are not angry, that people who are afraid say they are not afraid; so you are convicted of jealousy; I am delighted! Besides, you are mistaken, and in the deserts of fair Poland one thinks but little about pretty women. Yesterday I was at a ball of the nobility of the province; rather pretty women, rather rich, rather ill dressed, although in the Paris fashion.” He continued all through December to try to dissuade her. “I have your letter of November 27th, and I see that your little head is much excited. I remember the line: ‘A woman’s wish is a devouring flame,’ and I must calm you. I wrote to you that I was in Poland, that when we should have got into winter quarters you might come; so you must wait a few days. The greater one becomes, the less will one must have; one depends on events and circumstances. You may go to Frankfurt or Darmstadt. I hope to summon you in a few days, but events must decide. The warmth of your letter convinces me that you pretty women take no account of obstacles; what you want must be; but I must say that I am the greatest slave that lives; my master has no heart, and this master is the nature of things.”

Josephine would not give up her plan, however, and in Napoleon’s arguments that the trip from Mayence to Warsaw was too long—the roads too bad, the weather too cold, for her to venture it, that she was needed in Paris, she saw only a desire to be free from her presence; and when finally he ordered her to “go back to Paris to be happy and contented there,” she obeyed with tears and lamentations. Josephine’s jealousy at this time was more than justifiable. For many months, in fact, she had known beyond question of Napoleon’s various infidelities, and she suspected that the real reason he refused her request to be allowed to go to him was that he had found a new mistress. Or might it not be, 401she asked herself, that he was planning a divorce and re-marriage. The first supposition was true. It was Madame Walewski who was the chief obstacle to Josephine going to Warsaw, although the reasons Napoleon gave—the danger of the journey and the need of Josephine in Paris—were plausible enough at the moment.

It was not until July, 1807, that the Emperor took up the subject of a divorce, as a political necessity, with his counsellors. While at Tilsit with the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia, the divorce was discussed, and Napoleon ordered that a list of the marriageable princesses of Europe be made out for him. No doubt vague rumors of the transactions at Tilsit reached Josephine. She took them the more to heart because in May of that year (1807) Hortense’s eldest son, Napoleon-Charles, had died. The death of the boy destroyed one of her chief hopes. It removed the child whom she knew Napoleon so loved that he would have been well satisfied to have made him his successor. Hortense had a second child, Napoleon Louis; but the Emperor did not have the same feeling for him.

When Napoleon returned to Paris after the meeting at Tilsit, Josephine was prepared to do all that was possible to reconquer the place in her husband’s heart, which many months’ absence had certainly weakened. She even had Hortense’s little son Louis with her, a constant reminder to the Empire that here was an heir of Bonaparte and Beauharnais blood. Her hopes were soon shattered by Fouché, who made an appeal to her. For the sake of the country, the dynasty, Napoleon, would she not herself voluntarily offer to withdraw. Panicstricken, yet not daring to go directly to her husband to know if this was his will, Josephine could only weep. Napoleon saw her sorrow, but had not the courage to talk with her. Finally Talleyrand, taking the case in hand, persuaded Josephine to speak first to Napoleon. Overcome completely, the Emperor feigned amazement, stormed at the baseness of Fouché, wept over Josephine, swore he could not leave her; but he did not deceive her—or himself. Josephine took a clever course—she told him she would consent to his will quietly for love of him and for the sake of the throne—if he commanded her. But that Napoleon could not do. He ordered that the question of divorce be dropped, gave Fouché such treatment as perhaps a man never before received for carrying out his superior’s will, and for a time bestowed upon Josephine lover-like attentions so marked that the whole court looked on and wondered.

402

EMPRESS JOSEPHINE.

Fragment from the picture of the marriage of Jerome Bonaparte and the Princess Catherine.

403The fall of 1807 the Emperor strove to make very gay, and during the sojourns at Rambouillet for the hunt and the month at Fontainebleau the Empress was really at the height of her power. He could not give her up, could not, in spite of his dynasty, in spite of Mme. Walewski, the woman who had sacrificed herself to him for the sake of Poland, and for whom he had a great respect as well as ardent passion. Josephine was necessary to him. It was a tenderness born of association—of all of the thousand sweet ties which twelve years of life together had wrought. What matter if she was growing old; what matter that he might have a royal princess for his wife—that his heart was with Mme. Walewski, it was Josephine, and no one ever had aroused such a wealth of tenderness as she—no one could again. The court could only look on and wonder to see the weakness of the tyrant before this woman. They even noted how jealous he was of her that fall, when the young German prince of Mecklenburg-Schwerin fell in love with her and did not hesitate to show it. Josephine herself laughed at the young man’s ardor, but Napoleon looked askance and doubled his tenderness.

The winter of 1807 and 1808 was spent in Paris, and the shadow was not large. It was true that Mme. Walewski 404was now in the city; but if Josephine knew anything of this liaison, she ignored it completely. So long as she was Empress infidelities had little effect on her. Mme. de Remusat says that not only did Josephine shut her eyes to them, but she “pushed her complacency to the point of granting particular favors to some of his mistresses.” In the spring and summer her hold on the Emperor seemed to herself and to those about her to have been strengthened by the four and a half months which the two spent with only a small suite at Bayonne, where the Emperor’s presence was necessary to direct the affairs with Spain. Napoleon had preceded the Empress, who waited in Bordeaux for news of Hortense, to whom a third son was born on April 20, 1808. The news brought great joy to Josephine, and no doubt had something to do with her happiness in the next few months. It provided a second heir, and made divorce seem less imperative.

In spite of the sinister events of the sojourn at Bayonne—it was here that the King of Spain, Charles IV., and his heir, Ferdinand, abdicated their rights and that Joseph Bonaparte was made King of Spain—there was much gaiety around Josephine. There were dinners and fêtes and drives, and the French Empress and the Spanish Queen Louise seemed to enjoy each other’s society as if a throne were not changing hands and a noble house falling, because of the disgraceful inaction and jealousy of one ruler and the cynical ambition and self-confidence of the other.

The really delightful part of Josephine’s life at Bayonne was the informal intimacy which she and Napoleon enjoyed. Never since the days at Malmaison had they been together so long and so freely. They made the most of their liberty, even romping before the eyes of the members of their small suite in a most unroyal way. The Castle of Marrac, which they occupied, was near the shore, and they spent much time 405on the beach, where the Emperor, dragging the Empress to the water, would push her into it or dash sand over her, laughing like a teasing boy as he did so. In one of these romps the little, low silk slippers which the Empress always wore slipped off, and Napoleon, seizing them, threw them into the surf, making Josephine walk back to her carriage in stocking feet. It was with such frolics that the two enlivened the days at Marrac, in the summer of 1808. Their journey back to Paris was a triumphal procession, wherein Josephine, by her tact, her amiability, her unflagging interest, won every heart. Never had she seemed more admirable to Napoleon as an Empress, never more charming as a woman.

It was in August, 1808, that Josephine returned to Paris, after four and a half months with her husband. A few days later, he left her for Erfurth, where he was to meet Alexander of Russia and the German sovereigns, for a conference on the affairs of Europe. At a gathering of the magnitude and splendor of this at Erfurth it would have been fitting that the Empress be present, but Napoleon did not deem it wise for her to leave France. That Napoleon meant to indicate by leaving her at home that his decision to have a divorce was taken and that this was the beginning of the separation is not clear, though it is certain that the subject was much in his mind at Erfurth. The stability an heir would give to his throne and the value of an alliance with one of the old houses of Europe, now became clearer than ever to him, and undoubtedly Napoleon came back to Josephine with the idea more firmly fixed in mind than before. Those who saw them together after Erfurth said to themselves, “He is meditating the divorce again.” Josephine feared it. What else could mean his short brusque remarks, his evident desire to escape her company, his averted eyes.

406Dread the future as she might, she could do nothing. To question Napoleon was to irritate him, and nothing, she knew, was more unwise. To show a sad face, to weep, was to drive him from her presence, for he detested tears with all the force of the strong reasoning controlled creature who sees nothing but a meaningless waste of strength in them. She knew too well the empire of Napoleon over all those about him to attempt to build up a party of her own that at the issue would throw its influence in her favor. There was but one thing to oppose to the imperious will of her husband—his affection for her. To cherish that, doing nothing of which he could complain, nothing which would irritate or weary him; to show him at every meeting her amiability, her devotion, her tact, to win from him the confession that no woman could fill more gracefully and successfully than she was doing her difficult position,—this was Josephine’s course, and the one which she followed ceaselessly after the interview in 1807. Certainly the fear was continually in her heart after Erfurth, but to him she gave no sign. She was gentle, apparently trusting; tactful, and cautious—the very qualities which Napoleon admired most in women and found rarest. Every day of intercourse made it harder for him to come to a resolution, and every day increased her own anxiety.

It was only ten days after Erfurth that the war in Spain compelled Napoleon to leave Paris. Josephine was left alone. There was little in the letters she received from Spain to disturb her peace of mind; as always, they gave her details of the Emperor’s health, expressed concern for hers, gave brief bits of news—optimistic always; rarely a word of a disaster was put into a letter to Josephine—directions about fêtes, about the reception of persons to be sent to her, comments and inquiries on family matters: such letters, in short, as she had always received. Yet there was an uneasiness 407in Josephine’s mind which she could not conquer;—it was fed by rumors from idle and more or less malicious tongues in her circle.

It was not only the uncertainty of her own fate which distressed her; she had further reason for grief in the unhappiness of Hortense, who had been reconciled with her husband for a time, but was now more wretched than ever, and whose frequent letters to Josephine must have cut her to the heart again and again. Her tenderness and her wisdom in her councils to her daughter at this time, indeed at all times, are admirable. It would not have been surprising if in receiving daily the complaints of Hortense, at a moment of so much uneasiness regarding her true situation, she had resented the misery of her daughter; but there is never a shadow of irritation in her letters.

In January, Josephine had the joy of seeing Napoleon return. For the two months and a half he was in Paris she watched him closely, but to no purpose. Indeed public affairs were in such a condition that the Emperor had little or no time to give her. He was working day and night in a frenzied effort to clear France of the traitors who, within his government, indeed within his own family, were plotting his overthrow, and to put an army in order for the war he saw Austria and her allies preparing for him. There was no time in the winter of 1808 and 1809 for the consideration of divorce and marriage, and if a decision for a divorce had been taken at Erfurth, the realization was far enough off. To all outward appearances, Josephine was safe. She was gratified, too, when the day of the Emperor’s departure came in April, by being allowed to accompany him as far as Strasburg, where she set up her court for the next few months. Here were soon gathered about her several of the family: Hortense, with her two little sons, the Queen of Westphalia, and the Grand Duchess of Baden. 408Here she received from the Emperor himself the first news of the succession of victories with which the campaign of 1809 opened. First it was Abensberg, then Eckmuhl, then Ratisbonne, that he recounted to her. It was a triumphal march, as always; but at Ratisbonne something happened which threw Josephine into consternation. Napoleon was hit by a ball. The news came to the Empress indirectly, and she hurriedly sent a courier to find out the actual condition of the wound. “The ball which hit me did not wound me,” he replied, “it scarcely grazed Achilles’ heel. My health is very good. It is wrong for you to worry. Everything is going well.”

Four days later, the Empress received a special courier from the Emperor, who announced to her the surrender of Vienna. Josephine was very happy. It argued well for a speedy end to the campaign. Her happiness was brief. The defeat at Essling, and the death of Marshall Lannes, filled her with foreboding. She, with many others of her day, looked on the career of the Emperor with superstitious awe. It was luck—a star. The charm broken, the star obscured, all would go. It is doubtful if Josephine, any more than hundreds of others who surrounded the Emperor, ever realized his stupendous genius or the gigantic efforts the man made to wrest victories from fate. It was the common story of one who spends himself in achievement, and in the end hears himself called a “lucky fellow”. After the defeat at Essling, Josephine discerned on every side the joy of Napoleon’s enemies, saw the alarm of his friends, heard in her own heart the knell of fate. To complete her misery, she feared she had offended the Emperor. Hortense, who had been at Strasburg for some time, was ordered by her physician to go to Baden for the waters. It was the Emperor’s order that no one of the royal family should change quarters without his consent. Hortense went to Baden 409without consulting him, taking with her the two young princes. The Emperor was irritated. “My daughter,” he wrote her less than a week after Essling, “I am dissatisfied to find that you have left France without my permission, and above all that you have taken my nephews away. Since you are at Baden, stay; but within an hour after you receive this letter, send my two nephews to Strasburg to the Empress. They must never leave France. It is the first time I have had any occasion to be dissatisfied with you, but you should never make any arrangements for my nephews without my consent. You must feel the bad effect that would have.”

This letter was sent to Hortense through Josephine, who opened it, thinking to have news herself from Napoleon, about whom she was greatly concerned. It was a new cause of worry. Would he not blame her for Hortense’s act? At least the two children had already been sent back to her—that was one reason for congratulation; but she hastened to write to Hortense urging her to try and appease the Emperor. Her anxiety became so great that her health began to give way, and she, too, had to leave Strasburg, in June, for treatment at Plombières, in the Vosges.

Josephine had been frequently before at Plombières, but certainly never before so quietly since she was Empress. The usual suite accompanied her, the same imposing livery, the same magnificent wardrobe, but no reception, no balls, no excursions marked her sojourn. She lived like a retired Empress almost—scattering charities everywhere, and amusing herself principally with her little grandsons, upon whom she lavished toys of every description in the profusion and extravagance with which she had always heaped jewels and finery upon herself. Daily she enjoyed Louis more. “I am so happy to have your son here,” she wrote Hortense. “He is charming, and I am becoming more and more attached to him.... His little reasonings amuse me exceedingly.”

410

JOSEPHINE, THE FIRST WIFE OF NAPOLEON.

Engraved by Audouin, after Laurent. This portrait “Joséphine impératrice des Français, reine d’Italie,” is surrounded by an elaborate frame of Imperial emblems. After the divorce, Josephine’s portrait was erased from the plate, and that of Marie Louise inserted.

411The rapid recovery of fortune which followed the reverse at Essling soon reassured Josephine. She saw from Napoleon’s letters that, however his critics might feel that his star was waning, he himself had not lost courage. He scorned their exultation. “They have made an appointment to meet at my tomb,” he said, “but they’ll not dare carry it out.” His deeds verified his words. In rapid succession, he sent Josephine announcements of the series of victories which marked the latter half of June, 1809, and which culminated in Wagram on July 6th. A week later she received notice of the suspension of hostilities.

Once more the Empress breathed freely; Napoleon was safe, and he was victorious. Now his letters were longer, gayer, tenderer than they had been for many months. He rejoiced in the reports she sent him from Plombières of her gaining strength. “I am glad the waters are doing you so much good,” he wrote; and again, “I hear that you are stout, rosy, and looking very well.” He made no objection to the plans she suggested for herself. Stay at Plombières if she wished, why not; and when she is ready in August, go to Paris. If her letters are long in coming, he chides her. “I have received no letters from you for several days. The pleasures at Malmaison, the beautiful hot-houses and gardens, make you forget me. That’s the way it goes, they say.” As the time approached for his return—the negotiations at Schönbrunn which followed the war lasted into October—he began to show something like eagerness. Every day he sent a brief note of his coming return. “I’ll let you know twenty-four hours before my arrival.” “I shall make a fête of our reunion. I am waiting for the moment impatiently.” True, there was nothing of the lover in these daily bulletins (it was hardly to be expected when we 412remember that, during most of the campaign of 1809, Mme. de Walewski was living in a palace in Vienna, where Napoleon saw her constantly); but there was confidence, affection, interest; no sign at all of an approaching separation; and yet Napoleon undoubtedly left Schönbrunn in October persuaded that the divorce was a necessity and resolved to tell Josephine of his decision as soon as he arrived in France.

Unhappily for the Empress, her reunion with Napoleon was marred by a delay which irritated the Emperor no little. Josephine was at St. Cloud when she received a note, about October 24th or 25th, from Napoleon, saying he would be at Fontainebleau on the 26th or 27th, and that she had better go there with her suite. A later courier set the evening of the 27th as the time of his arrival. What was Josephine’s terror on having a messenger ride rapidly in from Fontainebleau on the afternoon of the 26th, saying the Emperor had arrived that morning and there had been no one but the concierge to meet him! It could not be denied that such a reception was a poor one for a conquering Emperor who now for the first time in six months set foot in his kingdom. Josephine feared, with reason, that Napoleon would be irritated, and now of all times when she needed so much to please him!

Post haste she drove to Fontainebleau. The Emperor did not come to meet her, and she was forced to mount to his library, where his scant welcome chilled her to the heart. He meant to announce the divorce then. She soon found, however, that it was the Emperor’s resentment at what he considered her fault in failing to meet him that caused his coldness. A trembling explanation, a few tears, and he was appeased, and they passed a happy evening.

414Napoleon had taken quite another means, and a most disquieting one, to hint to Josephine that the divorce was under consideration. The apartments of the Emperor and Empress at Fontainebleau, as at other places, were connected by a private staircase. When Josephine looked about her suite, which had been newly decorated, she discovered that this passage had been sealed up. In consternation, she sought a friend of hers in Napoleon’s household, and asked why this had been done, by whose orders. She could get no satisfaction, nothing but evasive answers, halting explanations. Alarmed, yet fearing to approach the Emperor, she showed a troubled face and tear-stained eyes. Now, nothing ever had disturbed Napoleon more than to see Josephine in sorrow. The sight, and the knowledge of the cause, unnerved him now. He took a course characteristic of an autocratic man, accustomed to implicit obedience from associates, when he has determined to force some one he loves to do a distasteful act; he avoided Josephine’s presence, scarcely ever exchanged a word with her that the etiquette of the court did not require, rarely met her gaze. The Empress felt that his coldness could mean but one thing. She soon began to hear whispers of the decision in the court, for the Emperor had made his resolution known to several persons, and the necessary preparations were already making. Josephine could not but see, at the same time, that her enemies—the Bonaparte family and their allies—and those about her who were mere time-servers had changed materially in their attitude toward her. There was more than one lord or lady who did not hesitate to neglect, even slight, the Empress. She was a person whom it was no longer necessary to cultivate; and, besides, might not the Emperor take it as a compliment to his judgment to see that she whom he was to discard was ignored by his followers?

415Josephine’s uncertainty as to precisely what the divorce meant made her alarm the greater. She undoubtedly saw in it at this time nothing but a disgrace and a punishment. She was to be cast out—her honors stripped from her, her friends driven away, her luxury at an end. Not only must she be separated from the Emperor, whom she loved and to whose happiness and success she believed superstitiously that she was necessary; but no doubt she would be driven from France. She saw herself in exile, poor, friendless, alone,—she who had been the Empress of France, the consort of Napoleon. And her children: her downfall meant theirs. Hortense, whose happiness had been wrecked by her marriage, what now would become of her? And Eugène, whom the Emperor had so loved and trusted and honored, what of him?

But Josephine’s idea of the divorce as a disgrace and punishment was not Napoleon’s. That he had never explained to her what he meant, was due to his own cowardice. In 1807, he had succumbed entirely, when the subject came up, and put the thought aside. Now he clung to his decision, but lacked courage to break it to her. He feigned irritation and coldness to hide his own faint-heartedness.

As a matter of fact, Napoleon regarded the divorce as a great state affair. To perpetuate France’s peace, stability, glory, an heir was necessary; therefore he and Josephine who loved each other parted. They suffered that France might live. The divorce then, was to be regarded as a sacrificial rite, and Josephine was to be placed before the country as a noble victim to whom the greatest honor then and ever should be shown. Such was Napoleon’s idea, and quietly, in this month after his return from Schönbrunn, he was preparing a ceremony which would put the affair in this light to the country. It was for this reason he summoned all the members of the Bonaparte and Beauharnais families from far and near; that he gathered in France all that was great in the Empire and among his allies; that he made Fontainebleau a veritable court of kings. To poor Josephine all of this looked like a cruel device to parade her grief and dishonor.

416

THE DIVORCE OF NAPOLEON AND JOSEPHINE.

417About the middle of November, the court came to Paris; but still the Emperor delayed, he could not say the word. The constraint between the two became constantly greater; the suffering of both, it was evident to all their intimate friends, was increasing. At last, on November 30th, after a silent and wretched dinner, Napoleon led Josephine into a salon, dismissed their followers, and told her of his decision. Josephine grasping nothing in his broken words but that they were to be separated, burst into tears, and fell upon a couch, where she lay sobbing aloud. She was carried to her apartment, where her attendants vainly sought to check her wild grief. Nor was her calm restored until late in the evening, when Hortense came to her with an explanation of the situation, which seems to have been entirely new to her mind. The Emperor, overwhelmed by Josephine’s outburst, had strengthened his own mind by summoning immediately to his side certain advisors who favored the divorce. After talking with them, he had sent for Hortense, and begun rather brutally by telling her that tears would do no good, that he had made up his mind that the divorce was necessary to the safety of the Empire, and that she and her mother must accept it as inevitable. Hortense replied with dignity that the Empress, whatever her grief, would obey his will, and that she and Eugène would follow her into exile; that none of them would complain at their disgrace, that all would remember his past kindness. This seems to have been Napoleon’s first glimmer of the idea of the divorce which the Beauharnais entertained. He began to weep. “What!” he cried, “do you and Eugène mean to 418desert me? You must not do it, you must stay with me. Your position, the future of your children, require it. However cruel the divorce for both your mother and me, it must be consummated with the dignity which the circumstances require.” Everything which could be done to soften the situation for Josephine should be done, he said. She should remain the first in rank after the Empress on the throne. She should receive the honors due her sacrifice; she should remain in France. Her income should be fit for her rank, she should be given palaces, a retinue—all that a grateful France could do, in short, should be done. As for Hortense and Eugène, he looked upon them as his children, and should do for them as he would for his own.

This new idea of her fate had great effect on Josephine; and when her friends came to her to console her, weep as she might, she defended Napoleon, and presented the divorce as a sacrifice which they were together making for France. “The Emperor is as nearly heart-broken as I am,” she sobbed. “It cannot be helped. There must be an heir to consolidate the Empire.”

Now that Josephine knew his decision, Napoleon’s reserve and coldness passed. He gave her every attention, tried to anticipate every wish, enveloped her in tenderness. This change of demeanor surprised and confused the court, where as yet the divorce was a matter of conjecture to all save Napoleon’s confidential advisors. Had he changed his mind? As they saw the Empress smilingly going through the great fêtes, they began to say that after all he had not had the courage to make the separation. Napoleon’s kindly attitude seems to have given Josephine a hope that he had changed his mind. But a week after her interview with him, Eugène arrived in Paris, and she knew soon that divorce was inevitable and that the first steps were already taken to consummate it. Another distressing interview between 419herself and the Emperor followed, at which Eugène was present, and here again Napoleon promised her his care, his affection, a continued interest in her children. When she left this interview, she knew that in a few days more the court, Paris, France, would know of her fate. Overwhelmed as she was, weak with constant weeping in private, a prey to a hundred unreasonable fears as to her future, Josephine nevertheless went through her duties in these last days with a brave face and a sweet smile. Never did she win more favor from the better part of the court; never did she deserve it more than for her courage at this moment.

December 15th was set for the first act in the official part of the drama. At nine o’clock in the morning, Josephine went to the salon of the Emperor, accompanied by Eugène and Hortense. Here she found assembled all of the members of the Bonaparte family, who were in Paris, Napoleon, King Louis, King Jerome, King Murat and the Queens of Spain, Naples, and Westphalia, together with the French Arch-Chancellor and the Minister of State. The ceremony was opened at once by Napoleon. If any of the Bonapartes hoped to see Josephine humiliated at last, they must have been grievously disappointed. Every word of the Emperor was intended to place her in the eyes of France as its chief benefactor and friend—the woman who sacrificed herself for the country’s good. Napoleon’s remarks to the little company show exactly the interpretation he wished placed on the act, and there is no reason to believe that he was not sincere in what he said at this time. In a voice broken by agitation, he announced that he and the Empress had resolved to have their marriage annulled. Addressing the Arch-Chancellor, he said:

“I sent you a sealed letter dated to-day, directing you to come to my study, in order to make known to you the resolution that the Empress, my most dear wife, and I have 420taken. I am glad that the kings, queens, and princes, my brothers and sisters, my brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, my step-daughter and my step-son, my son by adoption, as well as my mother, are present at the interview. My politics, the interest and need of my people, which have always guided my actions, make it necessary that I should leave children behind me, heirs of my love for this people and of this throne where providence has placed me. However, I have abandoned all hope now for several years of having children by my beloved wife, the Empress Josephine. It is this which has led me to sacrifice the sweetest affections of my heart and to listen only to the idea of the good of the State, and consequently to dissolve our marriage. Arrived at the age of forty years, I dare hope that I shall live long enough to rear, according to my own ideas, the children that it shall please Providence to give me. God knows how much this resolution has cost me; but there is no sacrifice that is beyond my courage when I am convinced that it will be useful to France. I must add, that far from ever having had any reason to complain of my wife, I can only praise her love and tenderness. For fifteen years she has been the ornament of my life. The recollection will always remain engraved on my heart; she has been crowned by my hand, and I mean that she shall preserve the rank and title of Empress, and I hope that above all she will never doubt my feelings toward her and that she will always consider me her best and truest friend.”

When the Emperor ceased to speak, Josephine attempted to read the little address which had been prepared for her, but her voice failed her, and she passed her paper to one of the party:—

“With the permission of my august and dear husband,” so her speech read, “I declare that having given up all hope of bearing the children which would satisfy the political 421needs and the welfare of France, I am glad to give to him the greatest proof of attachment and devotion which has ever been given in this world. All that I have I hold because of his goodness; it was his hand which crowned me, and from my throne I have received only affection and love from the French people. I believe I am showing my gratitude for these benefits by consenting to the dissolution of a marriage which henceforth is an obstacle to the welfare of France, which deprives her of the happiness of being one day governed by the descendants so evidently raised up by Providence to wipe out the evils of a terrible revolution and reëstablish the altar, throne, and social order; but the dissolution of my marriage can never change the feelings of my heart. In me the Emperor will always have his best friend. I know how much this act, demanded by politics and by high interests, has wounded his heart, but we both glory in the sacrifice that we make for the good of the country.”

The day following this scene, the necessary formalities were gone through in the Senate. Eugène, then Viceroy of Italy, took the oath of Senator that day, and later spoke on the divorce. The interpretation he gave of the separation was that which Napoleon had devised. “You have just listened to the reading of the project which the Senate submits to you for deliberation,” Eugène said. “Under the circumstances, I think that it is my duty to express to you the feelings of my family. My mother, my sister, and myself owe everything to the Emperor; he has been a veritable father to us; he will find in us at all times devoted children and submissive subjects. It is essential to the happiness of France that the founder of this fourth dynasty should be surrounded by direct descendants who will be a guarantee to everybody, a safeguard of the people, of the country. When my mother was crowned before the whole nation by the hands of her august husband, she contracted 422the obligation to sacrifice all her affections to the good of France; she has fulfilled her duty with courage, nobility, and dignity; her heart has often been wrung by the painful struggles of a man accustomed to conquer fortune and to march forward always with a firm step toward the accomplishment of great designs. The tears that this resolution has cost the Emperor are sufficient to glorify my mother. In her new situation she will not be a stranger to the new prosperity that we expect, and it will be with a satisfaction mingled with pride that she will look upon the happiness that her sacrifices have brought to the country and to the Emperor.”

The articles annulling the marriage and fixing Josephine’s future state were passed at the same session. They read:—

Article I. The marriage contracted between the Emperor Napoleon and the Empress Josephine is hereby dissolved.

Article II. The Empress Josephine will preserve the title and the rank of a crowned Empress.

Article III. Her annual income is fixed at two million francs [$400,000], to be paid from the treasury of the State.

Article IV. All the obligations taken by the Emperor for the Empress Josephine out of the public treasury are obligatory upon his successors.

Article V. The present senatus-consulte shall be sent by a messenger to Her Majesty, the Empress Queen.

That afternoon Napoleon, after a heart-breaking scene with Josephine, left the Tuileries for the Trianon. A few hours later Josephine, exhausted by weeping, entered her carriage, and in a heavy storm was driven to Malmaison.

Although divorced, Josephine was still Empress of the French People, and her income and her position were in keeping with her title. By the decree of the Senate, her income was fixed at 2,000,000 francs ($400,000), but the Emperor found means of increasing this, by making her many splendid presents, and by ordering that any unusual outlay, such as that for repairs at Malmaison, be paid from the civil list. She was to have three separate homes: Malmaison, always her favorite residence, upon the chateau and grounds of which she had for years lavished money, and in which she had carried out every fantasy of building, decoration and gardening, that entered her head; the Elysée Palace in Paris, at present the residence of the presidents of the French Republic; and Navarre, a chateau near Evreux.

Not only did Josephine receive money and property; Napoleon took care that her suite was in keeping with her rank. It was as large, indeed, as that of many of the reigning sovereigns of Europe, and included some of the cleverest and wittiest men and women of France. To the Emperor’s honor, the persons chosen were all of them in sympathy with the Empress and loved by her. More than one of those in Josephine’s household, indeed, would have been welcomed in the suite of Marie Louise; but being offered their choice, 424remained with Josephine. Mme. de Remusat was a notable example. She stayed with Josephine solely because of her affection and sense of loyalty and in spite of the fact that her husband was the First Chamberlain of Napoleon.

If Josephine had any idea that her divorce was going to separate her from Paris and the society of her friends, she immediately found out her mistake. The day after her arrival at Malmaison, in spite of a heavy shower, the road from Paris was one long line of carriages of persons hastening to the chateau to pay her their respects. Those persons who did stay away because uncertain whether the Emperor was sincere in his declaration that Josephine was to keep her rank as Empress had to submit to severe reproofs. “Have you been to see the Empress Josephine?” he began to ask, after a day or two, and if the courtier said no, the Emperor frowned and said, “You must go, sir!” And as a result everybody did go, and continued to go. Indeed, later in the winter, when Josephine came to the Elysée for a short time, her house was a veritable court.

But Josephine had received a blow which wealth, rank, and friends could not cure. The man who once had wearied her by his passion and who had had to beg and threaten to persuade her to pass a week with him in Italy, had in turn become the object of as passionate affection as she was capable of feeling. She had for years now regarded his slightest wish. In devoting herself to Napoleon in order to save her position she had learned to love him. Her pain now was the greater because she could not believe that Napoleon meant it when he said that he still should love and protect her and that he should honor her for her sacrifice as never before. She seemed to feel that, after she had said good-by to him at the Tuileries, she would never see him again. She gave way utterly to her grief, weeping night and day. Napoleon kept his word, however. Two days 425after her arrival at Malmaison he came to see her and frequently in the days that followed, up to the time of his marriage with Marie Louise, at the end of March, he made her little visits. They were always formal, in the presence of attendants, but they did much to persuade the Empress that Napoleon intended to keep his promises to her. After every visit however, came paroxysms of weeping. Napoleon kept himself informed of Josephine’s state, and wrote her frequent notes, chiding her for this weakness, assuring her of his love, and begging her to have courage.

“I found you weaker than you should have been,” he wrote one day. “You have shown some courage; you must find a way of keeping it up. You must not give up to melancholy, you must try to be contented, and above all, take care of your health, which is so precious to me. If you love me, you ought to try to be strong and happy. You must not doubt my constant and tender friendship. You misunderstand entirely my feelings if you suppose that I can be happy when you are not happy, and above all, when you are not contented.”

“Savary told me that you were weeping yesterday,” he wrote another day. “I hope that you have been able to go out to-day. I am sending you the results of my hunt yesterday. I will come to see you just as soon as you will promise me that you have regained your self-control and that your courage has the upper hand. Good-by, dear; I am sad to-day, too, for I have need of knowing that you are satisfied and courageous.”

After returning to the Tuileries, he wrote her:—“Eugène told me that you were sad yesterday. That is not well, dear; it is contrary to what you promised me. It has been a sorrow to me to see the Tuileries again; the great palace seems empty, and I am lost here.”

The visits, the gifts, the letters of the Emperor really 426made the Empress worse rather than better; and finally Mme. de Remusat took the matter in hand.

“The Empress passed a most unhappy morning,” she wrote to her husband; “she received a few visits which only increased her grief, and then every time anything comes from the Emperor she goes off into a terrible paroxysm. Some way must be found to persuade the Emperor to moderate his expressions of regret and affection, for whenever he gives a sign of his own sadness she falls into despair, and really her head seems turned. I take care of her as well as I can, but she causes me the greatest sorrow. She is sweet, suffering, affectionate; in fact, everything that is calculated to tear one’s heart. In showing his affection, the Emperor only makes her worse. However she suffers, there is never a complaint escapes her; she is really as gentle as an angel.... Try, if you can, to have the Emperor write to her so as to encourage her, and let him never send anything in the evening, because that gives her a terrible night. She cannot endure his expressions of regret. Doubtless, she could endure coldness still less, but there must be a medium way. She was in such a state yesterday after the last letter of the Emperor that I was on the point of writing him myself at the Trianon.”

As time went on and Josephine found that she really had no reason to suspect the Emperor of withdrawing the friendship he had promised, she began to imagine that he meant to keep her always at Malmaison, never to allow her to go again to Paris. This alarm probably was due to gossip that reached her. She no doubt would have preferred remaining at Malmaison if this fear had not arisen. She was so overcome by suspicion that she tested his sincerity by asking permission to go to Paris. She did this in spite of the fact that the talk of the forthcoming marriage—not yet settled, but in full negotiation—was in everybody’s mouth. 427The Emperor’s reply to her request was kind. “I shall be glad to know that you are at the Elysée, and happy to see you oftener, for you know how much I love you.” In the course of this correspondence about her coming he could not help scolding her a little, however. “I have just told Eugène that you would rather listen to the gossip of the town than to what I tell you.”

And yet, even in this period of distress, Josephine was not idle; nor was she so selfish in her grief that she forgot her friends. Napoleon’s letters to her record more than one promise of a favor she had asked for somebody. She even interested herself actively in securing a princess for the Emperor. Summoning the Countess de Metternich of Austria, just arrived in Paris, she told her frankly that she should consider the sacrifice she had made a pure waste if the Emperor did not marry the Archduchess of Austria. At that time Napoleon had not decided on his future Empress; but the negotiations thus opened by Josephine enabled Metternich to prepare the way in Austria so that, when the time came, there were none of the delays which had irritated Napoleon in applying for the hand of the Russian princess as he did first. The negotiations for the hand of Marie Louise terminated favorably, and the wedding was set for March.

As the day drew near, a sense of the impropriety of Josephine remaining at Malmaison during the ceremonies, grew on Napoleon, and he asked her to spend the month of April at Navarre. She arrived there the very day that Marie Louise entered Paris. Navarre was not an attractive place to take possession of with a large household like Josephine’s at that season of the year, and the company, used to the luxury of Malmaison, found themselves obliged to camp out in great discomfort in an old, damp, half-furnished chateau, where neither doors nor windows would shut securely and where every chimney smoked. Repairs were 428quickly made, however, and furniture in quantities was sent from Paris. In the interval, the whole suite seems to have endured the experience good-naturedly, and Josephine made a really brave effort to adapt herself to her new situation and to forget her grief. She set herself to finding out the resources of her new estate, driving daily through the parks; she superintended the gardens, planned repairs and improvements in the chateau, looked up the poor and sick, invited in the people of Evreux whom she wanted to know, and every night played her favorite game of tric-trac with the bishop of the diocese. It was a good beginning for a useful and eventually a happy life for her, and all would have gone very well if she could have dismissed the idea that after all Napoleon did not mean to keep his promises to her—that it was only a question of time when he would lose his interest, withdraw his support, drive her from France.

Two weeks passed after the marriage, and no word came to her from the Emperor. In the meantime, she was receiving letters from Eugène and Hortense, who were required to be present at the ceremonies, and every member of her suite had daily bulletins of the gaieties at the capital and of its gossip. Hints reached her that it was probable the Emperor would not consider it proper for her to return soon to Malmaison, if he did at all. Her worry became a veritable panic, and before she had been three weeks at Navarre, she asked permission to return to Malmaison. It was granted at once; thereupon she sent the Emperor a stilted letter of thanks. Her letter and the reply it brought from the Emperor are excellent examples of the masculine and feminine ways of looking at the same situation. Josephine’s letter read:—

Sire:—I have just received from my son the assurance that your Majesty consents to my return to Malmaison and that you have been good enough to advance to me the money that I have asked to make 429the Chateau of Navarre habitable. This double favor, Sire, dissipates largely the unrest and even the fears that the long silence of your Majesty had awakened. I was afraid of being entirely banished from your mind; I see that I have not been. I am less unhappy to-day in consequence; I am even as happy as it will ever be possible for me to be.

At the end of the month I shall go to Malmaison since your Majesty sees no objection to it, but I should say to you, Sire, that I should not so soon take advantage of the liberty which your Majesty has given me if the house at Navarre did not need so many repairs, both on account of my health and that of my suite. My plan is to stay at Malmaison a very short time. I shall soon go to the Springs. But while I am at Malmaison your Majesty may be sure I shall live as if I were a thousand leagues from Paris. I have made a great sacrifice, Sire and each day I feel it more. However, this sacrifice shall be complete; your Majesty shall not be disturbed in your happiness by any expression of regrets on my part. I shall pray ceaselessly for your Majesty’s happiness, but your Majesty may be sure that I shall always respect his new situation; I shall respect it in silence, having confidence in the feeling that he once had for me. I shall not try to awaken any new proof of it; I shall trust in your justice and in your heart. I ask but one favor; it is that your Majesty shall deign to give me now and then some proof that I have a small place in your thoughts and a large place in your esteem and your friendship. This will soften my grief without, it seems to me, compromising that which is much more important than all to me, the happiness of your Majesty.

Napoleon replied:—

My Dear:—I received your letter of the 19th of April. The style is very bad. I am always the same; men like me never change. I do not know what Eugène could have said to you. I did not write you because you had not written me; my only desire is to be agreeable to you. I am glad that you are going to Malmaison and that you are contented. I shall go there to find out how you are and to give you news of myself. Now compare this letter with yours, and after that I will let you judge which is the more friendly, yours or mine. Good-bye, my dear. Take care of yourself, and be just to yourself and to me.

Having permission to return to Malmaison, Josephine was satisfied to remain at Navarre. In fact, she was beginning to enjoy the place and particularly the plans for its 430improvements. It was not until May that she returned to Malmaison, where she remained a month. Later she spent three months at Aix-En-Savoy and then made a trip in Switzerland.

On the whole, the summer and fall of 1810 were not unpleasant. She had dismissed, for the time, her doubt of the Emperor, and suffered only from the separation from him. That separation Napoleon did as much as the situation allowed to soften. In May, after her return to Malmaison, he went to see her, and the visit seems to have been as free from restraint and grief as could be expected. Josephine was greatly pleased by the Emperor’s attention. “Yesterday was a day of joy for me,” she wrote to Hortense. “The Emperor came to see me. His presence made me happy, though it awakened my sorrow. As long as he stayed with me I had the courage to keep back my tears, but when he was gone, I was not able to restrain them, and I found myself very wretched. He was as good as ever to me, and I hope he read in my heart all the devotion and tenderness I feel for him.”

Not only did Napoleon go to visit her, he conceived a notion incomprehensible to a feminine mind of some day taking Marie Louise, and broached the subject one day as the two were driving near Malmaison in Josephine’s absence, by asking the Empress if she would not like to go over the chateau. Marie Louise immediately began to cry, and Napoleon, overwhelmed by what he had done, though probably not understanding at all, never ventured to go further. He probably saw no reason why the two women could not in private be friends.

Everywhere that Josephine went in these first journeys after her divorce she was received with such expressions of devotion and interest that she must have been convinced that the people had adopted the Emperor’s view of the divorce 431and looked upon her as one who had sacrificed herself for the country. Curiously enough, they brought petitions to her praying her to remit them to the Emperor; her influence over him and her relation to him were thus publicly acknowledged. In all the interviews Josephine gave to persons who sought her as she traveled she was exceedingly discreet; especially admirable was the way in which she talked of the Emperor. It was as of a brother whom she loved dearly and whose interests she had deeply at heart. Although, as a rule, she received cordially all who sought her, she did refuse, if she believed the person hostile to Napoleon. In September, while Josephine was in Switzerland, Mme. de Staël, then in exile, tried to secure an interview. Josephine declined. “I know her too well,” she said, “to wish an interview. In the first book she published, she would report our conversation, and the Lord only knows how many things she would make me say of which I never thought.”

432

EUGÉNIE HORTENSE DE BEAUHARNAIS. 1783–1837.

Daughter of Josephine, wife of Louis, King of Holland, and mother of Napoleon III.

433One real and serious cause of unhappiness for Josephine was removed in part this summer. It was her daughter Hortense’s trouble. The poor Queen of Holland had for a long time been hopelessly embroiled with the King, Louis Bonaparte, and her daily letters to her mother during the winter and spring were hysterical cries of bitterness and despair. Josephine shows nowhere in better light than in her replies. During all this period of her own sorrow she wrote constantly to Hortense letters full of cheer, of wise counsel, and of the tenderest affection. The doubt of the Emperor which seized her now and then she never allowed Hortense to entertain. She never advised anything but courage and forbearance in her relations to King Louis. She held before her her duty to her little sons, to the people of Holland, who had always loved her, and to her mother. In July, Louis put an end to the sad situation by abdicating his throne, which by the Constitution went to the Queen. Napoleon promptly annexed Holland to France. “This emancipates the queen,” the Emperor wrote to Josephine, “and your unhappy daughter can come to Paris, where, with her sons, she will be perfectly happy.” It was not going to Paris, however, that pleased Hortense; it was release from Louis, the care of her sons, and rejoining her mother. Indeed, Louis Bonaparte’s cowardly conduct in Holland brought great relief to both Hortense and Josephine, especially was the latter happy at being able to have the children, Napoleon Louis and Louis Napoleon, or little Oui-oui, as she called him, (afterwards Napoleon III.) with her. She really was an ideal grandmother, everybody conceded, the children first of all. Their opinion was happily expressed once by Louis, who, when a lady of the court was leaving to see her husband, said soberly, “She must love M. A—— very much if she will leave grandmama to go and see him.”

When Josephine left Malmaison in June, she had intended traveling in Italy, after Switzerland, and spending the winter at Milan with her son. Her old terror of being forgotten by the Emperor and driven from France seized her in September, however, and for weeks she tormented herself with the notion that it was Napoleon’s plan not to allow her to return to France. She had no reason for the supposition beyond the gossip which came to her and the fears of her own sore heart; but this was enough to persuade her so thoroughly that she was to be exiled that her health began to fail. She succeeded, too, in communicating her fears to the ladies of her suite, and the little company made themselves wretched in the classical feminine way over a possibility for which there was no foundation whatever.

434

LOUIS BONAPARTE. 1778–1846.

King of Holland in 1806. Abdicated in 1810, taking the title of Comte de St. Leu.

435Finally, Josephine wrote a humble letter to Napoleon, asking permission to spend the winter at Navarre. He replied at once, that of course she might go there if she would. The household were thrown in hysterical transports of joy by this permission, and they hastened northward for a long winter in a provincial chateau as if Italy was a prison and the honors they would have received there mockery and insult.

In spite of the fact that Navarre was not a suitable winter residence even when in the best condition, and that the changes and repairs planned were still incomplete, Josephine and her household passed a really happy winter and spring there. The life was a simple and wholesome one, free from the exacting ceremonies and the tiresome restraints of the court, and the health of them all, and notably of Josephine, improved. Instead of late hours and heated rooms and great crowds, there were the healthy habits of the country, constant outdoor sports, the plain people of Evreux. Josephine found the headaches, which for so long a time had tormented her, almost totally disappearing. As her health improved she wept less, and her eyes, which she had seriously injured since the divorce, by her constant tears, grew better. The unfailing sweetness of her disposition in her trial had, up to this time, been combined with such weakness and suspicions that its beauty had been obscured. When, one after another, her alarms proved to be unfounded; when each time she found she received what she asked; when Napoleon continued to write her as a dear friend, to visit her from time to time, to do for her children; when, after the birth of the King of Rome, he even arranged that she should see the child, and when from every side she continued to hear praise for her sacrifice which had made an heir possible, she took courage. With the return of peace to her distracted heart, she began to fill her life fuller of useful and pleasant occupations. She established a school at Navarre, where poor children were taught; she improved the town promenade, and built a little theater; she fed the hungry, cared for the sick; proved herself, indeed, a veritable providence to the whole country-side.

436

NAPOLEON AND THE KING OF ROME.

Bronze from the collection of Prince Victor. This elegant figure is a faithful reproduction of a medallion made by Andrieu, on the birth of the King of Rome.

437In her own family, too, she was a good genius. Hortense was now at the court of Marie Louise, and Josephine was as ever her confidant and adviser. The two little princes she kept much with her, relieving Hortense of their care. Napoleon was particularly pleased with this arrangement, knowing how much it would do to make Josephine happy, and feeling, too, that her training was an excellent thing for the lads. Even when the children were with Hortense, much of her time was taken up with providing playthings for them and for the little folks at Milan. Mlle. Ducrest says that the salon at Malmaison often looked like a warehouse in the Rue du Coq, so full was it of toys, and there was no surer way of pleasing Josephine than admiring the trifles she was constantly buying for her grandchildren.

Eugène frequently made brief visits to Napoleon, and Josephine’s pride in him and in the place he held in the Emperor’s respect and affection was great. She rejoiced that Eugène was happy in his married life, loved his wife, the good and beautiful Augusta, daughter of the King of Bavaria; and when she went to Italy to visit the court at Milan, as she did in Eugène’s absence in 1812, at the confinement of the princess, she came away with her heart abrim with maternal joy.

Indeed, Josephine grew more and more beloved throughout the years 1811 and 1812 as she added cheerfulness and courage to her amiability. “You are adored at Milan,” wrote Eugène to her once. “They are writing me charming things about you. You turn the head of everybody who comes near you.” Even Marie Louise laid aside her jealousy of Josephine after the birth of the King of Rome, and by many little attentions to Hortense added to Josephine’s 438happiness. She was something in France, she felt; she was honored, her place was secure.

Nobody was better satisfied than Napoleon himself at seeing Josephine take the position he had conceived she should have, and her returning cheerfulness was a constant pleasure to him. Only one subject of contention seems to have occurred between them at this period that was the old one of Josephine’s extravagance. She could not be persuaded to live within her income, and finally Napoleon took the matter rigorously in hand, writing to the Minister of the Public Exchequer the following letter:—

You will do well to send privately for the Empress Josephine’s comptroller and make him aware that nothing will be paid over to him, unless proof is furnished that there are no debts; and, as I will have no shilly-shallying on the subject, this must be guaranteed on the comptroller’s own property. You will therefore notify the comptroller, that from the 1st of January next, no payment will be made, either in your office, or by the Crown Treasury, until he has given an undertaking that no debts exist, and made his own property responsible for the fact. I have information that the expenditure in that household is exceedingly careless. You will, therefore, see the comptroller, and put yourself in possession of all facts regarding money matters; for it is absurd that instead of saving two millions of money, as the Empress should have done, she should have more debts to be paid. It will be easy for you to find out the truth about this from the comptroller, and to make him understand that he himself might be seriously compromised.

Take an opportunity of seeing the Empress Josephine yourself, and give her to understand that I trust her household will be managed with more economy, and that if any debts are left outstanding, she will incur my sovereign displeasure. The Empress Louise has only 100 000 crowns; she pays everything every week; she does without gowns, and denies herself, so as never to owe money.

My intention is, then, that from the 1st of January, no payment shall be made for the Empress Josephine’s household without a certificate from the comptroller, to the effect that she has no debts. Look into her budget for 1811, and that prepared for 1812. It should not amount to more than a million. If too many horses are kept, some of them must be put down. The Empress Josephine, who has children and grandchildren, 439ought to economise, and so be of some use to them, instead of running into debt.

I desire you will not make any more payments to Queen Hortense, either on account of her appanage, or for wood-felling, without asking my permission. Confer with her comptroller too, so that her household may be properly managed, and that she may not only keep out of debt, but regulate her expenditure in a fitting manner.

By the spring of 1812 Josephine had adjusted herself admirably to her new life. She had conquered her suspicions, acquired self-control, taken up useful duties. Her position was recognized by all France. In every quarter she was loved and honored. Never indeed in all her disordered, changeful existence was she so worthy of respect and affection. With every week her power of self-control, her capacity for happiness seemed to grow. In the spring she spent some time with Hortense at the chateau of Saint Leu, the latter’s country home. After she returned to Malmaison, she wrote back a letter which shows to what a large degree she had regained contentment. “The few days I spent with you,” she wrote Hortense, “were very happy, and did me great good. Everybody who comes to see me says that I never looked better, and I am not surprised at it. My health always depends on my experiences, and those with you were sweet and happy.”

In June, the campaign against Russia, for which Napoleon had been preparing for several months, began; but there is no indication that Josephine had any anxiety in seeing the Grand Army set out. Had she not seen the Emperor return from Italy, from Austerlitz, Jena, and Wagram? In July she went to Milan, to remain with the Princess Augusta, Eugène’s wife, through her confinement. She seemed to 441get great pleasure from her visit. The princess she found charming, the children could not be better, everybody treated her with a consideration and an affection which touched her deeply. She seems to have been happy at Milan for the most natural, wholesome reasons—because her son’s wife is a good woman and loves her husband; because the new granddaughter is a healthy child; because the good people of Milan remember her, and love her.

Josephine took great satisfaction at this time, too, in Eugène’s success. He was, in fact, justifying fully in Russia the good opinion the Emperor had always had of him, and his letters to his mother were almost exultant. “The Emperor gained a great victory over the Russians to-day,” he wrote her on September 8th. “We fought for thirteen hours, and I commanded the left. We all did our duty, and I hope the Emperor is satisfied.” And again, “I write you only two words, my good mother, to tell you that I am well. My corps had a brilliant day yesterday. I had to deal with eight divisions of the enemy from morning until night, and I kept my position. The Emperor is pleased, and you can believe that I am.”

But the joy of victory was not long continued. Moscow was entered on September 15th, 1812. The exultation that the capture of the enemy’s capital caused in France was short-lived. Close upon it came reports of the burning of the city, of the awful cost of the march inland, of the suffering the army was undergoing. When Josephine reached Paris in October, the city was full of sinister reports of defeat. A plot to seize the government, based on a report of Napoleon’s death, had just been suppressed. Her letters from Eugène had talked only of victory. What could it mean? As she listened to the reports afloat and came under the spell of the city’s foreboding, a deadly despair seized her. At the mere mention of Napoleon’s name she wept. Her face carried such woe that her household feared that worse evils had befallen them than they knew of, and Malmaison for weeks was wrapped in gloom.

442

EUGENE DE BEAUHARNAIS, NAPOLEON’S STEPSON. (“EUGENIO NAPOLEONE, PRINCE DI FRANCIA, VICE RE D’ITALIA, 1813.”)

Engraved by Longhi, after Gérard, Milan, 1813.

443This was her condition when suddenly it was reported that Napoleon had returned unannounced from Russia. Amazed at the extent of the conspiracy which had arisen in his absence and at the instability of the throne at the mere report of his own death, and fearing still more serious results when the full news of the catastrophe in Russia reached France, the Emperor had driven night and day across Europe to Paris. His presence inspired courage, but it could not close the ears of France to the ghastly stories of the retreat from Moscow, nor blind her eyes to the haggard remnants of men who daily flocked into the city. There was an appearance of gaiety, because the Emperor ordered it; but there was little heart in the winter’s merry-making.

Napoleon’s return did not restore Josephine’s confidence. Her superstition, always lively, asserted itself to the full. The first day of the new year, 1813, was on Friday. Josephine’s presentiments were the darkest. This year would bring Napoleon sorrow and loss, she declared. France was to suffer. Nothing could restore her calm. In all this grief the thought was ever present with her that the divorce was the cause of Napoleon’s misfortunes. He had destroyed his Star. Nor was she by any means alone in this theory. Indeed, it is probable that she had adopted it from others, for many people in France had always believed it. Even in the Grand Army, during the campaign against Russia, soldiers said, after reverses began, that it was because of the divorce. “He shouldn’t have left the old girl,” they put it; “she brought him luck—and us too.”

In the spring of 1813, the Emperor was off again at the head of the army which by feverish efforts he had gathered and equipped. Josephine saw the new campaign begin with 444foreboding; she watched its doubtful progress with growing dismay, and finally when in November, the French army, defeated, and with its allies daily deserting, crossed the Rhine, her anguish was pitiful. Napoleon’s name was incessantly on her lips, and of everybody who came within her range that knew anything of him she asked a hundred eager questions. How did he look? Was he pale? Did he sleep? Did he believe his Star had deserted him?

When Eugène’s father-in-law, the King of Bavaria, abandoned his alliance with the Emperor, Josephine urged upon her son loyalty and energy; and when Louis Bonaparte moved by his brother’s misfortunes, hurried to offer his services, Josephine pointed out to Hortense, who, she thought, might reasonably expect new annoyance if Louis’s offer was accepted, that her husband’s act was a noble one and that Hortense should view it so. Hortense seems as a matter of fact, to have felt more respect for her husband when she heard of his offer to return than she had for many years.

During the advance of the allies towards Paris and the wonderful resistance Napoleon offered for many weeks, Josephine remained at Malmaison feverishly questioning everybody who came. As the battles grew nearer, she interested herself in hospital work, and set her household to making lint. Now and then she received a note from the Emperor—a characteristic note of triumph—never of fear or complaint. These notes she always retired to read and to weep over, and afterwards she spent hours talking of them to her women.

As the end of March approached the allies were so near Paris that Josephine saw bodies of strangely uniformed men passing and repassing near Malmaison—Cossacks, Austrians, Prussians. What could it all mean? Hortense, at the court of Marie Louise, sent her daily notes, telling her of 445the hopes and fears of Paris. Invariably these notes were courageous, showing perfect confidence in the final triumph of Napoleon. When at last, on March 28th, Hortense learned that Marie Louise and the court were leaving the city, her indignation was intense. She could do nothing, however. It was her duty to accompany Marie Louise, and she had only time before departing to send a note to Josephine, urging her to go to Navarre.

“My dear Hortense,” Josephine replied, “up to the moment I received your letter I kept my courage. I cannot endure the thought that I am to be separated from you, and God knows for how long! I am following your counsel; I shall go to-morrow to Navarre. I have only sixteen men in my guard here, and they are all wounded. I shall keep them; but as a matter of fact, I do not need them. I am so wretched at being separated from my children that I am indifferent about what happens to myself. Try to send me word how you are, what you will do, and where you will go. I shall try to follow you from afar, at least.”

Early on March 29th, the little household started through rain and mud. Josephine’s terror was complete. She fancied she would be waylaid by Cossacks; and once when she saw a band of soldiers approaching, she jumped from her carriage, and fled across the fields alone. It was with difficulty that her attendants convinced her that the strangers were French, not foreign soldiers.

Once at Navarre, she spent much of her time alone—a practice quite unlike her,—reading and re-reading Napoleon’s letters. One of them she carried always in her bosom. It had been sent from Brienne, only a short time before the abdication, and contained the most touching expressions of his affection for her to be found in any of his later letters: “I have sought death in numberless engagements; I no longer dread its approach; I should now hail it as a boon.... 446Nevertheless, I still wish to see Josephine once more.”

A few days after Josephine’s arrival at Navarre, Hortense joined her, and there the two learned of Napoleon’s abdication and of the return of the Bourbons. After the first paroxysm of grief was over, they began planning for the future. Hortense would go to America, with her children, she declared. There she could rear them so that they would be fit for any future. But Josephine was not for renouncing her position. She began to write feverishly in every direction, apparently hoping to interest her friends in saving something for her in the general overthrow. The allies had no disposition, however, to take from Josephine either her rank or all her income. The Emperor Alexander, who was the real umpire of the game, believed it wise to look after the material interests of the Bonaparte family, and in the treaty arranged that Josephine should have an annual income of 1,000,000 francs and that she should keep all of her property, disposing of it as she pleased. Alexander showed a strong desire to win Josephine’s favor, in fact. Learning that she was at Navarre, he invited her to Malmaison, giving her every assurance that she would be safe there. Before the end of April, she came with Hortense, and here Eugene joined them. Alexander soon came to Malmaison to see the Empress. His attentions to her set the vogue for the court, and repeated assurances came from all sides to Josephine that her position and that of her children was safe with the new régime. But Josephine could not believe it so. Her days and nights were full of foreboding—of laments over the fate of the Emperor. One day, after dining with Alexander at the Chateau of St. Leu, she returned to her room in complete collapse.

“I cannot overcome the frightful sadness which has taken possession of me,” she said. “I make every effort to conceal 447it from my children, but only suffer the more. I am beginning to lose my courage. The Emperor of Russia has certainly shown great regard and affection for us, but it is nothing but words. What will he decide to do with my son, my daughter and her children? Is he not in a position to do something for them? Do you know what will happen when he has gone away? Nothing he has promised will be carried out. I shall see my children unhappy, and I cannot endure the idea; it causes me the most dreadful suffering. I am suffering enough already on account of the fate of the Emperor Napoleon, stripped of all his greatness, sent into an island far from France, abandoned. Must I, besides this, see my children wanderers? Stripped of fortune? It seems to me this idea is going to kill me.... Is it Austria who opposes my son’s advancement? Is it the Bourbons? Certainly they are under obligations enough to me to be willing to pay them by helping my children. Have I not been good to all of their party in their misfortunes? To be sure, I never imagined they would come back to France; nevertheless, it pleased me to be their friend; they were Frenchmen, they were suffering, they were former acquaintances, and the position of those princes that I had seen in their youth touched my heart. Did I not ask Bonaparte twenty times to let the Duchess of Orleans and the Duchess of Bourbon come back? It was through me that he succored them in their distress, that he allowed them a pension which they received in a foreign country.”

The attention paid her by the allies seemed to leave no ground for any of these anxieties. The King of Prussia and his sons, the grand-dukes of Russia, every great man in Paris, in fact, sought Josephine repeatedly. She distrusted it all, and one moment wept over the fate of herself and children; the next over Napoleon alone on his island—repeatedly she declared she would join him if she did not fear 448it would cause a misunderstanding between him and Marie Louise, and so prevent the latter from going to Elba, as Josephine thought she ought to do. In her nervous state she searched for signs of the neglect and discourtesy which she believed were in store for her. She planned to sell her jewels. Everyone in the household became thoroughly disturbed over her condition. “My mother is courageous and amiable, when she is receiving,” Hortense said one day; “but as soon as she is alone, she gives up to a grief which is my despair. I am afraid that the misfortunes which have fallen upon us have affected her too deeply and that her health will never reassert itself.”

Josephine was in this nervous condition when she took a severe cold, and on May 25th her condition was so serious that the best physicians of Paris were summoned. The Emperor of Russia sent his private physician, and went himself frequently to Malmaison. Everything that could be done was done, but poor Josephine’s power of resistance was at an end. Restlessly tossing hour after hour on her pillow, murmuring at intervals—“Bonaparte”—“Elba”—“Marie Louise”—she lay for four days. On the morning of the 29th, it was evident to Hortense and Eugene, evident to Josephine herself, that she could not live long. The priest was summoned, and alone with him she confessed for the last time, while in the chapel below her children knelt and listened to the mass said for their mother. After the confession, the members of the household gathered about her bed while the sacrament was administered. A few moments after the last words of the solemn service were said, the Empress was pronounced dead.

The news of the death of Josephine produced a profound impression in Paris. She had died of grief, they said, grief at Napoleon’s downfall. Even those who had no sympathy 449for her in life were moved by the tragic circumstances of her end and hastened to pay a last tribute to her memory. For three days the body of the Empress lay on a catafalque in the vestibule of the chateau at Malmaison, and in that time over 20,000 persons looked upon it.

At the funeral, which took place on June 2nd, in the little church at Reuil, near Malmaison, royal honors were accorded Josephine; though the really touching feature of the procession and service was the presence of hundreds of people—soldiers, peasants, old men, children—who came to pay the only tribute possible to them to the “good Josephine,” the “Star” of the Emperor.

The Empress still lies in the little church at Reuil, where she was laid eighty-six years ago, and her grave and the Chateau of Malmaison have remained until to-day, places of pilgrimage for those who knew and loved her in life as well as for many thousands whose hearts have been touched by the melancholy story of her life of adventure, glory, and sorrow. In June, 1815, before departing for Waterloo, Napoleon visited the chateau. Hortense, who had not been there since her mother’s death, received him. For an hour he walked in the park talking of Josephine; then he went over the chateau, looking at every room, at almost every article of furniture. At the door of the room where Josephine had died, it is told that he stopped and said to Hortense, “My daughter, I wish to go in alone.” When he came out his eyes were wet.

Scarcely more than two weeks later he returned to Malmaison. Defeated at Waterloo, he was an outcast unless France rallied to him. That the country could not do. It was thus from the home of Josephine that Napoleon went into captivity.

In 1824, Eugène and Hortense, both exiles from France since 1815, bought one of the chapels in the church at Reuil 450and placed in it the beautiful monument to Josephine which is to be seen there to-day. In 1831, Hortense crossed France incognito with Louis-Napoleon, and the two then, for the first time, saw the monument. From Reuil they went to Malmaison, but only to the gates. Five years before, the chateau had been sold to a Swedish banker, and the porter refused Hortense admission because she had no pass from the proprietor.

Seven years after this sad visit, Hortense was brought to Reuil to be laid beside her mother. But it was not until twelve years later, when her son, Josephine’s beloved Oui-oui, Louis-Napoleon, had become emperor, that a monument was placed in the church to her memory. With the return of the Bonapartes to power, the memory of Josephine became a cult. It was she alone of all the women who for seventy years had ruled France, Napoleon III. told his people, who had brought them happiness. Her statue was reared in Paris; her name was given to a grand avenue; Malmaison was bought, made more brilliant than ever, and thrown open to visitors. On every hand her life was extolled, her character glorified. As a result of this attempt at canonization, Josephine became for the world a pure and gentle heroine, the victim of her own unselfish devotion to the man she loved. With the passing of the Napoleonic dynasty, it has become possible to study her life dispassionately. The researches show her to have been much less of a saint than Napoleon III. wished the world to believe.

Josephine was by birth and training the victim of a vicious system. Her nature was essentially shallow, her strongest passions being for attention, gaiety, and the possession of beautiful apparel and jewels. Nothing in her early surroundings showed her that there were better things in life to pursue. None of the hard experiences of later life dimmed these passions. To gratify them she was willing to 451adapt herself to any society, and freely give her person to the lover who promised most. It would be unjust to judge her by the orderly standards of present-day Anglo-Saxon morality—she, an eighteenth century creole, cast almost a child into the chaotic whirl of the French Revolution. What purity or dignity could be expected of a child of her nature when her chief protectors, her father, her aunt, and her husband, were all notoriously unfaithful to the most sacred relations of life! If Josephine, when abandoned by her husband and later thrown on her own resources in a society which was honey-combed with vice, went with her world, one can only pity.

There is little doubt that if she had been faithful to Napoleon from the beginning of their married life, her future with him would have been different. The fatal disillusion he suffered in 1797 made the divorce possible for him. So long as Josephine was true, no other woman could have existed for him. Such is the strange exclusiveness in love, of a nature, brutal, sweet, and strong like Napoleon’s. It should never be forgotten, however, that when the poor little creole realized, that to keep her position she must be faithful, she never after gave offense, and that as the years went on her devotion to her husband became a cult. Nothing indeed in the history of women is more pathetic than the patience, the sweetness, with which Josephine performed all the exacting and uncongenial duties of her position as Empress.

Although Josephine possessed none of those qualities which make a heroic soul, knew nothing of true self-denial, was a coward in danger, never lost sight of personal interest, was an abject time-server, few women have been loved more sincerely by those surrounding them. There was good reason for this. No word of malice ever crossed her lips, she took no joy in seeing an enemy suffer, she never intrigued, she never flagged in kindly service. If she was incapable of 452heroic deeds at least her days were filled with small courtesies, kind words, generous acts. A candid survey of her life destroys the heroine, but it leaves a woman who through a stormy life kept a kindly heart towards friend and enemy and who at last attained rectitude of conduct.

And this is the most that can be said for her. It touches the woman Josephine only. As for the Empress Josephine, she is only a name. She held her throne by the accident of her marriage and never took it seriously. She never comprehended the ideas it stood for in the mind of the great tyrant who established it. The prosperity of the French people—the glory of French arms, the spread of just laws, the establishment of a stable system, all those notions for which Napoleon was struggling, meant nothing to her save as they affected the tenure of her own position. The one distinguished opportunity she had of serving the Napoleonic idea—the divorce—she accepted only when she realized that she could not escape it. That her graciousness and her kindly spirit smoothed Napoleon’s way in the difficult task of manufacturing a court and a nobility is unquestionable. But this was the service of a tactful woman of the world rendered to a husband, not of an Empress to her people. The French people indeed meant no more to her than her throne. They merely filled the background of the stage where she played her part. She was an Empress only in name, never in soul.

In the year 1785, Napoleon left the Military School at Paris, and was admitted as a Second Lieutenant in the regiment of La Fère. At this time he signed like his father: “Buonaparte, younger son, gentleman, at the Royal Military School of Paris.”

Napoleon obtained a company in 1789, and in 1792 he was sent at the head of a battalion of Volunteer Infantry, which was to take part in an expedition against Sardinia. On returning from this expedition, he commanded the artillery 454at the siege of Toulon. His signature then was as follows:

After the capture of Ollioules, the 3rd of December, 1793, Napoleon was made General, and in 1794 he commanded the artillery of the Army of Italy. At the commencement of the year 1795 he was ordered to join the Infantry in the Vendée, but he refused and remained in Paris, where he was attached to the Minister of War. The 5th of October of this year, he commanded under Barras, the Army of the Convention, against the Sections of Paris, and became, thanks to him, General of Division.

A little later Barras gave him the Commanding Chief of the Army of the Interior.

Up to this time Napoleon had not changed the spelling of his name. The heading of his letters read “Buonaparte, general en chef de l’armée de l’interieur,” and he signed “Buonaparte.”

The next signature is at the end of a note on the Army of Italy dated January 19, 1796, Le Général Buonaparte.

455In the Memorial from St. Helena, Napoleon says that in his youth he signed Buonaparte like his father, and having obtained the command of the Army of Italy, he changed this spelling, which was Italian, but some years later, being among the French, he signed Bonaparte.

Napoleon was made General-in-Chief of the Army of Italy, the 23rd of Feb., 1796, and he signed Buonaparte up to the 29th of the same month. He left Paris to join the Army towards the middle of the following month, and in the first letter he addressed to the Directory, dated Nice, the 28th of March, from his headquarters, he informed them that he had taken command of the Army the day before, and he signed himself Bonaparte.

From this time the change was generally adopted, and the official letters bear the signature “Bonaparte, General-in-Chief of the Army of Italy.”

From his headquarters at Carcare, Napoleon addressed to the Directory at Paris his reports on the battle of Montenotte, which opened the Italian campaign. This letter was dated April 14, 1796, and signed Bonaparte.

In his celebrated proclamation from Milan, the 20th of March, 1796, Napoleon thus addressed his army: “Soldiers, you have precipitated yourselves like a torrent from the top 456of the Apennines, Milan is yours!” and he signed Bonaparte.

As General-in-Chief of the Egyptian Expedition, Napoleon signed as follows:

From Cairo, the 30th of July, 1798, he signed himself Bonaparte.

When he first became Emperor, he signed himself Napoleon.

457The above is one of the first signatures of the Emperor. It was given at Saint Cloud, the 25th of May, 1804. The first three letters NAPoleon, and exactly like this in the middle of his signature when he was accustomed to signing himself BuoNAParte. Up to 1805 he continued to sign his whole name. The 18th of September, 1805, he signed:

After the battle of Austerlitz, which ended the campaign of 1805, the proclamation of Napoleon, dated from the Imperial Camp of Austerlitz, the 3rd of December, 1805, was signed Napoleon.

Beginning with the campaign of 1806, he signed only the first five letters of his name, thus, Napol.

458The 26th of October, 1806, at Potsdam, the Emperor signed himself thus,

The 29th of October, 1806, from Berlin, as follows:

The 27th of January, from Varsovia,

From the Imperial Camp at Tilsit, the 22nd of June, 1807, the Emperor signed only his initial, as below, and very rarely after that his entire name: N.

459The 7th of December, 1808, he signed from Madrid, thus, N.

At the commencement of the campaign of 1809, in writing to Marshall Masséna, he signed himself as follows:

From the Imperial Camp of Ratisbonne, the 24th of April, 1809, the Emperor addressed a proclamation to the Army, ending thus, “Before a month has passed, I shall be at Vienna,” and he signed

Less than three weeks afterwards, the French Army was 460at Vienna, and the Emperor signed his decrees from the Palace of Schoenbrunn, 13th of May:

The same variety of signatures is found in the orders dated Moscow, the city which he had entered as a Conqueror, the 12th of September, 1812.

The 21st of Sept., 1812, at 3 o’clock in the morning, the Emperor signed himself as follows:

During the campaign of 1813, the Emperor sent an order from Dresden to the Major-General, dated October 1st, at noon. General Petit relates that he reflected some time before 461sending it, for the signature had been scratched out twice, and written a third time.

One of the next extraordinary signatures of the Emperor’s, is the following, which he gave at Erfurt, October 13, 1813:

The 4th of April, 1814, Fontainebleau, thus, N.

462The 9th of September, 1814, from the Isle of Elba, he writes thus: Nap.

On July 14, 1815, the Emperor wrote to the Prince Regent of England and signed himself

At Longwood, St. Helena, on Dec. 11, 1816, the Emperor wrote to Count Las Cases a letter of condolence on the order the Count had received to leave the island. It was his first signature at St. Helena.

1.

Joseph (1768–1844), married in 1794 to Marie Julie Clary.

 

From this marriage:

 

(1) Zénaïde Charlotte (1801–1854), married in 1832 to her cousin, Charles Bonaparte, Prince de Canino.

 

(2) Charlotte (1802–1839), married in 1831 Napoleon Louis, her cousin, second son of Louis.

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2d.

NAPOLEON I. (1769–1821), married

 

(1) Marie Josephine Rose Tascher de la Pagerie in 1796.

 

(2) Marie Louise, Archduchess of Austria, in 1810.

 

Adopted the first wife’s two children:

 

(1) Eugène (1781–1824), who married the Princess Augusta Amelia, daughter of the King of Bavaria.

 

From this marriage:

 

(a) Maximilian Joseph, Duke of Leuchtenberg, who married in 1839 a daughter of the Czar Nicholas.

 

(b) Josephine, married in 1823 to Oscar Bernadotte, since King of Sweden under the name of Charles XIV.

 

(c) Eugénie Hortense, married in 1826 to Prince Frederick of Hohenzollern Hechingen.

 

(d) Amélie Augusta, married in 1829 to Dom Pedro, Emperor of Brazil.

 

(e) Auguste Charles, married in 1835 to Donna Maria, Queen of Portugal.

 

(f) Théodeline Louise, married in 1841 to William, Count of Würtemberg.

 

(2) Eugénie Hortense (1783–1827), married to Louis Bonaparte. (See Louis.)

 

From second marriage:

 

François Charles Joseph (NAPOLEON II.), King of Rome, afterwards Duke of Reichstadt (1811–1832).

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465

3d.

Lucien (1775–1840), married:

 

(1) in 1794, Christine Eleonore Boyer.

 

(2) in 1802, Madame Jouberthon.

 

From first marriage:

 

(1) Charlotte, married in 1815 to Prince Mario Gabrielli.

 

(2) Christine Egypta, married in 1818 to Count Avred Posse, a Swede, and in 1824 to Lord Dudley Coutts Stuart.

 

From second marriage:

 

(1) Charles Lucien Jules Laurent, Prince of Canino, married to elder daughter of Joseph Bonaparte. Charles Lucien had eight children: Joseph, who died young; Lucien a cardinal in 1868; Napoleon, served in French army; Julie, married to the Marquis de Boccagiovine; Charlotte, who became the Countess of Primoli; Augusta, afterwards the Princess Gabrielli; Marie, married to Count Campello; Bathilde, married to Count Cambacérès.

 

(2) Lætitia, married to Sir Thomas Wyse.

 

(3) Paul, killed in 1826.

 

(4) Jeanne, died in 1828.

 

(5) Louis Lucien, known as Prince Lucien, and distinguished as a writer.

 

(6) Pierre Napoleon, known as Prince Pierre, married to a sempstress, and refused to give her up. The oldest son of Prince Pierre is the Prince Roland Bonaparte. He would now be the chief of the House of Bonaparte, if Lucien had not been cut off from the succession.

 

(7) Antoine.

 

(8) Marie, married to the Viscount Valentini.

 

(9) Constance, who took the veil.

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4th.

Marie Anne Eliza (1777–1820), married to Felix Bacciochi in 1797.

 

From this marriage:

 

(1) Charles Jerome Bacchiochi 1810–1830.

 

(2) Napoleone Eliza, married to Count Camerata.

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466

5th.

Louis (1778–1846) married in 1802 to Eugénie Hortense de Beauharnais, daughter of Josephine.

 

From this marriage:

 

(1) Napoleon-Charles, heir-presumptive to the throne of Holland, died in 1807.

 

(2) Charles Napoleon Louis, married his cousin Charlotte, daughter of Joseph; died in 1831.

 

(3) Charles Louis Napoleon, Emperor of the French in 1852, under the title of NAPOLEON III, married in 1857 to Eugénie de Montijo de Guzman Countess of Teba.

 

From this marriage:

 

Napoleon Eugène Louis Jean Joseph Prince Imperial, born in 1856; killed in Zululand in 1879.

---

6th.

Marie Pauline (1780–1825), married

 

(1) in 1801 to General Leclerc.

 

(2) in 1803 to Prince Camille Borghese. No children.

---

467

7th.

Caroline Marie Annonciade (1782–1839), married Joachim Murat in 1800.

 

From this marriage:

 

(1) Napoleon Achille Charles Louis Murat (1801–1847), went to Florida where he married a grand-niece of George Washington.

 

(2) Lætitia Josèphe, married to the Marquis of Pepoli.

 

(3) Lucien Charles Joseph Francois Napoleon Murat, married an American, a Miss Fraser, in 1827. From this marriage there were five children.

 

(4) Louise Julie Caroline, married Count Rospoli.

---

8th.

Jerome (1784–1860), married:

 

(1) in 1803 to Miss Eliza Patterson of Baltimore; and

 

(2) in 1807 to the Princess Catharine of Würtemberg.

 

From first marriage:

 

Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte-Paterson (1805–1870) married in 1829 to Miss Suzanne Gay. Two children were born from this marriage:

 

(1) Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte (1832–1893).

 

(2) Charles Bonaparte, at present a resident of Baltimore.

 

From second marriage:

 

(1) Jerome Napoleon Charles, who died in 1847.

 

(2) Mathilde Lætita Wilhelmine, married in 1840 to a Russian, Prince Demidoff, but separated from him: known as the Princess Mathilde.

 

(3) Napoleon Joseph Charles Paul, called Prince Napoleon, also known as Plon Plon, married in 1859 the Princess Clotilde, daughter of King Victor Emmanuel of Italy. On the death of the Prince Imperial, in 1879, became chief of the Bonapartist party. Died in 1891. Prince Napoleon had three children:

 

(a) Napoleon Victor Jerome Frederick, born in 1862, called Prince Victor and the present Head of the House of Bonaparte.

 

(b) Napoleon Louis Joseph Jerome.

 

(c) Marie Lætitia Eugénie Catharine Adelaide.

Age. Date.

Event.

1769.

Aug. 15.—Napoleon Bonaparte born at Ajaccio, in Corsica. Fourth child of Charles Bonaparte and of Lætitia, née Ramolino.

9. 1778.

Dec.—Napoleon embarks for France with his father, his brother Joseph, and his Uncle Fesch.

9. 1779.

Jan. 1—Napoleon enters the College of Autun.

9. 1779.

April 23.—Napoleon enters the Royal Military School of Brienne.

15. 1784.

Oct. 23.—Napoleon enters the Royal Military School of Paris.

16. 1785.

Sept. 1.—Napoleon appointed Second Lieutenant in the Artillery Regiment de la Fère.

16. 1785.

Oct. 29.—Napoleon leaves the Military School of Paris.

16. 1785.

Nov. 5 to Aug. 11, 1786.—Napoleon at Valence with his regiment.

17. 1786.

Aug. 15 to Sept. 20.—Napoleon at Lyons with regiment.

17. 1786.

Oct. 17 to Feb. 1, 1787.—Napoleon at Douai with regiment.

17. 1787.

Feb. 1 to Oct. 14.—Napoleon on leave to Corsica.

18. 1787.

Oct. 15 to Dec. 24.—Napoleon quits Corsica, arrives in Paris, obtains fresh leave.

18. 1787.

Dec. 25 to May. 1788.—Napoleon proceeds to Corsica and returns early in May.

18–19. 1788.

May to April 4, 1789.—Napoleon at Auxonne with regiment.

470

19. 1789.

April 5 to April 30.—Napoleon at Seurre in command of a detachment.

19–20. 1789.

May 1 to Sept. 15.—Napoleon at Auxonne with regiment.

20–21. 1789.

Sept. 16 to June 1, 1791.—Napoleon in Corsica.

21–22. 1791.

June 2 to Aug. 29.—Napoleon joins the Fourth Regiment of Artillery at Valence as First Lieutenant.

22. 1791.

Aug. 30.—Napoleon starts for Corsica on leave for three months; quits Corsica May 2, 1792, for France, where he has been dismissed for absence without leave.

23. 1792.

Aug. 30.—Napoleon reinstated.

23. 1792.

Sept. 14 to June 11, 1793.—Napoleon in Corsica engaged in revolutionary attempts; having declared against Paoli, he and his family are obliged to quit Corsica.

23. 1793.

June 13 to July 14.—Napoleon with his company at Nice.

24. 1793.

Oct. 9 to Dec. 19.—Napoleon placed in command of part of artillery of army of Carteaux before Toulon, 19th Oct.; Toulon taken 19th Dec.

24. 1793.

Dec. 22.—Napoleon nominated provisionally General of Brigade; approved later; receives commission, 16th Feb., 1794.

24. 1793.

Dec. 26 to April 1, 1794.—Napoleon appointed inspector of the coast from the Rhone to the Var, on inspection duty.

24. 1794.

April 1 to Aug. 5.—Napoleon with army of Italy; at Genoa 15th–21st July.

24–25. 1794.

Aug. 6 to Aug. 20, 1794.—Napoleon in arrest after fall of Robespierre.

25. 1794.

Sept. 14 to March 29, 1795.—Napoleon commanding artillery of an intended maritime expedition to Corsica.

25. 1795.

March 27 to May 10.—Napoleon ordered from the south to join the army in La Vendée to command its artillery; arrives in Paris, 10th May.

25–26. 1795.

June 13.—Napoleon ordered to join Hoche’s army at Brest, to command a brigade of infantry; remains in Paris; 471 21st Aug., attached to Comité de Salut Public as one of four advisors; 15th Sept., struck off list of employed generals for disobedience of orders in not proceeding to the west.

26. 1795.

Oct. 5 (13th Vendémiaire, Jour des Sections).—Napoleon defends the Convention from the revolt of the Sections.

26. 1795.

Oct. 16.—Napoleon appointed provisionally General of Division.

26. 1795.

Oct. 26.—Napoleon appointed General of Division and Commander of the Army of the Interior (i. e., of Paris).

26. 1796.

March 2.—Napoleon appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Army of Italy; 9th March, marries Madame de Beauharnais, née Tascher de la Pagerie.

26. 1796.

March 11, leaves Paris for Italy.

26. 1796.

First Italian campaign of Napoleon against Austrians under Beaulieu, and Sardinians under Colli. Battle of Montenotte, 12th April; Millesimo, 14th April; Dego, 14th and 15th April; Mondovi, 22d April; Armistice of Cherasco with Sardinians, 28th April; Battle of Lodi, 10th May; Austrians beaten out of Lombardy, and Mantua besieged.

26. 1796.

July and August.—First attempt of Austrians to relieve Mantua; battle of Lonato, 31st July; Lonato and Castiglione, 3d Aug.; and, again, Castiglione, 5th and 6th Aug.; Wurmser beaten off, and Mantua again invested.

27. 1796.

Sept.—Second attempt of Austrians to relieve Mantua; battle of Calliano, 4th Sept.; Primolano, 7th Sept.; Bassano, 8th Sept.; St. Georges, 15th Sept.; Wurmser driven into Mantua and invested there.

27. 1796.

Nov.—Third attempt of Austrians to relieve Mantua; battles of Caldiero, 11th Nov., and Arcola, 15th, 16th., and 17th Nov.; Alvinzi driven off.

27. 1797.

Jan.—Fourth attempt to relieve Mantua; battles of Rivoli, 14th Jan., and Favorita, 16th Jan.; Alvinzi again driven off.

27. 1797.

Feb. 2.—Wurmser surrenders Mantua with eighteen thousand men.

472

27. 1797.

March 10.—Napoleon commences his advance on the Archduke Charles; beats him at the Tagliamento, 16th March; 18th April, provisional treaty of Leoben with Austria.

28. 1797.

Oct. 17.—Treaty of Campo Formio between France and Austria to replace that of Leoben; Venice partitioned, and itself now falls to Austria.

28. 1798.

Egyptian expedition. Napoleon sails from Toulon, 19th May; takes Malta, 10th June; lands near Alexandria, 1st July; Alexandria taken, 2d July; battle of the Pyramids, 21st July; Cairo entered, 23d July.

28. 1798.

Aug. 1 and 2.—Battle of the Nile.

29. 1799.

March 3.—Napoleon starts for Syria; 7th March, takes Jaffa; 18th March, invests St. Jean d’Acre; 16th April, battle of Mount Tabor; 22d May, siege of Acre raised; Napoleon reaches Cairo, 14th June.

29. 1799.

July 25.—Battle of Aboukir; Turks defeated.

30. 1799.

Aug. 22.—Napoleon sails from Egypt; lands at Fréjus, 6th Oct.

30. 1799.

Nov. 9 and 10 (18th and 19th Brumaire).—Napoleon seizes power.

30. 1799.

Dec. 25.—Napoleon, First Consul; Cambacérès, Second Consul; Lebrun, Third Consul.

30. 1800.

May and June.—Marengo campaign. 14th June, battle of Marengo; armistice signed by Napoleon with Melas, 15th June.

31. 1800.

Dec. 24 (3d Nivôse).—Attempt to assassinate Napoleon by infernal machine.

31. 1801.

Feb. 9.—Treaty of Lunéville between France and Germany.

31. 1801.

July 15.—Concordat with Rome.

32. 1801.

Oct. 1.—Preliminaries of peace between France and England signed at London.

32. 1802.

Jan. 26.—Napoleon Vice-President of Italian Republic.

32. 1802.

March 27.—Treaty of Amiens.

473

32. 1802.

May 19.—Legion of Honor instituted; carried out 14th July, 1814.

32. 1802.

Aug. 4.—Napoleon First Consul for life.

33. 1803.

May.—War between France and England.

33. 1803.

March 5.—Civil Code (later Code Napoleon) decreed.

34. 1804.

March 21.—Duc d’Enghien shot at Vincennes.

34-35. 1804.

May 18.—Napoleon, Emperor of the French people; crowned, 2d Dec.

34. 1805.

May 26.—Napoleon crowned king of Italy at Milan, with iron crown.

36. 1805.

Ulm campaign; 25th Sept., Napoleon crosses the Rhine; 14th Oct., battle of Elchingen; 20th Oct., Mack surrenders Ulm.

36. 1805.

Oct. 21.—Battle of Trafalgar.

36. 1805.

Dec. 2.—Russians and Austrians defeated at Austerlitz.

36. 1805.

Dec. 26.—Treaty of Presburg.

36. 1806.

July 1.—Confederation of the Rhine formed; Napoleon protector.

37. 1806.

Jena campaign with Prussia. Battles of Jena and of Auerstadt, 14th Oct.; Berlin occupied, 27th Oct.

37. 1806.

Nov. 21.—Berlin decrees issued.

37. 1807.

Feb. 8.—Battle of Eylau with Russians, indecisive; 14th June, battle of Friedland, decisive.

37. 1807.

July 8 and 9.—Treaty of Tilsit signed.

38. 1807.

Oct. 27.—Secret treaty of Fontainebleau between France and Spain for the partition of Portugal.

38. 1808.

March.—French gradually occupy Spain; Joseph Bonaparte transferred from Naples to Spain; replaced at Naples by Murat.

39. 1808.

Sept. 27 to Oct. 14.—Conferences at Erfurt between Napoleon, Alexander and German sovereigns.

474

39. 1808.

Nov. and Dec.—Napoleon beats the Spanish armies; enters Madrid; marches against Moore, but suddenly returns to France in January, 1809, to prepare for Austrian campaign.

39. 1809.

Campaign of Wagram. Austrians advance, 10th April; Napoleon occupies Vienna, 13th May; beaten back at Essling, 22d May; finally crosses Danube, 4th July, and defeats Austrians at Wagram, 6th July.

40. 1809.

Oct. 14.—Treaty of Schönbrunn or of Vienna.

40. 1809.

Dec.—Josephine divorced.

40. 1810.

April 1 and 2.—Marriage of Napoleon, aged 40, with Marie Louise, aged 18 years 3 months.

41. 1810.

Dec.—Hanseatic towns and all northern coast of Germany annexed to French Empire.

41. 1811.

March 20.—The King of Rome, son of Napoleon, born.

43-43. 1812.

War with Russia; June 24, Napoleon crosses the Nieman; 7th Sept., battle of Moskwa or Borodino; Napoleon enters Moscow, 15th Sept.; commences his retreat, 19th Oct.

43. 1812.

Oct. 22-23.—Conspiracy of General Malet at Paris.

43. 1812.

Nov. 26-28.—Passage of the Beresina; 5th Dec., Napoleon leaves his army; arrives at Paris, 18th Dec.

43-44. 1813.

Leipsic campaign. 2d May, Napoleon defeats Russians and Prussians at Lützen; and again, on 20th-21st May, at Bautzen; 26th June, interview of Napoleon and Metternich at Dresden; 10th Aug., midnight, Austria joins the allies; 26th-27th Aug., Napoleon defeats allies at Dresden, but Vandamme is routed at Kulm on 30th Aug., and on 16th-19th Oct., Napoleon is beaten at Leipsic.

44. 1814.

Allies advance into France; 29th Jan., battle of Brienne; 1st Feb., battle of La Rothière.

44. 1814.

Feb. 5 to March 18.—Conferences of Chatillon (sur Seine).

44. 1814.

Feb. 11.—Battle of Montmirail; 14th Feb., of Vauchamps; 18th Feb., of Montereau.

475

44. 1814.

March 7.—Battle of Craon; 9th-10th March, Laon; 20th March, Arcis sur l’Aube.

44. 1814.

March 21.—Napoleon commences his march to throw himself on the communications of the allies; 25th March, allies commence their march on Paris; battle of La Fère Champenoise, Marmont and Mortier beaten; 28th March, Napoleon turns back at St. Dizier to follow allies; 29th March, empress and court leave Paris.

44. 1814.

March 30.—Paris capitulates; allied sovereigns enter on 1st April.

44. 1814.

April 2.—Senate declares the deposition of Napoleon, who abdicates, conditionally, on 4th April in favor of his son, and unconditionally on 6th April; Marmont’s corps marches into the enemy’s lines on 5th April; on 11th April, Napoleon signs the treaty giving him Elba for life; 20th April, Napoleon takes leave of the Guard at Fontainebleau; 3d May, Louis XVIII. enters Paris; 4th May, Napoleon lands in Elba.

45. 1814.

Oct. 3.—Congress of Vienna meets for settlement of Europe; actually opens 3d Nov.

45. 1815.

Feb. 26.—Napoleon quits Elba; lands near Cannes, 1st March; 19th March, Louis XVIII. leaves Paris; 20th March, Napoleon enters Paris.

45. 1815.

June 16.—Battle of Ligny and Quatre Bras; 18th June, battle of Waterloo.

45-46. 1815.

June 29.—Napoleon leaves Malmaison for Rochefort; surrenders to English, 15th July; sails for St. Helena, 8th Aug.; arrives at St. Helena, 15th Oct.

51 yrs. 8 mos. 1821.

May 5.—Napoleon dies, 5.45 P. M.; buried, 8th May.

1840.

Oct. 15.—Body of Napoleon disentombed; embarked in the “Belle Poule,” commanded by the Prince de Joinville, son of Louis Philippe, on 16th Oct.; placed in the Invalides, 15th Dec., 1840.

• A
• Abdication of Napoleon, 263.
• Aboukir Bay, 91, 93.
• Adige, 68, 71, 72.
• Alexander I., Emperor of Russia, 168, 175, 201, 203, 235.
• Alvinzi, 71, 72.
• Amiens, treaty of, 103.
• Amiens, treaty of, broken, 103, 143.
• Anna Paulowna, 225.
• Arcola, bridge of, 72, 78.
• Armstrong, U. S. Minister to France, 195, 196.
• Army of Egypt, 91.
• Army of Italy, 61, 62, 81.
• Art acquisitions from Italy, 82, 83.
• Aspern, 215.
• Augereau, 62, 63, 259.
• Austerlitz, battle of, 167, 168, 169.
• Austria, Emperor of, 17.
• Austrian army, 67, 68, 69.
• Austrian army, driven from Italy, 73.
• Austrians, 64-66.
• Austrians at Rivoli, 73.
• Autun, 19, 21, 31.
• B
• Bacciochi, Mme., 89.
• Baden, Grand Duchess of, 407.
• Baden, Prince Auguste of, 389.
• Bank of France, 107.
• Barras, Paul, 47, 48, 53, 54-55, 340, 341, 342, 344, 345.
• Bassano, 69, 71.
• Battle of Austerlitz, 167, 168, 169.
• Battle of Bautzen, 253.
• Battle of Borodino, 243.
• Battle of Eylau, 173.
• Battle of Friedland, 173, 175.
• Battle of Hohenlinden, 103.
• Battle of Jena, 171, 172.
• Battle of La Favorita, 73.
• Battle of Lodi, 65, 66.
• Battle of Lützen, 253.
• Battle of Marengo, 98, 99, 101.
• Battle of Pyramids, 90.
• Battle of Rivoli, 73.
• Battle of Wagram, 216, 217, 219.
• Battle of Waterloo, 273.
• Bautzen, battle of, 253.
• Bay of Aboukir, see Aboukir Bay.
• Baylen, 198.
• Beauharnais, Alexander de, 328, 329, 330, 331, 332, 334, 335, 336, 337, 338.
• Beauharnais, Eugène de, 89, 94, 179, 216, 222, 331, 332, 336, 340, 341, 342, 378, 390, 415, 418, 419, 421, 422, 437, 449.
• Beauharnais, Hortense de, 89, 222, 332, 337, 340, 372, 373, 378, 390, 401, 407, 408, 409, 415, 417, 431, 433, 449-450.
• Beaulieu, 63, 65, 75.
• “Belle Poule,” 303, 305, 307, 308.
• “Bellerophon,” 279, 283.
• Benningsen, 173.
• Berlin decree, 193, 195, 233.
• Bernadotte, 47, 171, 233, 235, 255.
• 478Bernard, Postmaster-general, 135.
• Berthier, Gen., 99, 187.
• Bertrand, 309, 318, 320.
• Bonaparte, Caroline, 31, 179.
• Bonaparte, Charles Marie de, 17, 18, 19, 21, 23, 31.
• Bonaparte, Eliza, 31, 179, 287.
• Bonaparte, Jerome, 31, 35, 37, 153, 154, 179, 181, 183, 320.
• Bonaparte, Joseph, 19, 21, 31, 32, 89, 179, 197, 198, 302, 320.
• Bonaparte, Louis, 31, 153, 179.
• Bonaparte, Lucien, 31, 43, 89, 148, 149, 154, 201.
• Bonaparte, Mme., 43.
• Bonaparte, Mme. Louis, 373, 374.
• Bonaparte, Pauline, 31, 179, 185, 391, 392.
• Borghese, Princess, 179.
• Borodino, Battle of, 243.
• Botanical garden at Malmaison, 366, 367.
• Boulogne, fête of, 155, 156.
• Bourbons of Spain, abdicate, 198.
• Bourrienne, 25, 37-38, 222.
• Boyer, Christine, 43, 89.
• Brenta, 69, 71.
• Bridge of Lodi, 66.
• Brienne, 21, 22, 23, 25, 27, 28, 31.
• Broglie, Duc de, Marshal, 35.
• Brunswick, 172.
• C
• “Cabinet noir,” 135.
• Cabrera, Island of, 198.
• Cadiz, French fleet at, 198.
• Cadoudal, Georges, 143, 151, 152.
• Cambacérès, 153.
• Campan, Mme., 154, 340, 372, 373.
• Campo Formio, treaty of, 74.
• Carmes, les, 337, 338, 340.
• Castiglione, 68.
• Catholic Church re-established, 120, 121, 123, 124.
• Chardon, Abbé, 21.
• Charles, Archduke of Austria, 213, 217.
• Charles IV., King of Spain, 197.
• “Chemin d’Angleterre,” 145.
• Cherbourg, 308.
• Cisalpine Republic, 74, 98.
• Clary, Désirée, 45-46.
• Clary, Julie, 44.
• “Code Napoleon,” 125, 127, 128.
• Colombier, Mlle., 29.
• Colombier, Mme., 29.
• “Concordat” signed, 121, 123.
• Conscription, resentment against, 231.
• Constituent Assembly, 334.
• “Continental blockade,” 193, 195.
• Coronation of Josephine, 381, 382-385.
• Coronation of Napoleon, 156, 157, 159, 160.
• Corsica, 22, 34.
• Corsicans, revolt of, 18.
• Courbevoie, 309.
• Croissy, 54, 55, 336.
• D
• Dantzic, siege of, 173, 177.
• Danube, crossing of by French army, 216, 217.
• Davoust, 171, 172.
• d’Abrantès, Duchess, 45.
• d’Enghien, Duc, 151, 152.
• d’Orleans, Duc, 28-29.
• De Kéralio, 25, 26.
• De Molleville, 128.
• de Ségur, 156, 199, 200.
• Decree of Berlin, see Berlin decree.
• Decrès, Gen., 62.
• Denmark, 195.
• Denon, 138.
• Desaix, 99, 101.
• “Description de l’Egypte,” 91.
• “Directory,” in regard to Italian campaign, 69, 72.
• 479“Directory,” 77.
• Donauwörth, 213.
• Duc d’Enghien, see d’Enghien, Duc.
• Duroc, Marshall, 253, 320.
• E
• Ecole militaire, 27, 28.
• 18th Brumaire, 94, 103.
• Elba, 265.
• Elysée Palace, 423.
• “Émigrés,” 119, 120.
• Essling, 215.
• Eylau, battle of, 173.
• F
• Ferdinand, heir apparent of Spain, 197.
• Finland, 203.
• Fontainebleau, 379, 381.
• Fort Royale, 327.
• Fouché, 134, 211, 275, 401, 402.
• French army, in Italy, 69.
• Friedland, battle of, 173, 175.
• Fulton, Robert, 145, 147.
• G
• Gaëte, Duc de, 107.
• “Garde-Meuble,” 203.
• Gaudin, Mon., 107.
• Geoffroy-St.-Hilaire, 91.
• Girondins, 336.
• Goethe, 203.
• “Grand army,” 237, 239, 247.
• Great Britain, decree against, 193, 195.
• H
• Hesse-Cassel, 177.
• Hippolyte, Charles, 94, 354.
• Hoche, Gen., 337, 340.
• Hohenlinden, battle of, 103.
• Holland, King of, 179, 183, 233.
• Hôtel des Invalides, 311, 313, 315, 317, 318, 319, 320.
• I
• Institute of Egypt, 91.
• Island of Cabrera, see Cabrera, Island of.
• Italian campaign, 61.
• J
• Jena, battle of, 171, 172.
• John, Archduke, 216.
• Joinville, Prince de, 295, 303, 306, 307, 309, 313, 317, 318.
• Jomini, 256.
• Josephine, Vicomtesse de Beauharnais, 54-55, 57.
• Josephine, notre dame des victoires, 85.
• Josephine, in Italy, 86, 87.
• Josephine, Empress, 159, 160.
• Josephine, divorced, 221, 222, 223.
• Josephine, at Malmaison, 225.
• Josephine, at Evreux, 228.
• Josephine, childhood, 326, 327.
• Josephine, at school, 327.
• Josephine, goes to France with her father, 330.
• Josephine, married Alexander de Beauharnais, 331.
• Josephine, divorced from Alexander de Beauharnais, 332.
• Josephine, in Paris, 334-336.
• Josephine, imprisoned in les Carmes, 337, 338.
• Josephine, at functions given by Directory, 340.
• Josephine, meets Napoleon, 342.
• Josephine, courted by Napoleon, 343.
• Josephine, feelings towards Napoleon, 343-345.
• Josephine, married to Napoleon, 345.
• Josephine, goes to Italy, 347-349.
• Josephine, at Milan, 347-349, 351-352.
• 480Josephine, Napoleon’s letters to, 348, 349.
• Josephine, returns to Paris from Italy, 353.
• Josephine, attitude towards the Bonapartes, 354-355.
• Josephine, buys Malmaison, 355.
• Josephine, letter to Napoleon, 356-358.
• Josephine, as wife of First Consul, 361-363, 365.
• Josephine, her appearance, 362, 363.
• Josephine, fondness for flowers and dogs, 366, 367.
• Josephine, at St. Cloud, 375, 376.
• Josephine, proclaimed Empress, 377.
• Josephine, religious marriage to Napoleon, 381.
• Josephine, journey through Italy as Empress, 388, 389.
• Josephine, graciousness to others, 392, 393.
• Josephine, fondness for her toilet, 395-397.
• Josephine, her jewels, 397, 398.
• Josephine, crowned Empress, 381-385.
• Josephine, hears rumors of divorce, 401, 406, 414.
• Josephine, at Bayonne, 404, 405.
• Josephine, at Plombières, 409, 411.
• Josephine, told of the divorce, 417, 418.
• Josephine, officially divorced, 419-422.
• Josephine, retires to Malmaison after divorce, 422-426.
• Josephine, at Navarre, 427, 428.
• Josephine, at Malmaison, 430.
• Josephine, fondness for her grandchildren, 437.
• Josephine, position in France, 440.
• Josephine, learns of Napoleon’s abdication, 446.
• Josephine, and the Emperor Alexander, 446, 447.
• Josephine, dies at Malmaison, 448, 449.
• Jouberthon, Mme., 154.
• Junot, 41, 42, 45, 61, 196, 198, 347.
• K
• Kellermann, 77.
• “King of Rome,” 227, 228, 235, 261, 266, 435.
• Königsberg, 173.
• L
• La Favorita, battle of, 73.
• Landgrafenberg, 171.
• Lannes, 155, 207, 215.
• Las Cases, 283, 285, 303.
• “La Vendée,” 95.
• Le Brun, 153.
• Leclerc, Mme., 89.
• Lefebvre, Marshall, 173.
• “Legion of Honor,” 125.
• “Legitimists,” 302.
• Leipsic, 256.
• Ligny, 273.
• “Little Corporal,” 78.
• Lobau, Island of, 213, 215, 216.
• Lodi, 65, 66.
• Lodi, bridge of, 78, 83.
• Lombard Republic, 66.
• Lonato, 68.
• Longwood, 285-287.
• Louis XVIII., 269.
• Louis Philippe, 295, 300, 302, 318.
• Louise, Queen of Prussia, 177.
• Louisiana, sale of, 147, 148.
• Lowe, Sir Hudson, 285-287.
• Lyons, 269.
• Lucques, Princess of, 179.
• Lunéville, treaty of, 103.
• Lützen, battle of, 253.
• M
• 481“Madame Mère,” 18, 153, 266.
• Magdeburg, 177.
• Maintenon, Mme. de, 27.
• Malet conspiracy, 248.
• Malmaison, 223, 225, 275, 355, 365-367, 369-370, 374-375, 411, 422-426, 428, 449-450.
• Mantua, siege of, 66-69, 71, 73.
• Marbœuf, Count de, 19, 23, 29.
• Marbot, 205.
• Marengo, battle of, 98-99, 101.
• Marie Louise, 17, 37, 225, 227-228, 266, 271, 289.
• Marmont, 62, 263.
• Marrac, castle of, 404, 405.
• Martinique, Island of, 325, 326.
• Masson, 338.
• Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Prince of, 403.
• Melas, Gen., 97, 98.
• Méneval, 222, 223.
• Metternich, 253, 255.
• Mincio, 66.
• Minim Brothers, 22.
• Mion-Desplaces, Mlle., 31.
• Moldavia, 203.
• Moncey, Marshal, 317.
• Monge, 91.
• Mont Cenis, 160.
• Montenotte, 63.
• Montesson, Mme. de, 28-29.
• Montholon, 287.
• Montmorency, Mme. de, 200.
• Moreau, Gen., 95, 151-152, 255, 256.
• Moscow, 243, 245.
• Muiron, Col., 78.
• Murat, 197, 212, 258.
• Murat, Mme., 377.
• Museum of Paris, 81.
• N
• Naples, King of, 179, 181, 258.
• Napoleon, as a youth, 18, 19.
• Napoleon, at school, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26.
• Napoleon, First Consul, 29.
• Napoleon, second lieutenant at Valence, 28-29.
• Napoleon, literary projects, 33, 34.
• Napoleon, in regard to finances, 35, 37.
• Napoleon, in Paris, 38, 39.
• Napoleon, command, Second Regiment of Artillery, 41.
• Napoleon, prisoner, 1794, 44.
• Napoleon, Committee of Public Safety, 48.
• Napoleon, General in chief of army of interior, 49, 51.
• Napoleon, defends the Tuileries, 48, 49.
• Napoleon, in salon of Barras and Mme. Tallien, 54.
• Napoleon, courtship and marriage, 57, 58.
• Napoleon, love letters, 58, 59.
• Napoleon, General, army of Italy, 61-63.
• Napoleon, speech to his soldiers, 64.
• Napoleon, at Bridge of Lodi, 65, 66.
• Napoleon, enters Milan, 66.
• Napoleon, concludes peace with Naples, 67.
• Napoleon, at Lonato, 68.
• Napoleon, defeats Wurmser, 69.
• Napoleon, letter to Directory, 69, 71.
• Napoleon, Rivoli, 73.
• Napoleon, signs with Pope treaty of Tolentino, 73.
• Napoleon, signs treaty of Campo Formio, 74.
• Napoleon, rules of warfare, 75.
• Napoleon, fertility in stratagem, 75, 77.
• 482Napoleon, answer to Directory, 77.
• Napoleon, soldiers’ adoration of, 77, 78.
• Napoleon, addresses to soldiers, 79, 81.
• Napoleon, belief in signs, 83.
• Napoleon, letters to Josephine, 85, 86, 87.
• Napoleon, returns to Paris from Italy, 89.
• Napoleon, commander in chief, army of Egypt, 90.
• Napoleon, in Egypt, 90, 91, 93.
• Napoleon, failure of Syrian expedition, 93.
• Napoleon, returns to Paris from Egypt, 93, 94.
• Napoleon, Dictator of France, 94.
• Napoleon, crossing the Alps, 97.
• Napoleon, addresses his soldiers, 98.
• Napoleon, at Marengo, 98.
• Napoleon, First Consul, 105, 106, 107.
• Napoleon, in regard to taxes, 108, 109, 110.
• Napoleon, his policy of protection, 110, 111.
• Napoleon, improvements made in Paris, 113.
• Napoleon, his vast industrial achievements, 113-115, 117.
• Napoleon, his amnesty to the Émigrés, 119, 120.
• Napoleon, reëstablishes the Catholic Church in France, 120, 121, 123, 124.
• Napoleon, establishes school, 124, 125.
• Napoleon, codification of the laws, 125, 127, 128.
• Napoleon, preparations for war against England, 144, 145.
• Napoleon, sells Louisiana, 147, 148.
• Napoleon, First Consul, plot against his life, 151.
• Napoleon, Emperor, 153.
• Napoleon, Emperor, in matters of etiquette, 155.
• Napoleon, Emperor, crowned at Notre Dame, 156, 157, 159, 160.
• Napoleon, addresses to his soldiers, 165.
• Napoleon, King of Italy, 160.
• Napoleon, marches against the Austrians and Russians, 164, 165, 167.
• Napoleon, at Austerlitz, 167, 168, 169.
• Napoleon, at Jena, 171.
• Napoleon, Museum of Paris, 172.
• Napoleon, at battle of Jena, 172.
• Napoleon, at battle of Eylau, 173.
• Napoleon, at battle of Friedland, 173, 175.
• Napoleon, at Tilsit, 175.
• Napoleon, treaty of Tilsit, 177, 178.
• Napoleon, advice to his brothers, 179, 181, 183.
• Napoleon, hatred against England, 191.
• Napoleon, policy towards Great Britain, 193, 195.
• Napoleon, attitude towards Spain, 197, 198.
• Napoleon, founds a new nobility, 200.
• Napoleon, tries to reconcile Lucien, 201.
• Napoleon, meets Alexander I. at Erfurt, 203.
• Napoleon, Spanish campaign, 205, 206, 207, 209.
• Napoleon, charge against Talleyrand, 212.
• Napoleon, at battle of Wagram, 216, 217, 219.
• Napoleon, divorces Josephine, 221, 222, 223.
• 483Napoleon, marries Marie Louise (by proxy), 225.
• Napoleon, imprisons the Pope, 229.
• Napoleon, preparing for Russian campaign, 237.
• Napoleon, at Moscow, 243.
• Napoleon, retreat from Moscow, 243, 245, 247.
• Napoleon, campaign of 1813, 253, 255, 256, 257.
• Napoleon, campaign of 1814, 258, 261, 262.
• Napoleon, encamped at Fontainebleau, 262.
• Napoleon, abdication at Fontainebleau, 263.
• Napoleon, at Elba, 265, 266, 267.
• Napoleon, returns from Elba, 267, 269, 271.
• Napoleon, his happiest period, 271.
• Napoleon, at Waterloo, 273, 275.
• Napoleon, abdicates anew, 275.
• Napoleon, plan to escape to United States, 275, 276, 277.
• Napoleon, gives himself up to English, 279.
• Napoleon, at St. Helena, 283, 285, 286, 287.
• Napoleon, dies at St. Helena, 287, 289.
• Napoleon, loved by his men, 293.
• Napoleon, body brought back to France, 305, 306, 307, 308, 309, 311, 312.
• Napoleon, funeral in Paris, 312-315, 317, 318.
• Napoleon, Charles, 374, 376, 377, 401.
• Napoleon, Louis, 401, 433.
• National Assembly, 34.
• “Nautilus,” Fulton’s diving boat, 147.
• Navarre, 423, 427, 428, 433, 435, 445.
• Nelson, Lord, 91.
• Newspaper criticisms on Napoleon’s return from Elba, 269.
• Ney, Marshal, 269.
• “Northumberland,” 283.
• Notre Dame, 379.
• Notre dame des victoires, 85, 347.
• O
• O’Connell, 299, 300.
• Olmütz, 166, 167.
• O’Meara, 285.
• “Opera plot,” 133, 134.
• “Orleanists,” 302.
• Orleans, Duke of, see d’Orleans, Duc.
• P
• Paisiello, 141.
• Palmerston, Lord, 299, 300.
• Panthemont, Abbey de, 333, 340.
• Paoli, Pascal, 18, 19, 22.
• Papal States, 67, 73.
• Paris capitulates, 261.
• Patterson, Miss Elizabeth, 154.
• Permon, Mme., 53.
• Permons, 27, 28, 51.
• Pichegru, 151, 152.
• Pius VII. a prisoner, 229.
• Placentia, 65.
• Plombières, 353, 409, 411.
• Plot of the 3rd Nivôse, 133, 134.
• Plymouth, 279.
• Po, crossing of the, 65.
• Poland, 172, 173.
• Ponte-Corvo, Prince of, 235.
• Pontécoulant, Monsieur de, 51.
• Portugal, 195, 198.
• Portugal divided, 196.
• Portugal forced to close ports, 196.
• Presburg, treaty of, 169.
• Press censorship, 135.
• Provera, 72, 73.
• Prussia, King of, 175.
• Pyramids, battle of, 90.
• Q
• 484Quasdanovich, 67-68.
• “Quatre Bras,” 273.
• R
• Rambouillet, 403.
• Ramolino, Lætitia, 17, 18.
• Ratisbonne, 213.
• Raynal, Abbé, 33.
• Rémusat, Count de, 303.
• Rémusat, Mme. de, 154, 155, 362, 392, 424.
• Renaudin, Mon., 328.
• Renaudin, Mme., 328, 329, 330, 331, 333.
• Reuil, 449.
• Revolution of 1789, 34.
• Rivoli, battle of, 73.
• Robespierre, the elder, 43-44.
• Robespierre, the younger, 43, 339.
• Rouchefoucauld, Duc de la, 329, 334.
• Rouen, 308.
• Russia, Emperor of, 201, 203.
• S
• Saale, 171.
• St. Cloud, 223, 374, 375.
• St. Cyr, 31.
• Saint-Germain, Comte de, 35.
• St. Helena, 283, 285, 286.
• St. Pierre, town of, 325.
• Salon, 138.
• Saragossa, siege of, 206, 207, 209.
• Sardinians, sue for peace, 64.
• Sannois, Mlle. Rose-Claire des Vergers de, 326.
• Savona, 229.
• Saxony, King of, 177.
• Schönbrunn, Castle of, 216.
• School of Fine Arts, 28.
• Second revolution, 37-38.
• Ségur, Mon. de, see de Ségur, Mon.
• Serbelloni, Duc de, 348, 349, 351.
• Sieyès, Abbé, 105, 106.
• Smolensk, 241, 243, 247.
• Soult, 168.
• Spain, Government of, 197, 198.
• Spain, King of, 196, 198, 257.
• Spanish campaign, 205, 206, 207, 209.
• Staël, Mme. de, 135, 137, 431.
• Sweden, 233.
• Syrian expedition, 93.
• T
• Tagliamento, crossed, 74.
• Talleyrand, 211, 212, 262, 275, 301, 399, 401.
• Tallien, Mme., 54, 55, 338, 339, 340, 342, 347, 358.
• Talma, 369.
• Tascher de la Pagerie, Joseph, 325, 326, 328, 330.
• Théâtre Français, 203.
• Thiers, Mon., 300, 301.
• Tilsit, treaty of, 175, 177, 178.
• Tolentino, treaty of, 73.
• Toulon, 41.
• Treaty of Amiens, 103.
• Treaty of Campo Formio, 74.
• Treaty of Lunéville, 103.
• Treaty of Presburg, 169.
• Treaty of Tilsit, 175, 177-178.
• Treaty of Tolentino, 73.
• Trieste, 219.
• Trois Ilets, 325, 326, 327.
• Tuileries, 381.
• U
• Ulm, capitulation of, 165.
• United States not allowed to remain neutral, 196.
• “Unnatural alliance,” 235.
• V
• Valence, 29.
• Verona, 71-73.
• 485Volta, 138, 139.
• Vienna, 213, 216.
• Vimeiro, 198.
• Visconti, Mme. de, 187.
• Vittoria, 198.
• W
• Wagram, Austrians’ position, 216.
• Wagram, battle of, 216, 217, 219.
• Walewski, Mme., 401, 403, 404, 412.
• Wallachia, 203.
• Warsaw, 177.
• Waterloo, battle of, 273.
• Westphalia, 177.
• Westphalia, King of, 179.
• Wieland, 203.
• Wilder, S. V. S., 276.
• William, Prince of Prussia, 203.
• Wurmser, Gen., 67, 68, 69, 72.
• Wurmser surrenders, 73.

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