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NAPOLEON
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·NAPOLEON. H UNDREDS of books have been written in many languages describing and analysing the Napoleonic drama into which were crowded during a few swift years the greatest cam paigns of modern warfare, the breaking down of political boundaries, the making and unmaking of Kings and dynasties, and the revolutionary struggles of many peoples and nations, from which came forth the new spirit of democracy So have hundreds of books been written about the man who marched through Europe with his triumphant legions, who founded a great Empire with the proudest nations for its provinces, who gave the watchword of liberty to people long enslaved by feudal power, who was the Dictator of the new order, and who then, attacked by the combined forces of Europe, and abandoned by the men he had raised from nothing, surrendered to pojyers mightier even than his Own genius Napoleon has not lacked biographers' Every phase of his life has been minutely chronicled Every aspect of his character has been dissected Among those who in his lifetime came within the Circle of his amazing influence, who fought with him in his great wars, or worked under him in the affairs of State, many poured out on paper their memories of this overpowering personality Mlany hated him, among those who had received the greatest favours from him it 15 remarkable how many returned his favours by venomous and lying hatred--but they were bound to admit the immensity of his genius, and often there slips into their narrative some anecdote which reveals the man's generosity and magnanimity 9

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·C. We may, What, underneath all his diplomacy and statecraft (which made him shape his actions according to circumstances) was the guiding law of his life, his ideal, or to use another word in a sense not ordinarily used, his religion ? More intensely interesting than the story of Napoleon's battles and of his jugglings with European Powers, would be the story of Napoleon's soul That has never been told, but at least, putting aside passion and prejudice, we may get near to it We may see something of the spirituality that uplifted him in moments of great emotion We may understand something of the inner faith of a man who threw over all conventional religious dogma by reading the thousands of anecdotes that have been recorded of him, realise a little more clearly wherein lay the secret of his mastery over men, and get to the centre as it were of his sublime egotism Neither demi god nor devil, we must study him as a man with simple affections and simple impulses like other men Though he was sometimes a consummate actor, when he was the central figure of public ceremonies, or when he issued his edicts to conquered powers, we must get away from the prejudice, too strongly planted in English minds, that he was always an actor, and a poseur That is a primary mistake which has for long obscured the soul of Napoleon For, as a rule, no man was more natural, even when there were the strongest temptations to be theatrical, and it is just because he was blunt in his speech and unaffected in his manners that we may, with some certainty, discover the secrets of his inner life There are people who will maintain that Napoleon was a soulless And certainly when one reflects upon the thousands of human lives sacrificed for his ambition, upon his apparent lack of any higher ideal than that of "glory" for the inspiration of his legions, onc may be tempted at first to disbelieve in his spirituality But the truth is that Napoleon was no atheist or philosopher of materialism man

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·We may, What, underneath all his diplomacy and statecraft (which made him shape his actions according to circumstances) was the guiding law of his life, his ideal, or to use another word in a sense not ordinarily used, his religion? More intensely interesting than the story of Napoleon s battles and of his jugglings with European Powers would be the story of Napoleon s soul That has never been told but at least, putting asıde passion and prejudice, we may get near to it We may see something of the spirituality that uplifted him in moments of great emotion We may understand something of the inner faith of a man who threw over all conventional religious dogma by reading the thousands of anecdotes that have been recorded of hım, realise a little more clearly wherein lay the secret of his mastery over men, and get to the centre as it were of his sublime egotism Neither demi god nor devil, we must study him as a man with simple affections and simple impulses like other men Though he was sometimes a consummate actor, when he was the central figure of public ceremonies, or when he issued his edicts to conquered powers, we must get away from the prejudice, too strongly planted in English minds, that he was always an actor, and a poseur That is a primary mistake which has for long obscured the soul of Napoleon For as a rule no man was more natural, even when there were the strongest temptations to be thentrical, and it is just because he was blunt in his speech and unaffected in his manners that we may, with some certainty, discover the secrets of his inner life There are people who will maintain that Napoleon was a soulless And certainly when one reflects upon the thousands of human lives sacrificed for his ambition, upon his apparent lack of any higher ideal than that of "glory for the inspiration of his legions, one may be tempted at first to disbelieve in his spirituality But the truth is that Napoleon was no atheist or philosopher of materialism man 11

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·Malmaison The Chief Consul, as he then was, admitted that he was not an orthodox Christian "But religion," he said, "is a principle which cannot be eradicated from the heart of man' He rose from his chair and looked up at the clear sky in which the stars shone brightly " Who made all that? he asked solemnly Then after a pause, he said, with evident emotion, "Only last Sunday evening I was walking here alone when the Church bells of the village of Rueil rang at sunset I was strongly moved, so vividly did the image of early days come bach with that sound If it be thus with me, what must it be with others In re establishing the Church, I consult the wishes of the great majority of the people" There is one profound utterance of Napoleon in Roederer's memoirs, which shows how deeply he had thought on the subject of religion, and how boldly he differed from the social philosophy of his time "There is but one means of getting good manners," he said, "and that is by establishing religion Society cannot exist without inequality of fortune, and inequality of fortune cannot exist without religion When a man is dying of hunger by the side of one who gourmandizes, it is impossible for him to agree to this difference unless there be some authority to say to him, God wills it so, there must be poor and rich in this world, but afterwards, and during eternity, the division will be made otherwise Napoleon was not a Catholic in the orthodox sense of the word—though he used to cross himself in moments of strong excitement and often mocked at the superstition and worldliness of many of the clergy, but, at the same time, he never permitted any sacrilegious conduct among his soldiers, and he had that true catholicity of spirit which enables a man to reverence the faith of others He has been ridiculed for his behaviour in Egypt when 13

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·31 is there before my eyes, a mystery which I can never deny nor explain Here I see nothing human " There are many evidences that in spite of occasional loose talk Napoleon had at the heart of him an almost simple reverence He specially disliked the outrageous flattery which during the zenith of his power compared him, in the hyperbolical language of the Latın race, to a divinity When in 1807 designs for a new coinage were submitted him with the motto, "Napolcone protegge l'Italra,' the Emperor wrote on the margin This is most unsuitable, the word proposed in place of God protect' is indecent" In the following year he wrote to his minister of marine- "I dispense you from comparing me to God The phrase is so singular and irreverent that I wish to believe that you did not reflect upon what you were writing These examples are not given with the idea of proving that Napoleon was a religious man in the ordinary sense of the word He was not He was a son of that Revolution which had revolted, not only against the old regime, but against the old faith He was untouched with the fire of the reformer or the fanatic He had indeed in everyday conversation some of the modern French bourgeois camaraderie with the “bon dieu," and we all know his cynical philosophy that "God was on the side of the big battalions" But he was too great a man, he had too much imagination to be an absolute materialist Like the great soldiers of an older world he believed in signs and portents On the morning of his great victory at Austerlitz, the sun rose with unusual splendour, and he regarded it as the promise of glory for the French arms, and afterwards "the sun of Austerlitz" became a proverb with him and with his veterans, so that whenever there was a brilliant dawn on the morning of a battle they would speak of it as aa assured sign of victory And 15

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·The Cardinal was silent, abashed by shat he thought was the colossal ambition of a man who would make even the stars subordinate to his pride But Napoleon's meaning was different He saw the star of his destiny which must be fulfilled These things show that Napoleon had a sense of the supernatural and was not without a superstition which came to him, no doubt, with his Corsican blood and early education But this occasional homage to unknown powers outside himself did not take the place of a religion with him His religion—that is to say, his law of lifewas essentially practical and humanitarian It was the pride of personality, or to put it in different words, the power of the human will Napoleon was the greatest "individualist " The whole gospel of his life was the right of the individual to reach the highest success the world can offer—" la carrière onzerte aux talents" That was his abiding faith, and he was unswerving in his devotion to this ideal Although he was fired as a young man with the ardour of revolution, and wrote, almost as soon as he could write French at all, a History of Corsica, in which the most advanced republicanism animates every page, he was too close an observer of human nature even in his youth to become a disciple of the socialistic dreams which intoxicated such democrats as Rousseau and Robespierre As we have seen, he believed that while this world lasted there would be inequality of fortune in any society His ideal of liberty therefore was not the levelling of men to one class, but the breaking down of the old barriers which prevented a man from rising froin one class to another He had no great opinion of democracy and the mass, no opinion at all of mob law "I frankly declare," he once said, "that if I had to choose between the old Monarchy and Jacobin misrule I should infinitely prefer the former" 17

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·1o **Form • He stops N few returned They had already suffered in body and spirit during the long marches towards an enemy that always vanished, and through great sombre plains where desolation reigned The Emperor himself had revealed in his tent to his closest companions in arms some signs of the awful sense of impending calamity which weighed down his spirit But to his men he was still "le petit caporal" "Following his custom, he walks slowly down the ranks He knows in what wars each regiment has served with him before his oldest soldiers To one of them he recalls with a word, and with a familiar caress, the battle of the Pyramids, to another Marengo Austerlitz, Iéna or Friedland, and the veteran who believes that he has been recognised by his Emperor swells out with glory in the midst of his younger comrades, who envy him "Napoleon goes on he does not neglect the youngest They seem to have a special interest for him He knows their slightest needs He interrogates them Do their captains look after them? Have their wages been paid? Do they lack any part of their equipment ? He wishes to inspect their haversacks "At last he stops in the centre of the regiment, and asks in a loud voice who are the most worthy He calls up those who are pointed out, and questions them How many years' service ? What campaigns ? What wounds? What distinguished actions? Then he gives them their promotion as officers, sees that they get their rank immediately, in his presence, pointing out the way in which they are to receive the honour-little details which charm a soldier ! "They tell each other that the great Emperor who judges actions en masse busies himself about them down to the smallest detail, that they are his oldest, his real family it is in this way that he makes them love war, glory, and himself" 1.

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·talent I elevated him without asking how many degilos of nobility he had, knowing that by joining me, they would be icliiud from the yoke of the aristociacy under which they labour "There is not a canaille in tlic world, not cien the Prussing, worse treated You tall, of your ficcdon, can anything lo more horrible than your pressing of sc.mun? You send your boats on shore to seize upon cicy milc thint can be found, w110, if they have the mistortune to belong to the canaille, il they cannot prove themselves gentlemen,* are hurried on boud your ships to serve as seamen in all quarters of the globc And yet you have the inipudence to talk of thic conscription in riancel It wounds your pride because it falls upon all ranks Oh, how sliocking that a gentleman s son should be obliged to defend lus country, just 18 if he were one of the canaille! And that lie should be compelled to expose his body, or put himself on n lcvcl with n uilc plcbcian/ Yet God made all men alike Wlio forms thic nation? Not your lords, nor your fat prclatcs and churclımen, nor your gentleman, nor your oligarchy Oll one day the people will revenge them. selves, and terrible scenes will take placc" It must not be forgotten that although Napolcon ignored the might of the British Navy and the proud spirit of the nation who at the first warning of invaston raised volunteer corps all over the country we may smile now at the rustics in arms and the military absurdities of those self-raised regiments, but at Icunt they showed the pride and pluck of the pcoplc-lic was right in his scorn of our class distinctions and in his pity for the down. trodden masses While the press-gangs searchcd every port for able bodied men we could not honestly condemn the French conscription, while the horrible penal laws of England survived, as they did until after Napoleon's death, we could not boast of our liberty As late as 1829 men and women and young children were * He spoke this word in Engisah THAT

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·} man more those Royalists and Moderates who had been banished from their native soil “Napoleon had but one idea," says Azais in his Jugement Impartral sur Napoléon, " which was to gather round him, and entrust with important posts, the most remarkable among the men who had not feared to combat his projects and oppose his elevation The man who dreaded his vengeance found himself summoned to become his supporter Bernadotte, who had opposed Napoleon's coup d'état on the 18th Brumaire, who afterwards, as the First Consul was fully aware, became the leader of a clique whose object was to drag down the general of the army of Italy, and who "passed his life in quarrels with the First Consulate, and in seeking to make them up" was rewarded with infinite generosity by a magnanimous than himself Napoleon made hım Marshal of France and Grand Officer of the Empire and did not opposc his election as Crown Prince of Sweden Time and time again the Emperor pardoned Bernadotte's insolence, insubordination and intriguing He also paid his debts and granted him a pension Masséna, one of Napoleon's most famous generals, embarrassed his master by his ceaseless rapacity It was the worst fault in the eyes of Napoleon who was always scrupulous in money matters, having the instinct of the bourgeois for small economies "Massena," he wrote, "is good for nothing in a cıvıl government In the first place he is incapable of attachment He is a good soldier, but entirely given up to love of money, it is the only motuse power which makes him act even under my eyes He began by small sums, now millions would not satisfy him" Yet, because of his undeniable bravery and brilliant general ship, the Emperor gave him the Duchy of Rivoli and the principality of Essling 23 Cota

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·11 N 9 I hope it will serve as a warning to you, and I confide to you the post of Major-General of my Army of Spain These instances of Napoleon's largeness of soul-his utter lach of pettiness which would prompt a meaner man to strike down an offender, or of a ruthlessness which would cause a man to forget all past service when puntshing a great fault-might be multiplted indefinitely. In every one of his battles there were officers who, either by stupidity or laziness or arrogance, defeated some movement planned by their great general, throughout his whole carcer Napoleon was constantly incensed by the behaviour of men who, though heroes, were also in private life very much like unruly and insolent schoolboys Yet though he sometimes stormed and raved at them, quick to lose his temper, and when angry losing control of his speech which stabbed them with fierce words, he seldom, if ever, carried out his worse threats His wrath quickly evaporated, and he would make generous amends to the men he had bullied, as though he, and not they, were at fault Nor was his generous forgiveness of faults restricted to superior oMcers It may be thought that he was astute enough to realise that he owed a great part of his power to the military or civil genius of the men he had gathered round him, and that he was afraid to lose their allegiance by too much severity That is far from the truth Napoleon, strict disciplinarian as he was, was neier a tyrant or a martinet to the troops under his command He could be as patient and generous to a junior officer or to a common soldier as to a field marshal of the Empire There are many letters in his collected correspondence which reveal his quite fatherly affection for the men he called his "chuldren," and 111s sincere dislike to degrade even the humblest among them in the eyes of his comrades by too severely punishing a fault Writing to the superior officer of a soldier who had been dismissed from his regiment for bad behaviour, he said " banc 25 O ora

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·N As he was leaving the room Napoleon called to him and said in his kindest and most winning voice, "Tell General Lasalle that it will be agreeable to me that you should be the person selected to announce to me the success of these movements It may be seen by these few anecdotes selected out of many hundreds of a similar character, that Napoleon had a complete sincerity in his creed of promotion by merit And it must not be forgotten that it was a most revolutionary creed to the age in which he lived and ruled It wa destructive, far more than mob passion, of the ancien regime The French mob did not secure equality by overthrowing a dynasty and butchering aristocrats by the guillotine They set up new tyrants and became still more enslaved But Napoleon showed the way to a wide practical liberty, to a liberty which would raise men instead of debasing them By appealing to the instincts for honour and glory among men, he created a spirit of noble rivalry in which the best would gain the prizes of life By promoting men out of the ranks in proportion to their merit, he did not defy the fundamental law of all societies and civilisations by destroying the various gradations of rank, but he made those distinctions of class more natural and more admirable Revolu tionary then, such a doctrine would be revolutionary now in England and other countries governed by tradition, though a hundred years have passed since Napoleon put his principles into practice In our civil service there is no promotion by merit Seniority, social influence, the wholly artificial value of academic distinctions, are the rules which govern Whitehall A third class clerk, however efficient and brilliant, will never be metamorphosed into a first class clerk In the army the promotions from the ranks are so few that they are the exceptions to prove the rule of class privilege Wealth and high birth secure high commands, not so often as in the days of Napoleon, but still too often It can hardly 27 ·45 ကို her N bc boasted in the British army that "la carrière est ouvcrtc aux lalınts," and that every private soldier carrics in his knapsack the bâton of a ficld marshal. If we look into Napolcon's soul we shall see that its grandeur was largely due to its simplicity. Not born in the purple he always kept the essential qualitics of thic bourgcoisic. Although he knew the value of pomp and pageantry as a means of impressing the imagination of the masses; although he knew that a crown and impcrial robes, and titles and decorations, were necessary to an Emperor who ruled over many peoples and who was the headpiece of a great political system, his soul was always simple, and unscduced by these trappings. With the imperial crown on his head he was still a man of the middle class, a bourgcois. When he came back from Notre Dame after his coronation he bundled off his robes and protested that he had never been so bored in his life. Ycars afterwards as an exile in St. Helena he wrote to Coulaincourt: "The lot of a dethroned king who has been born a king and nothing more must be dreadful. The pomp of the throne, the gew-gaws which surround him from his cradle, and which accompany him step by step through life, become a necessary condition of his existence. For me, always a soldier, and a sovereign by chance, the luxuries of royalty proved a heavy charge. The toils of war and a rough camp life are best suited to my organisation, my habits, and my taste. Of all my past grandeurs I alone regret my soldiers; and of all the jewels of my crown, the French uniforms which they allowed me to take with me are the most precious I have preserved." As He was always proud of having sprung from the canaille. an Emperor he loved to remember his days as a poor lieutenant of Artillery when with Bourrienne, his old school-chum and afterwards his comrade in arms on many a battlefield, he used to lunch at the Trois Bornes in the Rue de Valois, indulging in the dreams of N Z 28 camisa

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·youth over a bottle of thin wine Sometimes in after years when his officers used to complain of poverty, he would remind them of the time when he lunched for sie sous, at Justat's in the Rue des Petits Peres Those early days in Paris, when his highest ambition was to live in a little house and drive in a cabriolet, remained as a sweet memory with the man in all his greatness The little economies of bourgeois life became his training in state finance The squandering of money was always distasteful to him As Emperor he kept his accounts with the scrupulousness of the small householder who has to make both ends meet He hated, like every good bourgeois, to be cheated by his tradespeople, and to the last lept a sharp eye on their bills Like a bourgeois again he quarrelled with his wife over her dress allowance Many were the tears Josephine shed when the Emperor scolded her for not heeping accounts and getting into debt The fuendships he made in the early days of his life when he was a poor and obscure young man were never forgotten Hc sought out his old schoolmaster and military instructors, and gave them pensions and places Officers who had befriended him when he was desperately in need of friendship became generals of division, and heads of military departments As all the world knows, his family who had shared his pay when a junior officer, shared his glory when he was the great Emperor. And they were not by any means grateful to him For Louis Bonaparte specially he had made many sacrifices as a young man, and twenty years later, after Louis as King of Holland had shown the rankest ingratitude to the brother who had lifted him up, and had forgotten even his loyalty to France, Napoleon wrote bitterly to Coulaincourt "That Louis whom I educated out of my pay as sub lieutenant, God knows at the price of what privations' Do you know how I managed it? It was by never setting foot in society or in a café, ·legg mes.com N by eating dry bread, and by brushing my clothes myself so that they should last longer." Having lived among the middle-class; having flirted with young women of the people, and clinked glasses with comrades in poor taverns; having known poverty and thwarted ambition himself, and all the little pleasures and tragedies of bourgeois life, Napoleon, at the height of his power, was a man of the people. He was proud to call himself "the King of the Third Estate." On my return from a campaign," he said to O'Meara one day, "while my carriage was ascending the steep hill of Tarare I got out and walked up without my attendants as was often my custom; my wife and my suite were at a little distance behind me; I saw an old woman, lame and hobbling along with the help of a crutch, endeavouring to ascend the mountain. I had a greatcoat on and was not recognised-I went up to her and said, 'Well, ma bonne, where are you going with a haste which so little belongs to your years? What is the matter ?' 'Ma foi,' replied the old dame, 'they tell me the Emperor is here, and I want to see him before I N die.'" " Bah, bah,' said I, 'what do you want to see him for. What have you gained by him? He is a tyrant as well as the others. You have only changed one tyrant for another ?' 'Nay, monsieur, that may be, but after all he is the King of the people, and the Bourbons were the Kings of the nobles. We have chosen him, and if we are to have a tyrant, let him be one chosen by ourselves.'» "There," said Napoleon," you have the sentiments of the French nation expressed by an old woman." Love is the touchstone of a man's character. It is in the passion of love that a man's soul is most nakedly revealed. It was so in the case of Napoleon. In many acts of his life we may argue that he was a poseur; that he was generous because generosity was the N: 30 ·best diplomacy, that he was bon camarade with his soldiers because he played upon human nature with consummate skill for his otvn ends These things have been said, and we may agree or not agree But in his love letters to Josephine the soul of the young Napoleon is laid bare There is no doubting the sincerity of these letters, for they scorch one with the fire of their passion, and they were written hastily, on the battlefield, after great victories, in the tumult of great campaigns, and in cities just entered by his triumphant legi Napoleon had hardly given a thought to women before he met Josephine Beauharnais, the beautiful young widow, and the mother of two children He had flirted a little, with the brusque gallantry of a soldier more concerned with military science than with the art of amorous dalliance, with one girl, Eugenie Désirée Clary, a soap boiler's daughter, he had been first stirred by something like passion, though it was nothing but a harmless "calf love' He asked for her hand in marriage and she refused him, little guessing that she was giving up the diadem of an Empress There was also a certain Mademoiselle de Colombier with whom he was épris Speaking of that, he said afterwards, "We were the most innocent creatures imaginable We contriyed short interviews together I well remember one which took place on a midsummer's morning just as the light began to dawn It will hardly be believed that all our happiness consisted in eating cherries together" When he met Josephine he had a virginal heart And at the first sight of this beautiful young widow he was inflamed with a great passion She held him aloof for a time, hardly thinking him a good enough match, though he was already a general and appointed to command the army in Italy But his wooing was ardent, and she was induced to consent Like other lovers who have not become Emperors he believed himself "the happiest of men " the very period of his life when he was about to dazzle the world At 31 ·N N with his greatest exploits of modern warfare, he had the simplicity of a lover who humbles himself before a frail woman, believing her spotless. And when he marched into Italy like a new Hannibal issuing those amazing proclamations to his troops, when he held out to them the vision of great glory and of great plunder in words that still stir the pulse of all Frenchmen by their grandiloquent eloquence, he stole away to his tent or his cabinet to write letters to Josephine his wife in other words as simple as passion itself. He laid himself at her feet at the feet of this woman who was enjoying herself in a round of light gaieties—he expressed his ardent longing to hold her in his arms, to kiss her a thousand times with burning kisses. She did not trouble to answer his letters and he was tortured. “My life is a perpetual nightmare," he wrote. "A horrible presentiment prevents me from breathing. I live no more. have lost more than life, more than happiness, more than rest. I am almost without hope. I send you a courier. He will remain only four hours in Paris, and will bring your answer." And again : My presentiments are so gloomy that I should be satisfied if I could see you, press you to my heart, and die.” So he goes on like any bourgeois lover inspired by the poetry of passion--very unlike the “cold,” “ruthless," "heartless" man who frightened English children in their beds, and English gentlemen at their firesides, under the name of “the Corsican Ogre." My darling, mind you tell me that you are convinced I love you more than it is possible to imagine ; that you are persuaded that every moment of my time is consecrated to you; that never an hour passes without my thinking of you; that the idea of another woman has never occurred to me; that in my eyes they are all N N 32

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·conto with his greatest exploits of modern of a lover who humbles himself befo: spotless. And when he marched in issuing those amazing proclamation: out to them the vision of great glory :? that still stir the pulse of all French. cloquence, hic stole a way to his tent or to Josephinc his wife in other words ar Hc laid himself at her feet-at the file enjoying herself in a round of light op ardent longing to hold hier in his armis, to with burning kisses. She did not trouble to 20swer tortured. "Mly life is a perpetual nightmare," : presentiment prevents me from breathir have lost more than lifc, more than happi am almost without hope. I send you ac only four hours in Paris, and will bring you. And again : Aly presentiments are so gloomy that I could see you, press you to my heart, and di So he goes on like any bourgeois lover ins passion--very unlike the “cold," "ruthle who frightened English children in the gentlemen at their firesides, under the no Ogre." My darling, mind you tell me that you at more than it is possible to imagine; that y every moment of my time is consecrated 1 hour passes without my thinking of you; ti woman has never occurred to me; that in 32 1

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·Go without charm, beauty or wit, that you and you alone, such as I see you now, can please me, and absorb all the faculties of my soul, that you have sounded all its depths, that it has no dark corners hidden from you, no thoughts not subject to you, that my strength, my arms, my mind-all are yours, that my soul is in your body, that the day when you change, or the day on which you cease to live would be that of my death, that nature and the earth are only beautiful in my eyes because you inhabit them" In all these letters, so hot with passion that we cannot read then without a kind of shame that they should be read by all the world, letters in which Napoleon's southern blood was revealed, there is hardly a word about his marvellous achievements, not a single boast of victory They might have been the letters of a commercial traveller who had gone to Italy to sell ribbons, instead of a young conqueror who was changing the map of Europe At Milan Napoleon sent courier after courier with letters imploring Josephine to come to him, letters in which at last he began to express terrible doubts of her fidelity She came reluctantly, and Napoleon was in the seventh heaven of joy But Josephine was not the saintly, injured creature, who, in such melodramas as "A Royal Divorce" brings tears to the eyes of the gallery boys In those days, at least, she thought only of her own plezsormes When Napoleon was away from her side she flirted._dot perhones harmfully, but with too light regard for her busband's boom with the young officers left in the garrison. The young gena] could not stay long with her, he had to march with bis soos to Verona and Rome, and again she did not hasten to STS endearing letters, and when she answered it tras 2 slot chilled him “Your letters," he wrote “are as cold as if you thing might have been written after fifteen years of women' ·N NH N When he was on his way back to Milan he sent her a message in advance. “I hope that ere long I shall seize you in my arms and cover you with a million burning kisses-burning as though they came from the equator." Alas, when Napoleon reached Milan Josephine was not there to meet her conquering hero! She had gone off to Genoa on some adventure of amusement. It was the first shock that dulled the man's throbbing heart. He walked gloomily through the empty palace, and then wrote a letter to his absent wife in which he reproached her for this "incalculable misery." Not long afterwards unpleasant rumours reached him about Josephine's friendship with a certain handsome young coxcomb named Hippolyte Charles. We need not go into that scandal. What is the truth of it can hardly be discovered now. But gradually, as the first year or two of their married life passed, Napoleon became disillusioned. He knew his wife to be a light, frivolous woman, frightfully extravagant in spite of all his protests, and too careless of his name. In Egypt, under the great vault of heaven above the desert, riding up and down before his tent in the translucent darkness of the Eastern nights, he unbosomed himself to his young step-son Eugène, and the son had to make excuses for his mother. It was a pitiful tragedy, and we get closer to the humanity of Napoleon in this trouble of his married life than we can in other phases of his extraordinary career when the man is rather obscured by the greatness of his power. But like any middle-class husband he decided to make the best of things. He withdrew from the divorce he had at first contemplated, and although the glamourof idolatryhad gone, he settled down " en famille" with Josephine, habit taking the place of passion. There is no doubt indeed that after the first shock of disillusionment he had a genuine affection for Josephine, in spite of their N N zi 34 ha ·conta " It is frequent quarrels over the Empress's wild extravagance To her children, too, Eugène and Hortense, he was entirely devoted and was their "cher papa It was one of the pleasantest traits in Napoleon's character that he was always fond of children and young people Often on his campaigas he would forget for a while the great world struggle in which he was involved to tease or play with some little peasant gırl Childhood touched the most tender chords of his heart, and showed the real simplicity of his nature, to which grandeur and power were the accidents of fate difficult, however, to forgive his divorce of Josephine, even when we know the true facts stripped from the sentimentalism which has been indulged in by populaı writers He was induced to believe that the continuance of his Empire depended on the founding of a new hereditary dynasty He believed in the theory, so continually disproved, that a great father has a great son, and he dreamed of a younger Napoleon maintaining the glory of the Empire and continuing his traditions He put the thought from him as a devilish temptation But it was thrust upon him continually by natural impulses, by intimate advisers, and by the pressure of circumstances Then he broached the subject to Josephine as gently as he could He was wonderfully delicate in his brutality! She, poor woman, who in her early days of their married life had neglected his love, was now jealous of his affection When she had awakened to his indifference to her she had suddenly become eager to bind him fast, and after her first Hightiness, and in spite of her recklessness with money, she was now a good wife to him He respected her advice, and took a great pleasure in her company The proposal for a divorce therefore stabbed her to the heart It was not a death blow to her love, for we cannot believe that she was ever inspired with a romantic passion for her great husband There is no siga of it 10 any of her letters But it was the death warrant of her pride and 35 <...>> ·- islami N position. She would be debased before the whole world. There were unhappy scenes which distressed Napoleon as much as they wounded Josephine. There was one terrible scene when finally he showed his determination to carry through the ugly business" for the sake of his destiny," when, as he said, he was impelled to this cruelty by a power which over-ruled his private affections. Josephine went into hysterics and fainted, and Napoleon, with the face of a corpse, summoned an intimate friend to carry her to her own apartments. After that final outburst Josephine consented to her own fate and signed the document agreeing to the divorce. Napoleon was no Bluebeard, as Henry VIII., who would bludgeon a woman's heart or order a wife to the headsman's block when he wanted to gratify his lowest passions. He treated Josephine with magnificent generosity from a financial point of view, and she was to retain the title of Empress. And after the divorce, after even his marriage with Marie Louise which allied him to the Blood Royal of Austria, all his old tenderness for Josephine came back. He visited her frequently, and remained for hours alone in her company. Extraordinary situation! Extraordinary man! He was not less affectionate to Marie Louise, his new wife. She had not to complain of any coldness in him. He devoted himself to her comfort, and when she gave him the heir he desired his gratitude was simple and profound. In after years when he was exiled to St. Helena and Marie Louise was one of the first to abandon him, and to betray her marriage vows, he could never bring himself to believe in her treachery. He believed to the last, or professed to believe, that she was prevented from sharing his exile by his enemies, and that she was forbidden even to write to him. There is something very pitiful in the Emperor's conversation about these two women with the few friends of his exile, when this N N 36 is ·son great restless soul had no other outlet for his spirit than the memories of his former greatness and amazing life For Josephine he always had words of tenderness and admiration "She was really an amiable woman, elegant, charming, and affable Era la dama la pou graziosa di Francia She was the goddess of the toilet, all the fashions originated with her, every thing she put on appeared elegant, and she was so kind, so humane-she was the best woman in France" He also had a high opinion of the intellect and character of Marie Louise, and was satisfied of her devotion to him With regard to Napoleon's relations with other women, it must be admitted that he was not without stain When Josephine first disappointed him it seems that he permitted himself two or three passing intrigues Scandal has given special notoriety to the name of Madame Walewska, who is supposed to have borne him a But, on the whole, Napoleon was not a loose living man His Court was not openly profligate like that of the Bourbons, and if he erred once oi twice he did not live in open shame like most of his predecessors on the throne of France. His family life, indeed, was very much like that of any respectable shopkeeper in the rue St Honoré, and when one remembers that on his triumphant marches through Europe he was surrounded by constant tempta tion, and by the beautiful women of Courts not renowned for virtue, one may marvel at the real sterity of the man He himself alluded to his strictness of morals when a young man, which contrasted with the general license of his age "My extreme youth when I took command of the army of Italy," he remarked, "made it necessary for me to evince great reserve of manners and the utmost severity of morals This was indispensable to enable me to sustain authority over men so greatly superior in age and experience I pursued a line of conduct in the highest degree irreproachable and exemplary. In spotless 37 .

·N N morality I was a Cato, and must have appeared so to all. I was a philosopher and a sage. My supremacy could be retained only by proving myself a better man than any other in the army. Had I yielded to human weaknesses I should have lost my power.” There is no doubt that the fear of losing his power was always a haunting thought of Napoleon, not only as Emperor, but as General of the Army of Italy, and in the earliest days of his command. It was the heritage of the Revolution out of the smouldering ashes of which he rose like the phenix. Under the rule of Robespierre no man could believe himself secure. The Republican Generals were spied upon by agents of the Directory, who, in most cases civilians without the slightest knowledge of military science, had the power of criticism and confidential reporting to the Government. They had but to breathe the word "treason' and a commanding officer was recalled from the front to take his stand before a tribunal obsessed with the thought of treachery. As Commandant of Artillery at Toulon, where his bravery and skill first attracted the attention of his superior officers, Napoleon was the victim of this espionage. Afterwards, in spite of his distinguished service, he almost starved before he could get official recognition and a new command. It was owing to the interest of Barras, or rather to the mistress of Barras, the notorious Madame Tallien, that he obtained his first great chance when he was asked to command the troops of the Convention against the Royalist sections who were then seeking to overthrow the Government. He was given three minutes to decide, and, as all the world knows, he accepted the appointment and secured victory for the Convention. It was then that his name first emerged from obscurity. He was promoted to be General of Division and shortly afterwards General-in-Chief of the Army of the Interior. But he knew that by his victory and his rapid rise N N Zac 38 g.com ·ܨܬܓ. ܢܨܢܢ ܕܕܙ *ܨܓ.܀ ܐܟܐܟܨܟܨܨ ܪܢܬ ܬ N in detta minute litt at the ti ******** Thornhim. hun helt ** Beritte, while njut tent that little pony h nghe's than that of his natin yudar t'ti't. It the aliendo iniligung against him, and was still mur 1 to him como en las 12 arruntet eier Beruntulee hen to the Up"47110 moned of the army of Itali. Dung that hulle uit 19 ju lut lili. when he great new plans to the matter of allee's the online 1134 sent by the Directory in Kepon him Chapeuploit 124 Clarke who fell into dietoltes, and it loontliny Memet on Napoleon's generosity that although he knew the 2018 menit fic wrote a letter to the Directores in Athena fuente mot Goncial Clubes pool comic, and loy the Minister for Italia Affute bogging him to the file dutenes with the (10462991114114 in bchalf of a man who wishiut to be my home "I am told that lie 191* witten front out of 1011111 of 1918 It that lic truc, lic sroto try the tionscal11e11t mend fundi ili plit do do so, it might ovu linio lice's tiresit), and in 1101 enots do I think it cin be made a ichson for foredlog lalon" During thic campaign in Inly od Igypt there 1190 for animale plots in P.1r14 to overtlırow thres grensver of Napolering the com not cven trust his own cricula, avon w114 min ulotte to hetray lum, and sifterward4 #14 metall, tree the Murat, Jernet and Ncy, inflamcih tu selftali ombitton lry thin all councing greatnces of the man who fund promote the son lille fontana, tempted to become inde penele mit kinga cover the fine tiny bond helped to subluc, sive Napoleon inerenain! malo vyliances There was never a day when he could give si preticily tror mine to hie vast military achiernes lic was always threatened loy political enemies at home, and try the mendacione oral town of me comrades in arms As l'irst Crotaullie knew that a temporary 39 ·Test N check to his victorious progress might at any time cause his overthrow. As Emperor he never had the faithful co-operation of the brothers and comrades he had placed as vassals on the thrones of Europe. It was this insecurity of his position which partly caused his insatiable desire for new conquests. He must follow one success by another. He must always go on. He could not afford to stand still. The whole structure of his Empire depended upon his own genius, upon personal prestige. When once his prestige should disappear all was lost: for this reason he was impelled always to seek new renown; to lead his legions towards new triumphs; to invade the East; to hazard that final enterprise which led to Moscow and to ruin. Although this compelling force of circumstance created by the conditions of his own personal supremacy cannot be ignored as one of the secret influences in the soul of Napoleon, it would be absurd to pretend that the fear of losing power was the first cause of his prodigious adventures, Like the youngest recruit in his army he was carried on by a thirst for glory, by an enthusiasm which exalted his soul. It is vain to think that in his early days with the army of Italy he had any far-reaching calculations of political power. At that time he had no foreknowledge of his destiny. He was inspired simply with a soldier's ideal to carry his country's flag triumphantly across the battlefields of a hostile territory. He was as much astonished at his victories as the people who read his despatches with increasing wonder. Speaking of this campaign when it was only a memory he once said, “Methinks the moment is only just gone by when I took command of the army which conquered Italy. ...I felt the consciousness of my powers, and burned to enter the lists. I had already given proof of what I could do. My aptitude was not contested, but my youth displeased those old soldiers who had grown gray on the field of battle. Perceiving this I felt the N N IN 40 ·el fine di file مر Wapokewe //// «/

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·necessity for compensating the disadvantage by the austerity of principles from which I never departed Brilliant actions were required to conciliate the confidence and affection of the military, and I performed some We marched, and er erything vanished at our approach My name was soon as dear to the people as to the soldiers I could not be insensible to this unanimity of homage, and become indifferent to everything short of glory " The air resounded with acclamations on my passage Every thing was at my disposal But I only thought of my brave soldiers and of France' It was during one of his most heroic feats in Italy that Napoleon first began to realise that he was marked out for some great destiny "Neither the quelling of the sections" he said, "nor the victory of Montenotte induced me to think myself a superior character It was not till after the terrible passage of the bridge of Lodi that the idei entered my mind that I might become a decisive actor in the political arena' To use a colloquial expression, he jumped with both feet into the political arena when he hurried away from Egypt in the middle of the campaign, leaving his command in the hands of Kleber, and arriving suddenly in Paris, achieved his famous coup d'elat of the 18th Brumaire by dissolving the existing government and taking over the reins of power with the title of First Consul It was then that he first revealed his genius as an administrator, and astonished his counsellors--men who had learnt the science of Government by terror and butchery through all the phases of the Revolution-by his amazing know ledge of cul affairs, by his extraordinary power of organisation, and by his broad ideas of liberty and justice Sieyès and Ducos, associated with him as Consuls, had believed at first that this young soldier who had the gift of gaining victories against all odds would be a tool in their 41 Die o

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·N By this policy the First Consul not only secured men able to carry out his great conceptions, men of the highest efficiency, but he succeeded in stifling, for a time at least, the internal feuds which had torn at the heart of France since the downfall of the Bourbon dynasty By throwing open the doors of success and power to the men with the greatest talent, from whatever class they might spring, he gave a practical meaning to those great words liberty, equality and fraternity, 'which had been too much abused by those who had proclaimed them most loudly In his supreme position Napoleon raised democracy and secured the liberty of the individual by a benevolent despotism He was a dictator, but his laws made every Frenchman equal before the National Tribunals, and a partner in the glory of his country Where did this man get his vast knowledge of civil government, a knowledge which enabled him to take the broadest vens as well as to consider with keen judgment the smallest and most technical details of administration ? There is only one answer Out of his own soul and experience He did not regard the problems of life de hart en bas, like kings born in the purple He looked at them from the point of view of the middle class citizens among whom he had been brought up It was the aspirations and the ideals of the middle class which he endeavoured to fulfil in his code of laws The experience of his own career was his training in the government of a nation His poverty, his ambitions, his desires, his simple arithmetic and domestic economy in the old days, were the lessons which taught him to control the treasury of France and to secure the well being of his people Above all, however, he had imagination, that greatest gift of man Napoleon is not to be understood unless one acknowledges that above this intensely practical nature, above the common sense of the bourgeois, he had an idealism and a poetry which animated him with a high enthusiasm This imagination was one of the secrets 43 ·em ab པ Z N of his mastery over men, While appealing to their natural and commonplace ambitions, the right to a living wage, the reward of industry and courage, the old barbaric right which extorted tribute from a conquered people, he called also to their spirituality. The proclamations to his troops are wonderful cxamples of his own dual nature. Tliey were the words of a soldier of fortune who urges his men onwards in hope of great booty. But they were also inspired by something higher than this, by passion for glory which should be gained cren by death, by an ideal of universal liberty which should libcratc crcn those who surrendered to his sword. Often indeed lic called out thic spirit of his troops by words which seem above the intelligence of men who had come straight from the plough or the ſorge. Before liis departure for Egypt he made the following proclamation: "Soldiers ! you have made war in mountains, plains and cities. Il rcmiains to make it on the occan. The Roman legions whom you have often initated but not yet cqualled, combated Carthage by turns on the seas and on the plains of Zama. Victory never deserted their standards because they never ceased to be brave, patient and united. Soldiers ! the eyes of Europe are upon you. You have great destinics to accomplislı, battles to fight, dangers and fatigues to overcomic. You are about to do niore than you yet have done for the prosperity of your country, the happiness of men, and for your own glory." When he approached Cairo, the city of ancient civilisations, with the great pyramids beyond, Napoleon halted his armies, and declared, “Soldiers ! from these summits forty centuries contemplate your actions." In the great desert the poetry of the man was stirred by the brooding silence, by the vast solitude around him. There were times when he forgot ambition, the intrigues of his enemies, and N N N N: ana s.com on Da ·his great schemes of Empire, while the still small voice spoke to his soul "I never passed the desert," he said later, " without experiencing very painful ambitions It was the image of immensity to my thoughts It showed no limits It had neither beginning nor end It was an ocean for the foot of time In hıs cıvıl administration he was inspired by an idealism and imagination which exalted his schemes above all the slow moving processes of social reform As regards education, for instance, he anticipated the dreams of the nineteenth century reformers, not all of which are yet realised in England "One of my grand objects," he said at St Helena, "was to render education accessible to everybody I caused every institu tion to be formed upon a plan which offered instruction to the public, either gratis, or at a rate so moderate as not to be beyond the means of the peasant The museums were thrown open to the canaille Aly canaille would have become the best educated in the world All my exertions were directed to iluminate the mass of the nation instead of brutalising them by ignorance and superstition" When we consider that it was not until 1870 that there was any system of public elementary education in England, and that our Universities are still the stronghold of caste, we must admit that Napoleon had a true spirit of liberalism far in advance of our own ideas of government in his time His desire for power was not altogether the insatiable crwng of a selfish ambition Ambition he had, vast and insatiable, but he had a sincere desire to found an Empire which would spread the gospel of liberty through Europe, and give not only to Frenchmen, but to Italians and Spaniards and Prussians and Austrians and Skedes and Dutch, and esch Englishmen, a cn il code of enlightened lus, a frecdom of advancement by talent, a liberty from the 15 ·ora res - ca N N crushing influence of hereditary and social castes. It was his mission by which he justified his conquests and his political dictatorship. We cannot believe that it was the false excuses of a man conscious of great guiltiness. To Barry O'Meara, his doctor at St. Helena, he defended himself from the charge of political criminality in remarkable words. “While walking about the room, 'What sort of a man did you take me to be before you became my surgeon ?' he said. "What did you think of my character and what I was capable of ? Give me your real opinion frankly.' “I replied, 'I thought you to be a man whose stupendous talents were only to be equalled by your measureless ambition, and although I did not give credit to one-tenth part of the libels which I had read against you, still I believed that you would not hesitate to commit a crime when you found it to be necessary, or thought it might be useful to you.' "" This is the answer that I expected,' replied Napoleon. 'I have risen to too great a pitch of human glory and elevation not to have excited the envy and jealousy of mankind. They will say it is true that he raised himself to the highest pinnacle of glory, mais pour y arriver, il commit beaucoup de crimes (but to attain it he has committed many crimes). "Now the fact is that I not only never committed any crimes, but I never even thought of doing so. J'ai toujours marché avec l'opinion des grandes masses et les événements (I have always gone with the opinion of great masses, and with events). I have always made peu de cas of the opinion of individuals, of that of the public a great deal; of what use then would crime have been to me? am too much a fatalist, and have always despised mankind too much to have had recourse to crime to frustrate their attempts. J'ai marché toujours avec l'opinion de cinq ou six millions d'hommes. N N 46 Com ·“ niy la (i hrie luis muuhed with the opinion of tive of sie millions of mon) of whit us thun roulet cum hat lonell to me? In spite of all the litrels continued he This no t t shit eier about my fim Postunts will do mt just in truth will be known, and thu gou that I have done with the faults that I luc commuttid will live compared I am not alle 14 fou thie result Ind I succeeded I should have had with the itpunten of the gruntust min tlint Lili listul ile it is alleugh I kne fulcu, I still be considered as an cilin damals man tion 179 unparalleled, because in accompanied liy olime fought fifty pitched brittles, almost all of which I las haine huc frnned and curied into clicct acolc or Inns that will lear my name to the most distint postunity I com nothing lenincul myself to be the most powui ſul monnich in the woul! sup wis at my fect My ambition in fruit, I mimit but it was on cold nnture (d'une nature froule) nel caused his ltdnements (lis cvents) and the opinion of grunt bodily I hatt alun lull of opinion thnt the sovcruignty Talel in the people In fact the imperiul government wns a kind of public Chile fethit huiul of it by the voice of the nation my nntim was li cummer interne aur talents without distinction of burth or fortune, and thlu system of equality 18 tho raison that your oligintelig linte mo NO much These words have the ring of sincurity Theyante, Indeed, the key to the ridule of his chiracter and achiciements Moro modant of his own genius thin he adultors and critica (o ratlici mere truc to buis own chius, of which, of COULEC, 11 a fully con 1048) hc admitted that lus circui was liryciy duc to circumstance iden still so firm in its hold upon the imagination of thic world, that Mapolcon at the besinning of liinc truer deliberately planned out his destiny, and th it hu rutlitennis cirued hiir way to thic you of a miglity ambition, regardless of hum in life, carichs of all mor il Ilic sh con ·20 Z N N law, trampling upon individuals who barred his way, and crushing the spirit of all nations under an iron licel-all this is a myth utterly divorced from truth. He was not a cold, calculating, farsccing man. He grappled with a political situation as he faced a military problem, quick to see where the natural advantages were on his side, quick to realise the weaknesses of the enemy, and swift lo strike a blow with full force upon the vulnerable part in his opponent's disposition. Having gained the victory he marched on triumpliantly to encounter fresh forces arrayed against him, having like a prudent general made his cncmy pay the price of defeat, and fresh combinations were observed with the same lightning glance, attacked with the same staggering force, and compelled to surl'ender to superior genius. Each success put greater power into his hands, and cach accession of power led inevitably to new hostilities with other powers who had to be overthrown. His progress therefore was a kind of inevitable sequence of events which Napolcon himself could not checl, except by the violation of his ow'n genius. Behind him also were irresistible forces which swept him onwards. He was, like all great leaders who have changed the world's history, the nian of his age. The men of Revolution, not Napolcon, had declared war against Europe. The spirit of democracy which had stirred the people of France with a passion for libcrty which swept away the old order by blood and anarchy, yet also by a new idealism founded upon the rights of humanity, was carried further than the frontiers of France. The events that followed the downfall of the Bourbon dynasty were not caused by the struggle of one ambitious man for empire. They were the inevitable consequences of a war between the spirit of the new democracy and the spirit of the old feudalism. It happened that Napoleon was the ablest man of his time, the man whose qualities of imagination, of industry, of concentration, of personal magnetism, fitted him to be the leader of these forces. But he was only the N N 48 ·I do but go 37 agent, as it were, of those forces He did not create them, he only organised and directed them Napoleon kas conscious of this himself That is what he meant when he said to O'Meara that his ambition was crused l» cients, and "l'ar marché toujours azce l opinion de cinq ou si millions d'hommes" That is uhut he meant when he called himself a man of destiny “I am," he said, "the creature of circumstances where events point out the way Again, when he identified himself with the State in words which have been denounced as the arrogance of a man blind with egotism, he was but uttering the truth that in his person and in his genius were summed up the spirit and fate of France "From the moment when we decided on the concentration of power which alone could save us,' he said to Las Cases, when uc determined on the unity of doctrines and resources which rendcied us a mighty nation, the destinies of France depended wholly upon the character, the principles and the measures of him who had been invested with the accidental dictatorship From that moment the Stalc uas myself When I said that I'ranco stood more in need of me than I of her, the solid truth was declared to be mere excess of vanity I was myself the keystonc of an edifice entirely new, and raised on a slight foundation Its stability depended on each of my battles The majority blamed my ambition as the cause of these wars But they were not my choice, they u cre the results of nature and the force of events" The truth is that the conception of Napoleon as a man who worked out a vast and deliberate ambition by ruthless mcans, and obtained a mastery ole men by the cold calculation of words and actiors, utterly distorts the real character of the man It is commonly believed that he regarded men as so many pruins upon 49 Gei สน.

·Feb IN SYE N the world's chess-board, that he did not possess, or crushed down, human feelings and affections, and trampled upon friends and foes alike in order to rise to his great height of power. It is admitted that at all times he had an extraordinary gift of winning over men and sccuring their personal allegiance and enthusiasm; and it is admitted, as a mystery, that even those naturally hostile to him, men like Captain Maitland for instance, whose prisoner he was on the Bellerophon, could not remain for any time in his company without being seduced by his personality. This is part of the charge against him. “He was a consummate actor," say those who will not credit him with any humanity. Others speak of his "personal magnetism" as though it were some mysterious emanation which stole into the senses of those who came in contact with him. But in spite of the adulation of his soldiers, and the testimonics of hundreds of witnesses to his extraordinary charm, it is still believed by the majority that Napoleon was singularly lacking in humanity, that he was indeed one of those inhuman beings who, by stilling all the ordinary impulses of human nature, become the masters of men's fate. This is absolutely the opposite of the truth. What was the secret of Napoleon's magic power over other men? It may be answered in a few words: he had a warm heart, a wide sympathy, and magnanimity. It is curious how the legend of Napoleon's "cold nature should still survive! There are so many historic anecdotes which reveal the more than ordinary sensitiveness of his soul. There is one in the memoirs of Las Cases told by Napoleon himself which shows how his emotions were stirred by things which would have been passed unnoticed by most men inured to the horrid sights of war. It was in the Italian Campaign, and he was crossing a battlefield from which the dead had not yet been carried off : N N N za 50 a.com ·"In the beautiful moonlight," said the Emperor, "and in the profound solitude of night, a dog rushing out suddenly from beneath the clothing of a corpse flew at us, and then went back almost immediately to the body, uttering piteous cries He licked his master's face again and again, and then rushed at us once more It was to secure help and to seek vengeance at the same time It may have been the mood of the moment' said the Emperor, "or the place, or the hour, or the time or the incident itself, or something or other of the kind, but it is nevertheless true, that nothing on any of my battlefields has ever created such an impression upon me I stopped involuntarily to contemplate the sight That man, I said to myself, has friends, perhaps there are some now in camp, in his company, but here he lies abandoned by all of them except his dog! What a lesson nature gives us by means of an animali" Death had no terror for Napoleon and it seemed to him a small price to pay for glory When a battle was raging round him he sat his horse unmoved by the sight of great masses of men struggling against each other in desperate combat As calmly as though he were moving pieces on a chess-board he would direct a charge of cavalry against a wall of bayonets and would watch their ranks mowed down by a deadly hurricane of bullets, with that calm inscrutable face which seldom betrayed the slightest emotion either in the moment of victory or defeat He di not sprre his soldiers either indisidually or en masse His reward for a brave min was to choose him for some perilous adventure where death lay in watch for him And the regiment which gained his warmest praise was selected to storm the strongest position or to lead the van against the enemy's centre But he knew his heroic Frenchmen He knew that they were inspired by the same carelessness of death, and that they desired no higher mark of his favour than this selection for the post of peril Never once does 51 Ghi ·N N 2016 the Emperor seem to have been filled with any remorse for the thousands of lives sacrificed in his wars. Believing as he did in a future life, and sensitive as he was to the influence of imagination, he did not have at times a vision of ghostly legions crowding round him on the other side of the great river crying curses on him for the slaughter in which they had fallen victims. On the contrary, he believed with a kind of Mohammedan fanaticism that the warriors who had fallen on his battlefields would hail hirn after death with the enthusiasm they had shown to him in life, welcoming him to the eternal shades as the great hero who had led them to glory. "In after life," he said, not altogether seriously perhaps, yet not quite jestingly, “I shall rejoin my companions in the Elysian fields, Yes, Kléber, Désaix, Bessières, Duroc, Ney, Murat, Masséna, Berthier, will come to greet me, and to talk with me of what we have done together. On seeing me they will rekindle with enthusiasm and glory, and we will discourse of our wars and glory with the Scipios, the Hannibals, with Cæsar and with Frederick, There will be pleasure in that unless”—he added smiling—" they should be alarmed below to see so many warriors assembled together." And though death seemed to him a small thing when it was the price of national honour and of that word "Glory” which was like a trumpet call to his soul and to the men who followed him to the gates of death, he was not callous or cruel. After a great battle which he had directed with extraordinary sang-froid he would show an almost womanly tenderness for the wounded. It has been attested by many of his soldiers that he frequently in the habit of riding over the field of battle after an action, accompanied by numbers of his staff, and by persons carrying restoratives of different kinds for the purpose of resuscitating any of the wounded in whom signs of life N N was C appeared. 52 ca ·Among other instances the Duke of Rovigo mentioned that after the battle of Wagram, Napoleon, accompanied by him and several others, rode over the field and pointed out for assistance many of the wounded from whom life had not yet departed While employed in this manner the body of a colonel named Pepin, who had fallen under his displeasure for some misconduct several years before and had not been actively employed until a short time before the battle of Wagran, attracted his attention He was on his back, a ball had perforated his head, and lite was not extinct, though he was insensible “Ahl Pepin, poor fellow," said Napoleon with emotion, “I am sorry to see him here, and still more so that before he met his fate I had not an opportunity of letting him know that I had forgiven him, and forgotten his conduct " When he left Moscow, outwardly calm, but inwardly crushed by a calamity which he knew to be the beginning of the end, when his army was starting, and the roads were choked by men dying through sheer exhaustion, he gave orders that every attention was to be given to the sick and wounded • Sacrifice your baggage, everything to them," he said to some of his generals "Let the waggons be devoted to their use, and if necessary, your own saddles This was the course I pursued at Jean d Acre The officers will first relinquish their horses, then the sub officers, and finally the men Assemble the generals under your command and make them sensible how necessary to these circumstances is humanity The Romans bestowed civil crowns on those who preserved their citizens 1 shall not be less grateful In one of the desperate encounters with the Russians who endeavoured to cut off the retreat of the Grand Army, Napoleon gained a victory which cost more than many a defeat There seemed to be more dead victors than living victors 53 สิว ·T N 17 N In this crowd of corpses over which it was necessary to walk in order to follow the Emperor, a horse's hoof struck a wounded man, and made him cry out with a last groan of life or pain. Napoleon, who had been very silent and gloomy at the sight of so many victims, became suddenly excited. He relieved himself by cries of indignation, and by the numbers of orders he gave for the relief of the unfortunate soldier. Somebody tried to appease him by saying it was "only a Russian," but he answered with emotion that "there were no enemies after victory, only men!” Then he dispersed the officers accompanying him so that they might give assistance to those whom they could hear groaning in every part of the field. Nor was Napoleon unmoved by the deaths of his companions-inarms, those men who were closest to him in council, who had been his generals in many a campaign and whom he had bullied and cajoled by turns with all the bluntness and tenderness of true friendship. When the news was brought to him after a skirmish outside Dresden that Duroc had been mortally wounded by a cannon ball, his grief was poignant. Giving orders that all operations should be suspended until the next day, he cried out to Berthier "Where have they carried him ? How is he, Berthier ?" Berthier told him that Duroc was lying in a house at Makersdorf and that there was no hope for him. “I must see him!” cried the Emperor. “My poor, poor Duroc!" That evening he went to the house where his comrade lay dying. Berthier and the Duke of Vicenza accompanied him. Duroc was terribly mangled and his face was shattered and unrecognizable. When the group of generals entered he turned his head and fastened his one eye upon the Emperor with the glassy stare of a dying man. He fainted, and Napoleon bending down put his arm round him and raised him up. Z. N ENS 54 ·betes "Is there no hope ?" he asked the doctors, and they answered none Presently Duroc regained consciousness, and looking up at the Emperor, murmured, “Some opium, for pity's sake!" The Emperor went frightfully pale and taking Duroc's hand pressed it to his heart. Then he staggered out of the room " It is terrible' Terrible"" he said "My poor, dear Duroc! What a loss!" He burst into tears and returned in silence to his camp When the hour came of Duroc's death, he bought some ground and gave directions for a monument to his fallen comrade He wrote out the inscription, and without a word handed to Berthier a paper on which were the following lines “Here General Duroc, Grand Marshal of the Palace to the Emperor Vapoleon, gloriously struck by a cannon ball, died in the arms of the Emperor, his friend" This was in 1$13, when Yapoleon had to face the coalition of Europe, and when his Imperial power ras tottering but be found time to make the most generous prouisions for the widow and child of the man he had loved This is only one example of many scenes of emotion over the death bed of his comrades in arms When Lannes was struck down he visited hım daily until he died, and then, pushing General Marhot on one side, he approached the corpse, kissing it and bathing it with tears " What a loss for France and for me!" he cried, then Desais died at the battle of Varengo Napoleon returned to his head quarters after the victory very gloomy and silent asked him if he trere not satisfied with the great triumph Napoleon's eyes filled with tears “Alas," he said, “poor Desaix! If I could only have embraced him after the battle shat a glonous day it would have been" His secretary 55 ber lo ·les ১ PM పున At St. Helena, when : Sul with :: wis brooding continually ever his .? Fictissi:50edyo his clownfall und of his inactivity lie miten used in sol thesis will comrades and then he would brighten up. liile with enthusiasm. "Ofzall the generalls I erer haid under 17!'," he said. “ Desilix and Kléber possessed the greatest talents; especially Des.uix, as Kléber only loved glory inasmuch as it was the means of procuring him riches and pleasures, whereas Desais lovel glory for itself and despised everything else. Desais was wiwolls wrappe tip i war and Hlory. To fim riches and pleasure were valueless, nor did lie give them a monient's thought. Pe was a little, black-looking man, about:in inch smaller than 1 m, always bully dressed, sometimes vien rugged, and despising every comfort or convenience. Wien in Egypt I made him a present of a complete field equipage several times, but he always lost il. Wrought up in it cleak Desiix threw himself unler : gun and slept is contentuilly :is if he were in at palace. Upright and latest in all his proceedings he was called ly the Arabs the just Sultan.' lle wis intender loy nature for a groot general. lililver and Desix were an irreparable losstol rounce." All this proves that Napoleon was not a cold and heartless man as he has too often been described; on the contrary, his good nature towards the men who had served with him amounted almost to weakness. not ignorant that many abused his generosity. With Fouché as the governor general of an army of spics, Napolcon was kept well informed of the private life and correspondence of his generals when any were beyond his own vigilance, and he so closely directed his military operations in every part of Europe that he was not to be deceived by the blunders or the disobedience of his officers. Yet he could never bring himself to punish them severely. Habit was a second nature to him, as it is with smaller men, and he hated to remove from his side counsellors whom he had once trusted or comrades who had 6 He was N Zoo ffe 56 Jotai cha osobe ·+ A * N y

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·fought with him When Bourrienne, hıs old school chum, betrayed his trust in the most flagrant way, being guilty not only of corruption but of actual treachery, and correspondence with the exiled Bourbons, Napoleon only removed him from his diplomatic offices and warned him of his severe displeasure He deseried death, but Napoleon remembered that he hnd becn the friend of his school days, and was merciful With his generals Napoleon was always 'bon camarade' There were times when his temper was quite beyond control, and he would storm at them with the fiercest indignation But, to use a colloquial expression, luis bark was always worse than his bite, and after one of these scenes he would quickly calm down and make amends to them by affectionate gestures and expressions During the campaign of Moscow, the Duke of Vicenza, after a violent controversy with him, left headquarters in the sulks and retired to a garret He sent in his resignation to Napoleon and asked him for a command in Spain Napoleon sent back the letter, and he had put at the end of it in vile, illegible handu riting "I do not want you to be killed in Spain Come and see mc I am waiting for you" For a time the Duke of Vicenza refused to make peace, and lic was persunded to go back with Berthier to the headquarters When Napoleon saw him he laughed, and stretching out lus hand, said "You know that we are Ithe two lovers and cannot get on without cach other" In that same fatal campaign, disastrous from the outset and increasing in accumulated hori or from seek to wech, many violent quarrels took place His field marshals, Murat, Ney, Droust, Morticr and Duroc, some other officers, and the Comte de Ségur, did not hesitate to urge hum to retrcat before it should be too late, and did not scruplc to N 57 ·తకు N Rotor put before him, in the plainest and most brutal way, the frightful physical sufferings of the army, to which Napoleon himself seemed blind. He tried to brush aside their arguments. He tried to animate them with some of his own fatalistic belief that all would be right, that fate itself demanded a forward movement into the heart of Russia. " He seemed," said the Comte de Ségur, one of these intimate counsellors," as if he wanted to unburden his heart of the weight which oppressed him, and to seek in the complacency of his generals, or in their ardour, some encouragement in spite of the facts and in spite of himself." He spoke brightly, excitedly, and without interruption. But when he paused his comrades in arms did not give him the words he wanted. Murat and Berthier, among others, hield to their opinions previously expressed, and overwhelmed him with their doubts. “ Napoleon,” says the Comte de Ségur, “irritated to discover again in his two first-lieutenants that same uneasiness which he tried to struggle against himself, abandoned himself to anger against them. . . He burst out furiously against them. .. When his passion had spent itself in a torrent of words, he called them back, but this time the malcontents held aloof. The Emperor then made amends for his excitability by caresses, calling Berthier ' his wife,' and his outbursts domestic quarrels.'" With his men and junior officers Napoleon did not indulge in such freedom of speech. Though he was always familiar with them it was the familiarity of a great man who recognises and is prepared to enforce his authority. But everyone knew his favourite gesture of approval—the pinching of a man's ear. It was a proud day when any private soldier of the legion was called into the presence of the Emperor. It would be a great grenadier perhaps, a giant of a man with long black hair and drooping moustaches, and the French uniform all ragged and soiled during the ardours of a long campaign, and he would come trembling and blushing like a big 17 N so y 58 oh ܚܨ.

·Styy easy booby to his great little man with the piercing cyes Then the Emperor would take him by the tassels, drawing him towards him in a kind of embrace, and say, "My friend, I hear you have done bravely I wish to give you my thanks France and the Emperor are proud of you How would you like to be sergeant of a company, eh? or will you take this despatch through the enemy's lines? It 18 a mission for a gallant fellow who is not afraid of death' Then he would pinch the fullow's car, asking after his wife or his sweetheart, and the man would go away with his ear tingling, and his heart on fire with a new enthusiasm That was the way Napoleon made himself adored He stooped to conquer Once, when he was at Alilan, he had just mounted his horse when a dragoon, all dusty and on foot, uued with an important despatch Napoleon give a verbal answer and ordered the courier to take it back at full speed "I have no horse" said the man "I rode him so hard that it fell dead at your palace gates" Napoleon got down from lus own horse "Take this," he said Then, seeing the man hesitate, he said "You think him too splendidly caparisoned, too fine an animal, eh? No, my friend, nothing is too good for a French soldier" "Nothing is too good for a French soldier" They were not words of insincerity Napoleon by a thousand little acts of good nature and generosity proved that he had the comfort and honour of his men at heart The story of hos at Arcole he stood guard in place of the sentry who had fallen asleep is well known, and has been made the subject of a famous picture It was a wonderful act of comradeship The man was guilty of death, but Napoleon, though he vras a strict disciplinarian, was also very human When the man an ole and discovered his Emperor holding his gun he was overwhelmed 59 Gha ·N with horror, but Napoleon's quiet words of reproof made him ready to die for such a general, and the story told round the camp fires warmed the hearts of every man in the army. It is no wonder they loved le petit caporal, a title conferred on him by soldiers who recognised that he was their comrade as well as their officer. "Never yet, I believe," said Napoleon, "has there been such devotion shown by soldiers to their general as mine have displayed towards me. At Arcole Colonel Minron threw himself before me, covered my body with his own, and received the blow which was intended for me. He fell at my feet, and his blood spurted up in my face. In all my misfortunes never has the soldier been wanting in fidelity-never has man been served more faithfully by his troops. With the last drop of blood gushing from their veins they cried • Vive Napoleon !'” Immersed in all the political problems of his Empire, having to defend his position, or to strengthen it by almost continual warfare, Napoleon at the time took a personal interest in the welfare of the humblest of those who served him. A page-boy writing to his mother told her proudly of how he was treated by the Emperor on a journey in wet weather. The boy was drenched to the skin, and seeing his condition Napoleon got down from the carriage and told him to put up at a post-house and get dry and warnı. "I know," said the youth, " that the Emperor sent several times to enquire after my health." Once his valet, Constant, had a fall from his horse. "The First Consul at once stopped his horses, gave orders to have me lifted up, and showed how I ought to be treated. I was taken to the barracks at Rueil, and before going on he insisted upon knowing that I was out of danger. On the day I went back to his service he came and asked after my health in the kindest manner." 1 N N N: N 60 NOEL ·When he reyten ed his troops, either in time of peace or war, it was not a mere ceremony to enhance his own magnificence He went down the ranks, having the hatersacks unbuttoned, eramın. ing their contents, opening the tunics and seeing whether the cloth and the linen were of good quality, and he asked the men as to their comfort and happiness, personal tastes and ambitions He was specially interested in the youngest soldiers and behaved to them in a fatherly way, showing the most affectionate solicitude for their welfare, so that they were inspired with the highest enthusiasm for his personality He was not a great Emperor lifted up to such a supreme height of power that his common soldiers were merely unknown units in his army These men felt that he had a friendly feeling for each one of them, for eren the youngest and humblest recruit Nor in the later days of his career did he gic praise only to those veterans who had fought under him in many battles Thc younger men had their share of glory The magic of Napoleon's personality is only half explained by these stories pluched from the notebooks of men who knew lum on the battlefield and in the Chambers of State It is difficult to analyse that charm which won over esen his enemies when they came in direct touch with him Part of it, no doubt, was due to huis admirable simplicity In the beginning of his carcer he was too intent upon his work in hand to trouble about a pose he was direct and blunt, going straight to the heart of a subject In those days he was even a little uncouth, especially with somen, but all except a few, itke Madame de Stael, whose vanity hc rrounded ly not responding with gallantry to their arrs and graces, kere bewitched by this handsome, simple young man with the burning cyes and the smile of unaffected good nature, who, in spite of the manners of a bourgeois or because of them, hid the conscious authority of a man not to be fooled by phrases This simplicity hc In his speech GI ·----- mw- - At yder ว N carricd into Courts and Camps. Alexander of Russia, simple also, like most men of acknowledged greatness, destined cither by their own forcc of character, or as in the Czar's case, by hereditary right to be the rulers of men's lives, ivas won over in spite of all political differences, lry, thic character of the man who at Tilsit was the dominant spirit of European destinics. The conquering general, the intrigucr, the adventurer, was not apparcnt, it was the man who revealed himself, the man of blunt good nature, of unaffected manners, entirely lacking in pomposity or self-consciousness, or petty vanity; the bourgeois who was proud of having sprung from the people, and of having shared their poverty, who mct a king or a peasant will tlies:me desireto acquire new knowledge, with the same readiness to discuss the problems of life as man to man, throwing aside ctiquette and ceremony as foolishness for triflers. It was this simplicity which astonished and almost awed those who approached him. A vain man may be flattered, a pompous man may be fooled hy mock liumility, a brutal man may be rebuked by silent scorn, a man who surrounds himself with all the ctiquette of grandeur may bc betrayed by those who bow low to him, and cheated by those who walk backwards blinking, as though he were the sun which blinded them. But when an Emperor has none of these vanities, which hic treats his counsellors as "bons camarades," taking off his coat to examine their reports or their budgets, as though he were a shop-keeper looking through his week's accounts with an eye on the half-pence, then high officers of State have to be very careful. So he behaved when he was dictating in peace or shuffling the court cards of Europe. He went about the business in a direct way, sans cirémonic. Yet this simplicity did not come from a lack of dignity. On occasions when ceremony was necessary there was no man invested with more personal grandeur, no man who could play a high part with more consummate impressiveness. 62 ola ·The.. That little man-five feet two in his stockings—then dominated the greatest assembly by his presence, by the stateliness of his movements and features, by the imperiousness of lus glance And he had at these times an almost sublime eloquence Dropping his colloquial speech he thundered out majestic phrases full of fire and impressive in their solemn oratory They were not the mere empty phrases of a florid imagination--" sound and fury signifying nothing" They were speeches of the imperial mind, with broad Ideals and vast knowledge They came from an imagination that had been truly starred by the great scenes of life, and by the inspiration of history The past spoke to Napoleon, the memory of old heroes of earlier civilisations haunted him, and he addressed the world with the authority of a man who believed himself to be the successor of the great Icaders of humanity in former ages With all his good nature too, and that familiarity of specch and gesture which endeared him to the men wliom he called "his children," his wrath was rather terrible Once moved to anger, his face, clearly chiselled as though car cd out of marble, had a frown before shich giants who could have lifted him up with one hand trembled and grew pale His eyes glowed with a fierce heat which seemed to scorch the very soul of those who offended him But, reading all the memoirs about him written by those who both loved and hated him, one must confess that his mastcry over men was not produced chiefly by fear Perhaps his greatest poser of attraction was the extraordinary gift he had of making everyone feel that he took a personal and special interest in the particular person he happened to be talking to The man might be a king, a general, a diplomatist or a simple dragoon, but in five minutes' conversation Napoleon induced that man to believe that he, the great Emperor, was closely interested in the private life, the opinions and the character of this new acquuntance That was not altogether a pose, though Napoleon Incs, as he confessed, 63 ·S T: N how to play upon human nature. But the truth is that Napoleon was interested. He had an insatiable curiosity and zest for knowledge. He felt that there was no man living who could not teach him something. He would question a young recruit from a remote province of France about his home and neighbourhood, about the problems of work and poverty in his district, about the social customs and political opinions of the peasants. He would interrogate a king or a great statesman, or a foreign surgeon, or journalist, in exactly the same way upon broader problems of national life. No subject was too great, none too petty, to be above or below his keen observation and interest. It had the effect of impressing anyone with whom he conversed with the idea that the Emperor had a high opinion of his intelligence, and that he distinguished him as a superior character. That is what makes for personal loyalty. It is always pleasant to enter into conversation with a great leader, but when the great person condescends to ask for information and advice, it flatters the vanity of the human heart. This habit of interrogation and of interest in every human soul that came in touch with him, had naturally a profound influence upon Napoleon himself. He was not a great reader, though he had studied Plutarch's Lives, and knew a good deal of ancient history, and was not ignorant of the masters of his own literature. His life was too full of war and administration to allow him much time for reading, though there were always a few books in his baggage on any campaign, to which he would turn after an exhausting day. But, while giving him credit for a literary education beyond the ordinary opportunities of a man of action, it is certain that his knowledge was not chiefly derived from books. It was due mainly to his intercourse with men, and to that manner of conversation already described. It was thus that he became marvellously well informed, and he stored up in a retentive memory a host of facts N FC T 64 ·BONAPARTE. Premier Consul RONA ARTE IR 41FR COSSIL 16

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·In Italy, NE which astonished men who had been life long students in Egypt, in Spain, and Germany, he had observed with keen eyes, and questioned everybody The religious traditions, the national character, the systems of taxation, of drainage, of agriculture, and the social habits of many peoples were familiar to him and provided him with texts for his philosophy Although he was curiously ignorant of many elementary rules of the British constitution, and had strong and natural prejudices against us, he was a shrewd judge of the English character and had a profound admiration for our best qualities and advantages With Barry o Mieara, his doctor at St Helena, he entered into long discussions about English politics and life, and even during "the last phase,' when, like a golden engle chained to a rock, he pined at the torture of his inactivity and humiliation, he still showed the same old desire for information So it was thnt Napoleon was never at a loss in any company, or upon any topic of conversation To a poet, painter, medical man, philosopher, or lawyer—to any man of any profession, he had something to say that was starting in its revelation of an extra ordinary knowledge His keen sense of logic, his orderly mind, lus gift for getting to the heart of a problem, his breadth of view enabled him to discuss any subject with real authority From given facts he would deduce general laws, sometimes wrong, but often profound in their knowledge of human nature, and always interesting Here then we get at some explanation of his personality, but if we ask, what was the first cause of his success, what was the secret of that power which lifted him to his prodigious height? there is only one answer-efficiency Napolcon became Emperor of the French bechuse he was the most efficient man for the task of governing Frince and carrying its ideas beyond the norrosy boundaries of that nation After all, what we are pleased to call the secret of lus soul was summed up 65 ·Fan N N in that one word. His mighty genius which awed the world and still awes us, seems to be something mysterious and supernatural. Yet what is genius ?-the art of taking pains, or as Napoleon himself said the talent of perseverance. Whatever he did, he did with absolute concentration of mind, with a resolute determination to do it thoroughly, with an intelligence and industry which enabled him to achieve the desired result simply and swiftly. He was the most industrious man in France. No clerk in the Civil Service worked more laboriously, nor for longer hours. He never shirked drudgery, and, though he had vast ideas, he delighted in detail. As head of the State, he looked closely into the affairs of every department. No detail of administration was too insignificant to escape his attention. He delved into masses of figures with the acute intelligence of a chartered accountant. He was, in fact, the chartered accountant of his own Empire. Every phase of social life which affected the well-being of his subjects came under his scrutiny. Religion, education, agriculture, commerce, literature, art and the drama, the problems of work and wages, of sanitation and building, and a thousand other branches of national or local importance were studied with that orderly brain which took commonsense and intensely practical views of things, not untouched, however, by an imagination and idealism which made them part of a broad and liberal philosophy. We know what he did for religion and education. His Concordat with the Pope reopened the churches and checked those waves of atheism and anarchy which threatened to destroy France and hand it over to the foul fiends of internal strife and national depravity. He established a system of education far in advance of the most liberal ideas of other nations. We know what he did to establish a just and merciful law. The Code Napoleon is still the model of all civil codes, and the admiration of the greatest lawyers of our own times. So, in a thousand ways, he endeavoured to establish N N N 66 sh or on 0 ·the welfare of his people and to raise the moral and intellectual tone of the nation Before or after a battle on which his own destiny depended he would write instructions to his officers of state upon the most varied subjects Here is one on the question of journalism, sent by Napoleon at Osterade to the Alinister of the Interior "An effective mode of encouraging literature," he wrote, "would be to establish a journal with an enlightened criticism, free from that coarse brutality which characterises the existing newspapers, and which is so contrary to the true interests of the nation Journals now never criticise with the intention of repressing mediocrity, guiding inexperience, or encouraging rising merit All their endeavour is to wither, to destroy Articles should be selected for journals where reasoning is mingled with eloquence, where praise for deserred meritis tempered with censure for faults Merit, however inconsiderable, should be sought for and rewarded' He had a profound desire to raise the literature of France to its former high place, and though we may smile at the simplicity of a man who desired to organise and direct literary genius according to the methods by which he had organised the first army in Europe out of disorderly masses of all armed peasants, we cannot but wonder at the extraordinarily wide interests and the indomitable industry of the Dictator Nor were his criticism and advice without a good deal of sound sense Writing to Cambacérès from Berlin, in 1807, he said—" They the army is endeavouring to the utmost to do honour to the next? literature is doing everthing to dishonour it I hair ni wretched verses sung at the Opera They are her? ridiculous to order a poet to write an eclogue as part maker to make a muslin gown In 1806 when he was in the heart of Patio the task of reviewing a play called Irs Totes l 3 ·Fest NE N The nature of things," he wrote, "is the only motive power that may be used in tragedy; it is politics that icad to catastrophes without any rcal crime, and Monsicur Raynouard has missed that point in his play. Had he followed that principle, Philippe le Bel might have been a finc character; we should have pitied him, and understood that lic could not do otherwise. Nothing proves how littic rcal knowledge authors possess of the springs and motives of tragedy than the criminal procceuings that they set before us on the stage." He took an intense interest in the National Theatres, and not only directed their programmes of pieces to be performed, but superintended their financial arrangements. He also gave Imperial patronage to the best actors; for Talma especially he had a personal affection, dating from his youth, when he got free seats from him. It is amusing to read a notc in his correspondence for 1807 : "If things do not go better at the Opera," he wrote, “I will put in a good soldier to manage then who will wake them up." No doubt as a literary critic Napolcon was not immense. But as a patron he was wonderfully gencrous, and acknowledged the dignity of the fine arts. When it was proposed to grant a pension of .£12 to the descendants of Corneille for whose genius he had the most enthusiastic devotion, he wrote, in 1813, when his Empire was tottering to its fall: " It would be unworthy the acceptance by a man of whom we should make a King. My intention is to make the oldest member of the family a Baron with a pension of 10,000 francs. I shall also give a Barony to the head of the other branch with a pension of 4,000 francs if they be not brothers; as for the daughters, let me know their ages, and I will grant then such a pension as will enable them to live." When Napoleon was abroad fighting battle after battle, dethroning and sctting up Kings and altering the boundaries of N N 2 EN: CS is.com ·BASSI nations, it was not a case of "when the cats anay the micc wil play' The "mice" in France, smail admmistrators, heads of departments, town councillors, and other sersants of the State, found that "the cat" had a very long sight and a vcry long arm Despatches or brief messages, drted from the field of battle or from foreign courts reached them, and gave them a rude asahening if they had been somnambulent If they had been guilty of defrauding the public or disobeying their Emperor s commands, they were very sharply called to order though Napolcon might bu a thousand miles anay To the Minister of the Interior Napoleon wrote from Madrid "Send me a short report about the works I have ordered Ноу is the Bourse getting on? Is the Content of the rilles Saint Thomas destroyed yet? Is the building rising? What is being donc at the Arc de Triomphe ? The new kine depôt, the new gianaries, and the Madeleine, are they all making progress? Shall I drive over the bridge of Jena on my return?' When he returned to Fontainebleau, after the Treaty of Vienna, he sat down immediately and wrote to his Minister of the Interior "In the faubourgs of Saint Denis and Sunt Martın there are three pumps without water The inhabitants of these faubourgs think it is owing to carelessness Send me a report upon the matter" When lic was on the way to Prussia in 1806, at a time when it might be thought his shole mind was absorbed by the vast mbtary problem in front of him, he sent back a note to Paris ** Ask Monsieur Denon whether it be true that entrance to the Mluscum was postponed yesterday and that inconvenience was thereby caused to the public Nothing could haie been more opposed to my wishes" It may be imagined that with this attention to ci cry detail of State, Napoleon had few idle hours The truth is that fic 115 E3 ·7457 only N N never idle, and his only relaxation from one kind of work was to plunge with new zest into other work. His unfortunate secretaries would have been worse than slaves but for the genuine kindness and indulgence with which the Emperor treated them. He had mercy upon them, never on himself. With a cast-iron constitution in his best years he was careless of any discomfort and had amazing physical endurance. Two or three hours' sleep satisfied him, and for nineteen hours he continued to work indefatigably, dictating despatches to officers in every part of the world, to all his ministers at home, to people of every rank and class. His correspondence to his family was enormous, and though he carried upon his shoulders the cares of war and peace, he never forgot to acknowledge a service or to send a friendly message to old friends. In addition to the correspondence dictated by himself he had to deal with reports from every part of his Empire, which he read with absolute concentration of mind, even in his hut or in his coach, in an arduous campaign, and taking each document, and sending back detailed instructions. One day when he had dictated some of these instructions to one of his secretaries he came back to find the man asleep with the work undone. The poor wretch was exhausted by a long day's labour and nature had overmastered him. When he awoke he discovered the document written out fully in Napoleon's own handwriting, which he had taken great pains to make legible, It would require a volume adequately to describe the Emperor's vast fields of industry. Stress has been laid upon his attention to affairs of State, but it must not be forgotten that first and foremost he was a soldier. The details of his military organisation would alone have been sufficient to crush any man of ordinary intellectual energy and endurance. He superintended every branch of his army, he inspected the clothing, the victualling, the arms and ammunition of his troops, and he was a master of every N 70 cha coban ·department He knew the cost of a uniform down to the last farthing and the length of time required to make it Woe betide the contractor who defrauded or delayed He had a technical know ledge of ammunition and could test it as an expert If there kas any flaw in 1 musket or a bayonet he detected it at once and launched his wrath upon the offending mal ers He was not to be deceived by any rascally business man who put commercial profit first and patriotism second We wanted a Napoleon in the Boer War) His correspondence shous how he rudited the accounts and tested the equipment of his army The brend is bad and for the meat we pay ten sous to the contractor #hereas the butcher only charges etght sous The shoes are not worth thirty sous The military cloaks are absurdly short some of them do not reach the knees The horses have cost twenty francs more than they ought to have cost The flax is excellent when it comes to buying at worthless when it comes to paying for it When any of his subordinates fudged him off sth escuses or false information Napolcon looked at them with 1stonshment and indignation Do you think I dont know better than that he would say imagine that I am without knowledge or cxperience? By instinct as well as by truning a mathematician he was amazingly rapid in his calculations and could easily discover any error in figures By this means he was able to check many false accounts and carly in his career it was recognised by departmental officials that corrupt practices did not pay They sere too easily discovered Perhaps this essay on Napoleon s personality has travelled too far from his psychological evolution, but after all it is by a mans method of works and by his system of life that we may understand the sny in which his spirit mosed Napoleon's ideals would harc been sithout issue either of success or failure unless he had given them a practical effect by indonntable industry, and by an iron determination to secure success So far this examination has Do you 71 ·4157 N dealt with the man chiclly in his days of triumph, and when his genius had its fullest strength. But Napoleon's soul must be revealed also when failure closed upon him and wore down his migliły intellect. There is no doubt that the Russian campaign of 1812-13 was the time when his genius began to decline. He had lived at too high pressurc. His incessant labours had proved too much even for his own endurance, and the greatness of his success was the cause of his ultimate ruin. The political circumstances of his downfall need not be considered here. They belong to the history of the world rather than to the personality of Napoleon himself. While his power depended upon himself he had succeeded always and irresistibly, but, when he had to delegate his authority to vassal kings and to generals beyond the immediate reach of liis command, his system weakened immediately and the forces he had stirred up in Europe surged back upon him. Napoleon having turned a continent into an armed camp, the vanquished only waited to recover from defeat to attack the giant victor. One by one lie had crushed his enemics but they formed an alliance of despair which for a tinic buried all previous feuds among themselves. England also had produced the man of destiny-two men indeed, who were dccrccd by fatc to frustrate the over-ambitious schemes of one who had no doubt stopped beyond the boundaries marked out for him. Nelson guarded the great waters, and by securing the supremacy of the sea against France destroyed Napoleon's dreams of becoming the Dictator of the World. Then Wellington came, and in the Peninsular war gave blow after blow to Napoleon's power by defeating his generals tine after time. There were many other causes thich led to the destruction of Napoleon's imperial rule-the vastness of the arena which he had to cover with his troops, the exhaustion of France after having been drained for years of its best blood, the reaction which follows a period of national excitement and cnthusiasm. These we may leave to the historian. IN N 72 ola olan ·Beccaffe N But in the soul of Napoleon himself there were the sceds of destruction By 1812 he had reached his zenith The bow had been stretched long enough, and then was bound to slacken If we follow him in his career after that date we shall see that, in spite of repeated revelations of his old energy, the man was getting tired in spite of superb efforts of will, he was losing his old authority and self confidence And as a fatalist, believing firmly in predestination, his first reverses cast a gloom over him Не foresaw his own failure even before it was prophesied by his enemies From 1812 onwards he was a man not impelled forward by supernatural forces but fighting against fate This 15 clearly brought out in the masterly and tragic narratic of the Russian campaign by the Comte de Ségur Through all that progress of tragedy Napoleon was haunted by gloomy forebodings Lien when he rejected the advice of all his counsellors before grappling with the Russian bear, it was evident that he went forward in this final policy of conquest against his own instincts and secret promptings To O Meara in St Helena he said, as already quoted, that he marched always with the opinion of five or six millions of men In this case it was not so He was alone in his decision Unlike the usual swiftness of his execution when his plan was decided he lingered on in Paris, delaying the attack upon the Czar of whose Empire he was continually jealous, not with the petty jealousy of vain man but with the jealousy of one who desired to have no bulwark of barbarism checking the progress of an Imperial rule founded upon liberal principles and ideals That at least was his own definition of his antagonism to the Czars autocracy In Paris Napoleon stayed surrounded by his nobles who were terrified of the events in view "Thesc, says the Comte de Segur have nothing more to gain, they have much to l ecp thus their personal interest is united to the general wish of the people who are tired of war, and without contesting 73 can ·Googte N dealt with the man chiefly in his days of triumph, and when his genius had its fullest strength. But Napoleon's soul must be rcvcaled also when failure closed upon him and wore down his mighty intellect. There is no doubt that the Russian campaign of 1812-13 was the time when his genius began to decline. He had lived at too high pressure. His incessant labours had proved too much cven for his own endurance, and the greatness of his success was the cause of his ultimate ruin. The political circumstances of his downfall need not be considered here. They belong to the history of the world rather than to the personality of Napoleon himself. While his power depended upon himself he had succeeded always and irresistibly, but, when he had to delegate his authority to vassal kings and to generals beyond the immediate reach of his command, his system weakened immediately and the forces he had stirred up in Europe surged back upon him. Napoleon having turned a continent into an armed camp, the vanquished only waited to recover from defeat to attack the giant victor. One by one he had crushed his enemies but they formed an alliance of despair which for a time buried all previous feuds among themselves. England also had produced the man of destiny-two men indeed, who were decreed by fatc to frustrate the over-ambitious schemes of one who had no doubt stepped beyond the boundaries marked out for him. Nelson guarded the great waters, and by securing the supremacy of the sea against France destroyed Napoleon's dreams of becoming the Dictator of the World. Then Wellington came, and in the Peninsular war gave blow after blow to Napoleon's power by defeating his generals time after time. There were many other causes which led to the destruction of Napoleon's inperial rule--the vastness of the arena which he had to cover with his troops, the exhaustion of France after having been drained for years of its best blood, the reaction which follows a period of national excitement and enthusiasm. These we may leave to the historian. N N N 72 ha ·N enemies But in the soul of Napoleon himself there were the seeds of destruction By 1812 he had reached his zenith The hou hud been stretched long enough, and then 17s bound to sucken Tre follow him in his carcer after that date se shall see that, in spite of repeated resclations of his old energy, the man was getting tired in spite of superb efforts of will, he 175 losing his old authority and self confidence And is a fatalist, helicung Armly in predestination, his first reverses cist a gloom over him foresaw his own failure cien before it was prophesied by fun From 1812 onwards he was a man not impelled foru ard by supernatural forces but fighting against fate This is clearly brought out in the masterly and tragic narrative of the Russian campaign by the Comte de Ségur Through all that progress of tragedy Napolcon was haunted by gloomy forehodings Even when he rejected the advice of all his counsellors before grappling suth the Russian bear, it was evident that ho hent forsard in this final policy of conquest gunst lies on instincts and secret promptings To O Mcara in St Helena he said, as rendy quoted, that he marched alu zys with the opinion of fue or six millions of men In this case it was not so He was alone in his decision Unlike the usual skiftness of his execution when his plan was decided he iingered on in Paris delaying the attick upon the Czar, of whose Empire he tras coatinually jealous, not with the petty jealousy of a vala man but ith the gealousy of one sho desired to have no bulmark of tartanism checking the progress of an Imperial rule foca'silon liberal principles and Ideals That, at least, iras E sona de bastion of his antagonism to the Cants autocracy la Par \apoleon stayed surrounded by his nobles, "sho were tersectte er ents in Vick says the Comte de Segur, Ezre cothing more to far, thcy have much to keep, thus berpaceat interest 19 united to the general wish of the people who ze tired of war, and without contestira "These GY mah dominant

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·positions at the same time, but only one, and always with full forcel" But his secret doubts increase and he becomes anxious and agitated He prepares a kind of report on the political situation in every country in Europe and is absorbed in the study of it. "His anxiety increases" says the Comte de Segur "Irresolution is a torture to him Often one sees him leaning back on a sofa where he stays several hours plunged in profound meditation Then he bounds up suddenly, convulsa ely, and with exclamations He believes he heard someone utter his name, and he cries out. Who calls me?' Then getting up and walking up and down in great agitation he says aloud, 'No, certainly, nothing has sufficiently settled down round me, not even at home, for such a distant war It must be postponed for three years!' That was not the old Napoleon either physically or mentally That indecision, anxiety to persuade himself, restlessness of movement and general agitation, reveal some change in him not characteristic of the man who in his best days always knew his own mind and carried it out calmly and swiftly It seems probable that at this time he had the germs of a disease in him which afterwards caused his death He was conscious of this himself, and said that he had in him the beginning of that which would carry him off But undoubtedly his mental powers were losing their grip upon the vast problem he had created When at last he set out from Dresden-where a concourse of petty kings did homage to hım-towards the heart of Russia, he was gloomy and very silent Sensitive always to natural surroundings, he, like many among his troops, seemed to be appalled by the mournful, barren and lifeless solitude through which they marched For a long time not an enemy appeared to bar the way. These tramping legions seemed alone in the world League after league they marched, at first through oppressive heat, then under torrential rains, then through 7$ sh ·ޑް.-- T::: . ޑީ. . "ޑެޑް ... " ޑޭޑް : ********** * :ބަސްތު.. :5 ބު- .-1:....* ** -... :::: :: ..ނ.* .ކީ..... . ."!... ---ނލް ޑީ. ކައިއާ....ޑް:3- :ސ.ސ.ޑީ"; .C ޑާ.... ހ ---ސާ ބޯޑް - : :::::+؟"i.c: ".." "ޑު ،: ... :)': .! 2- ހާމިދާ { ޑް..ގީ . . ސީ. އީސާ > :...** ....... :* *] :ނޑެޑް:-- ބީސީ.ސީ.ސީ ގެ : ....؟ ޕަ:: ބ. ކާ** .....- -* .9 ކަޑްބޭންޑް ޑީ- ސޫއާބާ:-ނ-ޑީ ޑެން... . ސ: ސ.ސީ މީސްބީބީ ހީވީ: ""= ::ޝާ: ބިޓީ. ޑީ. ޑީބީސީ::ޕް:: "; ; - ޕޭ ބައޭ،: ..... . .... ." ބޯ4 ..ޗ - ފި.ސ ސާ" ގަޑެ.ޑީ --- .ގެ ނަގޫ ހަ...؟ " މިޝާ ﷲ. .ހި :::ކ =[ބޮޕެނީ ----ގ : •2 ,"ޑް.ޑީ: މާ::: ..." -:އިންސާ::g.- - .--* ::ސިމާ ޑީ.ގެ ހަޒާ,".::...... .ރި...* * ** -14ގެ ނަނީ” ސަ... .އަގީރާ ކަސް، އޯކާ ޝޯ ބިގް :::: ޕް ކަސް ކަސް މީސްr " ::ގޭލި-4.1 ...ނކީ. ހިޓް:4 :ފ. 5..!ހިޑޭ :4 ފ. 4 -- > މި5ސޫސާ -ނނާ ކީގަ ބާޒާ ....—": ... ...ނިޒާ:4 .. ޖީ- 4:؟ - 2"ބީ ބޭބީސީ"އޭ ޑް---:ޚިގބސް ފ.ސީ...z 2.6 : "* • | . * -ނސަ5 =- - .. “ “ޑީގައި ;ބަ: ހަޘަމާއްދާ :-; : އ) 2" :ކާ -==ނ ޝީސ ... ނަމާ ސީގެ ސީސީ ބީ. ވެ 2 232 ބޮލޫކީ މިޑް ވާހަޚަ:: 22 25:: : :ޑިޝާލީ -ޑު ޒީރޯ" ,"ހ"(( ޖެހޭ ::('ހ ހީކީ: ކީގާ == އިޓް ,ބ:- ;. މީނައަކީ ކާޓީ..އީ ::: : 4K.ސީ.ސީ، 21 ;(, ...ހި][" "ތާފީ" (1) 7 (ފޕެ) 25. . .ހޮރަޝާއޮ==ޓީޝްގެ: ނަޤަޝާ އާ ގޯތީގެ ބިއްވާ ކީބާ؟ ބޮޑީ ބިމާއާ ބެހޭ ޚަ:NG .ހިނނާ ... ޑެރިޓީ ޓްގާޑް :، (ގާފާޒާ (އާ ނ: -އޮޒީޒާހން ,ބނި ސޮއި: ހަ4.3 ސަކާއި<= . :-އާ ކެ.ޤާ ,(ވިހި) .-7- : ނ. ޑޮބިނޑާޒާސް 25 [ :: :: 45 = 22: 2175 - tireố ai be reac33- 2022cha, -52-22 a - sޖް 4 މިނިޓް ސީ ޑީ ޖެބީ["ބީހި (7ގާ ޘަޤާ2ފ" (ޤު ;ސ ބޮޑެ,=c އޮންނަ ޝަޑީ ކޯސް، ޓީ ހަކާ؛ :ޤު 'ޑީ ސީޕީ .2 ބޮޑީސް ބެޑް ގަޑީ ސާޗް ޑީ ޑެx : zهلا c cކިއާޘާސީޑީގާ .ބޮސްg22 ލާ &ޝައާގަޓޤްސާ -2 ޖެ:r:1ޑގިނީ މީހާގެ ޕް;(:. [32: mu: 1 nesch on 39 Moscow aná capture the cocert czpitzl ci ibe ފާ Y. .1 བྱས ....

·Empire His marshals protested, piteously, violently Their men were dropping on all sides with disease and exhaustion The sufferings of this army before which the enemy disappeared were too terrible Napoleon turned on them with wrath To Berthier and others he said, " I have made my generals too rich They no longer aspire to anything but the pleasures of the chase, or to dazzle Paris by their sumptuous carriages Undoubtedly they are disgusted with war!" And these men who had been the heroes of many great campaigns bowed their heads and resigned themselves to fate To Duroc eten, his greatest friend, who still persisted in presenting accurate reports of the condition of the army, the Emperor showed his disapproval by a cold silence He admitted that he saw well enough that the Russians wanted to draw him on Nevertheless it was absolutely necessary to go as far as Smolensk That was the key to the two great roads to Moscow and St Petersburg He must seize the place, establish himself until the spring and then if peace were not declared, march on to the tuo capitals and dictate his terms To Smolensk, therefore, he led luis legions, and a hundred thousand men of the Russian army barred tlic way Napolcon at the sight of his enemy was transported with joy He clapped his hands and cried out "At last I have them !" He launched his men against the fortifications and they went forward in a storm of firc which decimated their ranks The engagement stopped only when the night came, and then a drcadful silence reigned over the city till presently there rose great columns of smoke, the glamour of a strange light, then a flight of sparks, and at last great tongues of fire in different directions Presently they united and formed a vast flame which spread right oser Smolensh, and devoured the city with a sinister rorr n ·N: N: Napoleon, sitting outside his hut, watched this terrible sight silently. The cause of it was still undiscovered and the army passed the night under arms. At three o'clock in the morning a non-commissioned officer crept close to the walls and entered the city. Around him there was absolute silence until suddenly he was startled by the sound of voices. They were the voices of some Polish volunteers serving on the French side, who also had come to reconnoitre. And they had discovered the secret of the great fire and of the great silence. Smolensk was abandoned by its inhabitants who had set fire to their own houses. Napoleon, when the news was brought to him, seemed calm and undismayed. He ordered the army to take possession of the city; with drums beating and bugles sounding the men marched through the gates into a city of destitution. It was a pageant without spectators, a victory without fruit, a triumph of despair. The soldiers who had marched so far in the hope of getting rest and food and the glory of a great victory, found themselves in hopeless misery. The wounded were without bandages or medical requirements, and the abandoned city, burning in every direction, provided no supplies. It was then that Napoleon's generals, staggered by the catastrophe, quarrelled with each other and with him. But this is not the place to tell the story of his great tragedy. What happened at Smolensk happened on a more terrible scale at Moscow, to which the Emperor marched with relentless determination to strike a deadly blow at the heart of Russia, and to force his enemies to offer terms of peace. But after each battle the enemy had fallen back in good order and Moscow was sacrificed to this amazing plan of defence. Before the walls of the ancient capital Napoleon had been fired for awhile with his old enthusiasm. He issued an inspiring proclamation to his troops. Looking down N N De 78 woman Guc ·on the great city of palaces, he believed that at last he would regain the glory which had been dented too long But again the Russian army had disappeared, and again his French troops marched into a city of silence Then from all quarters a conflagration brol c out, terrible and all devouring Napoleon, looking down upon it from the Kremlin, was filled with ominous thoughts "This bodes a great evil" he muttered again and again The soul of the man was darkened as he gazed at the heavy clouds of smoke His heart burned with anguish as ficrcely as the flames which devoured whole quarters of the ancient capital of Russia He could not rest or sleep This was the end of all things He had met his fate at Moscow His destiny was fulhiled and it was the destiny of an irreparable disaster When at last, after lingering too long in this world of ruins, he gave the order to retreat, he seemed a dazed and broken man, utterly irresolute, stirred at times with violent passion and then melted by sudden gusts of emotion towards his generals and hus poor exhausted soldiers He endeavoured to secure some comforts for the sick and wounded As we have seen he gave orders that everything should be sacrificed for their selfare But no sacrifice could relieve the sufferings of so many, no discipline could restore order to the remnants of an army utterly demoralised by every misfortune During the retreat the Russian winter set in with full rigour Men dropped asleep, and never woke again, in the snow, others, as they marched, were frost bitten and lost the use of their limbs, so that they also fell and died And the Russian army which had always retreated when Napoleon had advanced, nox hung upon the flanks of these masses of stricken men Cossack troops cut off the strugglers, and swept agan and again upon the scattered divisions of the "Grand Army" who had no spint to defend them selves Ney fought heroic rear guard actions with veterans who 79 ·Fest ܀ N N still preserved their old sense of discipline, and Napoleon, rousing himself at last from the lethargy of despair, succeeded with some of his old genius in baffling the strategy of the Russian generals who sought to close him in. The grandeur of the man was indeed most sublime in this final retirement. No longer hiding from himself the immensity of his losses he seemed possessed with an almost terrible calm. But for his marvellous genius nothing could have prevented the complete surrender of his remaining forces. But for his almost miraculous hold over the devotion of his soldiers nothing could have persuaded them to struggle on until death put an end to their long torture. Yet, in spite of this frightful calamity, such as the world had hardly seen since the beginning of history, Napoleon, when he reached Paris alone, did not call in vain upon the heroism of an heroic nation. He told them the truth, or nearly all the truth. It was not to be disguised, but he demanded a new army with which to repair his disaster, and 350,000 men responded to his call. It is when studying this period of his life, during the days before his downfall, that the mind is most staggered by the greatness of this man, by his amazing courage in the face of overwhelming powers. And it is now that one finds it most difficult to justify him, one thinks of the mothers of France who had given their sons to him. One asks oneself whether patriotism should make such prodigious sacrifice. One wonders whether, after all, the enemies of Napoleon were not right in denouncing him as the world's greatest criminal. These doubts and questionings are not to be answered easily. In our profound horror of such bloodshed, in our overwhelming pity for the nation which had been drained of its best blood, we are apt to overlook the hand of fate. Napoleon now, as before, was N ca 80 wota ·دی به د لوحة هما میوه وهي مهملهم

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·NE compelled by circumstance Perhaps the invasion of Russia can never be forgiven That, if any was Napoleon s great crime But after Moscow, when the Powers of Europe were allied to crush him and to shatter his Empire, he had to defend France herself As the ruler of the French people raised to that supreme power by the voice of the people, he had achieved their desire for glory and lid carried their ideals of liberty over the old boundaries of European kingdoms If Napoleon was to blame so also was France The man of destiny, he had been impelled forward by thosc forces of democracy which had been let loose in the Revolution Now he had to fight against a great tide of reaction, which threatened to sweep away all that France had struggled for since the day when Camille Desmoulins had first called to arms and when the people had marched against the defenders of the old regime In calling for new armies Napoleon was not prompted only by a desire to wipe out his great personal defeat, but by the necessity of defending to the last gasp the honour and safety and liberty of the nation over whom he had been placed He failed after many battles, ending with Leipzig during which he scemed to have regained the full activity of his gerius but to have lost his " guiding star" He fled back to Paris, he knew that his hour was come Vainly he struggled against the inevitable Vainly he called upon his old comrades in arms to obey his authority and to remember their traditions They, wh had been aised to the highest rank by him, were the first to demand his abdication One by one his marshals abandoned him and frankly avowed their intention to hand him over to the Bourbons-the man of Revolution to the heirs of the old régime He could not believe it at first, but they put the truth brutally before him We have had enough of this," said Macdonald " We don't want any more compliments the thing now is to come to a decision" F1 ·ว s N " It is time to put an end to this," said Ney. “You may as well make your will; you have lost the confidence of the army.' Marmont and Berthier, his closest comrades, abandoned him also. That was the darkest hour of Napoleon's life. It was then that his soul gave itself up to despair and the most poignant anguish. It scemed to him inconceivablc in human nature that men who owed their fortune to him, whom lic had loaded with favours and caresses, who had served with him in all his glorious campaigns, who had been the heroes of the Napolconic epic, should thus betray him in deſcat. "Thesc men have neither hearts nor entrails!" he cried. "I am conquered less by fortune than by the selfishness and ingratitude of my brothers-in-arms." That night he tricd to commit suicide by taking poison; but it was another defcat. He could not make even King Death his ally. When Constant, his valet, faithful among the few, approached his bedside, whcrc he was in agony, he cried out in a strangled voice- "Marmont has given me the final blow. The wretch! I loved hini! Berthicr's abandonment has distressed me. My old friends, my old fellow-soldiers !" Afterwards, when he signed his abdication, he became calm and wonderfully resigned. He even seemed anxious to escape to exile and to peace. At Elba he regained his cheerfulness and his activity; and when in the last adventure he landed again on the shores of France, and marched triumphantly to Paris greeted by the acclamations of his old soldiers, who, in spite of all they had suffered, remembered that by this man they had gained an immortality of glory, remembered also his continual kindness to them, his comradeship, and the thousand qualities which had bound them to him by every instinct of hero-worship, Napoleon regained for a little while his imperial mastery over the hearts of men; but N: 82 jä os ·of only for a little while Great as his genius still was, he was no longer the Napoleon of the Italian campaign The sun of Austerlitz was no longer his Undoubtedly his physical condition affected his great brain He had grown corpulent, and it had robbed him of some of his old energy His spirit was fettered by the past There were other reasons for the inevitable and final failure which fulfilled his destiny The European Powers were allied against him, his own nation was divided in its allegiance, and, as Englishmen, we have a right to believe that Wellington and his army were the irresistible force which, by a military genius greater even than Napoleon s in these days of his failing powers, and by a heroism worthy of such an heroic enemy as the veterans and young recruits of France, could not be withstood At Waterloo, Napoleon lost the last card in the great game and returned to Paris broken henrted At the Elysec, "he endervoured," says Coulaincourt, " to give vent to the emotions of his heart, but his oppressed respiration permitted him to articulate only broken sentences" “The army," he said, "has performed prodigies of valour inconceivnble efforts s hat troops Ney behaved like a madman He caused my cavalry to be cut to pieces All has been sacrificed 1 am ill and exhausted I must lie down for an hour or two my head burns Iressats a bath" After his bath, "it is grievous," he continued, "toh should have been overcome after so many hem cestos brilliant victories do not shed more glory of the Forest the defeat of Mont St Jean beaten-they have been sacrificed-m25 popogholms numbers my guards sufer pieces without asking for quarter ·EST Soci N go . N go @ died with them, but they exclaimed,' Withdraw, withdraw, you see that Death has resolved to spare your Majesty.' And opening their ranks, my old grenadiers screened me from their carnage, forming around me a rampart of their bodies my brave my admirable guards, have been destroyed and I have not perished with them." With a torrent of words he explained all the bold manoeuvres he had intended to carry out frustrated by the combined armies, supported by immense reserves, and by the desertion of his allies on the eve of the battle. "Oh! this baseness is incredible. The annals of the French army offer no precedent for such a crime. Jomini was not a Frenchman. The consequences of his defection have been most serious My orders were not properly understood, and consequently there was some degree of hesitation in executing them. At one time Grouchy was too late; at another Ney was carried away by his enthusiasm and intrepidity. He exposed himself to danger like any common soldier without looking before or behind him, and his troops were sacrificed without any necessity. It is deplorable to think of it. Our army performed prodigies of valour, and yet we have lost the battle. Generals, marshals, all fought gloriously, but, nevertheless, an indescribable uncertainty and anxiety pervaded the commanders of the army. There was no unity, no precision in the movements, and," he added with powerful emotion, “I have been assured that cries of Sauve qui pent' were uttered. I cannot believe this. What I suffered, Coulaincourt, was worse than the tortures of Fontainebleau. I feel that I have had my death wound. The blow I received at Waterloo is mortal!" Later, he said, with infinite melancholy-"I am already indifferent about my future fate, and I endure life without attaching myself to it by any alluring chimeras. I carry with me from France 42 T T.; 84 an vo 'sec.com ·recollections which will constitute at once the charm and torment of the remainder of my days A bitter and incurable regret must ever he connected with this last phase of my singular career Alus! what will become of my army-my brale, my unparalleled army So we reach "the last phise' when, at St Helena this man who had created and ruled a great Empire, who had dominated the western world by his sheer force of genius, wore out his heart in miserable exile, insulted by those who guarded him, and tortured by the memory of his former power But it is now, in these days of exile and degradation, that the soul of Napoleon is revealed in all its grcatness as well as in all its weakness After the feverish excitement of the last two years, when perhaps he was a little touched by madness, his spirit became calm and wonderfully sane He lived only in the past, and reviewed his life with intense and continual interest It seemed sometimes as if this Napoleon of St Helena could look back upon the Napoleon of Corsica and France as upon another and separate being But he desired to justify himself to posterity, and his weakness is shown in his Memoirs which he dictated to his secretaries, when he deliberately falsified his account of his actions in order to excuse a blunder, or palliate his faults of policy But in his consersation with men like O'Mcara he had a greater candour, and although always he endeavoured to defend himself against hostile opinions, there is the ring of sincerity in this apologia pro zita sua On the whole, too, in spite of the bitterness with which he remembered his abandonment, he spoke with generosity and justice about his old companions in arms He could even forgate their desertion 85 ·vremena Z N . N. "The greater number of those who abandoned me, had I continued to be fortunate, would not have thought themselves capable of such conduct. There are the virtues and vices of circumstances; our last experiences are above all human power : and then I have been abandoned rather than betrayed. There has been more weakness about me than treachery. Besides that, who in all history had more partisans and friends ? Who was more popular and more beloved ? Who ever left sharper and more ardent regrets ?" Each day was an increasing torture to him. His mind, still active and restless, fretted against his intolerable confinement of body and spirit. Only in conversation could he find a relief and temporary forgetfulness, and the man the man of action became a philosopher. He had an inspired imagination, and upon many of the great problems of life he gave opinions which revealed his amazing knowledge of human nature and his vast political experience. Many of his words were prophecies which have come true. The progress of democracy and of the liberal ideas which he predicted have been fulfilled. But the soul of the man was on the rack, until at last the increasing disease of the body gave him a mental rest. into a kind of torpor. “ Doctor," he said, "what a delightful thing rest is! The bed has become a luxury to me! I would not exchange it for all the thrones in the world. What an alteration ! How fallen am I! I, whose activity was boundless, whose mind never slumbered, am now plunged in a lethargic stupor and must make an effort even to raise my eyelids. I sometimes dictated upon different subjects to four or five secretaries who wrote as fast as words could be uttered; but then I was Napoleon, now I am no longer anything. I do not live; I merely My strength, my faculties forsake me. exist." N T N to do 86 Cohen ·51 N On the evening before his death he spoke a good deal, and hummed his favourite air — "O Richard, O mon rai, L'univers tabrodonne- The next morning he said, realising that his end was near- "There is nothing terrible in death, he has been on my pillow for the last three weeks, and now he is about to take mc anay for ever" His last words werc—"My God! and the French Nation my son France ! Francci' So he went across the Great River to rejoin the herocs with whom he had fought In spite of all his great errors, and of some crimes, it can hardly be denied that the soul of Napolcon was not mean or \icious It was a lofty soul animated with high purposes, though based perhaps upon false ideals, a soul very full of human affection, and filled with the desire to raise men to higher plancs of liberty and intellect He left a great tradition The name of Napoleon still stirs one with a sense of grandeur, and with feelings of anc at the prodigious influence of one man's genius and will power over the destinies of great nations Without being blind to all that was false in his political conceptions and to an insitrable ambition which cost so many thousands of gallant lises, one must admit that Napolcon was not a monster of iniquity, but a min of very human qualities intensified by a vast imagination and surrounded by the temptntions of his supreme position ·colo ..܀ 9) N "The greater number of those who abandoned me, had I continued to be fortunate, would not have thought themselves capable of such conduct. There are the virtues and vices of circumstances; our last cxpcricnces are above all human power: and then I have been abandoncd rather than betrayed. There has been morc weakness about mc than treachery.. Besides that, who in all history had more partisans and friends ? Who was more popular and more beloved ? Who ever left sharper and more ardent regrets?" Each day was an increasing torture to him. His mind, still active and restless, fretted against his intolerable confinement of body and spirit. Only in conversation could he find a relief and tcmporary forgetfulness, and the man of action became a philosopher. He had an inspired imagination, and upon many of the great problems of life he gave opinions which revealed his amazing knowledge of human nature and his vast political cxpcricnce. Many of his words were prophecies which have come truc. The progress of democracy and of the liberal ideas which he predicted have been fulfilled. But the soul of the man was on the rack, until at last the incrcasing disease of the body gave him a mental rest. He fell into a kind of torpor. " Doctor," he said, "what a delightful thing rest is! The bed has become a luxury to me! I would not exchange it for all the thrones in the world. What an alteration ! How fallen am I! I, whose activity was boundless, whose mind never slumbered, am now plunged in a lethargic stupor and must make an effort even to raise my eyelids. I sometimes dictated upon different subjects to four or five secretaries who wrote as fast as words could be uttered; but then I was Napoleon, now I am no longer anything. My strength, my faculties forsake me. I do not live; I merely exist." 66 ·ICC On the evening before his death he spoke a good deal, and hummed his favourite air – • O Richard mon rol L univers t abandonne The next morning he said, rerlising that his end was near- "There is nothing terrible in death, he has been on my pillon for the last three weeks, and now he is about to take me away for ever" His last words were-"My God' and the French Nation my son France France !' So he went across the Great River to rejoin the herocs suith whom he had fought In spite of all his great errors, and of some crimes, it can hardly be denied that the soul of Napolcon was not mean or licious It was a lofty soul animated with high purposes, though based perhaps upon false ideals, a soul scry full of human affection, and filled with the desire to raise men to higher planes of liberty and intellect He left a great tradition The name of Napoleon still stirs one with a sense of grandeur, and with feelings of anc at the prodigious influence of one man s genius and will power over the destinies of great nations Without being blind to all that was false in his political conceptions and to an insatiabic ambition which cost so many thousands of gallant Incs, one must admit that Napoleon was not a monster of iniquity, but a man of cry human qualities intensificd by a vast imagination and surrounded by the temptations of his supreme position sti ಹನ ·به، وهي لا تترك 1 : وتر یک تولد و . . GY, & Z ·中 多, * *: hots Jus NAPOLEON (VERSAILLES) By Ph #aut ·autem arr Photo Mansell & Co BUONAPARTE AT ARCOLC (DETAIL) (LOUIRE) B1 Gros 90 ·+ 91 OS REM R 1 ·“ La xiblry Photo. Mansell & Co. BONAPARTE, IST CONSUL, AT MALMAISON (VERSAILLES) ·BOVATAL ROLF HACHE PA Jaws 11 E CO 14101 FOX CROSSING THE ALIS (VERS VILLES) Br par J ·. ma 1 ·VAPOLLON AT FRIEDLAND (DETAIL) (ERSAILLES) flv Ito ae lerwet rtoto Januelle Co ·LIE BUONAPARTE. GÉNÉRAL EX CHE By Alir. dfter Fragonard fils ·PS Nazwil Co VAPOLEON AT JEN (DETAIL) (VERSAILLES) nr llo..

·M ܫ ܀ ܂ NAPOLEON, 8 MARS, 1812 By Gorodet-Troison 98 ·رام ACR VAPO FOR AT f the 4 | 1 (DFTAL) ( KSIILLFS) ho 99 ·Korsemer NAPOLEON, IS14 By Meissonier. Reproduced by permission of C. Klackner, 20 Old Bond Street, London, and 7 Il'es! 251Street, New York, publisher of the Engraving. 100 ·101 TIE MF TINC AS FKANCS AFTER AL STERLITZ (FRSSIL FU) I ho Van 1 & Co ·NAPOLEON From a Lithograph by I'. Fairland, after Charlet 102 ·103 L'ALOC, 1807 B, C A Cor, after I Ve SSORIT Rofrodnes by kend ferMISSION of C A lackner 20 017 Bond Street lorton 1 and 7 Best 28th Street New York Publisher of the Engraving ·Incisorer 63 L'EMPEREU'R Etchel by L. Ruut, after Jeissonier. Reproduced by fermission of C. Klackner, 20 OW Bond Street, London and; ll'ist 28th Strict, Vers l'ork, C'.Sc, fublisher of the Engracing. 104 ·VAPOLEON 1 mpunim LE GRAND chemin d'Italie ct Ror 105 ·MAPOLI ON A1 S1. BILI NA By Laporte, after Paul Delaroche Reproduced by permission of chlachner, 20 Old Bond Strat, London, and 7 West 28th Street, New York, U.S.A., publisher of the Engraving. } 106 ·lice APOLEOY TIL 1 LITROPIC C/ Fuatl trat 107 ·# 卜 是 第一集 ” 045 Lu (無 7. - 我 多。 NAPOLCON ·KIFR net ر 11 1 0) 11 le+ وا و ان 11 دیس مد [1]11[ | | 1 151 till? الد ·. - . .. . Ro S. s. dey * ! 2 * un } .., till 11 ... CA And ANTA . 22 IN T Anad . * er sir *** ANA . From an Länst trui NAPO LEON BONAPARTE crizinalı drmurang made from the Lift, a short-temi pre rous to the Previent at the efpreus riqualif Toil. Birlow, Anbzavéder from the United Statis vietneri dagin Geritleman in hie' Suite Engraved by IV. Nicholls. 110 ·POLEON BITONAPARTE ct ·ir por lo tant onal Digi SNL NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE By Robert Cooper. After David. 110 ·VAI OLHOS NUOVIPIRTE Br T Int! + ther hubert Iefur 113 ·4 MUIJOT ELNvot v ULARLY 11 - AMAN. let Jean TIIURIST : . - --- UVY * T!.!. ... .**.11 VII NAPOLÉON EN:P.E'REUR Lithuaniühine ENDITA ALANLARIUL MORAGILEAMilitarianismakihan angittuiltaininin menantikliminimin Drann from life by Vauthier Engraved by P. Andonin 114 ·SAFTCH OF WOLFO FROI LIFT In the fourt or of the Rre AA Gially 113 ·10 4 3 MAPOI CON Painted and Lngraved og C H Hodges 116 ·SIEGE OF ST JFAY D ACRT Ry Clinic 117 ·+ 400M Lot VAPO1 1 0 l'aruls i and Ligraicitos C. I lodges 116 ·SIEGE OF ST JEAN D ACRF By Clarket 117 ·11 Brnoparte.tiüetinmin. 10. IMIRII IS SIY lix Cl.ice 118 ·NAPOLFO 1, Cha Irr 119 ·wan XA101.10X DISTRINTING 1:401.1:S 10 1115 ARMY. liy Dari! . -- .. THE COLUMN OF ROSBACH. By Debrek 120 ·WC-97 Gothing MATOVA 121 NAPOLRES AT TIP TALASIF SCI FYRI (13TH IC 150) ·- 1 us BONAPARTE ENTERING VIENNA By: Girodet 122 ·Asa . NAPOLCON AT AUSTERLITZ By C Lernet WATOLEO AT TILAU Bj Giros 123 ·和 PPT 14 11 事 21 ·DOVAPARTE CENFRAL EN CHIF (ARTE D ITALIF 1796) By Clarlat 1605 By Clarlet GENERAL RAPE ANNOL CING TO THE ENEROR THE RETREAT OF THE RLSSTYS AT AL STERLITZ ny Girard 125 ·THE EVILE AND THE ROCK LIMPET, 1842 B; F M NV Turner, RA (Tate Gallery)

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