A Life of Napoleon Bonaparte_ with a Sketch of Josephine_ Empress of the French. Ida M. Tarbell 1264 downloads.pdf

The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Life of Napoleon Bonaparte,
with a Sketch of Josephine, Empress of the French.
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: A Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, with a Sketch of Josephine,
Empress of the French.

Author: Ida M. Tarbell

Release date: April 21, 2019 [eBook #59322]
Most recently updated: February 17, 2025

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/59322

Credits: E-text prepared by Richard Tonsing and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from
page images generously made available by Internet Archive
(https://archive.org)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LIFE OF
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, WITH A SKETCH OF JOSEPHINE,
EMPRESS OF THE FRENCH. ***

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

Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See
https://archive.org/details/alifeofnapoleon00tarbmiss

LIFE OF NAPOLEON

BONAPARTE AT TWENTY-
TWO YEARS OF AGE

After a portrait by Greuze.

A LIFE of
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
With a Sketch of JOSEPHINE, Empress of the French.
Illustrated from the collection of NAPOLEON Engravings made
by the late Hon. G. G. Hubbard, and now owned by the
Congressional Library, Washington, D. C., supplemented by
Pictures from the best French Collections....

BY

IDA M. TARBELL

New York

McClure, Phillips & Co.

M. CM. V.

Copyright, 1894, by
S. S. McCLURE, Limited

Copyright, 1895, by
S. S. McCLURE, Limited

Copyright, 1896, by
THE S. S. McCLURE CO.

Copyright, 1901, by
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.

First Impression February, 1901
Second Impression April, 1901
Third Impression May, 1903
Fourth Impression Sept., 1905.

CONTENTS
THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON:

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Youth and Early Surroundings.—School Days at Brienne 17

II. In Paris.—Lieutenant of Artillery.—Literary Work.—The
Revolution 27

III. Robespierre.—Out of Work.—First Success 43

IV. Courtship and Marriage.—Devotion To Josephine 53

V. Italian Campaign.—Rules of War 61

VI. Return To Paris.—Egyptian Campaign.—The 18th Brumaire 89

VII. Statesman and Lawgiver.—The Finances.—The Industries.—The
Public Works 105

VIII. Return of the Émigrés.—The Concordat.—Legion of Honor.—Code
Napoleon 119

IX. Opposition to the Centralization of the Government.—Prosperity of
France 133

X. Preparations for War with England.—Flotilla at Boulogne.—Sale of
Louisiana 143

XI. Emperor of the French People.—King of Italy 151

XII. Campaigns of 1805, 1806, 1807.—Peace of Tilsit 163

XIII. Extension of Napoleon’s Empire.—Family Affairs 179

XIV. Berlin Decree.—Peninsular War.—The Bonapartes on the Spanish
Throne 191

XV. Disasters in Spain.—Erfurt Meeting.—Napoleon at Madrid 199

XVI. Talleyrand’s Treachery.—Campaign of 1809 211

XVII. Divorce of Josephine.—Marriage with Marie Louise.—Birth of the
King of Rome. 221

XVIII. Trouble with the Pope.—The Conscription.—The Tilsit Agreement
Broken 229

XIX. Russian Campaign.—Burning of Moscow.—A New Army 241

XX. Campaign of 1813.—Campaign of 1814.—Abdication 253

XXI. Elba.—The Hundred Days.—The Second Abdication 265

XXII. Surrender to English.—St. Helena.—Death 279

XXIII. The Second Funeral 295

SKETCH OF JOSEPHINE—EMPRESS OF THE FRENCH:

I. Family.—Early Surroundings.—Alexander de Beauharnais.—
Marriage.—Separation from Husband 325

II. Josephine in the Revolution.—Imprisoned at Les Carmes.—Struggle
for Existence.—Marriage with Bonaparte 334

III. Bonaparte Goes to Italy.—Josephine at Milan 1796–1797.—Triumphal
Tour in Italy.—Bonaparte Leaves for Egypt 346

IV. Bonaparte is Made First Consul.—Josephine’s Tact in Public Life.—
Her Personal Charm.—Malmaison 360

V. The Question of Succession.—Marriage of Hortense.—Josephine
Empress of the French People.—The Coronation 371

VI. Etiquette Regulating Josephine’s Life.—Royal Journeys.—
Extravagance in Dress 386

VII. Josephine not Allowed to Go to Poland.—Fear of Divorce.—The
Reconciliation of 1807–1808.—The Campaign of 1809 and its Effect
on Napoleon 399

VIII. Napoleon Returns to France.—Josephine’s Unhappiness.—Napoleon’s
View of a Divorce.—The Way in Which the Divorce was Effected 413

IX. After the Divorce.—Navarre.—Josephine’s Suspicions of the Emperor.
—Her Gradual Return to Happiness 423

X. Effect on Josephine of Disasters in Russia.—Anxiety During Campaign
of 1813.—Flight from Paris.—Death in 1814 440

Handwriting of Napoleon at Different Periods 453

Table of the Bonaparte Family 464

Chronology of the Life of Napoleon Bonaparte 469

Index 477

PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION

The chief source of illustration for this volume, as in the case of the
Napoleon papers in McClure’s Magazine, is the great collection of
engravings of Mr. Gardiner G. Hubbard, which has been generously placed
at the service of the publishers. In order to make the illustration still more
comprehensive, a representative of McClure’s Magazine and an authorized
agent of Mr. Hubbard visited Paris, to seek there whatever it might be
desirable to have in the way of additional pictures which were not within
the scope of Mr. Hubbard’s splendid collection. They secured the assistance
of M. Armand Dayot, Inspecteur des Beaux-Arts, who possessed rare
qualifications for the task. His official position he owed to his familiarity
with the great art collections, both public and private, of France, and his
official duties made him especially familiar with the great paintings relating
to French history. Besides, he was a specialist in Napoleonic iconography.
On account of his qualifications and special knowledge, he had been
selected by the great house of Hachette et Cie, to edit their book on
Napoléon raconté par l’Image, which was the first attempt to bring together
in one volume the most important pictures relating to the military, political,
and private life of Napoleon. M. Dayot had just completed this task, and
was fresh from his studies of Napoleonic pictures, when his aid was secured
by the publishers of McClure’s Magazine, in supplementing the Hubbard
collection.
The work was prosecuted with the one aim of omitting no important
picture. When great paintings indispensable to a complete pictorial life of
Napoleon were found, which had never been either etched or engraved,
photographs were obtained, many of these photographs being made
especially for our use.

A generous selection of pictures was made from the works of Raffet and
Charlet. M. Dayot was able also to add a number of pictures—not less than
a score—of unique value, through his personal relations with the owners of
the great private Napoleonic collections. Thus were obtained hitherto
unpublished pictures, of the highest value, from the collections of
Monseigneur Due d’Aumale; of H. I. H., Prince Victor Napoleon; of Prince
Roland; of Baron Larrey, the son of the chief surgeon of the army of
Napoleon; of the Duke of Bassano, son of the minister and confidant of the
emperor; of Monsieur Edmond Taigny, the friend and biographer of Isabey;
of Monsieur Albert Christophle, Governor-General of the Crédit-Foncier of
France; of Monsieur Paul le Roux, who has perhaps the richest of the
Napoleonic collections; and of Monsieur le Marquis de Girardin, son-in-law
of the Duc de Gaëte, the faithful Minister of Finance of Napoleon I. It will
be easily understood that no doubt can be raised as to the authenticity of
documents borrowed from such sources.
The following letter explains fully the plan on which Mr. Hubbard’s
collection is arranged, and shows as well its admirable completeness. It
gives, too, a classification of the pictures into periods, which will be useful
to the reader.
Washington, October, 1894.

S. S. McClure, Esq.

Dear Sir:—It is about fourteen years since I became interested in engravings, and I have since that
time made a considerable collection, including many portraits, generally painted and engraved during
the life of the personage. I have from two hundred to three hundred prints relating to Napoleon, his
family, and his generals. The earliest of these is a portrait of Napoleon painted in 1791, when he was
twenty-two years old; the next in date was engraved in 1796. There are many in each subsequent
year, and four prints of drawings made immediately after his death.
There are few men whose characters at different periods of life are so distinctly marked as
Napoleon’s, as will appear by an examination of these prints. There are four of these periods: First
Period, 1796–1797, Napoleon the General; Second Period, 1801–1804, Napoleon the Statesman and
Lawgiver; Third Period, 1804–1812, Napoleon the Emperor; Fourth Period, the Decline and Fall of
Napoleon, including Waterloo and St. Helena. Most of these prints are contemporaneous with the
periods described. The portraits include copies of the portraits painted by the greatest painters and
engraved by the best engravers of that age. There are four engravings of the paintings by Meissonier
—“1807,” “Napoleon,” “Napoleon Reconnoitering,” and “1814.”
First Period, 1796–1797, Napoleon the General.—In these the Italian spelling of the name,
“Buonaparte,” is generally adopted. At this period there were many French and other artists in Italy,
and it would seem as if all were desirous of painting the young general. A French writer in a late
number of the “Gazette des Beaux-Arts” is uncertain whether Gros, Appiani, or Cossia was the first

to obtain a sitting from General Bonaparte. It does not matter to your readers, as portraits by each of
these artists are included in this collection.
There must have been other portraits or busts of Bonaparte executed before 1796, besides the one
by Greuze given in this collection. These may be found, but there are no others in my collection. Of
the portraits of Napoleon belonging to this period eight were engraved before 1798, one in 1800. All
have the long hair falling below the ears over the forehead and shoulders; while all portraits
subsequent to Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt have short hair. The length of the hair affords an
indication of the date of the portrait.
Second Period, 1801–1804, Napoleon the Statesman and Lawgiver.—During this period many
English artists visited Paris, and painted or engraved portraits of Napoleon. In these the Italian
spelling “Buonaparte” is adopted, while in the French engravings of this period he is called
“Bonaparte” or “General Bonaparte.” Especially noteworthy among them is “The Review at the
Tuileries,” regarded by Masson as the best likeness of Napoleon “when thirty years old and in his
best estate.” The portrait painted by Gérard in 1803, and engraved by Richomme, is by others
considered the best of this period. There is already a marked change from the long and thin face in
earlier portraits to the round and full face of this period. In some of these prints the Code Napoléon is
introduced as an accessory.
Third Period, 1804–1812, Napoleon the Emperor.—He is now styled “Napoléon,” “Napoléon le
Grand,” or “L’Empereur.” His chief painters in this period are Léfevre, Gérard, Isabey, Lupton, and
David (with Raphael-Morghen, Longhi, Desnoyers, engravers)—artists of greater merit than those of
the earlier periods. The full-length portrait by David has been copied oftener and is better known than
any other.
It has been said that we cannot in the portraits of this period, executed by Gérard, Isabey, and
David, find a true likeness of Napoleon. His ministers thought “it was necessary that the sovereign
should have a serene expression, with a beauty almost more than human, like the deified Cæsars or
the gods of whom they were the image.” “Advise the painters,” Napoleon wrote to Duroc, September
15, 1807, “to make the countenance more gracious (plutôt gracieuses).” Again, “Advise the painters
to seek less a perfect resemblance than to give the beau ideal in preserving certain features and in
making the likeness more agreeable (plutôt agréable).”
Fourth Period, 1812–1815, Decline and Fall of Napoleon.—We have probably in the front and
side face made by Girodet, and published in England, a true likeness of Napoleon. It was drawn by
Girodet in the Chapel of the Tuileries, March 8, 1812, while Napoleon was attending mass. It is
believed to be a more truthful likeness than that by David, made the same year; the change in his
appearance to greater fulness than in the portraits of 1801–1804 is here more plainly marked. He has
now become corpulent, and his face is round and full. Two portraits taken in 1815 show it even more
clearly. One of these was taken immediately before the battle of Waterloo, and the other, by J.
Eastlake, immediately after. Mr. Eastlake, then an art student, was staying at Plymouth when the
“Bellerophon” put in. He watched Napoleon for several days, taking sketches from which he
afterwards made a full-length portrait.
The collection concludes with three notable prints: the first of the mask made by Dr. Antommarchi
the day of his death, and engraved by Calamatta in 1834; another of a drawing “made immediately
after death by Captain Ibbetson, R. N.;” and the third of a drawing by Captain Crockatt, made
fourteen hours after the death of Napoleon, and published in London July 18, 1821. These show in a
remarkable manner the head of this wonderful man.
The larger part of these prints was purchased through Messrs. Wunderlich & Co., and Messrs.
Keppel of New York, some at auctions in Berlin, London, Amsterdam, and Stuttgart; very few in
Paris.
Gardiner G. Hubbard.

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

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION

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

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

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

Life of Napoleon

CHAPTER I

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

“I f I were not convinced that his family is as old and as good as my
own,” said the Emperor of Austria when he married Marie Louise to
Napoleon Bonaparte, “I would not give him my daughter.” The
remark is sufficient recognition of the nobility of the father of Napoleon,
Charles Marie de Bonaparte, a gentleman of Ajaccio, Corsica, whose
family, of Tuscan origin, had settled there in the sixteenth century, and who,
in 1765, had married a young girl of the island, Lætitia Ramolino.
Monsieur Bonaparte gave his wife a noble name, but little else. He was
an indolent, pleasure-loving, chimerical man, who had inherited a lawsuit,
and whose time was absorbed in the hopeless task of recovering an estate of
which the Church had taken possession. Madame Bonaparte brought her
husband no great name, but she did bring him health, beauty, and
remarkable qualities. Tall and imposing, Mademoiselle Lætitia Ramolino
had a superb carriage, which she never lost, and a face which attracted
attention particularly by the accentuation and perfection of its features. She
was reserved, but of ceaseless energy and will, and though but fifteen when
married, she conducted her family affairs with such good sense and
firmness that she was able to bring up decently the eight children spared her
from the thirteen she bore. The habits of order and economy formed in her
years of struggle became so firmly rooted in her character that later, when
she became mater regum, the “Madame Mère” of an imperial court, she
could not put them aside, but saved from the generous income at her
disposal, “for those of my children who are not yet settled,” she said.
Throughout her life she showed the truth of her son’s characterization: “A
man’s head on a woman’s body.”

The first years after their marriage were stormy ones for the Bonapartes.
The Corsicans, led by the patriot Pascal Paoli, were in revolt against the
French, at that time masters of the island. Among Paoli’s followers was
Charles Bonaparte. He shared the fortunes of his chief to the end of the
struggle of 1769, and when, finally, Paoli was hopelessly defeated, took to
the mountains. In all the dangers and miseries of this war and flight, Charles
Bonaparte was accompanied by his wife, who, vigorous of body and brave
of heart, suffered privations, dangers, and fatigue without complaint. When
the Corsicans submitted, the Bonapartes went back to Ajaccio. Six weeks
later Madame Bonaparte gave birth to her fourth child, Napoleon.
“I was born,” said Napoleon, “when my country was perishing. Thirty
thousand Frenchmen were vomited upon our soil. Cries of the wounded,
sighs of the oppressed, and tears of despair surrounded my cradle at my
birth.”
Young Bonaparte learned to hate with the fierceness peculiar to Corsican
blood the idea of oppression, to revere Paoli, and, with a boy’s contempt of
necessity, even to despise his father’s submission. It was not strange. His
mother had little time for her children’s training. His father gave them no
attention; and Napoleon, “obstinate and curious,” domineering over his
brothers and companions, fearing no one, ran wild on the beach with the
sailors or over the mountains with the herdsmen, listening to their tales of
the Corsican rebellion and of fights, on sea and land, imbibing their
contempt for submission, their love for liberty.
At nine years of age he was a shy, proud, wilful child, unkempt and
untrained, little, pale, and nervous, almost without instruction, and yet
already enamored of a soldier’s life and conscious of a certain superiority
over his comrades. Then it was that he was suddenly transplanted from his
free life to an environment foreign in its language, artificial in its etiquette,
and severe in its regulations.
It was as a dependent, a species of charity pupil, that he went into this
new atmosphere. Charles Bonaparte had become, in the nine years since he
had abandoned the cause of Paoli, a thorough parasite. Like all the poor
nobility of the country to which he had attached himself, and even like
many of the rich in that day, he begged favors of every description from the
government in return for his support. To aid in securing them, he humbled
himself before the French Governor-General of Corsica, the Count de

Marbœuf, and made frequent trips, which he could ill afford, back and forth
to Versailles. The free education of his children, a good office with its salary
and honors, the maintenance of his claims against the Jesuits, were among
the favors which he sought.
By dint of solicitation he had secured a place among the free pupils of the
college at Autun for his son Joseph, the oldest of the family, and one for
Napoleon at the military school at Brienne.

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

To enter the school at Brienne, it was necessary to be able to read and
write French, and to pass a preliminary examination in that language. This
young Napoleon could not do; indeed, he could scarcely have done as much
in his native Italian. A preparatory school was necessary, then, for a time.
The place settled on was Autun, where Joseph was to enter college, and
there in January, 1779, Charles Bonaparte arrived with the two boys.
Napoleon was nine and a half years old when he entered the school at
Autun. He remained three months, and in that time made sufficient progress
to fulfil the requirements at Brienne. The principal record of the boy’s
conduct at Autun comes from Abbé Chardon, who was at the head of the
primary department. He says of his pupil:
“Napoleon brought to Autun a sombre, thoughtful character. He was interested in no one, and
found his amusements by himself. He rarely had a companion in his walks. He was quick to learn,

and quick of apprehension in all ways. When I gave him a lesson, he fixed his eyes upon me with
parted lips; but if I recapitulated anything I had said, his interest was gone, as he plainly showed by
his manner. When reproved for this, he would answer coldly, I might almost say with an imperious
air, ‘I know it already, sir.’”

When he went to Brienne, Napoleon left his brother Joseph behind at
Autun. The boy had not now one familiar feature in his life. The school at
Brienne was made up of about one hundred and twenty pupils, half of
whom were supported by the government. They were sons of nobles, who,
generally, had little but their great names, and whose rule for getting on in
the world was the rule of the old régime—secure a powerful patron, and, by
flattery and servile attentions, continue in his train. Young Bonaparte heard
little but boasting, and saw little but vanity. His first lessons in French
society were the doubtful ones of the parasite and courtier. The motto which
he saw everywhere practised was, “The end justifies the means.” His
teachers were not strong enough men to counteract this influence. The
military schools of France were at this time in the hands of religious orders,
and the Minim Brothers, who had charge of Brienne, were principally
celebrated for their ignorance. They certainly could not change the arrogant
and false notions of their aristocratic young pupils.
It was a dangerous experiment to place in such surroundings a boy like
the young Napoleon, proud, ambitious, jealous; lacking any healthful moral
training; possessing an Italian indifference to truth and the rights of others;
already conscious that he had his own way to make in the world, and
inspired by a determination to do it.
From the first the atmosphere at Brienne was hateful to the boy. His
comrades were French, and it was the French who had subdued Corsica.
They taunted him with it sometimes, and he told them that had there been
but four to one, Corsica would never have been conquered, but that the
French came ten to one. When they said: “But your father submitted,” he
said bitterly: “I shall never forgive him for it.” As for Paoli, he told them,
proudly, “He is a good man. I wish I could be like him.”
He had trouble with the new language. They jeered at him because of it.
His name was strange; la paille au nez was the nickname they made from
Napoleon.
He was poor; they were rich. The contemptuous treatment he received
because of his poverty was such that he begged to be taken home.

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

Charles Bonaparte, always in pursuit of pleasure and his inheritance,
could not help his son. Napoleon made other attempts to escape, even
offering himself, it is said, to the British Admiralty as a sailor, and once, at
least, begging Monsieur de Marbœuf, the Governor-General of Corsica,
who had aided Charles Bonaparte in securing places for both boys, to
withdraw his protection. The incident which led to this was characteristic of
the school. The supercilious young nobles taunted him with his father’s
position; it was nothing but that of a poor tipstaff, they said. Young
Bonaparte, stung by what he thought an insult, attacked his tormentors, and,
being caught in the act, was shut up. He immediately wrote to the Count de
Marbœuf a letter of remarkable qualities in so young a boy and in such
circumstances. After explaining the incident he said:
“Now, Monsieur le Comte, if I am guilty, if my liberty has been taken from me justly, have the
goodness to add to the kindnesses which you have shown me one thing more—take me from Brienne
and withdraw your protection: it would be robbery on my part to keep it any longer from one who
deserves it more than I do. I shall never, sir, be worthier of it than I am now. I shall never cure myself
of an impetuosity which is all the more dangerous because I believe its motive is sacred. Whatever
idea of self-interest influences me, I shall never have control enough to see my father, an honorable
man, dragged in the mud. I shall always, Monsieur le Comte, feel too deeply in these circumstances
to limit myself to complaining to my superior. I shall always feel that a good son ought not to allow
another to avenge such an outrage. As for the benefits which you have rained upon me, they will
never be forgotten. I shall say I had gained an honorable protection, but Heaven denied me the
virtues which were necessary in order to profit by it.”

BONAPARTE AT BRIENNE.

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

In the end Napoleon saw that there was no way for him but to remain at
Brienne, galled by poverty and formalism.
It would be unreasonable to suppose that there was no relief to this
sombre life. The boy won recognition more than once from his companions
by his bravery and skill in defending his rights. He was not only valorous;
he was generous, and, “preferred going to prison himself to denouncing his
comrades who had done wrong.” Young Napoleon found, soon, that if there
were things for which he was ridiculed, there were others for which he was
applauded.
He made friends, particularly among his teachers; and to one of his
comrades, Bourrienne, he remained attached for years. “You never laugh at
me; you like me,” he said to his friend. Those who found him morose and
surly, did not realize that beneath the reserved, sullen exterior of the little
Corsican boy there was a proud and passionate heart aching for love and

recognition; that it was sensitiveness rather than arrogance which drove him
away from his mates.
At the end of five and one-half years Napoleon was promoted to the
military school at Paris. The choice of pupils for this school was made by
an inspector, at this time one Chevalier de Kéralio, an amiable old man,
who was fond of mingling with the boys as well as examining them. He was
particularly pleased with Napoleon, and named him for promotion in spite
of his being strong in nothing but mathematics, and not yet being of the age
required by the regulations. The teachers protested, but De Kéralio insisted.
“I know what I am doing,” he said. “If I put the rules aside in this case, it
is not to do his family a favor—I do not know them. It is because of the
child himself. I have seen a spark here which cannot be too carefully
cultivated.”
De Kéralio died before the nominations were made, but his wishes in
regard to young Bonaparte were carried out. The recommendation which
sent him up is curious. The notes read:
“Monsieur de Bonaparte; height four feet, ten inches and ten lines; he has passed his fourth
examination; good constitution, excellent health; submissive character, frank and grateful; regular in
conduct; has distinguished himself by his application to mathematics; is passably well up in history
and geography; is behindhand in his Latin. Will make an excellent sailor. Deserves to be sent to the
school in Paris.”

CHAPTER II

NAPOLEON IN PARIS—LIEUTENANT OF ARTILLERY—LITERARY WORK—
NAPOLEON AND THE REVOLUTION

I t was in October, 1784, that Napoleon was placed in the Ecole Militaire
at Paris, the same school which still faces the Champ de Mars. He was
fifteen years old at the time, a thin-faced, awkward, countrified boy,
who stared open-mouthed at the Paris street sights and seemed singularly
out of place to those who saw him in the capital for the first time.
Napoleon found his new associates even more distasteful than those at
Brienne had been. The pupils of the Ecole Militaire were sons of soldiers
and provincial gentlemen, educated gratuitously, and rich young men who
paid for their privileges. The practices of the school were luxurious. There
was a large staff of servants, costly stables, several courses at meals. Those
who were rich spent freely; most of those who were poor ran in debt.
Napoleon could not pay his share in the lunches and gifts which his mates
offered now and then to teachers and fellows. He saw his sister Eliza, who
was at Madame de Maintenon’s school at St. Cyr, weep one day for the
same reason. He would not borrow. “My mother has already too many
expenses, and I have no business to increase them by extravagances which
are simply imposed upon me by the stupid folly of my comrades.” But he
did complain loudly to his friends. The Permons, a Corsican family living
on the Quai Conti, who made Napoleon thoroughly at home, even holding a
room at his disposal, frequently discussed these complaints. Was it vanity
and envy, or a wounded pride and just indignation? The latter, said
Monsieur Permon. This feeling was so profound with Napoleon, that, with
his natural instinct for regulating whatever was displeasing to him, he
prepared a memorial to the government, full of good, practical sense, on the
useless luxury of the pupils.

A year in Paris finished Napoleon’s military education, and in October,
1785, when sixteen years old, he received his appointment as second
lieutenant of the artillery in a regiment stationed at Valence. Out of the fifty-
eight pupils entitled that year to the promotion of second lieutenant, but six
went to the artillery; of these six Napoleon was one. His examiner said of
him:
“Reserved and studious, he prefers study to any amusement, and enjoys reading the best authors;
applies himself earnestly to the abstract sciences; cares little for anything else. He is silent and loves
solitude. He is capricious, haughty, and excessively egotistical; talks little, but is quick and energetic
in his replies, prompt and severe in his repartees; has great pride and ambitions, aspiring to anything.
The young man is worthy of patronage.”

He left Paris at once, on money borrowed from a cloth merchant whom
his father had patronized, not sorry, probably, that his school days were
over, though it is certain that all of those who had been friendly to him in
this period he never forgot in the future. Several of his old teachers at
Brienne received pensions; one was made rector of the School of Fine Arts
established at Compiègne, another librarian at Malmaison, where the porter
was the former porter at Brienne. The professors of the Ecole Militaire were
equally well taken care of, as well as many of his schoolmates. During the
Consulate, learning that Madame de Montesson, wife of the Duke of
Orleans, was still living, he sent for her to come to the Tuileries, and asked
what he could do for her. “But, General,” protested Madame de Montesson,
“I have no claim upon you.”
“You do not know, then,” replied the First Consul, “that I received my
first crown from you. You went to Brienne with the Duke of Orleans to
distribute the prizes, and in placing a laurel wreath on my head, you said:
‘May it bring you happiness.’ They say I am a fatalist, Madame, so it is
quite plain that I could not forget what you no longer remember;” and the
First Consul caused the sixty thousand francs of yearly income left Madame
de Montesson by the Duke of Orleans, but confiscated in the Revolution, to
be returned. Later, at her request, he raised one of her relatives to the rank
of senator. In 1805, when emperor, Napoleon gave a life pension of six
thousand francs to the son of his former protector, the Count de Marbœuf,
and with it went his assurance of interest and good will in all the
circumstances of the young man’s life. Generous, forbearing, even tender
remembrance of all who had been associated with him in his early years,
was one of Napoleon’s marked characteristics.

His new position at Valence was not brilliant. He had an annual income
of two hundred and twenty-four dollars, and there was much hard work. It
was independence, however, and life opened gayly to the young officer. He
made many acquaintances, and for the first time saw something of society
and women. Madame Colombier, whose salon was the leading one of the
town, received him, introduced him to powerful friends, and, indeed,
prophesied a great future for him.
The sixteen-year-old officer, in spite of his shabby clothes and big boots,
became a favorite. He talked brilliantly and freely, began to find that he
could please, and, for the first time, made love a little—to Mademoiselle
Colombier—a frolicking boy-and-girl love, the object of whose stolen
rendezvous was to eat cherries together. Mademoiselle Mion-Desplaces, a
pretty Corsican girl in Valence, also received some attention from him.
Encouraged by his good beginning, and ambitious for future success, he
even began to take dancing lessons.

BONAPARTE AT VALENCE.

From a painting by François Flameng.

Had there been no one but himself to think of, everything would have
gone easily, but the care of his family was upon him. His father had died a
few months before, February, 1785, and left his affairs in a sad tangle.
Joseph, now nearly eighteen years of age, who had gone to Autun in 1779
with Napoleon, had remained there until 1785. The intention was to make
him a priest; suddenly he declared that he would not be anything but a

soldier. It was to undo all that had been done for him; but his father made an
effort to get him into a military school. Before the arrangements were
complete Charles Bonaparte died, and Joseph was obliged to return to
Corsica, where he was powerless to do anything for his mother and for the
four young children at home: Louis, aged nine; Pauline, seven; Caroline,
five; Jerome, three.
Lucien, now nearly eleven years old, was at Brienne, refusing to become
a soldier, as his family desired, and giving his time to literature; but he was
not a free pupil, and the six hundred francs a year needful for him was a
heavy tax. Eliza alone was provided for. She had entered St. Cyr in 1784 as
one of the two hundred and fifty pupils supported there by his Majesty, and
to be a demoiselle de St. Cyr was to be fed, taught, and clothed from seven
to twenty, and, on leaving, to receive a dowry of three thousand francs, a
trousseau, and one hundred and fifty francs for travelling expenses home.
Napoleon regarded his family’s situation more seriously than did his
brothers. Indeed, when at Brienne he had shown an interest, a sense of
responsibility, and a good judgment about the future of his brothers and
sisters, quite amazing in so young a boy. When he was fifteen years old, he
wrote a letter to his uncle, which, for its keen analysis, would do credit to
the father of a family. The subject was his brother Joseph’s desire to
abandon the Church and go into the king’s service. Napoleon is summing
up the pros and cons:
“First. As father says, he has not the courage to face the perils of an action; his health is feeble, and
will not allow him to support the fatigues of a campaign; and my brother looks on the military
profession only from a garrison point of view. He would make a good garrison officer. He is well
made, light-minded, knows how to pay compliments, and with these talents he will always get on
well in society.
“Second. He has received an ecclesiastical education, and it is very late to undo that. Monseignor
the Bishop of Autun would have given him a fat living, and he would have been sure to become a
bishop. What an advantage for the family! Monseignor of Autun has done all he could to encourage
him to persevere, promising that he should never repent. Should he persist, in wishing to be a soldier,
I must praise him, provided he has a decided taste for his profession, the finest of all, and the great
motive power of human affairs.... He wishes to be a military man. That is all very well; but in what
corps? Is it the marine? First: He knows nothing of mathematics; it would take him two years to
learn. Second: His health is incompatible with the sea. Is it the engineers? He would require four or
five years to learn what is necessary, and at the end of that time he would be only a cadet. Besides,
working all day long would not suit him. The same reasons which apply to the engineers apply to the
artillery, with this exception: that he would have to work eighteen months to become a cadet, and
eighteen months more to become an officer.... No doubt he wishes to join the infantry.... And what is
the slender infantry officer? Three-fourths of the time a scapegrace.... A last effort will be made to

persuade him to enter the Church, in default of which, father will take him to Corsica, where he will
be under his eye.”

It was not strange that Charles Bonaparte considered the advice of a son
who could write so clear-headed a letter as the one just quoted, or that the
boy’s uncle Lucien said, before dying: “Remember, that if Joseph is the
older, Napoleon is the real head of the house.”
Now that young Bonaparte was in an independent position, he felt still
more keenly his responsibility, and it was for this reason, as well as because
of ill health, that he left his regiment in February, 1787, on a leave which he
extended to nearly fifteen months, and which he spent in energetic efforts to
better his family’s situation, working to reëstablish salt works and a
mulberry plantation in which they were concerned, to secure the nomination
of Lucien to the college at Aix, and to place Louis at a French military
school.
When he went back to his regiment, now stationed at Auxonne, he denied
himself to send money home, and spent his leisure in desperate work,
sleeping but six hours, eating but one meal a day, dressing once in the week.
Like all the young men of the country who had been animated by the
philosophers and encyclopedists, he had attempted literature, and at this
moment was finishing a history of Corsica, a portion of which he had
written at Valence and submitted to the Abbé Raynal, who had encouraged
him to go on. The manuscript was completed and ready for publication in
1788, and the author made heroic efforts to find some one who would
accept a dedication, as well as some one who would publish it. Before he
had succeeded, events had crowded the work out of sight, and other
ambitions occupied his forces. Napoleon had many literary projects on hand
at this time. He had been a prodigious reader, and was never so happy as
when he could save a few cents with which to buy second-hand books.
From everything he read he made long extracts, and kept a book of
“thoughts.” Most curious are some of these fragments, reflections on the
beginning of society, on love, on nature. They show that he was
passionately absorbed in forming ideas on the great questions of life and its
relations.
Besides his history of Corsica, he had already written several fragments,
among them an historical drama called the “Count of Essex,” and a story,
the “Masque Prophète.” He undertook, too, to write a sentimental journey

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

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

BONAPARTE AT THE
TUILERIES, AUGUST 10,
1792.

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

Economy and privation were always more supportable to him than
borrowing. He detested irregularities in financial matters. “Your finances
are deplorably conducted, apparently on metaphysical principles. Believe
me, money is a very physical thing,” he once said to Joseph, when the latter,
as King of Naples, could not make both ends meet. He put Jerome to sea

largely to stop his reckless expenditures. (At fifteen that young man paid
three thousand two hundred dollars for a shaving case “containing
everything except the beard to enable its owner to use it.”) Some of the
most furious scenes which occurred between Napoleon and Josephine were
because she was continually in debt. After the divorce he frequently
cautioned her to be watchful of her money. “Think what a bad opinion I
should have of you if I knew you were in debt with an income of six
hundred thousand dollars a year,” he wrote her in 1813.
The methodical habits of Marie Louise were a constant satisfaction to
Napoleon. “She settles all her accounts once a week, deprives herself of
new gowns if necessary, and imposes privations upon herself in order to
keep out of debt,” he said proudly. A bill of sixty-two francs and thirty-two
centimes was once sent to him for window blinds placed in the salon of the
Princess Borghese. “As I did not order this expenditure, which ought not to
be charged to my budget, the princess will pay it,” he wrote on the margin.
It was not parsimony. It was the man’s sense of order. No one was more
generous in gifts, pensions, salaries; but it irritated him to see money
wasted or managed carelessly.
Through his long absence in Corsica, and the complaints which the
conservatives of the island had made to the French government of the way
he had handled his battalion of National Guards in a riot at Ajaccio,
Napoleon lost his place in the French army. He came to Paris in the spring
of 1792, hoping to regain it. But in the confused condition of public affairs
little attention was given to such cases, and he was obliged to wait.
Almost penniless, he dined on six-cent dishes in cheap restaurants,
pawned his watch, and with Bourrienne devised schemes for making a
fortune. One was to rent some new houses going up in the city and to sub-
let them. While he waited he saw the famous days of the “Second
Revolution”—the 20th of June, when the mob surrounded the Tuileries,
overran the palace, put the bonnet rouge on Louis XVI.’s head, did
everything but strike, as the agitators had intended. Napoleon and
Bourrienne, loitering on the outskirts, saw the outrages, and he said, in
disgust:
“Che coglione, why did they allow these brutes to come in? They ought
to have shot down five or six hundred of them with cannon, and the rest
would soon have run.”

He saw the 10th of August, when the king was deposed. He was still in
Paris when the horrible September massacres began—those massacres in
which, to “save the country,” the fanatical and terrified populace resolved to
put “rivers of blood” between Paris and the émigrés. All these excesses
filled him with disgust. He began to understand that the Revolution he
admired so much needed a head.
In August Napoleon was restored to the army. The following June found
him with his regiment in the south of France. In the interval spent in
Corsica, he had abandoned Paoli and the cause of Corsican independence.
His old hero had been dragged, in spite of himself, into a movement for
separating the island from France. Napoleon had taken the position that the
French government, whatever its excesses, was the only advocate in Europe
of liberty and equality, and that Corsica would better remain with France
rather than seek English aid, as it must if it revolted. But he and his party
were defeated, and he with his family was obliged to flee.
The Corsican period of his life was over; the French had opened. He
began it as a thorough republican. The evolution of his enthusiasm for the
Revolution had been natural enough. He had been a devoted believer in
Rousseau’s principles. The year 1789 had struck down the abuses which
galled him in French society and government. After the flight of the king in
1791 he had taken the oath:
“I swear to employ the arms placed in my hands for the defence of the country, and to maintain
against all her enemies, both from within and from without, the Constitution as declared by the
National Assembly; to die rather than to suffer the invasion of the French territory by foreign troops,
and to obey orders given in accordance with the decree of the National Assembly.”

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

The condition of the Bonapartes on arriving in France after their
expulsion from Corsica was abject. Their property “pillaged, sacked, and
burned,” they had escaped penniless—were, in fact, refugees dependent
upon French bounty. They wandered from place to place, but at last found a
good friend in Monsieur Clary of Marseilles, a soapboiler, with two pretty
daughters, Julie and Désirée, and Joseph and Napoleon became inmates of
his house.
It was not as a soldier but as a writer that Napoleon first distinguished
himself in this new period of his life. An insurrection against the
government had arisen in Marseilles. In an imaginary conversation called le
souper de Beaucaire, Napoleon discussed the situation so clearly and justly
that Salicetti, Gasparin, and Robespierre the younger, the deputies who
were looking after the South, ordered the paper published at public expense,
and distributed it as a campaign document. More, they promised to favor
the author when they had an opportunity.

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

This sketch, which used to
figure in the Musée des
Souverains, became
afterwards the property of
Monsieur de Beaudicourt,
who lately presented it to the
Louvre. It possesses an
exceptional interest. Executed
at Brienne by one of the
schoolfellows of the future

Cæsar, it may be considered
as the first portrait of
Bonaparte taken from life.
Under it are these words
written in pencil:

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

It soon came. Toulon had opened its doors to the English and joined
Marseilles in a counter-revolution. Napoleon was in the force sent against
the town, and he was soon promoted to the command of the Second
Regiment of artillery. His energy and skill won him favorable attention. He
saw at once that the important point was not besieging the town, as the
general in command was doing and the Convention had ordered, but in
forcing the allied fleet from the harbor, when the town must fall of itself.
But the commander-in-chief was slow, and it was not until the command
was changed and an officer of experience and wisdom put in charge that
Napoleon’s plans were listened to. The new general saw at once their value,
and hastened to carry them out. The result was the withdrawal of the allies
in December, 1793, and the fall of Toulon. Bonaparte was mentioned by the
general-in-chief as “one of those who have most distinguished themselves
in aiding me,” and in February, 1794, was made general of brigade.
It is interesting to note that it was at Toulon that Napoleon first came in
contact with the English. Here he made the acquaintance of Junot,
Marmont, and Duroc. Barras, too, had his attention drawn to him at the
same time.
The circumstances which brought Junot and Napoleon together at Toulon
were especially heroic. Some one was needed to carry an order to an
exposed point. Napoleon asked for an under officer, audacious and
intelligent. Junot, then a sergeant, was sent. “Take off your uniform and
carry this order there,” said Napoleon, indicating the point.
Junot blushed and his eyes flashed. “I am not a spy,” he answered; “find
some one beside me to execute such an order.”
“You refuse to obey?” said Napoleon.
“I am ready to obey,” answered Junot, “but I will go in my uniform or not
go at all. It is honor enough then for these——Englishmen.”

The officer smiled and let him go, but he took pains to find out his name.
A few days later Napoleon called for some one in the ranks who wrote a
good hand to come to him. Junot offered himself, and sat down close to the
battery to write the letter. He had scarcely finished when a bomb thrown by
the English burst near by and covered him and his letter with earth.
“Good,” said Junot, laughing, “I shall not need any sand to dry the ink.”
Bonaparte looked at the young man, who had not even trembled at the
danger. From that time the young sergeant remained with the commander of
artillery.

CHAPTER III

NAPOLEON AND ROBESPIERRE—OUT OF WORK—GENERAL-IN-CHIEF OF THE
ARMY OF THE INTERIOR

T he favors granted Napoleon for his services at Toulon were extended
to his family. Madame Bonaparte was helped by the municipality of
Marseilles. Joseph was made commissioner of war. Lucien was joined
to the Army of Italy, and in the town where he was stationed became
famous as a popular orator—“little Robespierre,” they called him. He
began, too, here to make love to his landlord’s daughter, Christine Boyer,
afterwards his wife.
The outlook for the refugees seemed very good, and it was made still
brighter by the very particular friendship of the younger Robespierre for
Napoleon. This friendship was soon increased by the part Napoleon played
in a campaign of a month with the Army of Italy, when, largely by his
genius, the seaboard from Nice to Genoa was put into French power. If this
victory was much for the army and for Robespierre, it was more for
Napoleon. He looked from the Tende, and saw for the first time that in Italy
there was “a land for a conqueror.” Robespierre wrote to his brother, the
real head of the government at the moment, that Napoleon possessed
“transcendent merit.” He engaged him to draw up a plan for a campaign
against Piedmont, and sent him on a secret mission to Genoa. The relations
between the two young men were, in fact, very close, and, considering the
position of Robespierre the elder, the outlook for Bonaparte was good.
That Bonaparte admired the powers of the elder Robespierre, is
unquestionable. He was sure that if he had “remained in power, he would
have reëstablished order and law; the result would have been attained
without any shocks, because it would have come through the quiet exercise
of power.” Nevertheless, it is certain that the young general was unwilling
to come into close contact with the Terrorist leader, as his refusal of an offer

to go to Paris to take the command of the garrison of the city shows. No
doubt his refusal was partly due to his ambition—he thought the opening
better where he was—and partly due, too, to his dislike of the excesses
which the government was practising. That he never favored the policy of
the Terrorists, all those who knew him testify, and there are many stories of
his efforts at this time to save émigrés and suspects from the violence of the
rabid patriots; even to save the English imprisoned at Toulon. He always
remembered Robespierre the younger with kindness, and when he was in
power gave Charlotte Robespierre a pension.
Things had begun to go well for Bonaparte. His poverty passed. If his
plan for an Italian campaign succeeded, he might even aspire to the
command of the army. His brothers received good positions. Joseph was
betrothed to Julie Clary, and life went gayly at Nice and Marseilles, where
Napoleon had about him many of his friends—Robespierre and his sister;
his own two pretty sisters; Marmont, and Junot, who was deeply in love
with Pauline. Suddenly all this hope and happiness were shattered. On the
9th Thermidor Robespierre fell, and all who had favored him were
suspected, Napoleon among the rest. His secret mission to Genoa gave a
pretext for his arrest, and for thirteen days, in August, 1794, he was a
prisoner, but through his friends was liberated. Soon after his release, came
an appointment to join an expedition against Corsica. He set out, but the
undertaking was a failure, and the spring found him again without a place.
In April, 1795, Napoleon received orders to join the Army of the West.
When he reached Paris he found that it was the infantry to which he was
assigned. Such a change was considered a disgrace in the army. He refused
to go. “A great many officers could command a brigade better than I could,”
he wrote a friend, “but few could command the artillery so well. I retire,
satisfied that the injustice done to the service will be sufficiently felt by
those who know how to appreciate matters.” But though he might call
himself “satisfied,” his retirement was a most serious affair for him. It was
the collapse of what seemed to be a career, the shutting of the gate he had
worked so fiercely to open.
He must begin again, and he did not see how. A sort of despair settled
over him. “He declaimed against fate,” says the Duchess d’Abrantès. “I was
idle and discontented,” he says of himself. He went to the theatre and sat

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

NAPOLEON IN PRISON.

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

Love as well as failure caused his melancholy. All about him, indeed,
turned thoughts to marriage. Joseph was now married, and his happiness
made him envious. “What a lucky rascal Joseph is!” he said. Junot, madly
in love with Pauline, was with him. The two young men wandered through
the alleys of the Jardin des Plantes and discussed Junot’s passion. In
listening to his friend, Napoleon thought of himself. He had been attracted
by Désirée Clary, Joseph’s sister-in-law. Why not try to win her? And he

began to demand news of her from Joseph. Désirée had asked for his
portrait, and he wrote: “I shall have it taken for her; you must give it to her,
if she still wants it; if not, keep it yourself.” He was melancholy when he
did not have news of her, accused Joseph of purposely omitting her name
from his letters, and Désirée herself of forgetting him. At last he consulted
Joseph: “If I remain here, it is just possible that I might feel inclined to
commit the folly of marrying. I should be glad of a line from you on the
subject. You might perhaps speak to Eugénie’s [Désirée’s] brother, and let
me know what he says, and then it will be settled.” He waited the answer to
his overtures “with impatience”; urged his brother to arrange things so that
nothing “may prevent that which I long for.” But Désirée was obdurate.
Later she married Bernadotte and became Queen of Sweden.
Yet in these varying moods he was never idle. As three years before, he
and Bourrienne indulged in financial speculations; he tried to persuade
Joseph to invest his wife’s dot in the property of the émigrés. He prepared
memorials on the political disorders of the times and on military questions,
and he pushed his brothers as if he had no personal ambition. He did not
neglect to make friends either. The most important of those whom he
cultivated was Paul Barras, revolutionist, conventionalist, member of the
Directory, and one of the most influential men in Paris at that moment. He
had known Napoleon at Toulon, and showed himself disposed to be
friendly. “I attached myself to Barras,” said Napoleon later, “because I
knew no one else. Robespierre was dead; Barras was playing a rôle: I had to
attach myself to somebody and something.” One of his plans for himself
was to go to Turkey. For two or three years, in fact, Napoleon had thought
of the Orient as a possible field for his genius, and his mother had often
worried lest he should go. Just now it happened that the Sultan of Turkey
asked the French for aid in reorganizing his artillery and perfecting the
defences of his forts, and Napoleon asked to be allowed to undertake the
work. While pushing all his plans with extraordinary enthusiasm, even
writing Joseph almost daily letters about what he would do for him when he
was settled in the Orient, he was called to do a piece of work which was to
be of importance in his future.
The war committee needed plans for an Italian campaign; the head of the
committee was in great perplexity. Nobody knew anything about the
condition of things in the South. By chance, one day, one of Napoleon’s
acquaintances heard of the difficulties and recommended the young general.

The memorial he prepared was so excellent that he was invited into the
topographical bureau of the Committee of Public Safety. His knowledge,
sense, energy, fire, were so remarkable that he made strong friends and
became an important personage.
Such was the impression he made, that when in October, 1795, the
government was threatened by the revolting sections, Barras, the nominal
head of the defence, asked Napoleon to command the forces which
protected the Tuileries, where the Convention had gone into permanent
session. He hesitated for a moment. He had much sympathy for the
sections. His sagacity conquered. The Convention stood for the republic; an
overthrow now meant another proscription, more of the Terror, perhaps a
royalist succession, an English invasion.
“I accept,” he said to Barras; “but I warn you that once my sword is out
of the scabbard I shall not replace it till I have established order.”
It was on the night of 12th Vendémiaire that Napoleon was appointed.
With incredible rapidity he massed the men and cannon he could secure at
the openings into the palace and at the points of approach. He armed even
the members of the Convention as a reserve. When the sections marched
their men into the streets and upon the bridges leading to the Tuileries, they
were met by a fire which scattered them at once. That night Paris was quiet.
The next day Napoleon was made general of division. On October 26th he
was appointed general-in-chief of the Army of the Interior.
At last the opportunity he had sought so long and so eagerly had come. It
was a proud position for a young man of twenty-six, and one may well stop
and ask how he had obtained it. The answer is not difficult for one who,
dismissing the prejudices and superstitions which have long enveloped his
name, studies his story as he would that of an unknown individual. He had
won his place as any poor and ambitious boy in any country and in any age
must win his—by hard work, by grasping at every opportunity, by constant
self-denial, by courage in every failure, by springing to his feet after every
fall.
He succeeded because he knew every detail of his business (“There is
nothing I cannot do for myself. If there is no one to make powder for the
cannon I can do it”); because neither ridicule nor coldness nor even the
black discouragement which made him write once to Joseph, “If this state
of things continues I shall end by not turning out of my path when a

carriage passes,” could stop him; because he had profound faith in himself.
“Do these people imagine that I want their help to rise? They will be too
glad some day to accept mine. My sword is at my side, and I will go far
with it.” That he had misrepresented conditions more than once to secure
favor, is true; but in doing this he had done simply what he saw done all
about him, what he had learned from his father, what the oblique morality
of the day justified. That he had shifted opinions and allegiance, is equally
true; but he who in the French Revolution did not shift opinion was he who
regarded “not what is, but what might be.” Certainly in no respect had he
been worse than his environment, and in many respects he had been far
above it. He had struggled for place, not that he might have ease, but that he
might have an opportunity for action; not that he might amuse himself, but
that he might achieve glory. Nor did he seek honors merely for himself; it
was that he might share them with others.

PEN PORTRAIT OF
BONAPARTE IN PROFILE.

By Gros. This drawing, which
I discovered among the
portfolios of the Louvre, is
one of the most precious
documents of Napoleonic
portraiture. It was the gift of
Monsieur Delestre, the pupil
and biographer of Gros. In
this clear profile we see
already all that characteristic
expression sought for by Gros
above everything, and

superbly rendered by him
soon after in the portrait of
Bonaparte at Arcola. I
imagine that this pen sketch
was preparatory to a finished
portrait.—A. D.

The first use Bonaparte made of his power after he was appointed
general-in-chief of the Army of the Interior, was for his family and friends.
Fifty or sixty thousand francs, assignats, and dresses go to his mother and
sisters; Joseph is to have a consulship; “a roof, a table, and carriage” are at
his disposal in Paris; Louis is made a lieutenant and his aide-de-camp;
Lucien, commissioner of war; Junot and Marmont are put on his staff. He
forgets nobody. The very day after the 13th Vendémiaire, when his cares
and excitements were numerous and intense, he was at the Permons, where
Monsieur Permon had just died. “He was like a son, a brother.” This
relation he soon tried to change, seeking to marry the beautiful widow
Permon. When she laughed merrily at the idea, for she was many years his
senior, he replied that the age of his wife was a matter of indifference to
him so long as she did not look over thirty.
The change in Bonaparte himself was great. Up to this time he had gone
about Paris “in an awkward and ungainly manner, with a shabby round hat
thrust down over his eyes, and with curls (known at that time as oreilles des
chiens) badly powdered and badly combed, and falling over the collar of the
iron-gray coat which has since become so celebrated; his hands, long, thin,
and black, without gloves, because, he said, they were an unnecessary
expense; wearing ill-made and ill-cleaned boots.” The majority of people
saw in him only what Monsieur de Pontécoulant, who took him into the
War Office, had seen at their first interview; “A young man with a wan and
livid complexion, bowed shoulders, and a weak and sickly appearance.”
But now, installed in an elegant hôtel, driving his own carriage, careful of
his person, received in every salon where he cared to go, the young general-
in-chief is a changed man. Success has had much to do with this; love has
perhaps had more.

CHAPTER IV

NAPOLEON’S COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE—HIS DEVOTION TO JOSEPHINE

I n the five months spent in Paris before the 13th Vendémiaire, Bonaparte
saw something of society. One interesting company which he often
joined, was that gathered about Madame Permon at a hotel in the Rue
des Filles Saint-Thomas. This Madame Permon was the same with whom
he had taken refuge frequently in the days when he was in the military
school of Paris, and whom he had visited later, in 1792, when lingering in
town with hope of recovering his place in the army. On this latter occasion
he had even exposed himself to aid her and her husband to escape the fury
of the Terrorists and to fly from the city. Madame Permon had returned to
Paris in the spring of 1795 for a few weeks, and numbers of her old friends
had gathered about her as before the Terror, among them, Bonaparte.
Another house—and one of very different character—at which he was
received, was that of Barras. The 9th Thermidor, as the fall of Robespierre
is called, released Paris from a strain of terror so great that, in reaction, she
plunged for a time into violent excess. In this period of decadence Barras
was sovereign. Epicurean by nature, possessing the tastes, culture, and vices
of the old régime, he was better fitted than any man in the government to
create and direct a dissolute and luxurious society. Into this set Napoleon
was introduced, and more than once he expressed his astonishment to
Joseph at the turn things had taken in Paris.
“The pleasure-seekers have reappeared, and forget, or, rather, remember only as a dream, that they
ever ceased to shine. Libraries are open, and lectures on history, chemistry, astronomy, etc., succeed
each other. Everything is done to amuse and make life agreeable. One has no time to think; and how
can one be gloomy in this busy whirlwind? Women are everywhere—at the theatres, on the
promenades, in the libraries. In the study of the savant you meet some that are charming. Here alone,
of all places in the world, they deserve to hold the helm. The men are mad over them, think only of
them, live only by and for them. A woman need not stay more than six months in Paris to learn what
is due her and what is her empire.... This great nation has given itself up to pleasure, dancing, and
theatres, and women have become the principal occupation. Ease, luxury, and bon ton have recovered
their throne; the Terror is remembered only as a dream.”

Bonaparte took his part in the gayeties of his new friends, and was soon
on easy terms with most of the women who frequented the salon of Barras,
even with the most influential of them all, the famous Madame Tallien, the
great beauty of the Directory.
Among the women whom he met in the salon of Madame Tallien and at
Barras’s own house, was the Viscountess de Beauharnais (née Tascher de la
Pagerie), widow of the Marquis de Beauharnais, guillotined on the 5th
Thermidor, 1794. At the time of the marquis’s death his wife was a prisoner.
She was released soon after and had become a intimate friend of Madame
Tallien. All Madame Tallien’s circle had, indeed, become attached to
Josephine de Beauharnais, and with Barras she was on terms of intimacy
which led to a great amount of gossip. Without fortune, having two children
to support, still trembling at the memory of her imprisonment, indolent and
vain, it is not remarkable that Josephine yielded to the pleasures of the
society which had saved her from prison and which now opened its arms to
her, nor that she accepted the protection of the powerful Director Barras.
She was certainly one of the regular habitués of his house, and every week
kept court for him at her little home at Croissy, a few miles from Paris. The
Baron Pasquier, afterwards one of the members of Napoleon’s Council of
State, was at that moment living in poverty at Croissy—and was a neighbor
of Josephine. In his “Memoirs” he has left a paragraph on the gay little
outings taken there by Barras and his friends.
“Her house was next to ours,” says Pasquier. “She did not come out often
at that time, rarely more than once a week, to receive Barras and the troop
which always followed him. From early in the morning we saw the hampers
coming. Then mounted gendarmes began to circulate on the route from
Nanterre to Croissy, for the young Director came usually on horseback.
“Madame de Beauharnais’s house had, as is often the case among
creoles, an appearance of luxury; but, the superfluous aside, the most
necessary things were lacking. Birds, game, rare fruits, were piled up in the
kitchen (this was the time of our greatest famine), and there was such a
want of stewing-pans, glasses, and plates, that they had to come and borrow
from our poor stock.”
There was much about Josephine de Beauharnais to win the favor of such
a man as Barras. A creole past the freshness of youth—Josephine was
thirty-two years old in 1795—she had a grace, a sweetness, a charm, that

made one forget that she was not beautiful, even when she was beside such
brilliant women as Madame Tallien and Madame Récamier. It was never
possible to surprise her in an attitude that was not graceful. She was never
ruffled or irritable. By nature she was perfection of ease and repose. Artist
enough to dress in clinging stuffs made simply, which harmonized perfectly
with her style, and skilful enough to use the arts of the toilet to conceal
defects which care and age had brought, the Viscountess de Beauharnais
was altogether one of the most fascinating women in Madame Tallien’s
circle.

BONAPARTE, GENERAL
OF THE ARMY IN ITALY.

Profile in plaster. By David
d’Angers. Collection of
Monsieur Paul le Roux. This
energetic profile presents
considerable artistic and
iconographic interest. It is the
first rough cast of the face of
Bonaparte on the pediment of
the Pantheon at Paris. Some
months ago, Baron Larrey
told me an interesting
anecdote regarding this statue.
The Baron, son of the chief
surgeon to Napoleon I., and
himself ex-military surgeon to
Napoleon III., happening to
be with the emperor at the
camp of Châlons conceived

the noble idea of trying to
save the pediment of the
Pantheon, then about to be
destroyed to satisfy the
Archbishop of Paris, who
regarded with lively
displeasure the image of
Voltaire figuring on the façade
of a building newly
consecrated to religion. At the
emperor’s table, Baron H.
Larrey adroitly turned the
conversation to David, and
informed the sovereign, to his
surprise, that the proudest
effigy of Napoleon was to be
seen on this pediment.
Bonaparte, in fact, is
represented as seizing for
himself the crowns distributed
by the Fatherland, while the
other personages receive
them. On hearing this,
Napoleon III. was silent; but
the next day the order was
given to respect the pediment.
The plaster cast I reproduce
here is signed J. David, and
dates from 1836. The
Pantheon pediment was
inaugurated in 1837.—A. D.

The goodness of Josephine’s heart undoubtedly won her as many friends
as her grace. Everybody who came to know her at all well, declared her
gentle, sympathetic, and helpful. Everybody except, perhaps, the Bonaparte
family, who never cared for her, and whom she never tried to win. Lucien,
indeed, draws a picture of her in his “Memoirs” which, if it could be
regarded as unprejudiced, would take much of her charm from her:
“Josephine was not disagreeable, or perhaps I better say, everybody declared that she was very
good; but it was especially when goodness cost her no sacrifice.... She had very little wit, and no
beauty at all; but there was a certain creole suppleness about her form. She had lost all natural
freshness of complexion, but that the arts of the toilet remedied by candle-light.... In the brilliant
companies of the Directory, to which Barras did me the honor of admitting me, she scarcely attracted
my attention, so old did she seem to me, and so inferior to the other beauties which ordinarily formed
the court of the voluptuous Directors, and among whom the beautiful Tallien was the true Calypso.”

But if Lucien was not attracted to Josephine, Napoleon was from the
first; and when, one day, Madame de Beauharnais said some flattering
things to him about his military talent, he was fairly intoxicated by her
praise, followed her everywhere, and fell wildly in love with her; but by her
station, her elegance, her influence, she seemed inaccessible to him, and
then, too, he was looking elsewhere for a wife. When he first knew her, he
was thinking of Désirée Clary; and he had known Josephine some time
when he sought the hand of the widow Permon.
Though he dared not tell her his love, all his circle knew of it, and Barras
at last said to him, “You should marry Madame de Beauharnais. You have a
position and talents which will secure advancement; but you are isolated,
without fortune and without relations. You ought to marry; it gives weight,”
and he asked permission to negotiate the affair.
Josephine was distressed. Barras was her protector. She felt the wisdom
of his advice, but Napoleon frightened and wearied her by the violence of
his love. In spite of her doubts she yielded at last, and on the 9th of March,
1796, they were married. Shortly before, Napoleon had been appointed
commander-in-chief of the Army of Italy, and two days later he left his wife
for his post.
From every station on his route he wrote her passionate letters:
“Every moment takes me farther from you, and every moment I feel less able to be away from you.
You are ever in my thoughts; my fancy tires itself in trying to imagine what you are doing. If I picture
you sad, my heart is wrung and my grief is increased. If you are happy and merry with your friends, I
blame you for so soon forgetting the painful three days separation; in that case you are frivolous and
destitute of deep feeling. As you see, I am hard to please; but, my dear, it is very different when I fear
your health is bad, or that you have any reasons for being sad; then I regret the speed with which I am
being separated from my love. I am sure that you have no longer any kind feeling toward me, and I
can only be satisfied when I have heard that all goes well with you. When any one asks me if I have
slept well, I feel that I cannot answer until a messenger brings me word that you have rested well.
The illnesses and anger of men affect me only so far as I think they may affect you. May my good
genius, who has always protected me amid great perils, guard and protect you! I will gladly dispense
with him. Ah! don’t be happy, but be a little melancholy, and, above all, keep sorrow from your mind
and illness from your body. You remember what Ossian says about that. Write to me, my pet, and a
good long letter, and accept a thousand and one kisses from your best and most loving friend.”

Arrived in Italy he wrote:
“I have received all your letters, but none has made such an impression on me as the last. How can
you think, my dear love, of writing to me in such a way? Don’t you believe my position is already
cruel enough, without adding to my regrets and tormenting my soul? What a style! What feelings are
those you describe! It’s like fire; it burns my poor heart. My only Josephine, away from you there is

no happiness; away from you, the world is a desert in which I stand alone, with no chance of tasting
the delicious joy of pouring out my heart. You have robbed me of more than my soul; you are the
sole thought of my life. If I am worn out by all the torments of events, and fear the issue, if men
disgust me, if I am ready to curse life, I place my hand on my heart; your image is beating there. I
look at it, and love is for me perfect happiness; and everything is smiling, except the time that I see
myself absent from my love. By what art have you learned how to captivate all my faculties, to
concentrate my whole being in yourself? To live for Josephine! That’s the story of my life. I do
everything to get to you; I am dying to join you. Fool! Do I not see that I am only going farther from
you? How many lands and countries separate us! How long before you will read these words which
express but feebly the emotions of the heart over which you reign!...”

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

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

JUNOT (1771–1813).

CHAPTER V

THE FIRST ITALIAN CAMPAIGN—NAPOLEON’S WAY OF MAKING WAR

B ut Napoleon had much to occupy him besides his separation from
Josephine. Extraordinary difficulties surrounded his new post.
Neither the generals nor the men knew anything of their new
commander. “Who is this General Bonaparte? Where has he served? No one
knows anything about him,” wrote Junot’s father when the latter at Toulon
decided to follow his artillery commander.
In the Army of Italy they were asking the same questions, and the
Directory could only answer as Junot had done: “As far as I can judge, he is
one of those men of whom nature is avaricious, and that she permits upon
the earth only from age to age.”
He was to replace a commander-in-chief who had sneered at his plans for
an Italian campaign and who might be expected to put obstacles in his way.
He was to take an army which was in the last stages of poverty and
discouragement. Their garments were in rags. Even the officers were so
nearly shoeless that when they reached Milan and one of them was invited
to dine at the palace of a marquise, he was obliged to go in shoes without
soles and tied on by cords carefully blacked. They had provisions for only a
month, and half rations at that. The Piedmontese called them the “rag
heroes.”
Worse than their poverty was their inactivity. “For three years they had
fired off their guns in Italy only because war was going on, and not for any
especial object—only to satisfy their consciences.” Discontent was such
that counter-revolution gained ground daily. One company had even taken
the name of “Dauphin,” and royalist songs were heard in camp.
Napoleon saw at a glance all these difficulties, and set himself to conquer
them. With his generals he was reserved and severe. “It was necessary,” he
explained afterward, “in order to command men so much older than

myself.” His look and bearing quelled insubordination, restrained
familiarity, even inspired fear. “From his arrival,” says Marmont, “his
attitude was that of a man born for power. It was plain to the least
clairvoyant eyes that he knew how to compel obedience, and scarcely was
he in authority before the line of a celebrated poet might have been applied
to him:
“‘Des egaux? dès longtemps Mahomet n’en a plus.’”

General Decrès, who had known Napoleon well at Paris, hearing that he
was going to pass through Toulon, where he was stationed, offered to
present his comrades. “I run,” he says, “full of eagerness and joy; the salon
opens; I am about to spring forward, when the attitude, the look, the sound
of his voice are sufficient to stop me. There was nothing rude about him,
but it was enough. From that time I was never tempted to pass the line
which had been drawn for me.”
Lavalette says of his first interview with him: “He looked weak, but his
regard was so firm and so fixed that I felt myself turning pale when he
spoke to me.” Augereau goes to see him at Albenga, full of contempt for
this favorite of Barras who has never known an action, determined on
insubordination. Bonaparte comes out, little, thin, round-shouldered, and
gives Augereau, a giant among the generals, his orders. The big man backs
out in a kind of terror. “He frightened me,” he tells Masséna. “His first
glance crushed me.”
He quelled insubordination in the ranks by quick, severe punishment, but
it was not long that he had insubordination. The army asked nothing but to
act, and immediately they saw that they were to move. He had reached his
post on March 22d; nineteen days later operations began.
The theatre of action was along that portion of the maritime Alps which
runs parallel with the sea. Bonaparte held the coast and the mountains; and
north, in the foot-hills, stretched from the Tende to Genoa, were the
Austrians and their Sardinian allies. If the French were fully ten thousand
inferior in number, their position was the stronger, for the enemy was
scattered in a hilly country where it was difficult to unite their divisions.
As Bonaparte faced his enemy, it was with a youthful zest and
anticipation which explains much of what follows. “The two armies are in
motion,” he wrote Josephine, “each trying to outwit the other. The more

skilful will succeed. I am much pleased with Beaulieu. He manœuvres very
well, and is superior to his predecessor. I shall beat him, I hope, out of his
boots.”
The first step in the campaign was a skilful stratagem. He spread rumors
which made Beaulieu suspect that he intended marching on Genoa, and he
threw out his lines in that direction. The Austrian took the feint as a genuine
movement, and marched his left to the sea to cut off the French advance.
But Bonaparte was not marching to Genoa, and, rapidly collecting his
forces, he fell on the Austrian army at Montenotte on April 12th, and
defeated it. The right and left of the allies were divided, and the centre
broken.
By a series of clever feints, Bonaparte prevented the various divisions of
the enemy from reënforcing each other, and forced them separately to
battle. At Millesimo, on the 14th, he defeated one section; on the same day,
at Dego, another; the next morning, near Dego, another. The Austrians were
now driven back, but their Sardinian allies were still at Ceva. To them
Bonaparte now turned, and, driving them from their camp, defeated them at
Mondovi on the 22d.
It was phenomenal in Italy. In ten days the “rag heroes,” at whom they
had been mocking for three years, had defeated two well-fed armies ten
thousand stronger than themselves, and might at any moment march on
Turin. The Sardinians sued for peace.
The victory was as bewildering to the French as it was terrifying to the
enemy, and Napoleon used it to stir his army to new conquests.
“Soldiers!” he said, “in fifteen days you have gained six victories, taken twenty-one stands of
colors, fifty-five pieces of cannon, and several fortresses, and conquered the richest part of Piedmont.
You have made fifteen hundred prisoners, and killed or wounded ten thousand men.
“Hitherto, however, you have been fighting for barren rocks, made memorable by your valor, but
useless to the nation. Your exploits now equal those of the conquering armies of Holland and the
Rhine. You were utterly destitute, and have supplied all your wants. You have gained battles without
cannons, passed rivers without bridges, performed forced marches without shoes, bivouacked without
brandy, and often without bread. None but republican phalanxes—soldiers of liberty—could have
borne what you have endured. For this you have the thanks of your country.
“The two armies which lately attacked you in full confidence, now fly before you in
consternation.... But, soldiers, it must not be concealed that you have done nothing, since there
remains aught to do. Neither Turin nor Milan is ours.... The greatest difficulties are no doubt
surmounted; but you have still battles to fight, towns to take, rivers to cross....”

Not less clever in diplomacy than in battle, Bonaparte, on his own
responsibility, concluded an armistice with the Sardinians, which left him
only the Austrians to fight, and at once set out to follow Beaulieu, who had
fled beyond the Po.
As adroitly as he had made Beaulieu believe, three weeks before, that he
was going to march on Genoa, he now deceives him as to the point where
he proposes to cross the Po, leading him to believe it is at Valenza. When
certain that Beaulieu had his eye on that point, Bonaparte marched rapidly
down the river, and crossed at Placentia. If an unforeseen delay had not
occurred in the passage, he would have been on the Austrian rear. As it was,
Beaulieu took alarm, and withdrew the body of his army, after a slight
resistance to the French advance, across the Adda, leaving but twelve
thousand men at Lodi.
Bonaparte was jubilant. “We have crossed the Po,” he wrote the
directory. “The second campaign has commenced. Beaulieu is disconcerted;
he miscalculates, and continually falls into the snares I set for him. Perhaps
he wishes to give battle, for he has both audacity and energy, but not
genius.... Another victory, and we shall be masters of Italy.”
Determined to leave no enemies behind him, Bonaparte now marched
against the twelve thousand men at Lodi. The town, lying on the right bank
of the Adda, was guarded by a small force of Austrians; but the mass of the
enemy was on the left bank, at the end of a bridge some three hundred and
fifty feet in length, and commanded by a score or more of cannon.
Rushing into the town on May 10th the French drove out the guarding
force, and arrived at the bridge before the Austrians had time to destroy it.
The French grenadiers pressed forward in a solid mass, but, when half way
over, the cannon at the opposite end poured such a storm of shot at them
that the column wavered and fell back. Several generals in the ranks,
Bonaparte at their head, rushed to the front of the force. The presence of the
officers was enough to inspire the soldiers, and they swept across the bridge
with such impetuosity that the Austrian line on the opposite bank allowed
its batteries to be taken, and in a few moments was in retreat. “Of all the
actions in which the soldiers under my command have been engaged,”
wrote Bonaparte to the Directory, “none has equalled the tremendous
passage of the bridge at Lodi. If we have lost but few soldiers, it was merely
owing to the promptitude of our attacks and the effect produced on the

enemy by the formidable fire from our invincible army. Were I to name all
the officers who distinguished themselves in this affair, I should be obliged
to enumerate every carabinier of the advanced guard, and almost every
officer belonging to the staff.”
The Austrians now withdrew beyond the Mincio, and on the 15th of May
the French entered Milan. The populace greeted their conquerors as
liberators, and for several days the army rejoiced in comforts which it had
not known for years. While it was being fêted, Bonaparte was instituting the
Lombard Republic, and trying to conciliate or outwit, as the case
demanded, the nobles and clergy outraged at the introduction of French
ideas. It was not until the end of May that Lombardy was in a situation to
permit Bonaparte to follow the Austrians.
After Lodi, Beaulieu had led his army to the Mincio. As usual, his force
was divided, the right being near Lake Garda, the left at Mantua, the centre
about halfway between, at Valeggio. It was at this latter point that
Bonaparte decided to attack them. Feigning to march on their right, he
waited until his opponent had fallen into his trap, and then sprang on the
weakened centre, broke it to pieces, and drove all but twelve thousand men,
escaped to Mantua, into the Tyrol. In fifty days he had swept all but a
remnant of the Austrians away from Italy. Two weeks later, having taken a
strong position on the Adige, he began the siege of Mantua.
The French were victorious, but their position was precarious. Austria
was preparing a new army. Between the victors and France lay a number of
feeble Italian governments whose friendship could not be depended upon.
The populace of these states favored the French, for they brought promises
of liberal government, of equality and fraternity. The nobles and clergy
hated them for the same reason. It was evident that a victory of the
Austrians would set all these petty princes on Bonaparte’s heels. The Papal
States to the south were plotting. Naples was an ally of Austria. Venice was
neutral, but she could not be trusted. The English were off the coast, and
might, at any moment, make an alliance which would place a formidable
enemy on the French rear.
While waiting for the arrival of the new Austrian army, Bonaparte set
himself to lessening these dangers. He concluded a peace with Naples. Two
divisions of the army were sent south, one to Bologna, the other into
Tuscany. The people received the French with such joy that Rome was glad

to purchase peace. Leghorn was taken. The malcontents in Milan were
silenced. By the time a fresh Austrian army of sixty thousand men, under a
new general, Wurmser, was ready to fight, Italy had been effectually
quieted.
The Austrians advanced against the French in three columns, one to the
west of Lake Garda, under Quasdanovich, one on each side of the Adige,
east of the lake, under Wurmser. Their plan was to attack the French
outposts on each side of the lake simultaneously, and then envelop the army.
The first movements were successful. The French on each side of the lake
were driven back. Bonaparte’s army was inferior to the one coming against
him, but the skill with which he handled his forces and used the blunders of
the enemy more than compensated for lack of numbers. Raising the siege of
Mantua, he concentrated his forces at the south of the lake in such a way as
to prevent the reunion of the Austrians. Then, with unparalleled swiftness,
he fell on the enemy piecemeal. Wherever he could engage a division he did
so, providing his own force was superior to that of the Austrians at the
moment of the battle. Thus, on July 31st, at Lonato, he defeated
Quasdanovich, though not so decisively but that the Austrian collected his
division and returned towards the same place, hoping to unite there with
Wurmser, who had foolishly divided his divisions, sending one to Lonato
and another to Castiglione, while he himself went off to Mantua to relieve
the garrison there. Bonaparte engaged the forces at Lonato and at
Castiglione on the same day (August 3d), defeating them both, and then
turned his whole army against the body of Austrians under Wurmser, who,
by his time, had returned from his relief expedition at Mantua. On August
5th, at Castiglione, Wurmser was beaten, driven over the Mincio and into
the Tyrol. In six days the campaign has been finished. “The Austrian army
has vanished like a dream,” Bonaparte wrote home.
It had vanished, true, but only for a day. Reënforcements were soon sent,
and a new campaign started early in September. Leaving Davidovich in the
Tyrol with twenty thousand men, Wurmser started down the Brenta with
twenty-six thousand men, intending to fall on Bonaparte’s rear, cut him to
pieces, and relieve Mantua. But Bonaparte had a plan of his own this time,
and, without waiting to find out where Wurmser was going, he started up
the Adige, intending to attack the Austrians in the Tyrol, and join the army
of the Rhine, then on the upper Danube. As it happened, Wurmser’s plan
was a happy one for Bonaparte. The French found less than half the

Austrian army opposing them, and, after they had beaten it, discovered that
they were actually on the rear of the other half. Of course Bonaparte did not
lose the opportunity. He sped down the Brenta behind Wurmser, overtook
him at Bassano on the 8th of September, and of course defeated him. The
Austrians fled in terrible demoralization. Wurmser succeeded in reaching
Mantua, where he united with the garrison. The sturdy old Austrian had the
courage, in spite of his losses, to come out of Mantua and meet Bonaparte
on the 15th, but he was defeated again, and obliged to take refuge in the
fortress. If the Austrians had been beaten repeatedly, they had no idea of
yielding, and, in fact, there was apparently every reason to continue the
struggle. The French army was in a most desperate condition. Its number
was reduced to barely forty thousand, and this number was poorly supplied,
and many of them were ill. Though living in the richest of countries, the
rapacity and dishonesty of the army contractors were such that food reached
the men half spoiled and in insufficient quantities, while the clothing
supplied was pure shoddy. Many officers were laid up by wounds or
fatigue; those who remained at their posts were discouraged, and
threatening to resign. The Directory had tampered with Bonaparte’s
armistices and treaties until Naples and Rome were ready to spring upon the
French; and Venice, if not openly hostile, was irritating the army in many
ways.
Bonaparte, in face of these difficulties, was in genuine despair:
“Everything is being spoiled in Italy,” he wrote the Directory. “The prestige of our forces is being
lost. A policy which will give you friends among the princes as well as among the people, is
necessary. Diminish your enemies. The influence of Rome is beyond calculation. It was a great
mistake to quarrel with that power. Had I been consulted I should have delayed negotiations as I did
with Genoa and Venice. Whenever your general in Italy is not the centre of everything, you will run
great risks. This language is not that of ambition; I have only too many honors, and my health is so
impaired that I think I shall be forced to demand a successor. I can no longer get on horseback. My
courage alone remains, and that is not sufficient in a position like this.”

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

It was in such a situation that Bonaparte saw the Austrian force outside of
Mantua, increased to fifty thousand men, and a new commander-in-chief,
Alvinzi, put at its head. The Austrians advanced in two divisions, one down
the Adige, the other by the Brenta. The French division which met the
enemy at Trent and Bassano were driven back. In spite of his best efforts,
Bonaparte was obliged to retire with his main army to Verona. Things
looked serious. Alvinzi was pressing close to Verona, and the army on the
Adige was slowly driving back the French division sent to hold it in check.
If Davidovich and Alvinzi united, Bonaparte was lost.
“Perhaps we are on the point of losing Italy,” wrote Bonaparte to the
Directory. “In a few days we shall make a last effort.” On November 14th
this last effort was made. Alvinzi was close upon Verona, holding a position
shut in by rivers and mountains on every side, and from which there was
but one exit, a narrow pass at his rear. The French were in Verona.
On the night of the 14th of November Bonaparte went quietly into camp.
Early in the evening he gave orders to leave Verona, and took the road
westward. It looked like a retreat. The French army believed it to be so, and
began to say sorrowfully among themselves that Italy was lost. When far
enough from Verona to escape the attention of the enemy, Bonaparte
wheeled to the southeast. On the morning of the 15th he crossed the Adige,

intending, if possible, to reach the defile by which alone Alvinzi could
escape from his position. The country into which his army marched was a
morass crossed by two causeways. The points which it was necessary to
take to command the defile were the town of Arcola and a bridge over the
rapid stream on which the town lay. The Austrians discovered the plan, and
hastened out to dispute Arcola and the bridge. All day long the two armies
fought desperately, Bonaparte and his generals putting themselves at the
head of their columns and doing the work of common soldiers. But at night
Arcola was not taken, and the French retired to the right bank of the Adige,
only to return on the 16th to reëngage Alvinzi, who, fearful lest his retreat
be cut off, had withdrawn his army from near Verona, and had taken a
position at Arcola. For two days the French struggled with the Austrians,
wrenching the victory from them before the close of the 17th, and sending
them flying towards Bassano. Bonaparte and his army returned to Verona,
but this time it was by the gate which the Austrians, three days before, were
pointing out as the place where they should enter.
It was a month and a half before the Austrians could collect a fifth army
to send against the French. Bonaparte, tormented on every side by
threatened uprisings in Italy; opposed by the Directory, who wanted to
make peace; and distressed by the condition of his army, worked
incessantly to strengthen his relations, quiet his enemies, and restore his
army. When the Austrians, some forty-five thousand strong, advanced in
January, 1797, against him, he had a force of about thirty-five thousand men
ready to meet them. Some ten thousand of his army were watching
Wurmser and twenty thousand Austrians shut up at Mantua.
Alvinzi had planned his attack skilfully. Advancing with twenty-eight
thousand men by the Adige, he sent seventeen thousand under Provera to
approach Verona from the east. The two divisions were to approach secretly,
and to strike simultaneously.
At first Bonaparte was uncertain of the position of the main body of the
enemy. Sending out feelers in every direction, he became convinced that it
must be that it approached Rivoli. Leaving a force at Verona to hold back
Provera, he concentrated his army in a single night on the plateau of Rivoli,
and on the morning of January 14th advanced to the attack. The struggle at
Rivoli lasted two days. Nothing but Bonaparte’s masterly tactics won it, for
the odds were greatly against him. His victory, however, was complete. Of

the twenty-eight thousand Austrians brought to the field, less than half
escaped.
While his battle was waging, Bonaparte was also directing the fight with
Provera, who was intent upon reaching Mantua and attacking the French
besiegers on the rear, while Wurmser left the city and engaged them in
front. The attack had begun, but Bonaparte had foreseen the move, and sent
a division to the relief of his men. This battle, known as La Favorita,
destroyed Provera’s division of the Austrian army, and so discouraged
Wurmser, whose army was terribly reduced by sickness and starvation, that
he surrendered on February 2d.
The Austrians were driven utterly from Italy, but Bonaparte had no time
to rest. The Papal States and the various aristocratic parties of southern Italy
were threatening to rise against the French. The spirit of independence and
revolt which the invaders were bringing into the country could not but
weaken clerical and monarchical institutions. An active enemy to the south
would have been a serious hindrance to Napoleon, and he marched into the
Papal States. A fortnight was sufficient to silence the threats of his enemies,
and on February 19, 1797, he signed with the Pope the treaty of Tolentino.
The peace was no sooner made than he started again against the Austrians.
When Mantua fell, and Austria saw herself driven from Italy, she had
called her ablest general, the Archduke Charles, from the Rhine, and given
him an army of over one hundred thousand men to lead against Bonaparte.
The French had been reënforced to some seventy thousand, and though
twenty thousand were necessary to keep Italy quiet, Bonaparte had a fine
army, and he led it confidently to meet the main body of the enemy, which
had been sent south to protect Trieste. Early in March he crossed the
Tagliamento, and in a series of contests, in which he was uniformly
successful, he drove his opponent back, step by step, until Vienna itself was
in sight, and in April an armistice was signed. In May the French took
possession of Venice, which had refused a French alliance, and which was
playing a perfidious part, in Bonaparte’s judgment, and a republic on the
French model was established.
Italy and Austria, worn out and discouraged by this “war of principle,” as
Napoleon called it, at last compromised, and on October 17th, one year,
seven months, and seven days after he left Paris, Napoleon signed the treaty
of Campo Formio. By this treaty France gained the frontier of the Rhine

and the Low Countries to the mouth of the Scheldt. Austria was given
Venice, and a republic called the Cisalpine was formed from Reggio,
Modena, Lombardy, and a part of the States of the Pope.
The military genius that this twenty-seven-year-old commander had
shown in the campaign in Italy bewildered his enemies and thrilled his
friends.
“Things go on very badly,” said an Austrian veteran taken at Lodi. “No
one seems to know what he is about. The French general is a young
blockhead who knows nothing of the regular rules of war. Sometimes he is
on our right, at others on our left; now in front, and presently in our rear.
This mode of warfare is contrary to all system, and utterly insufferable.”
It is certain that if Napoleon’s opponents never knew what he was going
to do, if his generals themselves were frequently uncertain, it being his
practice to hold his peace about his plans, he himself had definite rules of
warfare. The most important of these were:
“Attacks should not be scattered, but should be concentrated.”
“Always be superior to the enemy at the point of attack.”
“Time is everything.”
To these formulated rules he joined marvelous fertility in stratagem. The
feint by which, at the beginning of the campaign, he had enticed Beaulieu to
march on Genoa, and that by which, a few days later, he had induced him to
place his army near Valenza, were masterpieces in their way.
His quick-wittedness in emergency frequently saved him from disaster.
Thus, on August 4th, in the midst of the excitement of the contest,
Bonaparte went to Lonato to see what troops could be drawn from there. On
entering he was greatly surprised to receive an Austrian parlementaire, who
called on the commandant of Lonato to surrender, because the French were
surrounded. Bonaparte saw at once that the Austrians could be nothing but a
division which had been cut off and was seeking escape; but he was
embarrassed, for there were only twelve hundred men at Lonato. Sending
for the man, he had his eyes unbandaged, and told him that if his
commander had the presumption to capture the general-in-chief of the army
of Italy he might advance; that the Austrian division ought to have known
that he was at Lonato with his whole army; and he added that if they did not
lay down their arms in eight minutes he would not spare a man. This

audacity saved Bonaparte, and won him four thousand prisoners with guns
and cavalry.

“ITALIE.”

From a lithograph by Raffet.

His fertility in stratagem, his rapidity of action, his audacity in attack,
bewildered and demoralized the enemy, but it raised the enthusiasm of his
imaginative Southern troops to the highest pitch.
He insisted in this campaign on one other rule: “Unity of command is
necessary to assure success.” After his defeat of the Piedmontese, the
Directory ordered him, May 7, 1796, to divide his command with
Kellermann. Napoleon answered:
“I believe it most impolitic to divide the army of Italy in two parts. It is quite as much against the
interests of the republic to place two different generals over it....
“A single general is not only necessary, but also it is essential that nothing trouble him in his march
and operations. I have conducted this campaign without consulting any one. I should have done
nothing of value if I had been obliged to reconcile my plans with those of another. I have gained
advantage over superior forces and when stripped of everything myself, because persuaded that your
confidence was in me. My action has been as prompt as my thought.
“If you impose hindrances of all sorts upon me, if I must refer every step to government
commissioners, if they have the right to change my movements, of taking from me or of sending me
troops, expect no more of any value. If you enfeeble your means by dividing your forces, if you
break the unity of military thought in Italy, I tell you sorrowfully you will lose the happiest
opportunity of imposing laws on Italy.
“In the condition of the affairs of the republic in Italy, it is indispensable that you have a general
that has your entire confidence. If it is not I, I am sorry for it, but I shall redouble my zeal to merit

your esteem in the post you confide to me. Each one has his own way of carrying on war. General
Kellermann has more experience and will do it better than I, but both together will do it very badly.
“I can only render the services essential to the country when invested entirely and absolutely with
your confidence.”

He remained in charge, and throughout the rest of the campaign
continued to act more and more independently of the Directory, even
dictating terms of peace to please himself.
It was in this Italian campaign that the almost superstitious adoration
which Napoleon’s soldiers and most of his generals felt for him began.
Brilliant generalship was not the only reason for this. It was due largely to
his personal courage, which they had discovered at Lodi. A charge had been
ordered across a wooden bridge swept by thirty pieces of cannon, and
beyond was the Austrian army. The men hesitated. Napoleon sprang to their
head and led them into the thickest of the fire. From that day he was known
among them as the “Little Corporal.” He had won them by the quality
which appeals most deeply to a soldier in the ranks—contempt of death.
Such was their devotion to him that they gladly exposed their lives if they
saw him in danger. There were several such cases in the battle of Arcola.
The first day, when Bonaparte was exposing himself in an advance, his
aide-de-camp, Colonel Muiron, saw that he was in imminent danger.
Throwing himself before Bonaparte, the colonel covered him with his body,
receiving a wound which was destined for the general. The brave fellow’s
blood spurted into Bonaparte’s face. He literally gave his life to save his
commander’s. The same day, in a final effort to take Arcola, Bonaparte
seized a flag, rushed on the bridge, and planted it there. His column reached
the middle of the bridge, but there it was broken by the enemy’s flanking
fire. The grenadiers at the head, finding themselves deserted by the rear,
were compelled to retreat; but, critical as their position was, they refused to
abandon their general. They seized him by his arms, by his clothes, and
dragged him with them through shot and smoke. When one fell out
wounded, another pressed to his place. Precipitated into the morass,
Bonaparte sank. The enemy were surrounding him when the grenadiers
perceived his danger. A cry was raised, “Forward, soldiers, to save the
General!” and immediately they fell upon the Austrians with such fury that
they drove them off, dragged out their hero, and bore him to a safe place.
His addresses never failed to stir them to action and enthusiasm. They
were oratorical, prophetic, and abounded in phrases which the soldiers

never forgot. Such was his address at Milan:
“Soldiers! you have precipitated yourselves like a torrent from the summit of the Apennines; you
have driven back and dispersed all that opposed your march. Piedmont, liberated from Austrian
tyranny, has yielded to her natural sentiments of peace and amity towards France. Milan is yours, and
the Republican flag floats throughout Lombardy, while the Dukes of Modena and Parma owe their
political existence solely to your generosity. The army which so haughtily menaced you, finds no
barrier to secure it from your courage. The Po, the Ticino, and the Adda have been unable to arrest
your courage for a single day. Those boasted ramparts of Italy proved insufficient. You have
surmounted them as rapidly as you cleared the Apennines. So much success has diffused joy through
the bosom of your country. Yes, soldiers, you have done well; but is there nothing more for you to
accomplish? Shall it be said of us that we knew how to conquer, but knew not how to profit by
victory? Shall posterity reproach us with having found a Capua in Lombardy? But I see you rush to
arms; unmanly repose wearies you, and the days lost to glory are lost to happiness.
“Let us set forward. We have still forced marches to perform, enemies to conquer, laurels to gather,
and injuries to avenge. Let those tremble who have whetted the poniards of civil war in France; who
have, like dastards, assassinated our ministers, and burned our ships in Toulon. The hour of
vengeance is arrived, but let the people be tranquil. We are the friends of all nations, particularly the
descendants of the Brutuses, the Scipios, and those illustrious persons we have chosen for our
models. To restore the Capitol, replace with honor the statues of the heroes who rendered it
renowned, and rouse the Roman people, become torpid by so many ages of slavery—shall, will, be
the fruit of your victories. You will then return to your homes, and your fellow-citizens when
pointing to you will say, ‘He was of the army of Italy.’”

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

BONAPARTE.

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

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

His approval was their greatest joy. Let him speak a word of praise to a
regiment, and they embroidered it on their banners. “I was at ease, the
Thirty-second was there,” was on the flag of that regiment. Over the Fifty-
seventh floated a name Napoleon had called them by, “The terrible Fifty-
seventh.”
His displeasure was a greater spur than his approval. He said to a corps
which had retreated in disorder: “Soldiers, you have displeased me. You
have shown neither courage nor constancy, but have yielded positions
where a handful of men might have defied an army. You are no longer
French soldiers. Let it be written on their colors, ‘They no longer form part
of the Army of Italy.’” A veteran pleaded that they be placed in the van, and
during the rest of the campaign no regiment was more distinguished.
The effect of his genius was as great on his generals as on his troops.
They were dazzled by his stratagems and manœuvres, inspired by his
imagination. “There was so much of the future in him,” is Marmont’s
expressive explanation. They could believe anything of him. A remarkable
set of men they were to have as followers and friends—Augereau, Masséna,
Berthier, Marmont, Junot.
The people and the government in Paris had begun to believe in him, as
did the Army of Italy. He not only sent flags and reports of victory; he sent
money and works of art. Impoverished as the Directory was, the sums
which came from Italy were a reason for not interfering with the high hand
the young general carried in his campaigns and treaties.
Never before had France received such letters from a general. Now he
announces that he has sent “twenty first masters, from Correggio to Michael
Angelo;” now, “a dozen millions of money;” now, two or three millions in
jewels and diamonds to be sold in Paris. In return he asks only for men and
officers “who have fire and a firm resolution not to make learned retreats.”

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

The practice of sending home works of art, begun in the Italian
campaign, Napoleon continued throughout his military career, and the art of
France owes much to the education thus given the artists of the first part of
this century. His agents ransacked Italy, Spain, Germany, and Flanders for
chefs-d’oeuvre. When entering a country one of the first things he did was
to collect information about its chief art objects, in order to demand them in
case of victory, for it was by treaty that they were usually obtained. Among
the works of art which Napoleon sent to Paris were twenty-five Raphaels,
twenty-three Titians, fifty-three Rubenses, thirty-three Van Dykes, thirty-
one Rembrandts.
In Italy rose Napoleon’s “star,” that mysterious guide which he followed
from Lodi to Waterloo. Here was born that faith in him and his future, that
belief that he “marched under the protection of the goddess of fortune and
of war,” that confidence that he was endowed with a “good genius.”
He called Lodi the birthplace of his faith. “Vendémiaire and even
Montenotte did not make me believe myself a superior man. It was only
after Lodi that it came into my head that I could become a decisive actor on
our political field. Then was born the first spark of high ambition.”
Trained in a religion full of mysticism, taught to believe in signs, guided
by a “star,” there is a tinge of superstition throughout his active, practical,

hardworking life. Marmont tells that one day while in Italy the glass over
the portrait of his wife, which he always wore, was broken.
“He turned frightfully pale, and the impression upon him was most
sorrowful. ‘Marmont,’ he said, ‘my wife is very ill or she is unfaithful.’”
There are many similar anecdotes to show his dependence upon and
confidence in omens.
In a campaign of such achievements as that in Italy there seems to be no
time for love, and yet love was never more imperative, more absorbing, in
Napoleon’s life than during this period.

“NAPOLEONE
BUONAPARTE.”

“Engraved by Henry Richter
from the celebrated bust by
Ceracchi, lately brought from
Paris and now in his
possession. Published June 1,
1801, by H. Richter, No. 26
Newman Street, Oxford
Street.” This bust was made in
the Italian campaign by
Ceracchi, a Corsican working
in Rome. Ceracchi left Rome
in 1799 to escape punishment
for taking part in an
insurrection in the city, and
went to Paris, where he hoped
to receive aid from the First

Consul. He made the busts of
several generals—Berthier,
Masséna, and Bernadotte—
but as orders did not multiply,
and Napoleon did nothing for
him, he became incensed
against him, and took part in a
plot to assassinate the First
Consul at the opera, the 18th
Brumaire, 1801. Arrested on
his way to the loge in the
opera, he was executed soon
after.

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

Josephine was indifferent to this strong passion. “How queer Bonaparte
is!” she said coldly at the evidences of his affection which he poured upon
her; and when, after a few weeks separation, he began to implore her to join
him she hesitated, made excuses, tried in every possible way to evade his
wish. It was not strange that a woman of her indolent nature, loving flattery,
having no passion but for amusement, reckless expenditure, and her own
ease, should prefer life in Paris. There she shared with Madame Tallien the
adoration which the Parisian world is always bestowing on some fair
woman. At opera and ball she was the centre of attraction; even in the street
the people knew her. Notre Dame des Victoires was the name they gave her.
In desperation at her indifference, Napoleon finally wrote her, in June,
from Tortona:
“My life is a perpetual nightmare. A black presentiment makes breathing difficult. I am no longer
alive; I have lost more than life, more than happiness, more than peace; I am almost without hope. I
am sending you a courier. He will stay only four hours in Paris, and then will bring me your answer.

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

After this letter Josephine consented to go to Italy, but she left Paris
weeping as if going to her execution. Once at Milan, where she held almost
a court, she recovered her gaiety, and the two were very happy for a time.
But it did not last. Napoleon, obliged to be on the march, would implore
Josephine to come to him here and there, and once she narrowly escaped
with her life when trying to get away from the army.
Wherever she was installed she had a circle of adorers about her, and as a
result she neglected writing to her husband. Reproaches and entreaties filled
his letters. He begged her for only a line, and he implored her that she be
less cold.
“Your letters are as cold as fifty years of age; one would think they had been written after we had
been married fifteen years. They are full of the friendliness and feelings of life’s winter,... What more
can you do to distress me? Stop loving me? That you have already done. Hate me? Well, I wish you
would; everything degrades me except hatred; but indifference, with a calm pulse, fixed eyes,
monotonous walk!... A thousand kisses, tender, like my heart.”

It was not merely indolence and indifference that caused Josephine’s
neglect. It was coquetry frequently, and Napoleon, informed by his couriers
as to whom she received at Milan or Genoa, and of the pleasures she
enjoyed, was jealous with all the force of his nature. More than one young
officer who dared pay homage to Josephine in this campaign was banished
“by order of the commander-in-chief.” Reaching Milan once, unexpectedly,
he found her gone. His disappointment was bitter.
“I reached Milan, rushed to your rooms, having thrown up everything to see you, to press you to
my heart—you were not there; you are traveling about from one town to another, amusing yourself
with balls.... My unhappiness is inconceivable.... Don’t put yourself out; pursue your pleasure;
happiness is made for you.”

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

BONAPARTE AT
MALMAISON.

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

CHAPTER VI

NAPOLEON’S RETURN TO PARIS—THE EGYPTIAN CAMPAIGN—THE 18th
BRUMAIRE

I n December, 1797, he returned to Paris. His whole family were collected
there, forming a “Bonaparte colony,” as the Parisians called it. There
were Joseph and his wife; Lucien, now married to Christine Boyer, his
old landlord’s daughter, a marriage Napoleon never forgave; Eliza, now
Madame Bacciochi; Pauline, now Madame Leclerc. Madame Letitia was in
the city, with Caroline; Louis and Jerome were still in school. Josephine had
her daughter Hortense, a girl of thirteen, with her. Her son Eugène, though
but fifteen years old, was away on a mission for Napoleon, who, in spite of
the boy’s youth, had already taken him into his confidence. According to
Napoleon’s express desire, all the family lived in great simplicity.
The return to Paris of the commander-in-chief of the Army of Italy was
the signal for a popular ovation. The Directory gave him every honor,
changing the name of the street in which he lived to rue de la Victoire, and
making him a member of the Institute; but, conscious of its feebleness, and
inspired by that suspicion which since the Revolution began had caused the
ruin of so many men, it planned to get rid of him.
Of the coalition against France, formed in 1793, one member alone
remained in arms—England. Napoleon was to be sent against her. An
invasion of the island was first discussed, and he made an examination of
the north coast. His report was adverse, and he substituted a plan for the
invasion of Egypt—an old idea in the French government.
The Directory gladly accepted the change, and Napoleon was made
commander-in-chief of the Army of Egypt. On the 4th of May he left Paris
for Toulon.
To Napoleon this expedition was a merciful escape. He once said to
Madame Rémusat:

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

He was under the influence, too, of his imagination; the Orient had
always tempted him. It is certain that he went away with gigantic projects—
nothing less than to conquer the whole of the East, and to become its ruler
and lawgiver.
“I dreamed of all sorts of things, and I saw a way of carrying all my projects into practical
execution. I would create a new religion. I saw myself in Asia, upon an elephant, wearing a turban,
and holding in my hand a new Koran which I had myself composed. I would have united in my
enterprise the experiences of two hemispheres, exploring for my benefit and instruction all history,
attacking the power of England in the Indies, and renewing, by their conquest, my relations with old
Europe. The time I passed in Egypt was the most delightful period of my life, for it was the most
ideal.”

His friends, watching his irritation during the days before the campaign
had been decided upon, said: “A free flight in space is what such wings
demand. He will die here. He must go.” He himself said: “Paris weighs on
me like a leaden mantle.”
Napoleon sailed from France on May 19, 1798; on June 9th he reached
Malta, and won for France “the strongest place in Europe.” July 2d he
entered Alexandria. On July 23d he entered Cairo, after the famous battle of
the Pyramids.
The French fleet had remained in Aboukir Bay after landing the army,
and on August 1st was attacked by Nelson. Napoleon had not realized,
before this battle, the power of the English on the sea. He knew nothing of
Nelson’s genius. The destruction of his fleet, and the consciousness that he
and his army were prisoners in the Orient, opened his eyes to the greatest
weakness of France.
The winter was spent in reorganizing the government of Egypt and in
scientific work. Over one hundred scientists had been added to the Army of
Egypt, including some of the most eminent men of the day: Monge,
Geoffroy-St.-Hilaire, Berthollet, Fourier, and Denon. From their arrival
every opportunity was given them to carry on their work. To stimulate
them, Napoleon founded the Institute of Egypt, in which membership was
granted as a reward for services.

These scientists went out in every direction, pushing their investigations
up the Nile as far as Philoe, tracing the bed of the old canal from Suez to
the Nile, unearthing ancient monuments, making collections of the flora and
fauna, examining in detail the arts and industries of the people. Everything,
from the inscription on the Rosetta Stone to the incubation of chickens,
received their attention. On the return of the expedition, their researches
were published in a magnificent work called “Description de l’Egypte.” The
information gathered by the French at this time gave a great impetus to the
study of Egyptology, and their investigations on the old Suez canal led
directly to the modern work.
The peaceful work of science and law-giving which Napoleon was
conducting in Egypt was interrupted by the news that the Porte had declared
war against France, and that two Turkish armies were on their way to
Egypt. In March he set off to Syria to meet the first.

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

Engraved by Vallot in 1838,
after painting by Gros (1810).
The moment chosen by the
artist is that when Napoleon
addressed to his soldiers that
short and famous harangue,
“Soldiers, from the summit of
these Pyramids forty centuries
look down upon you.” In the
General’s escort are Murat,

his head bare and his sword
clasped tightly; and after him,
in order, Duroc, Sulkowski,
Berthier, Junot, and Eugène
de Beauharnais, then sub-
lieutenant, all on horseback.
On the right are Rampon,
Desaix, Bertrand, and Lasalle.
This picture was ordered for
the Tuileries, and was
exhibited first in 1810.
Napoleon gave it to one of his
generals, and it did not
reappear in Paris until 1832. It
is now in the gallery at
Versailles. Gros regarded this
picture as his best work, and
himself chose Vallot to
engrave it.

This Syrian expedition was a failure, ending in a retreat made horrible
not only by the enemy in the rear, but by pestilence and heat.
The disaster was a terrible disillusion for Napoleon. It ended his dream of
an Oriental realm for himself, of a kingdom embracing the whole
Mediterranean for France. “I missed my fortune at St. Jean d’Acre,” he told
his brother Lucien afterward; and again, “I think my imagination died at St.
Jean d’Acre.” The words are those of the man whose discouragement at a
failure was as profound as his hope at success was high.
As Napoleon entered Egypt from Syria, he learned that the second
Turkish army was near the Bay of Aboukir. He turned against it and
defeated it completely. In the exchange of prisoners made after the battle, a
bundle of French papers fell into his hands. It was the first news he had had
for ten months from France, and sad news it was: Italy lost, an invasion of
Austrians and Russians threatening, the Directory discredited and tottering.
If the Oriental empire of his imagination had fallen, might it not be that
in Europe a kingdom awaited him? He decided to leave Egypt at once, and
with the greatest secrecy prepared for his departure. The army was turned
over to Kléber, and with four small vessels he sailed for France on the night
of August 22, 1799. On October 16th he was in Paris.
For a long time nothing had been heard of Napoleon in France. The
people said he had been exiled by the jealous Directory. His disappearance

into the Orient had all the mystery and fascination of an Eastern tale. His
sudden reappearance had something of the heroic in it. He came like a god
from Olympus, unheralded, but at the critical moment.
The joy of the people, who at that day certainly preferred a hero to
suffrage, was spontaneous and sincere. His journey from the coast to Paris
was a triumphal march. Le retour du héros was the word in everybody’s
mouth. On every side the people cried: “You alone can save the country. It
is perishing without you. Take the reins of government.”
At Paris he found the government waiting to be overthrown. “A brain and
a sword” was all that was needed to carry out a coup d’état organized while
he was still in Africa. Everybody recognized him as the man for the hour. A
large part of the military force in Paris was devoted to him. His two
brothers, Lucien and Joseph, were in positions of influence, the former
president of the Five Hundred, as one of the two chambers was called. All
that was most distinguished in the political, military, legal, and artistic
circles of Paris rallied to him. Among the men who supported him were
Talleyrand, Sieyès, Chénier, Roederer, Monge, Cambacérès, Moreau,
Berthier, Murat.
On the 18th Brumaire (the 9th of November), 1799, the plot culminated,
and Napoleon was recognized as the temporary Dictator of France.
The private sorrow to which Napoleon returned, was as great as the
public glory. During the campaign in Egypt he had learned beyond a doubt
that Josephine’s coquetry had become open folly, and that a young officer,
Hippolyte Charles, whom he had dismissed from the Army of Italy two
years before, was installed at Malmaison. The liaison was so scandalous
that Gohier, the president of the Directory, advised Josephine to get a
divorce from Napoleon and marry Charles.
These rumors reached Egypt, and Napoleon, in despair, even talked them
over with Eugène de Beauharnais. The boy defended his mother, and for a
time succeeded in quieting Napoleon’s resentment. At last, however, he
learned in a talk with Junot that the gossip was true. He lost all control of
himself, and declared he would have a divorce. The idea was abandoned,
but the love and reverence he had given Josephine were dead. From that
time she had no empire over his heart, no power to inspire him to action or
to enthusiasm.

When he landed in France from Egypt, Josephine, foreseeing a storm,
started out to meet him at Lyons. Unfortunately she took one road and
Napoleon another, and when he reached Paris at six o’clock in the morning
he found no one at home. When Josephine arrived Napoleon refused to see
her, and it was three days before he relented. Then his forgiveness was due
to the intercession of Hortense and Eugène, to both of whom he was
warmly attached.
But if he consented to pardon, he could never give again the passionate
affection which he once had felt for her. He ceased to be a lover, and
became a commonplace, tolerant, indulgent, bourgeois husband, upon
whom his wife, in matters of importance, had no influence. Josephine was
hereafter the suppliant, but she never regained the noble kingdom she had
despised.
Napoleon’s domestic sorrow weakened in no way his activity and vigor
in public affairs. He realized that, if he would keep his place in the hearts
and confidence of the people, he must do something to show his strength,
and peace was the gift he proposed to make to the nation. When he returned
he found a civil war raging in La Vendée. Before February he had ended it.
All over France brigandage had made life and property uncertain. It was
stopped by his new régime.
Two foreign enemies only remained at war with France—Austria and
England. He offered them peace. It was refused. Nothing remained but to
compel it. The Austrians were first engaged. They had two armies in the
field; one on the Rhine, against which Moreau was sent, the other in Italy—
now lost to France—besieging the French shut up in Genoa.

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

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

Moreau conducted the campaign in the Rhine countries with skill,
fighting two successful battles, and driving his opponent from Ulm.
Napoleon decided that he would himself carry on the Italian campaign,
but of that he said nothing in Paris. His army was quietly brought together

as a reserve force; then suddenly, on May 6, 1800, he left Paris for Geneva.
Immediately his plan became evident. It was nothing else than to cross the
Alps and fall upon the rear of the Austrians, then besieging Genoa.
Such an undertaking was a veritable coup de théâtre. Its accomplishment
was not less brilliant than its conception. Three principal passes lead from
Switzerland into Italy: Mont Cenis, the Great Saint Bernard, and the Mount
Saint Gothard. The last was already held by the Austrians. The first is the
westernmost, and here Napoleon directed the attention of General Melas,
the Austrian commander. The central, or Mount Saint Bernard, Pass was left
almost defenceless, and here the French army was led across, a passage
surrounded by enormous difficulties, particularly for the artillery, which had
to be taken to pieces and carried or dragged by the men.
Save the delay which the enemy caused the French at Fort Bard, where
five hundred men stopped the entire army, Napoleon met with no serious
resistance in entering Italy. Indeed, the Austrians treated the force with
contempt, declaring that it was not the First Consul who led it, but an
adventurer, and that the army was not made up of French, but of refugee
Italians.
This rumor was soon known to be false. On June 2d Napoleon entered
Milan. It was evident that a conflict was imminent, and to prepare his
soldiers Bonaparte addressed them:
“Soldiers, one of our departments was in the power of the enemy; consternation was in the south of
France; the greatest part of the Ligurian territory, the most faithful friends of the Republic, had been
invaded. The Cisalpine Republic had again become the grotesque plaything of the feudal régime.
Soldiers, you march—and already the French territory is delivered! Joy and hope have succeeded in
your country to consternation and fear.
“You give back liberty and independence to the people of Genoa. You have delivered them from
their eternal enemies. You are in the capital of the Cisalpine. The enemy, terrified, no longer hopes
for anything, except to regain its frontiers. You have taken possession of its hospitals, its magazines,
its resources.
“The first act of the campaign is terminated. Every day you hear millions of men thanking you for
your deeds.
“But shall it be said that French territory has been violated with impunity? Shall we allow an army
which has carried fear into our families to return to its firesides? Will you run with your arms? Very
well, march to the battle; forbid their retreat; tear from them the laurels of which they have taken
possession; and so teach the world that the curse of destiny is on the rash who dare insult the territory
of the Great People. The result of all our efforts will be spotless glory, solid peace.”

Melas, the Austrian commander, had lost much time; but finally
convinced that it was really Bonaparte who had invaded Italy, and that he

had actually reached Milan, he advanced into the plain of Marengo. He had
with him an army of from fifty to sixty thousand men well supplied with
artillery.
Bonaparte, ignorant that so large a force was at Marengo, advanced into
the plain with only a portion of his army. On June 14th Melas attacked him.
Before noon the French saw that they had to do with the entire Austrian
army. For hours the battle was waged furiously, but with constant loss on
the side of the French. In spite of the most intrepid fighting the army gave
way. “At four o’clock in the afternoon,” says a soldier who was present,
“there remained in a radius of two leagues not over six thousand infantry, a
thousand horse, and six pieces of cannon. A third of our army was not in
condition for battle. The lack of carriages to transport the sick made another
third necessary for this painful task. Hunger, thirst, fatigue, had forced a
great number to withdraw. The sharp shooters for the most part had lost the
direction of their regiments.
“He who in these frightful circumstances would have said, ‘In two hours
we shall have gained the battle, made ten thousand prisoners, taken several
generals, fifteen flags, forty cannons; the enemy shall have delivered to us
eleven fortified places and all the territory of beautiful Italy; they will soon
defile shamefaced before our ranks; an armistice will suspend the plague of
war and bring back peace into our country,’—he, I say, who would have
said that, would have seemed to insult our desperate situation.”
The battle was won finally by the French through the fortunate arrival of
Desaix with reënforcements and the imperturbable courage of the
commander-in-chief. Bonaparte’s coolness was the marvel of those who
surrounded him.
“At the moment when the dead and the dying covered the earth, the
Consul was constantly braving death. He gave his orders with his
accustomed coolness, and saw the storm approach without seeming to fear
it. Those who saw him, forgetting the danger that menaced them, said:
‘What if he should be killed? Why does he not go back?’ It is said that
General Berthier begged him to do so.

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

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

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

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

“Like me! It is not the
perfection of the features, a
pimple on the nose, which
makes resemblance. It is the
character of the face that

should be represented. No one
cares whether the portraits of
great men look like them or
not. It is enough that their
genius shines from the
picture.”

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

“Once General Berthier came to him to tell him that the army was giving
way and that the retreat had commenced. Bonaparte said to him: ‘General,
you do not tell me that with sufficient coolness.’ This greatness of soul, this
firmness, did not leave him in the greatest dangers. When the Fifty-ninth
Brigade reached the battle-field the action was the hottest. The First Consul
advanced toward them and cried: ‘Come, my brave soldiers, spread your
banners; the moment has come to distinguish yourselves. I count on your
courage to avenge your comrades.’ At the moment that he pronounced these
words, five men were struck down near him. He turned with a tranquil air
towards the enemy, and said: ‘Come, my friends, charge them.’
“I had curiosity enough to listen attentively to his voice, to examine his
features. The most courageous man, the hero the most eager for glory,
might have been overcome in his situation without any one blaming him.
But he was not. In these frightful moments, when fortune seemed to desert
him, he was still the Bonaparte of Arcola and Aboukir.”
When Desaix came up with his division, Bonaparte took an hour to
arrange for the final charge. During this time the Austrian artillery was
thundering upon the army, each volley carrying away whole lines. The men

received death without moving from their places, and the ranks closed over
the bodies of their comrades. This deadly artillery even reached the cavalry,
drawn up behind, as well as a large number of infantry who, encouraged by
Desaix’s arrival, had hastened back to the field of honor. In spite of the
horror of this preparation Bonaparte did not falter. When he was ready he
led his army in an impetuous charge which overwhelmed the Austrians
completely, though it cost the French one of their bravest generals, Desaix.
It was a frightful struggle, but the perfection with which the final attack was
planned, won the battle of Marengo and drove the Austrians from Italy.
The Parisians were dazzled by the campaign. Of the passage of the Alps
they said, “It is an achievement greater than Hannibal’s;” and they repeated
how “the First Consul had pointed his finger at the frozen summits, and
they had bowed their heads.” At the news of Marengo the streets were lit
with “joy fires,” and from wall to wall rang the cries of Vive la république!
Vive le premier consul! Vive l’armée!

KLÉBER, 1753 OR 1754–
1800.

Engraved by G. Fiesinger,
after portrait by Guérin.

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

At last France was at peace with all the world. She hailed Napoleon as
her savior, and ordered that the 18th Brumaire be celebrated throughout the
republic as a solemn fête in his honor.
The country saw in him something greater than a peacemaker. She was
discovering that he was to be her law giver, for, while ending the wars, he
had begun to bring order into the interior chaos which had so long
tormented the French people, to reëstablish the finances, the laws, the
industries, to restore public works, to encourage the arts and sciences, even
to harmonize the interests of rich and poor, of church and state.

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

CHAPTER VII

NAPOLEON AS STATESMAN AND LAWGIVER—THE FINANCES—THE INDUSTRIES—
THE PUBLIC WORKS

“N ow we must rebuild, and, moreover, we must rebuild solidly,”
said Napoleon to his brother Lucien the day after the coup d’état
which had overthrown the Directory and made him the
temporary Dictator of France.
The first necessity was a new constitution. In ten years three constitutions
had been framed and adopted, and now the third had, like its predecessors,
been declared worthless. At Napoleon’s side was a man who had the draft
of a constitution ready in his pocket. It had been promised him that, if he
would aid in the 18th Brumaire, this instrument should be adopted. This
man was the Abbé Sieyès. He had been a prominent member of the
Constituent Assembly, but, curiously enough, his fame there had been
founded more on his silence and the air of mystery in which he enveloped
himself than on anything he had done. The superstitious veneration which
he had won, saved him even during the Terror, and he was accustomed to
say laconically, when asked what he did in that period, “I lived.”
It was he who, when Napoleon was still in Egypt, had seen the necessity
of a military dictatorship, and had urged the Directory to order Napoleon
home to help him reorganize the government—an order which was never
received.
Soon after the 18th Brumaire, Sieyès presented his constitution. No more
bungling and bizarre instrument for conducting the affairs of a nation was
ever devised. Warned by the experience of the past ten years, he abandoned
the ideas of 1789, and declared that the power must come from above, the
confidence from below. His system of voting took the suffrage from the
people; his legislative body was composed of three sections, each of which
was practically powerless. All the force of the government was centered in a

senate of aged men. The Grand Elector, as the figurehead which crowned
the edifice was called, did nothing but live at Versailles and draw a princely
salary.
Napoleon saw at once the weak points of the structure, but he saw how it
could be re-arranged to serve a dictator. He demanded that the Senate be
stripped of its power, and that the Grand Elector be replaced by a First
Consul, to whom the executive force should be confided. Sieyès consented,
and Napoleon was named First Consul.
The whole machinery of the government was now centered in one man.
“The state, it was I,” said Napoleon at St. Helena. The new constitution was
founded on principles the very opposite of those for which the Revolution
had been made, but it was the only hope there was of dragging France from
the slough of anarchy and despair into which she had fallen.
Napoleon undertook the work of reconstruction which awaited him, with
courage, energy, and amazing audacity. He was forced to deal at once with
all departments of the nation’s life—with the finances, the industries, the
émigrés, the Church, public education, the codification of the laws.
The first question was one of money. The country was literally bankrupt
in 1799. The treasury was empty, and the government practised all sorts of
makeshifts to get money to pay those bills which could not be put off. One
day, having to send out a special courier, it was obliged to give him the
receipts of the opera to pay his expenses. And, again, it was in such a tight
pinch that it was on the point of sending the gold coin in the Cabinet of
Medals to the mint to be melted. Loans could not be negotiated;
government paper was worthless; stocks were down to the lowest. One of
the worst features of the situation was the condition of the taxes. The
assessments were as arbitrary as before the Revolution, and they were
collected with greater difficulty.
To select an honest, capable, and well known financier was Napoleon’s
first act. The choice he made was wise—a Monsieur Gaudin, afterward the
Duke de Gaëte, a quiet man, who had the confidence of the people. Under
his management credit was restored, the government was able to make the
loans necessary, and the department of finance was reorganized in a
thorough fashion. Napoleon’s gratitude to Monsieur Gaudin was lasting.
Once when asked to change him for a more brilliant man, he said:

“I fully acknowledge all your protégé is worth; but it might easily happen
that, with all his intelligence, he would give me nothing but fresh water,
whilst with my good Gaudin I can always rely on having good crown
pieces.”
The famous Bank of France dates from this time. It was founded under
Napoleon’s personal direction, and he never ceased to watch over it
jealously.
Most important of all the financial measures was the reorganization of
the system of taxation. The First Consul insisted that the taxes must meet
the whole expense of the nation, save war, which must pay for itself; and he
so ordered affairs that never, after his administration was fairly begun, was
a deficit known or a loan made. This was done, too, without the people
feeling the burden of taxation. Indeed, that burden was so much lighter
under his administration that it had been under the old régime, that peasant
and workman, in most cases, probably did not know they were being taxed.

“BUONAPARTE.”

Fiesinger, engraver, after
Guérin. Published “29
Vendémiaire, l’an VII.”
(1799). It is of this portrait
that Taine writes: “Look now
at this portrait by Guérin, this
lean body, these narrow
shoulders in their uniform
creased by his brusque
motions, this neck enveloped
in a high wrinkled cravat,

these temples concealed by
long hair falling straight over
them, nothing to be seen but
the face; these hard features
made prominent by strong
contrasts of light and shade;
these cheeks as hollow as the
interior angle of the eye; these
prominent cheek-bones; this
massive protruding chin;
these curving, mobile,
attentive lips; these great,
clear eyes deeply set under
the overarching eyebrows;
this fixed, incomprehensible
look, sharp as a sword; these
two straight wrinkles which
cross the forehead from the
base of the nose like a furrow
of continual anger and
inflexible will.”

“Before 1789,” says Taine, “out of one hundred francs of net revenue, the
workman gave fourteen to his seignor, fourteen to the clergy, fifty-three to
the state, and kept only eighteen or nineteen for himself. Since 1800, from
one hundred francs income he pays nothing to the seignor or the Church,
and he pays to the state, the department, and the commune but twenty-one
francs, leaving seventy-nine in his pocket.” And such was the method and
care with which this system was administered, that the state received more
than twice as much as it had before. The enormous sums which the police
and tax-collectors had appropriated now went to the state. Here is but one
example of numbers which show how minutely Napoleon guarded this part
of the finances. It is found in a letter to Fouché, the chief of police:
“What happens at Bordeaux happens at Turin, at Spa, at Marseilles, etc. The police commissioners
derive immense profits from the gaming-tables. My intention is that the towns shall reap the benefit
of the tables. I shall employ the two hundred thousand francs paid by the tables of Bordeaux in
building a bridge or a canal....”

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

know how much he will have to live on the next year. His whole substance
may be swallowed up by the taxes.”
Nearly the whole revenue came from indirect taxes applied to a great
number of articles. In case of a war which did not pay its way, Napoleon
proposed to raise each of these a few centimes. The nation would surely
prefer this, to paying it to the Russians or Austrians. When possible the
taxes were reduced. “Better leave the money in the hands of the citizens
than lock it up in a cellar, as they do in Prussia.”
He was cautious that extra taxes should not come on the very poor, if it
could be avoided. A suggestion to charge the vegetable and fish sellers for
their stalls came before him. “The public square, like water, ought to be
free. It is quite enough that we tax salt and wine.... It would become the city
of Paris much more to think of restoring the corn market.”
An important part of his financial policy was the rigid economy which
was insisted on in all departments. If a thing was bought, it must be worth
what was paid for it. If a man held a position, he must do its duties. Neither
purchases nor positions could be made unless reasonable and useful. This
was in direct opposition to the old régime, of which waste, idleness, and
parasites were the chief characteristics. The saving in expenditure was
almost incredible. A trip to Fontainebleau, which cost Louis XVI. four
hundred thousand dollars, Napoleon would make, in no less state, for thirty
thousand dollars.
The expenses of the civil household, which amounted to five million
dollars under the old régime, were now cut down to six hundred thousand
dollars, though the elegance was no less.
A master who gave such strict attention to the prosperity of his kingdom
would not, of course, overlook its industries. In fact, they were one of
Napoleon’s chief cares. His policy was one of protection. He would have
France make everything she wanted, and sell to her neighbors, but never
buy from them. To stimulate the manufactories, which in 1799 were as
nearly bankrupt as the public treasury, he visited the factories himself to
learn their needs. He gave liberal orders, and urged, even commanded, his
associates to do the same. At one time, anxious to aid the batiste factories of
Flanders, he tried to force Josephine to give up cotton goods and to set the
fashion in favor of the batistes; but she made such an outcry that he was
obliged to abandon the idea. For the same reason he wrote to his sister

Eliza: “I beg that you will allow your court to wear nothing but silks and
cambrics, and that you will exclude all cottons and muslins, in order to
favor French industry.”
Frequently he would take goods on consignment, to help a struggling
factory. Rather than allow a manufactory to be idle, he would advance a
large sum of money, and a quantity of its products would be put under
government control. After the battle of Eylau, Napoleon sent one million six
hundred thousand francs to Paris, to be used in this way.
To introduce cotton-making into the country was one of his chief
industrial ambitions. At the beginning of the century it was printed in all the
factories of France, but nothing more. He proposed to the Council of State
to prohibit the importation of cotton thread and the woven goods. There was
a strong opposition, but he carried his point.
“As a result,” said Napoleon to Las Cases complacently, “we possess the
three branches, to the immense advantage of our population and to the
detriment and sorrow of the English; which proves that, in administration as
in war, one must exercise character.... I occupied myself no less in
encouraging silks. As Emperor, and King of Italy, I counted one hundred
and twenty millions of income from the silk harvest.”
In a similar way he encouraged agriculture; especially was he anxious
that France should raise all her own articles of diet. He had Berthollet look
into maple and turnip sugar, and he did at last succeed in persuading the
people to use beet sugar; though he never convinced them that Swiss tea
equalled Chinese, or that chicory was as good as coffee.

BONAPARTE, FIRST
CONSUL.

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

The works he insisted should be carried on in regard to roads and public
buildings were of great importance. There was need that something be
done.
“It is impossible to conceive, if one had not been a witness of it before and after the 18th Brumaire
[said the chancellor Pasquier], of the widespread ruin wrought by the Revolution.... There were
hardly two or three main roads [in France] in a fit condition for traffic; not a single one was there,
perhaps, wherein was not found some obstacle that could not be surmounted without peril. With
regard to the ways of internal communication, they had been indefinitely suspended. The navigation
of rivers and canals was no longer feasible.
“In all directions, public buildings, and those monuments which represent the splendor of the state,
were falling into decay. It must fain be admitted that if the work of destruction had been prodigious,
that of restoration was no less so. Everything was taken hold of at one and the same time, and
everything progressed with a like rapidity. Not only was it resolved to restore all that required
restoring in various parts of the country, in all parts of the public service, but new, grand, beautiful
and useful works were decided upon, and many were brought to a happy termination. This certainly
constitutes one of the most brilliant sides of the consular and imperial régime.”

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

extent which would be incredible, if every traveller in Europe did not have
the evidence of them still before his eyes. The mere enumeration of these
works and of the industrial achievements of Napoleon, made by Las Cases,
reads like a fairy story. “You wish to know the treasures of Napoleon? They
are immense, it is true, but they are all exposed to light. They are the noble
harbors of Antwerp and Flushing, which are capable of containing the
largest fleets, and of protecting them against the ice from the sea; the
hydraulic works at Dunkirk, Havre, and Nice; the immense harbor of
Cherbourg; the maritime works at Venice; the beautiful roads from Antwerp
to Amsterdam, from Mayence to Metz, from Bordeaux to Bayonne; the
passes of the Simplon, of Mont Cenis, of Mount Genèvre, of the Corniche,
which open a communication through the Alps in four different directions,
and which exceed in grandeur, in boldness, and in skill of execution, all the
works of the Romans (in that alone you will find eight hundred millions);
the roads from the Pyrenees to the Alps, from Parma to Spezia, from
Savona to Piedmont; the bridges of Jena, Austerlitz, Des Arts, Sèvres,
Tours, Roanne, Lyons, Turin; of the Isère, of the Durance, of Bordeaux, of
Rouen, etc.; the canal which connects the Rhine with the Rhone by the
Doubs, and thus unites the North Sea with the Mediterranean; the canal
which joins the Scheldt with the Somme, and thus joins Paris and
Amsterdam; the canal which unites the Rance to the Vilaine; the canal of
Arles; that of Pavia, and the canal of the Rhine; the draining of the marshes
of Bourgoin, of the Cotentin, of Rochefort; the rebuilding of the greater part
of the churches destroyed by the Revolution; the building of others: the
institution of numerous establishments of industry for the suppression of
mendicity; the gallery at the Louvre; the construction of public warehouses,
of the Bank, of the canal of the Ourcq; the distribution of water in the city
of Paris; the numerous drains, the quays, the embellishments, and the
monuments of that large capital; the works for the embellishment of Rome;
the reëstablishment of the manufactures of Lyons; the creation of many
hundreds of manufactories of cotton, for spinning and for weaving, which
employ several millions of workmen; funds accumulated to establish
upwards of four hundred manufactories of sugar from beet-root, for the
consumption of part of France, and which would have furnished sugar at the
same price as the West Indies, if they had continued to receive
encouragement for only four years longer; the substitution of woad for
indigo, which would have been at last brought to a state of perfection in

France, and obtained as good and as cheap as the indigo from the colonies;
numerous manufactories for all kinds of objects of art, etc.; fifty millions
expended in repairing and beautifying the palaces belonging to the Crown;
sixty millions in furniture for the palaces belonging to the Crown in France,
in Holland, at Turin, and at Rome; sixty millions of diamonds for the
Crown, all purchased with Napoleon’s money; the Regent (the only
diamond that was left belonging to the former diamonds of the Crown)
withdrawn from the hands of the Jews at Berlin, in whose hands it had been
left as a pledge for three millions. The Napoleon Museum, valued at
upwards of four hundred millions, filled with objects legitimately acquired,
either by moneys or by treaties of peace known to the whole world, by
virtue of which the chefs-d’oeuvres, it contains were given in lieu of
territory or of contributions. Several millions amassed to be applied to the
encouragement of agriculture, which is the paramount consideration for the
interest of France; the introduction into France of merino sheep, etc. These
form a treasure of several thousand millions which will endure for ages.”

MEDALLION OF
BONAPARTE

The following inscription,
written in French, by
Dutertre, the official painter
of the principal personages in
the Egyptian expedition,
appears on the reverse side of
this medallion, which frames
one of the most precious gems
of Napoleonic iconography.
“I, Dutertre, made this
drawing of the general-in-

chief from nature, on board
the vessel ‘L’Orient,’ during
the crossing of the expedition
to Egypt in the year VII. (sic)
of the Republic.” A short time
ago the drawing came into the
possession of the Versailles
Museum.

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

MOREAU, ABOUT 1801.

Engraved by Elizabeth G.
Berhan, after Guérin.

CHAPTER VIII

RETURN OF THE EMIGRES—THE CONCORDAT—LEGION OF HONOR—CODE
NAPOLEON

B ut there were wounds in the French nation more profound than those
caused by lack of credit, by neglect and corruption. The body which
in 1789 made up France had, in the last ten years, been violently and
horribly wrenched asunder. One hundred and fifty thousand of the richest,
most cultivated, and most capable of the population had been stripped of
wealth and position, and had emigrated to foreign lands.
Napoleon saw that if the émigrés could be reconciled, he at once
converted a powerful enemy into a zealous friend. In spite of the opposition
of those who had made the Revolution and gained their positions through it,
he accorded an amnesty to the émigrés, which included the whole one
hundred and fifty thousand, with the exception of about one thousand, and
this number, it was arranged, should be reduced to five hundred in the
course of a year. More, he provided for their wants. Most of the smaller
properties confiscated by the Revolution had been sold, and Napoleon
insisted that those who had bought them from the state should be assured of
their tenure; but in case a property had not been disposed of, he returned it
to the family, though rarely in full. In case of forest lands, not over three
hundred and seventy-five acres were given back. Gifts and positions were
given to many émigrés, so that the majority were able to live in ease.
A valuable result of this policy of reconciliation was the amount of talent,
experience, and culture which he gained for the government. France had
been run for ten years by country lawyers, doctors, and pamphleteers, who,
though they boasted civic virtue and eloquence, and though they knew their
Plutarch and Rousseau by heart, had no practical sense, and little or no
experience. The return of the émigrés gave France a body of trained

diplomats, judges, and thinkers, many of whom were promptly admitted to
the government.
More serious than the amputation of the aristocracy had been that of the
Church. The Revolution had torn it from the nation, had confiscated its
property, turned its cathedrals into barracks, its convents and seminaries
into town halls and prisons, sold its lands, closed its schools and hospitals.
It had demanded an oath of the clergy which had divided the body, and
caused thousands to emigrate. Not content with this, it had tried to supplant
the old religion, first with a worship of the Goddess of Reason, afterwards
with one of the Supreme Being.
But the people still loved the Catholic Church. The mass of them kept
their crucifixes in their houses, told their beads, observed fast days. No
matter how severe a penalty was attached to the observance of Sunday
instead of the day which had replaced it, called the “decade,” at heart the
people remembered it. “We rest on the decade,” said a workman once, “but
we change our shirts on Sunday.”
Napoleon understood the popular heart, and he proposed the
reëstablishment of the Catholic Church. The Revolutionists, even his
warmest friends among the generals, opposed it. Infidelity was a cardinal
point in the creed of the majority of the new régime. They not only rejected
the Church, they ridiculed it. Rather than restore Catholicism, they advised
Protestantism. “But,” declared Napoleon, “France is not Protestant; she is
Catholic.”
In the Council of State, where the question was argued, he said: “My
policy is to govern men as the greatest number wish to be governed.... I
carried on the war of Vendée by becoming a Catholic; I established myself
in Egypt by becoming a Mussulman; I won over the priests in Italy by
becoming Ultramontane. If I governed Jews I should reëstablish the temple
of Solomon.... It is thus, I think, that the sovereignty of the people should be
understood.”
Evidently this was a very different way of understanding that famous
doctrine from that which had been in vogue, which consisted in forcing the
people to accept what each idealist thought was best, without consulting
their prejudices or feelings. In spite of opposition, Napoleon’s will
prevailed, and in the spring of 1802 the Concordat was signed. This treaty
between the Pope and France is still in force in France. It makes the

Catholic Church the state church, allows the government to name the
bishops, compels it to pay the salaries of the clergy, and to furnish
cathedrals and churches for public worship, which, however, remain
national property. The Concordat provided for the absolution of the priests
who had married in the Revolution, restored Sunday, and made legal
holidays of certain fête days. This arrangement was not made at the price of
intolerance towards other bodies. The French government protects and
contributes towards the support of all religions within its bounds, Catholic,
Protestant, Jew, or Mohammedan. The Concordat was ridiculed by many in
the government and army, but undoubtedly it was one of the most
statesmanlike measures carried out by Napoleon.

SIGNING OF CONCORDAT.

By Gérard. The original is at Versailles.

“The joy of the overwhelming majority of France silenced even the
boldest malcontents,” says Pasquier; “it became evident that Napoleon,
better than those who surrounded him, had seen into the depths of the
nation’s heart.”
It is certain that in reëstablishing the Church Napoleon did not yield to
any religious prejudice, although the Catholic Church was the one he
preferred. It was purely a question of policy. In arranging the Concordat he
might have secured more liberal measures—measures in which he believed
—but he refused them.

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

In discussing the subject at St. Helena he said to Las Cases:
“When I came to the head of affairs, I had already formed certain ideas on the great principles
which hold society together. I had weighed all the importance of religion; I was persuaded of it, and I
had resolved to reëstablish it. You would scarcely believe in the difficulties that I had to restore
Catholicism. I would have been followed much more willingly if I had unfurled the banner of
Protestantism.... It is sure that in the disorder to which I succeeded, in the ruins where I found myself,
I could choose between Catholicism and Protestantism. And it is true that at that moment the
disposition was in favor of the latter. But outside the fact that I really clung to the religion in which I
had been born, I had the highest motives to decide me. By proclaiming Protestantism, what would I
have obtained? I should have created in France two great parties about equal, when I wished there
should be longer but one. I should have excited the fury of religious quarrels, when the enlightenment
of the age and my desire was to make them disappear altogether. These two parties in tearing each
other to pieces would have annihilated France and rendered her the slave of Europe, when I was
ambitious of making her its mistress. With Catholicism I arrived much more surely at my great
results. Within, at home, the great number would absorb the small, and I promised myself to treat
with the latter so liberally that it would soon have no motive for knowing the difference.
“Without, Catholicism saved me the Pope; and with my influences and our forces in Italy I did not
despair sooner or later, by one way or another, of finishing by ruling the Pope myself.”

When the Church fell in France, the whole system of education went
down with her. The Revolutionary governments tried to remedy the
condition, but beyond many plans and speeches little had been done.
Napoleon allowed the religious bodies to reopen their schools, and thus
primary instruction was soon provided again; and he founded a number of
secondary and special schools. The greatest of his educational undertakings
was the organization of the University. This institution was centralized in
the head of the state as completely as every other Napoleonic institution. It
exists to-day but little changed—a most efficient body, in spite of its rigid
state control. This university did nothing for woman.
“I do not think we need trouble ourselves with any plan of instruction for
young females,” Napoleon told the Council. “They cannot be brought up
better than by their mothers. Public education is not suitable for them,
because they are never called upon to act in public. Manners are all in all to
them, and marriage is all they look to. In times past the monastic life was
open to women; they espoused God, and, though society gained little by
that alliance, the parents gained by pocketing the dowry.”

It was with the education of the daughters of soldiers, civil functionaries,
and members of the Legion of Honor, who had died and left their children
unprovided for, that he concerned himself, establishing schools of which the
well known one at St. Denis is a model. The rules were prepared by
Napoleon himself, who insisted that the girls should be taught all kinds of
housework and needlework—everything, in fact, which would make them
good housekeepers and honest women.
The military schools were also reorganized at this time. Remembering his
own experience at the Ecole Militaire, Napoleon arranged that the severest
economy should be practised in them, and that the pupils should learn to do
everything for themselves. They even cleaned, bedded, and shod their own
horses.
The destruction of the old system of privileges and honors left the
government without any means of rewarding those who rendered it a
service. Napoleon presented a law for a Legion of Honor, under control of
the state, which should admit to its membership only those who had done
something of use to the public. The service might be military, commercial,
artistic, humanitarian; no limit was put on its nature; anything which helped
France in any way was to be rewarded by membership in the proposed
order. In fact, it was the most democratic distinction possible, since the
same reward was given for all classes of service and to all classes of people.
Now the Revolutionary spirit spurned all distinction; and as free
discussion was allowed on the law, a severe arraignment of it was made.
Nevertheless, it passed. It immediately became a power in the hands of the
First Consul, and such it has remained until to-day in the government.
Though it has been frequently abused, and never, perhaps, more flagrantly
than by the present Republic, unquestionably the French “red button” is a
decoration of which to be proud.
The greatest civil achievement of Napoleon was the codification of the
laws. Up to the Revolution, the laws of France had been in a misty,
incoherent condition, feudal in their spirit, and by no means uniform in their
application. The Constituent Assembly had ordered them revised, but the
work had only been begun. Napoleon believed justly that the greatest
benefit he could render France would be to give her a complete and
systematic code. He organized the force for this gigantic task, and pushed
revision with unflagging energy.

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

1800.

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

His part in the work was interesting and important. After the laws had
been well digested and arranged in preliminary bodies, they were submitted
to the Council of State. It was in the discussion before this body that
Napoleon took part. That a man of thirty-one, brought up as a soldier, and
having no legal training, could follow the discussions of such a learned and
serious body as Napoleon’s Council of State always was, seems incredible.
In fact, he prepared for each session as thoroughly as the law-makers
themselves. His habit was to talk over, beforehand generally with
Cambacérès and Portalis, two legislators of great learning and clearness of
judgment, all the matters which were to come up.
“He examined each question by itself,” says Roederer, “inquiring into all
the authorities, times, experiences; demanding to know how it had been
under ancient jurisprudence, under Louis XIV., or Frederick the Great.
When a bill was presented to the First Consul, he rarely failed to ask these
questions: Is this bill complete? Does it cover every case? Why have you
not thought of this? Is that necessary? Is it right or useful? What is done
nowadays and elsewhere?”

At night, after he had gone to bed, he would read or have read to him
authorities on the subject. Such was his capacity for grasping any idea, that
he would come to the Council with a perfectly clear notion of the subject to
be treated, and a good idea of its historical development. Thus he could
follow the most erudite and philosophical arguments, and could take part in
them. He stripped them at once of all conventional phrases and learned
terms, and stated clearly what they meant. He had no use for anything but
the plain meaning. By thus going directly to the practical sense of a thing,
he frequently cleared up the ideas of the revisers themselves.
In framing the laws, he took care that they should be worded so that
everybody could understand them. Thus, when a law relating to liquors was
being prepared, he urged that wholesale and retail should be defined in such
a way that they would be definite ideas to the people. “Pot and pint must be
inserted,” he said. “There is no objection to those words. An excise act isn’t
an epic poem.”
Napoleon insisted on the greatest freedom of speech in the discussions on
the laws, just as he did on “going straight to the point and not wasting time
on idle talk.” This clearheadedness, energy, and grasp of subject, exercised
over a body of really remarkable men, developed the Council until its
discussions became famous throughout Europe. One of its wisest members,
Chancellor Pasquier, says of Napoleon’s direction that “it was of such a
nature as to enlarge the sphere of one’s ideas, and to give one’s faculties all
the development of which they were capable. The highest legislative,
administrative, and sometimes even political matters were taken up in it
(the Council). Did we not see, for two consecutive winters, the sons of
foreign sovereigns come and complete their education in its midst?”
It was the genius of the head of the state, however, which was the most
impressive feature of the Council of State. De Molleville, a former minister
of Louis XVI., said once to Las Cases:
“It must be admitted that your Bonaparte, your Napoleon, was a very extraordinary man. We were
far from understanding him on the other side of the water. We could not refuse the evidence of his
victories and his invasions, it is true; but Genseric, Attila, Alaric had done as much; so he made more
of an impression of terror on me than of admiration. But when I came here and followed the
discussions on the civil code, from that moment I had nothing but profound veneration for him. But
where in the world had he learned all that? And then every day I discovered something new in him.
Ah, sir, what a man you had there! Truly, he was a prodigy.”

The modern reader who looks at France and sees how her University, her
special schools, her hospitals, her great honorary legion, her treaty with the
Catholic Church, her code of laws, her Bank—the vital elements of her life,
in short—are as they came from Napoleon’s brain, must ask, with De
Molleville, How did he do it—he a foreigner, born in a half-civilized island,
reared in a military school, without diplomatic or legal training, without the
prestige of name or wealth? How could he make a nation? How could he be
other than the barbaric conqueror the English and the émigrés first thought
him.
Those who look at Napoleon’s achievements, and are either dazzled or
horrified by them, generally consider his power superhuman. They call it
divine or diabolic, according to the feeling he inspires in them; but, in
reality, the qualities he showed in his career as a statesman and lawgiver are
very human ones. His stout grasp on subjects; his genius for hard work; his
power of seeing everything that should be done, and doing it himself; his
unparalleled audacity, explain his civil achievements.
The comprehension he had of questions of government was really the
result of serious thinking. He had reflected from his first days at Brienne;
and the active interest he had taken in the Revolution of 1789 had made him
familiar with many social and political questions. His career in Italy, which
was almost as much a diplomatic as a military career, had furnished him an
experience upon which he had founded many notions. In his dreams of
becoming an Oriental lawgiver he had planned a system of government of
which he was to be the centre. Thus, before the 18th Brumaire made him
the Dictator of France, he had his ideas of centralized government all
formed, just as, before he crossed the Great Saint Bernard, he had fought,
over and over, the battle of Marengo, with black- and red-headed pins stuck
into a great map of Italy spread out on his study floor.

BONAPARTE, 1ER CONSUL
DE LA RÉP. FRANÇ.

NAPOLEON WHILE FIRST
CONSUL OF FRANCE.

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

His habit of attending to everything himself explains much of his
success. No detail was too small for him, no task too menial. If a thing
needed attention, no matter whose business it was, he looked after it.
Reading letters once before Madame Junot, she said to him that such work
must be tiresome, and advised him to give it to a secretary.
“Later, perhaps,” he said, “Now it is impossible; I must answer for all. It
is not at the beginning of a return to order that I can afford to ignore a need,
a demand.”
He carried out this policy literally. When he went on a journey, he looked
personally after every road, bridge, public building, he passed, and his
letters teemed with orders about repairs here, restorations there. He looked
after individuals in the same way; ordered a pension to this one, a position
to that one, even dictating how the gift should be made known so as to
offend the least possible the pride of the recipient.
When it came to foreign policy, he told his diplomats how they should
look, whether it should be grave or gay, whether they should discuss the
opera or the political situation.

The cost of the soldiers’ shoes, the kind of box Josephine took at the
opera, the style of architecture for the Madeleine, the amount of stock left
on hand in the silk factories, the wording of the laws, all was his business.
He thought of the flowers to be scattered daily on the tomb of General
Régnier, suggested the idea of a battle hymn to Rouget de l’Isle, told the
artists what expression to give him in their portraits, what accessories to use
in the battle pieces, ordered everything, verified everything. “Beside him,”
said those who looked on in amazement, “the most punctilious clerk would
have been a bungler.”
Without an extraordinary capacity for work, no man could have done
this. Napoleon would work until eleven o’clock in the evening, and be up
again at three in the morning. Frequently he slept but an hour, and came
back as fresh as ever. No secretary could keep up to him, and his ministers
sometimes went to sleep in the Council, worn out with the length of the
session. “Come, citizen ministers,” he would cry, “we must earn the money
the French nation gives us.” The ministers rarely went home from the
meetings that they did not find a half-dozen letters from him on their tables
to be answered, and the answer must be a clear, exact, exhaustive
document. “Get your information so that when you do answer me, there
shall be no ‘buts,’ no ‘ifs,’ and no ‘becauses,’” was the rule Napoleon laid
down to his correspondents.
He had audacity. He dared do what he would. He had no conventional
notions to tie him, no master to dictate to him. The Revolution had swept
out of his way the accumulated experience of centuries—all the habits, the
prejudices, the ways of doing things. He commenced nearer the bottom than
any man in the history of the civilized world had ever done, worked with
imperial self-confidence, with a conviction that he “was not like other
men;” that the moral laws, the creeds, the conventions, which applied to
them, were not for him. He might listen to others, but in the end he dared do
as he would.

CHAPTER IX

OPPOSITION TO THE CENTRALIZATION OF THE GOVERNMENT—GENERAL
PROSPERITY

T he centralization of France in Napoleon’s hands was not to be allowed
to go on without interference. Jacobinism, republicanism, royalism,
were deeply-rooted sentiments, and it was not long before they began
to struggle for expression.
Early in the Consulate, plots of many descriptions were unearthed. The
most serious before 1803 was that known as the “Opera Plot,” or “Plot of
the 3d Nivôse” (December 24, 1800), when a bomb was placed in the street,
to be exploded as the First Consul’s carriage passed. By an accident he was
saved, and, in spite of the shock, went on to the opera.
Madame Junot, who was there, gives a graphic description of the way the
news was received by the house:
“The first thirty measures of the oratorio were scarcely played, when a strong explosion like a
cannon was heard.
“‘What does that mean?’ exclaimed Junot with emotion. He opened the door of the loge and
looked into the corridor.... ‘It is strange; how can they be firing cannon at this hour?’ And then ‘I
should have known it. Give me my hat; I am going to find out what it is....’
“At this moment the loge of the First Consul opened, and he himself appeared with Generals
Lannes, Lauriston, Berthier, and Duroc. Smiling, he saluted the immense crowd, which mingled cries
like those of love with its applause. Madame Bonaparte followed him in a few seconds....
“Junot was going to enter the loge to see for himself the serene air of the First Consul that I had
just remarked, when Duroc came up to us with troubled face.
“‘The First Consul has just escaped death,’ he said quickly to Junot. ‘Go down and see him; he
wants to talk to you.’ ... But a dull sound commenced to spread from parterre to orchestra, from
orchestra to amphitheatre, and thence to the loges.
“‘The First Consul has just been attacked in the Rue Saint Nicaise,’ it was whispered. Soon the
truth was circulated in the salle; at the same instant, and as by an electric shock, one and the same
acclamation arose, one and the same look enveloped Napoleon, as if in a protecting love.
“What agitation preceded the explosion of national anger which was represented in that first
quarter of an hour, by that crowd whose fury for so black an attack could not be expressed by words!
Women sobbed aloud, men shivered with indignation. Whatever the banner they followed, they were

united heart and arm in this case to show that differences of opinion did not bring with them
differences in understanding honor.”

It was such attempts, and suspicion of like ones, that led to the extension
of the police service. One of the ablest and craftiest men of the Revolution
became Napoleon’s head of police in the Consulate, Fouché. A consummate
actor and skilful flatterer, hampered by no conscience other than the duty of
keeping in place, he acted a curious and entertaining part. Detective work
was for him a game which he played with intense relish. He was a veritable
amateur of plots, and never gayer than when tracing them.
Napoleon admired Fouché, but he did not trust him, and, to offset him,
formed a private police to spy on his work. He never succeeded in finding
anyone sufficiently fine to match the chief, who several times was
malicious enough to contrive plots himself, to excite and mislead the
private agents.
The system of espionage went so far that letters were regularly opened. It
was commonly said that those who did not want their letters read, did not
send them by post; and though it was hardly necessary, as in the Revolution,
to send them in pies, in coat-linings, or hat-crowns, yet care and prudence
had to be exercised in handling all political letters.
It was difficult to get officials for the post-office who could be relied on
to intercept the proper letters; and in 1802, the Postmaster-General,
Monsieur Bernard, the father of the beautiful Madame Récamier, was found
to be concealing an active royalist correspondence, and to be permitting the
circulation of a quantity of seditious pamphlets. His arrest and
imprisonment made a great commotion in his daughter’s circle, which was
one of social and intellectual importance. Through the intercessions of
Bernadotte, Monsieur Bernard was pardoned by Napoleon. The cabinet
noir, as the department of the post-office which did this work was called,
was in existence when Napoleon came to the Consulate, and he rather
restricted than increased its operations. It has never been entirely given up,
as many an inoffensive foreigner in France can testify.
The theatre and press were also subjected to a strict censorship. In 1800
the number of newspapers in Paris was reduced to twelve; and in three
years there were but eight left, with a total subscription list of eighteen
thousand six hundred and thirty. Napoleon’s contempt for journalists and
editors equalled that he had for lawyers, whom he called a “heap of

babblers and revolutionists.” Neither class could, in his judgment, be
allowed to go free.

“THE GENERAL OF THE
GRAND ARMY.”

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

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

Madame de Staël, whenever he met her, his own notions of women, which
certainly were anything but “modern.”
As the centralization of the government increased, Madame de Staël and
her friends criticized Napoleon more freely and sharply than they would
have done, no doubt, had she not been incensed by his personal attitude
towards her. This hostility increased until, in 1803, the First Consul ordered
her out of France. “The arrival of this woman, like that of a bird of omen,
has always been the signal for some trouble,” he said in giving the order. “It
is not my intention to allow her to remain in France.”
In 1807 this order was repeated, and many of Madame de Staël’s friends
were included in the proscription:
“I have written to the Minister of Police to send Madame de Staël to Geneva. This woman
continues her trade of intriguer. She went near Paris in spite of my orders. She is a veritable plague.
Speak seriously to the Minister, for I shall be obliged to have her seized by the gendarmerie. Keep an
eye upon Benjamin Constant; if he meddles with anything I shall send him to his wife at Brunswick.
I will not tolerate this clique.”

But when one compares the policy of restriction during the Consulate
with what it had been under the old régime and during the Revolution, it
certainly was far in advance in liberty, discretion, and humanity. The
republican government to-day, in its repression of anarchy, and socialism
has acted with less wisdom and less respect for freedom of thought than
Napoleon did at this period of his career; and that, too, in circumstances less
complicated and critical. If there were still dull rumors of discontent, a
cabinet noir, a restricted press, a censorship over the theatre, proscriptions,
even imprisonments and executions, on the whole France was happy.
“Not only did the interior wheels of the machine commence to run
smoothly,” says the Duchesse d’Abrantès, “but the arts themselves, that
most peaceful part of the interior administration, gave striking proofs of the
returning prosperity of France. The exposition at the Salon that year (1800)
was remarkably fine. Guérin, David, Gérard, Girodet, a crowd of great
talents, spurred on by the emulation which always awakes the fire of
genius, produced works which must some time place our school at a high
rank.”
The art treasures of Europe were pouring into France. Under the direction
of Denon, that indefatigable dilettante and student, who had collected in the
expedition in Egypt more entertaining material than the whole Institute, and

had written a report of it which will always be preferred to the “Great
Work,” the galleries of Paris were reorganized and opened two days of the
week to the people. Napoleon inaugurated this practice himself. Not only
was Paris supplied with galleries; those department museums which to-day
surprise and delight the tourist in France were then created at Angers,
Antwerp, Autun, Bordeaux, Brussels, Caen, Dijon, Geneva, Grenoble, Le
Mans, Lille, Lyons, Mayence, Marseilles, Montpellier, Nancy, Nantes,
Rennes, Rouen, Strasburg, Toulouse, and Tours. The prix de Rome, for
which there had been no money in the treasury for some time, was
reëstablished.
Every effort was made to stimulate scientific research. The case of Volta
is one to the point. In 1801 Bonaparte called the eminent physicist to Paris
to repeat his experiments before the Institute. He proposed that a medal
should be given him, with a sum of money, and in his honor he established
a prize of sixty thousand francs, to be awarded to any one who should make
a discovery similar in value to Volta’s.[1] An American—Robert Fulton—
was about the same time encouraged by the First Consul. Fulton was
experimenting with his submarine torpedo and diving boat, and for four
years had been living in Paris and besieging the Directory to grant him
attention and funds. Napoleon took the matter up as soon as Fulton brought
it to him, ordered a commission appointed to look into the invention, and a
grant of ten thousand francs for the necessary experiments.
The Institute was reorganized, and to encourage science and the arts he
founded, in 1804, twenty-two prizes, nine of which were of ten thousand
francs each, and thirteen of five thousand francs each. They were to be
awarded every ten years by the emperor himself, on the 18th Brumaire. The
first distribution of these prizes was to have taken place in 1809, but the
judges could not agree on the laureates; and before a conclusion was
reached, the empire had fallen.

BONAPARTE AS GENERAL, CONSUL, MEMBER OF
THE INSTITUTE.

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

In literature and in music, as in art and science, there was a renewal of
activity. A circle of poets and writers gathered about the First Consul.
Paisiello was summoned to Paris to direct the opera and conservatory of
music. There was a revival of dignity and taste in strong contrast to the
license and carelessness of the Revolution. The incroyable passed away.
The Greek costume disappeared from the street. Men and women began
again to dress, to act, to talk, according to conventional forms. Society
recovered its systematic ways of doing things, and soon few signs of the
general dissolution which had prevailed for ten years were to be seen.
Once more the traveller crossed France in peace; peasant and laborer
went undisturbed about their work, and slept without fear. Again the people
danced in the fields and “sang their songs as they had in the days before the
Revolution.” “France has nothing to ask from Heaven,” said Regnault de
Saint Jean d’Angély, “but that the sun may continue to shine, the rain to fall
on our fields, and the earth to render the seed fruitful.”

NAPOLEON IN 1803.

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

1. The Volta prize has been awarded only three or four times. An award of particular interest to
Americans was that made in 1880 to Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone. The
amount of the prize was a little less than ten thousand dollars. Dr. Bell, being already in affluent
circumstances, upon receiving this prize, set it apart to be used for the benefit of the deaf, in whose
welfare he had for many years taken a great interest. He invested it in another invention of his, which
proved to be very profitable, so that the fund came to amount to one hundred thousand dollars. This
he termed the Volta Fund. Some of this fund has been applied by Dr. Bell to the organization of the
Volta Bureau, which collects all valuable information that can be obtained with reference to not only
deaf-mutes as a class, but to deaf-mutes individually. Twenty-five thousand dollars has been given to
the Association for the Promotion of Teaching Speech to the Deaf. Napoleon is thus indirectly the
founder of one of the most interesting and valuable present undertakings of the country.

CHAPTER X

PREPARATIONS FOR WAR WITH ENGLAND—FLOTILLA AT BOULOGNE—SALE OF
LOUISIANA

I n the spring of 1803 the treaty of Amiens, which a year before had
ended the long war with England, was broken. Both countries had many
reasons for complaint. Napoleon was angry at the failure to evacuate
Malta. The perfect freedom allowed the press in England gave the
pamphleteers and caricaturists of the country an opportunity to criticize and
ridicule him. He complained bitterly to the English ambassadors of this free
press, an institution in his eyes impractical and idealistic. He complained,
too, of the hostile émigrés allowed to collect in Jersey; of the presence in
England of such a notorious enemy of his as Georges Cadoudal; and of the
sympathy and money the Bourbon princes and many nobles of the old
régime received in London society. Then, too, he regarded the country as
his natural and inevitable enemy. England to Napoleon was only a little
island which, like Corsica and Elba, naturally belonged to France, and he
considered it part of his business to get possession of her.
England, on the other hand, looked with distrust at the extension of
Napoleon’s influence on the Continent. Northern Italy, Switzerland,
Holland, Parma, Elba, were under his protectorate. She had been deeply
offended by a report published in Paris, on the condition of the Orient, in
which the author declared that with six thousand men the French could
reconquer Egypt; she resented the violent articles in the official press of
Paris in answer to those of the free press of England; her aristocratic spirit
was irritated by Napoleon’s success; she despised this parvenu, this
“Corsican scoundrel,” as Nelson called him, who had had the hardihood to
rise so high by other than the conventional methods for getting on in the
world which she sanctioned.

Real and fancied aggressions continued throughout the year of the peace;
and when the break finally came, though both nations persisted in declaring
that they did not want war, both were in a thoroughly warlike mood.
Napoleon’s preparations against England form one of the most
picturesque military movements in his career. Unable to cope with his
enemy at sea, he conceived the audacious notion of invading the island, and
laying siege to London itself. The plan briefly was this—to gather a great
army on the north shore of France, and in some port a flotilla sufficient to
transport it to Great Britain. In order to prevent interference with this
expedition, he would keep the enemy’s fleet occupied in the Mediterranean,
or in the Atlantic, until the critical moment. Then, leading the English naval
commander by stratagem in the wrong direction, he would call his own fleet
to the Channel to protect his passage. He counted to be in London, and to
have compelled the English to peace, before Nelson could return from the
chase he would have led him.
The preparations began at once. The port chosen for the flotilla was
Boulogne; but the whole coast from Antwerp to the mouth of the Seine
bristled with iron and bronze. Between Calais and Boulogne, at Cape Gris
Nez, where the navigation was the most dangerous, the batteries literally
touched one another. Fifty thousand men were put to work at the
stupendous excavations necessary to make the ports large enough to receive
the flotilla. Large numbers of troops were brought rapidly into the
neighborhood: fifty thousand men to Boulogne, under Soult; thirty thousand
to Etaples, under Ney; thirty thousand to Ostend, under Davoust; reserves to
Arras, Amiens, Saint-Omer.
The work of preparing the flat-bottomed boats, or walnut-shells, as the
English called them, which were to carry over the army, went on in all the
ports of Holland and France, as well as in interior towns situated on rivers
leading to the sea. The troops were taught to row, each soldier being obliged
to practise two hours a day so that the rivers of all the north of France were
dotted with land-lubbers handling the oar, the most of them for the first
time.
In the summer of 1803, Napoleon went to the north to look after the
work. His trip was one long ovation. Le Chemin d’Angleterre was the
inscription the people of Amiens put on the triumphal arch erected to his

honor, and town vied with town in showing its joy at the proposed descent
on the old-time enemy.
Such was the interest of the people, that a thousand projects were
suggested to help on the invasion, some of them most amusing. In a learned
and thoroughly serious memorial, one genius proposed that while the
flotilla was preparing, the sailors be employed in catching dolphins, which
should be shut up in the ports, tamed, and taught to wear a harness, so as to
be driven, in the water, as horses are on land. This novel power was to
transport the French to the opposite side of the Channel.
Napoleon occupied himself not only with the preparations at Boulogne
and with keeping Nelson busy elsewhere. Every project which could
possibly facilitate his undertaking or discomfit his enemies, he considered.
Fulton’s diving boat, the “Nautilus,” and his submarine torpedoes, were at
that time attracting the attention of the war departments of civilized
countries. Already Napoleon had granted ten thousand francs to help the
inventor. From the camp at Boulogne he again ordered the matter to be
looked into. Fulton promised him a machine which “would deliver France
and the whole world from British oppression.”

GRAY REDINGOTE AND
PETIT CHAPEAU WORN
BY NAPOLEON.

“I have just read the project of Citizen Fulton, engineer, which you have sent me much too late,”
he wrote, “since it is one that may change the face of the world. Be that as it may, I desire that you
immediately confide its examination to a commission of members chosen by you among the different

classes of the Institute. There it is that learned Europe would seek for judges to resolve the question
under consideration. A great truth, a physical, palpable truth, is before my eyes. It will be for these
gentlemen to try and seize it and see it. As soon as their report is made, it will be sent to you, and you
will forward it to me. Try and let the whole be determined within eight days, as I am impatient.”

He had his eye on every point of the earth where he might be weak, or
where he might weaken his enemy. He took possession of Hanover. The
Irish were promised aid in their efforts for freedom. “Provided that twenty
thousand united Irishmen join the French army on its landing,” France is to
give them in return twenty-five thousand men, forty thousand muskets, with
artillery and ammunition, and a promise that the French government will
not make peace with England until the independence of Ireland has been
proclaimed.
An attack on India was planned, his hope being that the princes of India
would welcome an invader who would aid them in throwing off the English
yoke. To strengthen himself in the Orient, he sought by letters and envoys
to win the confidence, as well as to inspire the awe, of the rulers of Turkey
and Persia.
The sale of Louisiana to the United States dates from this time. This
transfer, of such tremendous importance to us, was made by Napoleon
purely for the sake of hurting England. France had been in possession of
Louisiana but three years. She had obtained it from Spain only on the
condition that it should “at no time, under no pretext, and in no manner, be
alienated or ceded to any other power.” The formal stipulation of the
treaties forbade its sale. But Napoleon was not of a nature to regard a treaty,
if the interest of the moment demanded it to be broken. To sell Louisiana
now would remove a weak spot from France, upon which England would
surely fall in the war. More, it would put a great territory, which he could
not control, into the hands of a country which, he believed, would some day
be a serious hindrance to English ambition. He sold the colony for the same
reason that former French governments had helped the United States in her
struggles for independence—to cripple England. It would help the United
States, but it would hurt England. That was enough; and with characteristic
eagerness he hurried through the negotiations.
“I have just given England a maritime rival which, sooner or later, will
humble her pride,” he said exultingly, when the convention was signed. The
sale brought him twelve million dollars, and the United States assumed the
French spoliation claims.

This sale of Louisiana caused one of the first violent quarrels between
Lucien Bonaparte and Napoleon. Lucien had negotiated the return of the
American territory to France in 1800. He had made a princely fortune out of
the treaty, and he was very proud of the transaction; and when his brother
Joseph came to him one evening in hot haste, with the information that the
General wanted to sell Louisiana, he hurried around to the Tuileries in the
morning to remonstrate.
Napoleon was in his bath, but, in the mode of the time, he received his
brothers. He broached the subject himself, and asked Lucien what he
thought.
“I flatter myself that the Chambers will not give their consent.”
“You flatter yourself?” said Napoleon. “That’s good, I declare.”
“I have already said the same to the First Consul,” cried Joseph.
“And what did I answer?” said Napoleon, splashing around indignantly
in the opaque water.
“That you would do it in spite of the Chambers.”
“Precisely. I shall do it without the consent of anyone whomsoever. Do
you understand?”
Joseph, beside himself, rushed to the bathtub, and declared that if
Napoleon dared do such a thing he would put himself at the head of an
opposition and crush him in spite of their fraternal relations. So hot did the
debate grow that the First Consul sprang up shouting: “You are insolent! I
ought——” but at that moment he slipped and fell back violently. A great
mass of perfumed water drenched Joseph to the skin, and the conference
broke up.
An hour later, Lucien met his brother in his library, and the discussion
was resumed, only to end in another scene, Napoleon hurling a beautiful
snuff-box upon the floor and shattering it, while he told Lucien that if he
did not cease his opposition he would crush him in the same way. These
violent scenes were repeated, but to no purpose. Louisiana was sold.

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

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

CHAPTER XI

OPPOSITION TO NAPOLEON—THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE EMPIRE—KING OF
ITALY

W hile the preparation for the invasion was going on, the feeling
against England was intensified by the discovery of a plot against
the life of the First Consul. Georges Cadoudal, a fanatical royalist,
who was accused of being connected with the plot of the 3d Nivôse
(December 24), and who had since been in England, had formed a gigantic
conspiracy, having as its object nothing less than the assassination of
Napoleon in broad daylight, in the streets of Paris.
He had secured powerful aid to carry out his plan. The Bourbon princes
supported him, and one of them was to land on the north coast and put
himself at the head of the royalist sympathizers as soon as the First Consul
was killed. In this plot was associated Pichegru, who had been connected
with the 18th Fructidor. General Moreau, the hero of Hohenlinden, was
suspected of knowing something of it.
It came to light in time, and a general arrest was made of those suspected
of being privy to it. The first to be tried and punished was the Duc
d’Enghien, who had been seized at Ettenheim, in Baden, a short distance
from the French frontier, on the supposition that he had been coming
secretly to Paris to be present at the meetings of the conspirators. His trial at
Vincennes was short, his execution immediate. There is good reason to
believe that Napoleon had no suspicion that the Duc d’Enghien would be
executed so soon as he was, and even to suppose that he would have
lightened the sentence if the punishment had not been pushed on with an
irregularity and inhumanity that recalls the days of the Terror.
The execution was a severe blow to Napoleon’s popularity, both at home
and abroad. Fouché’s cynical remark was just: “The death of the Duc
d’Enghien is worse than a crime; it is a blunder.” Chateaubriand, who had

accepted a foreign embassy, resigned at once, and a number of the old
aristocracy, such as Pasquier and Molé, who had been saying among
themselves that it was their duty to support Napoleon’s splendid work of
reorganization, went back into obscurity. In society the effect was
distressing. The members of Napoleon’s own household met him with
averted faces and sad countenances, and Josephine wept until he called her
a child who understood nothing of politics. Abroad there was a revulsion of
sympathy, particularly in the cabinets of Russia, Prussia, and Austria.
The trial of Cadoudal and Moreau followed. The former with several of
his accomplices was executed. Moreau was exiled for two years. Pichegru
committed suicide in the Temple.
This plot showed Napoleon and his friends that a Jacobin or royalist
fanatic might any day end the life upon which the scheme of reorganization
depended. It is true he had already been made First Consul for life by a
practically unanimous vote, but there was need of strengthening his position
and providing a succession. In March, six days after the death of the Duc
d’Enghien, the Senate proposed to him that he complete his work and take
the throne. In April the Council of State and the Tribunate took up the
discussion. The opinion of the majority was voiced by Regnault de Saint
Jean d’Angély: “It is a long time since all reasonable men, all true friends of
their country, have wished that the First Consul would make himself
emperor, and reëstablish, in favor of his family, the old principles of
hereditary succession. It is the only means of securing permanency for his
own fortune, and to the men whom merit has raised to high offices. The
Republic, which I loved passionately, while I detested the crimes of the
Revolution, is now in my eyes a mere Utopia. The First Consul has
convinced me that he wishes to possess supreme power only to render
France great, free, and happy, and to protect her against the fury of
factions.”
The Senate soon after proceeded in a body to the Tuileries. “You have
extricated us from the chaos of the past,” said the spokesman; “you enable
us to enjoy the blessings of the present; guarantee to us the future.” On the
18th of May, 1804, when thirty-five years old, Napoleon was first addressed
as “sire,” and congratulated on his elevation to the throne of the French
people.

Immediately his household took on the forms of royalty. His mother was
Madame Mère; Joseph, Grand Elector, with the title of Imperial Highness;
Louis, Constable, with the same title; his sisters were Imperial Highnesses.
Titles were given to all officials; the ministers were excellencies;
Cambacérès and Le Brun, the Second and Third Consuls, became Arch-
Chancellor and Arch-Treasurer of the Empire. Of his generals, Berthier,
Murat, Moncey, Jourdan, Masséna, Augereau, Bernadotte, Soult, Brune,
Lannes, Mortier, Ney, Davoust, and Bessières were made marshals. The red
button of the Legion of Honor was scattered in profusion. The title of
citoyen, which had been consecrated by the Revolution, was dropped, and
hereafter everybody was called monsieur.
Two of Napoleon’s brothers, unhappily, had no part in these honors.
Jerome, who had been serving as lieutenant in the navy, had, in 1803, while
in the United States, married a Miss Elizabeth Patterson of Baltimore.
Napoleon forbade the recording of the marriage, and declared it void. As
Jerome had not as yet given up his wife, he had no share in the imperial
rewards. Lucien was likewise omitted, and for a similar reason. His first
wife had died in 1801, and much against Napoleon’s wishes he had married
a Madame Jouberthon, to whom he was deeply attached; nothing could
induce him to renounce his wife and take the Queen of Etruria, as Napoleon
wished. The result of his refusal was a violent quarrel between the brothers,
and Lucien left France.
This rupture was certainly a grief to Napoleon. Madame de Rémusat
draws a pathetic little picture of the effect upon him of the last interview
with Lucien:
“It was near midnight when Bonaparte came into the room; he was deeply dejected, and, throwing
himself into an arm-chair, he exclaimed in a troubled voice, ‘It is all over! I have broken with Lucien,
and ordered him from my presence.’ Madame Bonaparte began to expostulate. ‘You are a good
woman,’ he said, ‘to plead for him.’ Then he rose from his chair, took his wife in his arms, and laid
her head softly on his shoulder, and with his hand still resting on the beautiful head, which formed a
contrast to the sad, set countenance so near it, he told us that Lucien had resisted all his entreaties,
and that he had resorted equally in vain to both threats and persuasion. ‘It is hard, though,’ he added,
‘to find in one’s own family such stubborn opposition to interests of such magnitude. Must I, then,
isolate myself from every one? Must I rely on myself alone? Well! I will suffice to myself; and you,
Josephine—you will be my comfort always.’”

A fever of etiquette seized on all the inhabitants of the imperial palace of
Saint Cloud. The ponderous regulations of Louis XIV. were taken down
from the shelves in the library, and from them a code began to be compiled.

Madame Campan, who had been First Bedchamber Woman to Marie
Antoinette, was summoned to interpret the solemn law, and to describe
costumes and customs. Monsieur de Talleyrand, who had been made Grand
Chamberlain, was an authority who was consulted on everything.
“We all felt ourselves more or less elevated,” says Madame de Rémusat.
“Vanity is ingenious in its expectations, and ours were unlimited.
Sometimes it was disenchanting, for a moment, to observe the almost
ridiculous effect which this agitation produced upon certain classes of
society. Those who had nothing to do with our brand new dignities said
with Montaigne, ‘Let us avenge ourselves by railing at them.’ Jests, more or
less witty, and puns, more or less ingenious, were lavished on these new-
made princes, and somewhat disturbed our brilliant visions; but the number
of those who dare to censure success is small, and flattery was much more
common than criticism.”
No one was more severe in matters of etiquette than Napoleon himself.
He studied the subject with the same attention that he did the civil code, and
in much the same way. “In concert with Monsieur de Ségur,” he wrote De
Champagny, “you must write me a report as to the way in which ministers
and ambassadors should be received.... It will be well for you to enlighten
me as to what was the practice at Versailles, and what is done at Vienna and
St. Petersburg. Once my regulations adopted, everyone must conform to
them. I am master, to establish what rules I like in France.”
He had some difficulty with his old comrades-in-arms, who were
accustomed to addressing him in the familiar second singular, and calling
him Bonaparte, and who persisted, occasionally, even after he was “sire,” in
using the language of easy intimacy. Lannes was even removed for some
time from his place near the emperor for an indiscretion of this kind.
In August, 1804, the new emperor visited Boulogne to receive the
congratulations of his army and distribute decorations. His visit was
celebrated by a magnificent fête. Those who know the locality of Boulogne,
remember, north of the town, an amphitheatre-like plain, in the centre of
which is a hill. In this plain sixty thousand men were camped. On the
elevation was erected a throne. Hereby stood the chair of Dagobert; behind
it the armor of Francis I.; and around rose scores of blood-stained, bullet-
shot flags, the trophies of Italy and Egypt. Beside the emperor was the
helmet of Bayard, filled with the decorations to be distributed. Up and

down the coast were the French batteries; in the port lay the flotilla; to the
right and left stretched the splendid army.
Just as the ceremonies were finished, a fleet of over a thousand boats
came sailing into the harbor to join those already there, while out in the
Channel English officers and sailors, with levelled glasses, watched from
their vessels the splendid armament, which was celebrating its approaching
descent on their shores.
On December 1st the Senate presented the emperor the result of the vote
taken among the people as to whether hereditary succession should be
adopted. There were two thousand five hundred and seventy-nine votes
against; three million five hundred and seventy-five thousand for—a vote
more nearly unanimous than that for the life consulate, there being
something like nine thousand against him then.
The next day Napoleon was crowned at Notre Dame. The ceremony was
prepared with the greatest care. Grand Master of Ceremonies de Ségur,
aided by the painter David, drew up the plan and trained the court with
great severity in the etiquette of the occasion. He had the widest liberty, it
even being provided that “if it be indispensable, in order that the cortége
arrive at Notre Dame with greater facility, to pull down some houses,” it
should be done. By a master stroke of diplomacy Napoleon had persuaded
Pope Pius VII. to cross the Alps to perform for him the solemn and ancient
service of coronation.
Of this ceremony we have no better description than that of Madame
Junot:
“Who that saw Notre Dame on that memorable day can ever forget it? I have witnessed in that
venerable pile the celebration of sumptuous and solemn festivals; but never did I see anything at all
approximating in splendor the spectacle exhibited at Napoleon’s coronation. The vaulted roof re-
echoed the sacred chanting of the priests, who invoked the blessing of the Almighty on the ceremony
about to be celebrated, while they awaited the arrival of the Vicar of Christ, whose throne was
prepared near the altar. Along the ancient walls covered with magnificent tapestry were ranged,
according to their rank, the different bodies of the state, the deputies from every city; in short, the
representatives of all France assembled to implore the benediction of Heaven on the sovereign of the
people’s choice. The waving plumes which adorned the hats of the senators, counsellors of state, and
tribunes; the splendid uniforms of the military; the clergy in all their ecclesiastical pomp; and the
multitude of young and beautiful women, glittering in jewels, and arrayed in that style of grace and
elegance which is only seen in Paris;—altogether presented a picture which has, perhaps, rarely been
equalled, and certainly never excelled.
“The Pope arrived first; and at the moment of his entering the Cathedral, the anthem Tu es Petrus
was commenced. His Holiness advanced from the door with an air at once majestic and humble. Ere
long, the firing of a cannon announced the departure of the procession from the Tuileries. From an

early hour in the morning the weather had been exceeding unfavorable. It was cold and rainy, and
appearances seemed to indicate that the procession would be anything but agreeable to those who
joined it. But, as if by the especial favor of Providence, of which so many instances are observable in
the career of Napoleon, the clouds suddenly dispersed, the sky brightened up, and the multitudes who
lined the streets from the Tuileries to the Cathedral, enjoyed the sight of the procession without
being, as they had anticipated, drenched by a December rain. Napoleon, as he passed along, was
greeted by heartfelt expressions of enthusiastic love and attachment.

NAPOLEON WITH THE
IRON CROWN OF
LOMBARDY.

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

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

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

The fate of France had no sooner been settled, as Napoleon believed,
than it became necessary to decide on what should be done with Italy. The
crown was offered to Joseph, who refused it. He did not want to renounce
his claim to that of France, and finally Napoleon decided to take it himself.
A new constitution was prepared for the country by the French Senate, and,
when all was arranged, Napoleon started on April 1st for Italy. A great train
accompanied him, and the trip was of especial interest. The party crossed
the Alps by Mont Cenis, and the road was so bad that the carriages had to
be taken to pieces and carried over, while the travellers walked. This trip
really led to the fine roads which now cross Mont Cenis. At Alessandria
Napoleon halted, and on the field of Marengo ordered a review of the
manœuvres of the famous battle. At this review he even wore the coat and
hat he had worn on that famous day four years before.
By the time the imperial party was ready to enter Milan, on May 13, it
had increased to a triumphal procession, and the entry was attended by most
enthusiastic demonstrations. On May 26 the coronation took place. The iron
crown, used so long for the coronation of the Lombard kings, had been
brought out for the occasion. When the point in the ceremony was reached
where the crown was to be placed on Napoleon’s head, he seized it, and
with his own hands placed it on his head, repeating in a loud voice the
words inscribed on the crown: “God gives it to me; beware who touches it.”

Josephine was not crowned Queen of Italy, but watched the scene from a
gallery above the altar.
Napoleon remained in Italy for another month, engaged in settling the
affairs of the country. The order of the Crown of Iron was created, the
constitution settled, Prince Eugène was made viceroy, and Genoa was
joined to the Empire.

NAPOLEON REVIEWING HIS GUARDS.

Lithograph by Raffet.

CHAPTER XII

CAMPAIGN OF 1805—CAMPAIGN OF 1806–1807—PEACE OF TILSIT

A ustria looked with jealousy on this increase of power, and
particularly on the change in the institutions of her neighbors. In
assuming control of the Italian and Germanic States, Napoleon gave
the people his code and his methods; personal liberty, equality before the
law, religious toleration, took the place of the unjust and narrow feudal
institutions. These new ideas were quite as hateful to Austria as the
disturbance in the balance of power, and more dangerous to her system.
Russia and Prussia felt the same suspicion of Napoleon as Austria did. All
three powers were constantly incited to action against France by England,
who offered unlimited gold if they would but combine with her. In the
summer of 1805 Austria joined England and Russia in a coalition against
France. Prussia was not yet willing to commit herself.
The great army which for so many months had been gathering around
Boulogne, preparing for the descent on England, waited anxiously for the
arrival of the French fleet to cover its passage. But the fleet did not come;
and, though hoping until the last that his plan would still be carried out,
Napoleon quietly and swiftly made ready to transfer the army of England
into the Grand Army, and to turn its march against his continental enemies.
Never was his great war rule, “Time is everything,” more thoroughly
carried out. “Austria will employ fine phrases in order to gain time,” he
wrote Talleyrand, “and to prevent me accomplishing anything this year; ...
and in April I shall find one hundred thousand Russians in Poland, fed by
England, twenty thousand English at Malta, and fifteen thousand Russians
at Corfu. I should then be in a critical position. My mind is made up.” His
orders flew from Boulogne to Paris, to the German States, to Italy, to his
generals, to his naval commanders. By the 28th of August the whole army

had moved. A month later it had crossed the Rhine, and Napoleon was at its
head.
The force which he commanded was in every way an extraordinary one.
Marmont’s enthusiastic description was in no way an exaggeration:
“This army, the most beautiful that was ever seen, was less redoubtable from the number of its
soldiers than from their nature. Almost all of them had carried on war and had won victories. There
still existed among them something of the enthusiasm and exaltation of the Revolutionary
campaigns; but this enthusiasm was systematized. From the supreme chief down—the chiefs of the
army corps, the division commanders, the common officers and soldiers—everybody was hardened
to war. The eighteen months in splendid camps had produced a training, an ensemble, which has
never existed since to the same degree, and a boundless confidence. This army was probably the best
and the most redoubtable that modern times have seen.”

The force responded to the imperious genius of its commander with a
beautiful precision which amazes and dazzles one who follows its march.
So perfectly had all been arranged, so exactly did every corps and officer
respond, that nine days after the passage of the Rhine, the army was in
Bavaria, several marches in the rear of the enemy. The weather was terrible,
but nothing checked them. The emperor himself set the example. Day and
night he was on horseback in the midst of his troops; once for a week he did
not take off his boots. When they lagged, or the enemy harassed them, he
would gather each regiment into a circle, explain to it the position of the
enemy, the imminence of a great battle, and his confidence in his troops.
These harangues sometimes took place in driving snowstorms, the soldiers
standing up to their knees in icy slush. By October 13th, such was the
extraordinary march they had made, the emperor was able to issue this
address to the army:
“Soldiers, a month ago we were encamped on the shores of the ocean, opposite England, when an
impious league forced us to fly to the Rhine. Not a fortnight ago that river was passed; and the Alps,
the Neckar, the Danube, and the Lech, the celebrated barriers of Germany, have not for a minute
delayed our march.... The enemy, deceived by our manœuvres and the rapidity of our movements, is
entirely turned.... But for the army before you, we should be in London to-day, have avenged six
centuries of insult, and have liberated the sea.
“Remember to-morrow that you are fighting against the allies of England.
“Napoleon.”

Four days after this address came the capitulation of Ulm—a “new
Caudine Forks,” as Marmont called it. It was, as Napoleon said, a victory
won by legs, instead of by arms. The great fatigue and the forced marches

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

NAPOLEON, 1805.

Engraved in 1812 by
Massard, after Bouillon.

The position the French occupied can be understood if one draws a rough
diagram of a right-angled triangle, Brünn being at the right angle formed by
two roads, one running south to Vienna, by which Napoleon had come, and
the other running eastward to Olmütz. The hypotenuse of this angle,
running from northeast to southwest, is formed by Napoleon’s army.
When the allies decided to leave Olmütz their plan was to march
southwestward, in face of Napoleon’s line, get between him and Vienna,

and thus cut off what they supposed was his base of supplies (in this they
were mistaken, for Napoleon had, unknown to them, changed his base from
Vienna to Bohemia), separate him from his Italian army, and drive him,
routed, into Bohemia.
On the 27th of November the allies advanced, and their first encounter
with a small French vanguard was successful. It gave them confidence, and
they continued their march on the 28th, 29th, and 30th, gradually extending
a long line facing westward and parallel with Napoleon’s line. The French
emperor, while this movement was going on, was rapidly calling up his
reserves and strengthening his position. By the first day of December
Napoleon saw clearly what the allies intended to do, and had formed his
plan. The events of that day confirmed his ideas. By nine o’clock in the
evening he was so certain of the plan of the coming battle that he rode the
length of his line, explaining to his troops the tactics of the allies, and what
he himself proposed to do.
Napoleon’s appearance before the troops, his confident assurance of
victory, called out a brilliant demonstration from the army. The divisions of
infantry raised bundles of blazing straw on the ends of long poles, giving
him an illumination as imposing as it was novel. It was a happy thought, for
the day was the anniversary of his coronation.
The emperor remained in bivouac all night. At four o’clock of the
morning of the 2d of December he was in the saddle. When the gray fog
lifted he saw the enemy’s divisions arranged exactly as he had divined.
Three corps faced his right—the southwest part of the hypotenuse. These
corps had left a splendid position facing his centre, the heights of Pratzen.
This advance of the enemy had left their centre weak and unprotected,
and had separated the body of the army from its right, facing Napoleon’s
left. The enemy was in exactly the position Napoleon wished for the attack
he had planned.
It was eight o’clock in the morning when the emperor galloped up his
line, proclaiming to the army that the enemy had exposed himself, and
crying out: “Close the campaign with a clap of thunder.” The generals rode
to their positions, and at once the battle opened. Soult, who commanded the
French centre, attacked the allies’ centre so unexpectedly that it was driven
into retreat. The Emperor Alexander and his headquarters were in this part
of the army, and though the young czar did his best to rouse his forces, it

was a hopeless task. The Russian centre was defeated and the wings
divided. At the same time the allies’ left, where the bulk of their army was
massed in a marshy country of which they knew little, was engaged and
held in check by Davoust, and their right was overcome by Lannes, Murat,
and Bernadotte. As soon as the centre and right of the allies had been driven
into retreat, Napoleon concentrated his forces on their left, the strongest part
of his enemy. In a very short time the allies were driven back into the canals
and lakes of the country, and many men and nearly all the artillery lost.
Before night the routed enemy had fallen back to Austerlitz.
Of all Napoleon’s battles, Austerlitz was the one of which he was the
proudest. It was here that he showed best the “divine side of war.”
The familiar note in which Napoleon announced to his brother Joseph the
result of the battle, is a curious contrast to the oratorical bulletins which for
some days flowed to Paris. His letter is dated Austerlitz, December 3, 1805:
“After manœuvring for a few days I fought a decisive battle yesterday. I defeated the combined
armies commanded by the Emperors of Russia and Germany. Their force consisted of eighty
thousand Russians and thirty thousand Austrians. I have made forty thousand prisoners, taken forty
flags, one hundred guns, and all the standards of the Russian Imperial Guard.... Although I have
bivouacked in the open air for a week, my health is good. This evening I am in bed in the beautiful
castle of Monsieur de Kaunitz, and have changed my shirt for the first time in eight days.”

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

1806. BATTLE OF JENA.

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

At the beginning of 1806 Napoleon was again in Paris. He had been
absent but three months. Eight months of this year were spent in fruitless
negotiations with England and in an irritating correspondence with Prussia.
The latter country had many grievances against Napoleon, the sum of them
all being that “French politics had been the scourge of humanity for the last
fifteen years,” and that an “insatiable ambition was still the ruling passion
of France.” By the end of September war was declared, and Napoleon,
whose preparations had been conducted secretly, it being given out that he
was going to Compiègne to hunt, suddenly joined his army.
The first week of October the Grand Army advanced from southern
Germany towards the valley of the Saale. This movement brought them on
the flanks of the Prussians, who were scattered along the upper Saale. The
unexpected appearance of the French army, which was larger and much
better organized than the Prussians, caused the latter to retreat towards the
Elbe. The retreating army was in two divisions; the first crossing the Saale
to Jena, the second falling back towards the Unstrut. As soon as Napoleon
understood these movements he despatched part of his force under Davoust
and Bernadotte to cut off the retreat of the second Prussian division, while
he himself hurried on to Jena to force battle on the first. The Prussians were
encamped at the foot of a height known as the Landgrafenberg. To
command this height was to command the Prussian forces. By a series of
determined and repeated efforts Napoleon reached the position desired, and

by the morning of the 14th of October had his foes in his power. Advancing
from the Landgrafenberg in three divisions, he turned the Prussian flanks at
the same moment that he attacked their centre. The Prussians never fought
better, perhaps, than at Jena. The movements of their cavalry awakened
even Napoleon’s admiration, but they were surrounded and outnumbered,
and the army was speedily broken into pieces and driven into a retreat.
While Napoleon was fighting at Jena, to the right at Auerstadt, Davoust
was engaging Brunswick and his seventy thousand men with a force of
twenty-seven thousand. In spite of the great difference in numbers the
Prussians were unable to make any impression on the French; and
Brunswick falling, they began to retreat towards Jena, expecting to join the
other division of the army, of whose route they were ignorant. The result
was frightful. The two flying armies suddenly encountered each other, and,
pursued by the French on either side, were driven in confusion towards the
Elbe.
On October 25th the French were at Berlin. Their entry was one of the
great spectacles of the campaign. One particularly interesting incident was
the visit paid to Napoleon by the Protestant and Calvinist French clergy.
There were at that time twelve thousand French refugees in Berlin, victims
of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. They were received with kindness
by Napoleon, who told them they had good right to protection, and that
their privileges and worship should be respected.
Jena brought Napoleon something like one hundred and sixty million
francs in money, an enormous number of prisoners, guns, and standards, the
glory of the entry of Berlin, and a great number of interesting articles for
the Napoleon Museum of Paris, among them the column from the field of
Rosbach, the sword, the ribbon of the black eagle, and the general’s sash of
Frederick the Great, and the flags carried by his guards during the Seven
Years’ War. But it did not secure him peace. The King of Prussia threw
himself into the arms of Russia, and Napoleon advanced boldly into Poland
to meet his enemy.
The Poles welcomed the French with joy. They hoped to find in
Napoleon the liberator of their country, and they poured forth money and
soldiers to reënforce him. “Our entry into Varsovia,” wrote Napoleon, “was
a triumph, and the sentiments that the Poles of all classes show since our
arrival cannot be expressed. Love of country and the national sentiment are

not only entirely conserved in the heart of the people, but it has been
intensified by misfortune. Their first passion, their first desire, is again to
become a nation. The rich come from their châteaux, praying for the
reëstablishment of the nation, and offering their children, their fortunes, and
their influence.” Everything was done during the months the French
remained in Poland, to flatter and aid the army.
The campaign against the Russians was carried on in Old Prussia, to the
southeast of the Gulf of Dantzic. Its first great engagement was the battle of
Eylau on February 8, 1807. This was the closest drawn battle Napoleon had
ever fought. His loss was enormous, and he was saved only by a hair’s-
breadth from giving the enemy the field of battle. After Eylau the main
army went into winter quarters to repair its losses, while Marshal Lefebvre
besieged Dantzic, a siege which military critics declare to be, after
Sebastopol, the most celebrated of modern times. Dantzic capitulated in
May. On June 14th the battle of Friedland was fought. This battle on the
anniversary of Marengo, was won largely by Napoleon’s taking advantage
of a blunder of his opponent. The French and the Russian armies were on
the opposite banks of the Alle. Benningsen, the Russian commander, was
marching towards Königsberg by the eastern bank. Napoleon was pursuing
by the western bank. The French forces, however, were scattered; and
Benningsen, thinking that he could engage and easily rout a portion of the
army by crossing the river at Friedland, suddenly led his army across to the
western bank. Napoleon utilized this unwise movement with splendid skill.
Calling up his re-enforcements he attacked the enemy solidly. As soon as
the Russian centre was broken, defeat was inevitable, for the retreating
army was driven into the river, and thousands lost. Many were pursued
through the streets of Friedland by the French, and slaughtered there. The
battle was hardly over when Napoleon wrote to Josephine:

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

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

“Friedland, 15th June, 1807.

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

Friedland ended the war. Directly after the battle Napoleon went to Tilsit,
which for the time was made neutral ground, and here he met the Emperor
of Russia and the King of Prussia, and the map of Europe was made over.
The relations between the royal parties seem to have been for the most
part amiable. Napoleon became very fond of Alexander I. at Tilsit. “Were
he a woman I think I should make love to him,” he wrote Josephine once.

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

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

By Gosse. Versailles gallery.

Just before the negotiation were completed, Queen Louise arrived, and
tried to use her influence with Napoleon to obtain at least Magdeburg.
Napoleon accused the queen to Las Cases of trying to win him at first by a
scene of high tragedy. But when they came to meet at dinner, her policy was
quite another. “The Queen of Prussia dined with me to-day,” wrote
Napoleon to the empress on July 7th. “I had to defend myself against being
obliged to make some further concessions to her husband; ...” and the next
day, “The Queen of Prussia is really charming; she is full of coquetterie

towards me. But do not be jealous; I am an oilcloth, off which all that runs.
It would cost me too dear to play the galant.”
The intercessions of the queen really hurried on the treaty. When she
learned that it had been signed, and her wishes not granted, she was
indignant, wept bitterly, and refused to go to the second dinner to which
Napoleon had invited her. Alexander was obliged to go himself to decide
her. After the dinner, when she withdrew, Napoleon accompanied her. On
the staircase she stopped.
“Can it be,” she said, “that after I have had the happiness of seeing so
near me the man of the age and of history, I am not to have the liberty and
satisfaction of assuring him that he has attached me for life?...”
“Madame, I am to be pitied,” said the emperor gravely. “It is my evil
star.”
By the treaty of Tilsit the map of the continent was transformed. Prussia
lost half her territory. Dantzic was made a free town. Magdeburg went to
France. Hesse-Cassel and the Prussian possessions west of the Elbe went to
form the kingdom of Westphalia. The King of Saxony received the grand
duchy of Warsaw. Finland and the Danubian principalities were to go to
Alexander in exchange for certain Ionian islands and the Gulf of Cattaro in
Dalmatia.
Of far more importance than this change of boundaries was the private
understanding which the emperors came to at Tilsit. They agreed that the
Ottoman Empire was to remain as it was unless they saw fit to change its
boundaries. Russia might occupy the principalities as far as the Danube.
Peace was to be made, if possible, with England, and the two powers were
to work together to bring it about. If they failed, Russia was to force
Sweden to close her ports to Great Britain, and Napoleon was to do the
same in Denmark, Portugal, and the States of the Pope. Nothing was to be
done about Poland by Napoleon.
According to popular belief, the secret treaty of Tilsit included plans
much more startling: the two emperors pledged themselves to drive the
Bourbons from Spain and the Braganzas from Portugal, and to replace them
by Bonapartes; give Russia Turkey in Europe and as much of Asia as she
wanted; end the temporal power of the Pope; place France in Egypt; shut
the English from the Mediterranean; and to undertake several other equally
ambitious enterprises.

CHAPTER XIII

EXTENSION OF NAPOLEON’S EMPIRE—FAMILY AFFAIRS

N apoleon’s influence in Europe was now at its zenith. He was literally
“king of kings,” as he was popularly called, and the Bonaparte
family was rapidly displacing the Bourbon. Joseph had been made
King of Naples in 1806. Eliza was Princess of Lucques and Piombino.
Louis, married to Hortense, had been King of Holland since 1806. Pauline
had been the Princess Borghese since 1803; Caroline, the wife of Murat,
was Grand Duchess of Cleves and Berg; Jerome was King of Westphalia;
Eugène de Beauharnais, Viceroy of Italy, was married to a princess of
Bavaria.
The members of Napoleon’s family were elevated only on condition that
they act strictly in accordance with his plans. They must marry so as to
cement the ties necessary to his kingdom. They must arrange their time,
form their friendships, spend their money, as it best served the interests of
his great scheme of conquest. The interior affairs of their kingdoms were in
reality centralized in his hands as perfectly as those of France. He watched
the private and public conduct of his kings and nobles, and criticised them
with absolute frankness and extraordinary common sense. The ground on
which he protected them is well explained in the following letter, written in
January, 1806, to Count Miot de Mélito:

JOSEPH BONAPARTE IN
HIS CORONATION ROBES.
1808.

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

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

Joseph, bent on being a great king, boasted now and then to Napoleon of
his position in Naples. His brother never failed to silence him with the truth,
if it was blunt and hard to digest.
“When you talk about the fifty thousand enemies of the queen, you make me laugh.... You
exaggerate the degree of hatred which the queen has left behind at Naples: you do not know
mankind. There are not twenty persons who hate her as you suppose, and there are not twenty
persons who would not surrender to one of her smiles. The strongest feeling of hatred on the part of a
nation is that inspired by another nation. Your fifty thousand men are the enemies of the French.”

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

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

JEROME BONAPARTE.
1808.

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

Jerome yielded later to his brother’s wishes, and in 1807 was rewarded
with the new kingdom of Westphalia. Napoleon kept close watch of him,
however, and his letters are full of admirable counsels. The following is
particularly valuable, showing, as it does, that Napoleon believed a
government would be popular and enduring only in proportion to the liberty
and prosperity it gave the citizens.
“What the German peoples desire with impatience [he told Jerome], is that persons who are not of
noble birth, and who have talents, shall have an equal right to your consideration and to public

employment (with those who are of noble birth); that every sort of servitude and of intermediate
obligations between the sovereign and the lowest class of the people should be entirely abolished.
The benefits of the Code Napoleon, the publicity of legal procedure, the establishment of the jury
system, will be the distinctive characteristics of your monarchy.... I count more on the effect of these
benefits for the extension and strengthening of your kingdom, than upon the result of the greatest
victories. Your people ought to enjoy a liberty, an equality, a well-being, unknown to the German
peoples.... What people would wish to return to the arbitrary government of Prussia, when it has
tasted the benefits of a wise and liberal administration? The peoples of Germany, France, Italy, Spain,
desire equality, and demand that liberal ideas should prevail.... Be a constitutional king.”

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

MARIE PAULINE
BONAPARTE, PRINCESS
BORGHESE.

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

“You govern that country too much like a Capuchin. The goodness of a king should be full of
majesty.... A king orders, and asks nothing from any one.... When people say of a king that he is
good, his reign is a failure.... Your quarrels with the queen are known to the public. You should
exhibit at home that paternal and effeminate character you show in your manner of governing.... You
treat a young wife as you would command a regiment. Distrust the people by whom you are

surrounded; they are nobles.... You have the best and most virtuous of wives and you render her
miserable. Allow her to dance as much as she likes; it is in keeping with her age. I have a wife who is
forty years of age; from the field of battle I write to her to go to balls, and you wish a young woman
of twenty to live in a cloister, or, like a nurse, to be always washing her children.... Render the mother
of your children happy. You have only one way of doing so, by showing her esteem and confidence.
Unfortunately you have a wife who is too virtuous: if you had a coquette, she would lead you by the
nose. But you have a proud wife, who is offended and grieved at the mere idea that you can have a
bad opinion of her. You should have had a wife like some of those whom I know in Paris. She would
have played you false, and you would have been at her feet....
“Napoleon.”

With his sisters he was quite as positive. While Josephine adapted herself
with grace and tact to her great position, the Bonaparte sisters, especially
Pauline, were constantly irritating somebody by their vanity and jealousy.
The following letter to Pauline shows how little Napoleon spared them
when their performances came to his ears:
“Madame and Dear Sister: I have learned with pain that you have not the good sense to conform
to the manners and customs of the city of Rome; that you show contempt for the inhabitants, and that
your eyes are unceasingly turned towards Paris. Although occupied with vast affairs, I nevertheless
desire to make known my wishes, and I hope that you will conform to them.
“I love your husband and his family, be amiable, accustom yourself to the usages of Rome, and put
this in your head: that if you follow bad advice you will no longer be able to count upon me. You
may be sure that you will find no support in Paris, and that I shall never receive you there without
your husband. If you quarrel with him, it will be your fault, and France will be closed to you. You
will sacrifice your happiness and my esteem.
“Bonaparte.”

ELISA BACCIOCHI,
GRAND DUCHESS OF
TUSCANY, ELDEST

SISTER OF NAPOLEON
(1777–1820).

Engraved by Morghen in
1814, after Counis.

This supervision of policy, relations, and conduct extended to his
generals. The case of General Berthier is one to the point. Chief of
Napoleon’s staff in Italy, he had fallen in love at Milan with a Madame
Visconti, and had never been able to conquer his passion. In Egypt
Napoleon called him “chief of the lovers’ faction,” that part of the army
which, because of their desire to see wives or sweethearts, were constantly
revolting against the campaign, and threatening to desert.
In 1804 Berthier had been made marshal, and in 1806 Napoleon wished
to give him the princedom of Neufchatel; but it was only on condition that
he give up Madame de Visconti, and marry.
“I exact only one condition, which is that you get married. Your passion has lasted long enough. It
has become ridiculous; and I have the right to hope that the man whom I have called my companion
in arms, who will be placed alongside of me by posterity, will no longer abandon himself to a
weakness without example.... You know that no one likes you better than I do, but you know also that
the first condition of my friendship is that it must be made subordinate to my esteem.”

Berthier fled to Josephine for help, weeping like a child; but she could do
nothing, and he married the woman chosen for him. Three months after the
ceremony, the husband of Madame de Visconti died and Berthier, broken-
hearted, wrote to the Prince Borghese:
“You know how often the emperor pressed me to obtain a divorce for Madame de Visconti. But a
divorce was always repugnant to the feelings in which I was educated, and therefore I waited. To-day
Madame de Visconti is free, and I might have been the happiest of men. But the emperor forced me
into a marriage which hinders me from uniting myself to the only woman I ever loved. Ah, my dear
prince, all that the emperor has done and may yet do for me, will be no compensation for the eternal
misfortunes to which he has condemned me.”

Never was Napoleon more powerful than at the end of the period we
have been tracing so rapidly, never had he so looked the emperor. An
observer who watched him through the Te Deum sung at Notre Dame in his
honor, on his return from Tilsit, says: “His features, always calm and
serious, recalled the cameos which represent the Roman emperors. He was
small; still his whole person, in this imposing ceremony, was in harmony

with the part he was playing. A sword glittering with precious stones was at
his side, and the glittering diamond called the “Regent” formed its pommel.
Its brilliancy did not let us forget that this sword was the sharpest and the
most victorious that the world had seen since those of Alexander and
Cæsar.”
Certainly he never worked more prodigiously. The campaigns of 1805–
1807 were, in spite of their rapid movement,—indeed, because of it,—
terribly fatiguing for him; that they were possible at all was due mainly to
the fact that they had been made on paper so many times in his study. When
he was consul the only room opening from his study was filled with
enormous maps of all the countries of the world. This room was presided
over by a competent cartographer. Frequently these maps were brought to
the study and spread upon the floor. Napoleon would get down upon them
on all fours, and creep about, compass and red pencil in hand, comparing
and measuring distances, and studying the configuration of the land. If he
was in doubt about anything, he referred it to his librarian, who was
expected to give him the fullest details.
Attached to his cabinet were skilful translators, whose business was not
only to translate diplomatic correspondence, but to gather from foreign
sources full information about the armies of his enemies. Méneval declares
that the emperor knew the condition of foreign armies as well as he did that
of his own.
The amount of information he had about other lands was largely due to
his ability to ask questions. When he sent to an agent for a report, he rattled
at him a volley of questions, always to the point; and the agent knew that it
would never do to let one go unanswered.
While carrying on the Austrian and Prussian campaigns of 1805–1807,
Napoleon showed, as never before, his extraordinary capacity for attending
to everything. The number of despatches he sent out was incredible. In the
first three months of 1807, while he was in Poland, he wrote over seventeen
hundred letters and despatches.
It was not simply war, the making of kingdoms, the directions of his
new-made kings; minor affairs of the greatest variety occupied him. While
at Boulogne, tormented by the failure of the English invasion and the war
against Austria, he ordered that horse races should be established “in those
parts of the empire the most remarkable for the horses they breed; prizes

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

CHAPTER XIV

THE BERLIN DECREE—WAR IN THE PENINSULA—THE BONAPARTES ON THE
SPANISH THRONE

W hen Napoleon, in 1805, was obliged to abandon the descent on
England and turn the magnificent army gathered at Boulogne
against Austria, he by no means gave up the idea of one day
humbling his enemy. Persistently throughout the campaigns of 1805–1807
his despatches and addresses remind Frenchmen that vengeance is only
deferred.
In every way he strives to awaken indignation and hatred against
England. The alliance which has compelled him to turn his armies against
his neighbors on the Continent, he characterizes as an “unjust league
fomented by the hatred and gold of England.” He tells the soldiers of the
Grand Army that it is English gold which has transported the Russian army
from the extremities of the universe to fight them. He charges the horrors of
Austerlitz upon the English. “May all the blood shed, may all these
misfortunes, fall upon the perfidious islanders who have caused them! May
the cowardly oligarchies of London support the consequences of so many
woes!” From now on, all the treaties he makes are drawn up with a view to
humbling “the eternal enemies of the Continent.”

THE QUEEN OF NAPLES
AND MARIE MURAT.

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

Negotiation for peace went on, it is true, in 1806, between the two
countries. Napoleon offered to return Hanover and Malta. He offered
several things which belonged to other people, but England refused all of
his combinations; and when, a few days after Jena, he addressed his army, it
was to tell them: “We shall not lay down our arms until we have obliged the
English, those eternal enemies of our nation, to renounce their plan of
troubling the Continent and their tyranny of the seas.”
A month later—November 21, 1806—he proclaimed the famous Decree
of Berlin, his future policy towards Great Britain. As she had shut her
enemies from the sea, he would shut her from the land. The “continental
blockade,” as this struggle of land against sea was called, was only using
England’s own weapon of war; but it was using it with a sweeping audacity,
thoroughly Napoleonic in conception and in the proposed execution.
Henceforth, all communication was forbidden between the British Isles and
France and her allies. Every Englishman found under French authority—

and that was about all the Continent as the emperor estimated it—was a
prisoner of war. Every dollar’s worth of English property found within
Napoleon’s boundaries, whether it belonged to rich trader or inoffensive
tourist, was prize of war. If one remembers the extent of the seaboard which
Napoleon at that moment commanded, the full peril of this menace to
English commerce is clear. From St. Petersburg to Trieste there was not a
port, save those of Denmark and Portugal, which would not close at his
bidding. At Tilsit he and Alexander had entered into an agreement to
complete this seaboard, to close the Baltic, the Channel, the European
Atlantic, and the Mediterranean to the English. This was nothing else than
asking Continental Europe to destroy her commerce for their sakes.

JOACHIM MURAT (1771–
1815).

Engraved by Ruotte, after
Gros.

There were several serious uncertainties in the scheme. What retaliation
would England make? Could Napoleon and Alexander agree long enough to
succeed in dividing the valuable portions of the continents of Europe, Asia,
and Africa? Would the nations cheerfully give up the English cottons and
tweeds they had been buying, the boots they had been wearing, the cutlery
and dishes they had been using? Would they cheerfully see their own
products lie uncalled for in their warehouses, for the sake of aiding a
foreign monarch—although the most brilliant and powerful on earth—to

carry out a vast plan for crushing an enemy who was not their enemy? It
remained to be seen.
In the meantime there was the small part of the coast line remaining
independent to be joined to the portion already blockaded to the English.
There was no delay in Napoleon’s action. Denmark was ordered to choose
between war with England and war with France. Portugal was notified that
if her ports were not closed in forty days the French and Spanish armies
would invade her. England gave a drastic reply to Napoleon’s measures. In
August she appeared before Copenhagen, seized the Danish fleet, and for
three days bombarded the town. This unjustifiable attack on a nation with
which she was at peace horrified Europe, and it supported the emperor in
pushing to the uttermost the Berlin Decree. He made no secret of his
determination. In a diplomatic audience at Fontainebleau, October 14, 1807,
he declared:
“Great Britain shall be destroyed. I have the means of doing it, and they shall be employed. I have
three hundred thousand men devoted to this object, and an ally who has three hundred thousand to
support them. I will permit no nation to receive a minister from Great Britain until she shall have
renounced her maritime usages and tyranny; and I desire you, gentlemen, to convey this
determination to your respective sovereigns.”

Such an alarming extent did the blockade threaten to take, that even our
minister to France, Mr. Armstrong, began to be nervous. His diplomatic
acquaintances told him cynically, “You are much favored, but it won’t last;”
and, in fact, it was not long before it was evident that the United States was
not to be allowed to remain neutral. Napoleon’s notice to Mr. Armstrong
was clear and decisive:
“Since America suffers her vessels to be searched, she adopts the principle that the flag does not
cover the goods. Since she recognizes the absurd blockades laid by England, consents to having her
vessels incessantly stopped, sent to England, and so turned aside from their course, why should the
Americans not suffer the blockade laid by France? Certainly France is no more blockaded by
England than England by France. Why should Americans not equally suffer their vessels to be
searched by French ships? Certainly France recognizes that these measures are unjust, illegal, and
subversive of national sovereignty; but it is the duty of nations to resort to force, and to declare
themselves against things which dishonor them and disgrace their independence.”

The attempt to force Portugal to close her ports caused war. In all but one
particular she had obeyed Napoleon’s orders: she had closed her ports,
detained all Englishmen in her borders, declared war; but her king refused
to confiscate the property of British subjects in Portugal. This evasion

furnished Napoleon an excuse for refusing to believe in the sincerity of her
pretensions. “Continue your march,” he wrote to Junot, who had been
ordered into the country a few days before (October 12, 1807). “I have
reason to believe that there is an understanding with England, so as to give
the British troops time to arrive from Copenhagen.”
Without waiting for the results of the invasion, he and the King of Spain
divided up Portugal between them. If their action was premature, Portugal
did nothing to gainsay them; for when Junot arrived at Lisbon in December,
he found the country without a government, the royal family having fled in
fright to Brazil. There was only one thing now to be done; Junot must so
establish himself as to hold the country against the English, who naturally
would resent the injury done their ally. From St. Petersburg to Trieste,
Napoleon now held the seaboard.
But he was not satisfied. Spain was between him and Portugal. If he was
going to rule Western Europe he ought to possess her. There is no space
here to trace the intrigues with the weak and vicious factions of the Spanish
court, which ended in Napoleon’s persuading Charles IV. to cede his rights
to the Spanish throne and to become his pensioner, and Ferdinand, the heir
apparent, to abdicate; and which placed Joseph Bonaparte, King of Naples,
on the Spanish throne, and put Murat, Charlotte Bonaparte’s husband, in
Joseph’s place.
From beginning to end the transfer of the Spanish crown from Bourbon
to Bonaparte was dishonorable and unjustifiable. It is true that the
government of Spain was corrupt. No greater mismanagement could be
conceived, no more scandalous court. Unquestionably the country would
have been far better off under Napoleonic institutions. But to despoil Spain
was to be false to an ally which had served him for years with fidelity, and
at an awful cost to herself. It is true that her service had been through fear,
not love. It is true that at one critical moment (when Napoleon was in
Poland, in 1807) she had tried to escape; but, nevertheless, it remained a
fact that for France Spain had lost colonies, sacrificed men and money, and
had seen her fleet go down at Trafalgar. In taking her throne, Napoleon had
none of the excuses which had justified him in interfering in Italy, in
Germany, in Holland, in Switzerland. This was not a conquest of war, not
confiscation on account of the perfidy of an ally, not an attempt to answer
the prayers of a people for a more liberal government.

If Spain had submitted to the change, she would have been purchasing
good government at the price of national honor. But Spain did not submit.
She, as well as all disinterested lookers-on in Europe, was revolted by the
baseness of the deed. No one has ever explained better the feeling which the
intrigues over the Spanish throne caused than Napoleon himself:
“I confess I embarked badly in the affair [he told Las Cases at St. Helena]. The immorality of it
was too patent, the injustice far too cynical, and the whole thing too villainous; hence I failed. The
attempt is seen now only in its hideous nudity, stripped of all that is grand, of all the numerous
benefits which I intended. Posterity would have extolled it, however, if I had succeeded, and rightly,
perhaps, because of its great and happy results.”

It was the Spanish people themselves, not the ruling house, who resented
the transfer from Bourbon to Bonaparte.
No sooner was it noised through Spain that the Bourbons had really
abdicated, and Joseph Bonaparte had been named king, than an insurrection
was organized simultaneously all over the country. Some eighty-four
thousand French troops were scattered through the Peninsula, but they were
powerless before the kind of warfare which now began. Every defile
became a battle-ground, every rock hid a peasant, armed and waiting for
French stragglers, messengers, supply parties. The remnant of the French
fleets escaped from Trafalgar, and now at Cadiz, was forced to surrender.
Twenty-five thousand French soldiers laid down their arms at Baylen, but
the Spaniards refused to keep their capitulation treaties. The prisoners were
tortured by the peasants in the most barbarous fashion, crucified, burned,
sawed asunder. Those who escaped the popular vengeance were sent to the
Island of Cabrera, where they lived in the most abject fashion. It was only
in 1814 that the remnant of this army was released. King Joseph was
obliged to flee to Vittoria a week after he reached his capital.
The misfortunes of Spain were followed by greater ones in Portugal.
Junot was defeated by an English army at Vimeiro in August, 1808, and
capitulated on condition that his army be taken back to France without
being disarmed.

CHAPTER XV

DISASTER IN SPAIN—ALEXANDER AND NAPOLEON IN COUNCIL—NAPOLEON AT
MADRID

N apoleon amazed at this unexpected popular uprising in Spain, and
angry that the spell of invincibility under which his armies had
fought, was broken, resolved to undertake the Peninsular war
himself. But before a campaign in Spain could be entered upon, it was
necessary to know that all the inner and outer wheels of the great machine
he had devised for dividing the world and crushing England were revolving
perfectly.
Since the treaty of Tilsit he had done much at home for this machine. The
finances were in splendid condition. Public works of great importance were
going on all over the kingdom; the court was luxurious and brilliant, and the
money it scattered, encouraged the commercial and manufacturing classes.
Never had fêtes been more brilliant than those which welcomed Napoleon
back to Paris in 1807; never had the season at Fontainebleau been gayer or
more magnificent than it was that year.
All of those who had been instrumental in bringing prosperity and order
to France were rewarded in 1807 with splendid gifts from the indemnities
levied on the enemies. The marshals of the Grand Army received from
eighty thousand to two hundred thousand dollars apiece; twenty-five
generals were given forty thousand dollars each; the civil functionaries
were not forgotten; thus Monsieur de Ségur received forty thousand dollars
as a sign of the emperor’s gratification at the way he had administered
etiquette in the young court.
It was at this period that Napoleon founded a new nobility as a further
means of rewarding those who had rendered brilliant services to France.
This institution was designed, too, as a means of reconciling old and new
France. It created the title of prince, duke, count, baron, and knight; and

those receiving these titles were at the same time given domains in the
conquered provinces, sufficient to permit them to establish themselves in
good style.
The drawing up of the rules which were to govern this new order
occupied the gravest men of the country, Cambacérès, Saint-Martin,
Hauterive, Portalis, Pasquier. Among other duties they had to prepare the
armorial bearings. Napoleon refused to allow the crown to go on the new
escutcheons. He wished no one but himself to have a right to use that
symbol. A substitute was found in the panache, the number of plumes
showing the rank.
Napoleon used the new favors at his command freely, creating in all, after
1807, forty-eight thousand knights, one thousand and ninety barons, three
hundred and eighty-eight counts, thirty-one dukes, and three princes. All
members of the old nobility who were supporting his government were
given titles, but not those which they formerly held. Naturally this often led
to great dissatisfaction, the bearers of ancient names preferring a lower rank
which had been their family’s for centuries to one higher, but unhallowed
by time and tradition. Thus Madame de Montmorency rebelled obstinately
against being made a countess,—she had been a baroness under the old
régime,—and, as the Montmorencys claimed the honor of being called the
first Christian barons, she felt justly that the old title was a far prouder one
than any Napoleon could give her. But a countess she had to remain.
In his efforts to win for himself the services of all those whom blood and
fortune had made his natural supporters, the emperor tried again to
reconcile Lucien. In November, 1807, Napoleon visited Italy, and at Mantua
a secret interview took place between the brothers. Lucien, in his
“Memoirs,” gives a dramatic description of the way in which Napoleon
spread the kingdoms of half a world before him and offered him his choice.
“He struck a great blow with his hand in the middle of the immense map of Europe which was
extended on the table, by the side of which we were standing. ‘Yes, choose,’ he said; ‘you see I am
not talking in the air. All this is mine, or will soon belong to me; I can dispose of it already. Do you
want Naples? I will take it from Joseph, who, by the by, does not care for it; he prefers
Mortefontaine, Italy—the most beautiful jewel in my imperial crown? Eugène is but viceroy, and, far
from despising it, he hopes only that I shall give it to him, or, at least, leave it to him if he survives
me; he is likely to be disappointed in waiting, for I shall live ninety years. I must, for the perfect
consolidation of my empire. Besides, Eugène will not suit me in Italy after his mother is divorced.
Spain? Do you not see it falling into the hollow of my hand, thanks to the blunders of my dear
Bourbons, and to the follies of your friend, the Prince of Peace? Would you not be well pleased to

reign there, where you have been only ambassador? Once for all, what do you want? Speak!
Whatever you wish, or can wish, is yours, if your divorce precedes mine.’”

Until midnight the two brothers wrestled with the question between them.
Neither would abandon his position; and when Lucien finally went away,
his face was wet with tears. To Méneval, who conducted him to his inn in
the town, he said, in bidding him carry his farewell to the emperor, “It may
be forever.” It was not. Seven years later the brothers met again, but the
map of Europe was forever rolled up for Napoleon.
The essential point in carrying out the Tilsit plan was, the fidelity of
Alexander; and Napoleon resolved, before going into the Spanish war, to
meet the Emperor of Russia. This was the more needful, because Austria
had begun to show signs of hostility.

ALEXANDER I. OF
RUSSIA. 1805.

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

Français gave the best French tragedies to a house where there was, as
Napoleon had promised Talma, a “parterre full of kings.” There was a hare
hunt on the battle-field of Jena, to which even Prince William of Prussia
was invited, and where the party breakfasted on the spot where Napoleon
had bivouacked in 1806, the night before the battle. There were balls where
Alexander danced, “but not I,” wrote the emperor to Josephine; “forty years
are forty years.” Goethe and Wieland were both presented to Napoleon at
Erfurt, and the emperor had long conversations with them.
In spite of these gayeties Napoleon and Alexander found time to renew
their Tilsit agreement. They were to make war and peace together.
Alexander was to uphold Napoleon in giving Joseph the throne of Spain,
and to keep the continent tranquil during the Peninsular war. Napoleon was
to support Alexander in getting possession of Finland, Moldavia, and
Wallachia. The two emperors were to write and sign a letter inviting
England to join them in peace negotiations.

MARSHAL LEFEBVRE.
ABOUT 1796.

Engraved in 1798 by
Fiesinger, after Mengelberg.

This was done promptly; but when England insisted that representatives
of the government which was acting in Spain in the name of Ferdinand VII.
should be admitted to the proposed meeting, the peace negotiations abruptly

ended. Under the circumstances Napoleon could not recognize that
government.
The emperor was ready to conduct the Spanish war. His first move was to
send into the country a large body of veterans from Germany. Before this
time the army had been made up of young recruits upon whom the Spanish
looked with contempt. The men, inexperienced and demoralized by the kind
of guerrilla warfare which was waged against them, had become
discouraged. The worst feature of their case was that they did not believe in
the war. That brave story-teller Marbot relates frankly how he felt:
“As a soldier I was bound to fight any one who attacked the French army, but I could not help
recognizing in my inmost conscience that our cause was a bad one, and that the Spaniards were quite
right in trying to drive out strangers who, after coming among them in the guise of friends, were
wishing to dethrone their sovereign and take forcible possession of the kingdom. This war, therefore,
seemed to me wicked; but I was a soldier, and I must march or be charged with cowardice. The
greater part of the army thought as I did, and, like me, obeyed orders all the same.”

The appearance of the veterans and the presence of the emperor at once
put a new face on the war; the morale of the army was raised, and the
respect of the Spaniards inspired.
The emperor speedily made his way to Madrid, though he had to fight
three battles to get there, and began at once a work of reorganization.
Decree followed decree. Feudal rights were abolished, the inquisition was
ended, the number of convents was reduced, the custom-houses between the
various provinces were done away with, a political and military programme
was made out for King Joseph. Many bulletins were sent to the Spanish
people. In all of them they were told that it was the English who were their
enemies, not their allies; that they came to the Peninsular not to help, but to
inspire to false confidence, and to lead them astray. Napoleon’s plan and
purpose could not be mistaken.
“Spaniards [he proclaimed at Madrid], your destinies are in my hands. Reject the poison which the
English have spread among you; let your king be certain of your love and your confidence, and you
will be more powerful and happier than ever. I have destroyed all that was opposed to your prosperity
and greatness; I have broken the fetters which weighed upon the people; a liberal constitution gives
you, instead of an absolute, a tempered and constitutional monarchy. It depends upon you that this
constitution shall become law. But if all my efforts prove useless, and if you do not respond to my
confidence, it will only remain for me to treat you as conquered provinces, and to find my brother
another throne. I shall then place the crown of Spain on my own head, and I shall know how to make
the wicked tremble; for God has given me the power and the will necessary to surmount all
obstacles.”

But a flame had been kindled in Spain which no number of Napoleonic
bulletins could quench—a fanatical frenzy inspired by the priests, a blind
passion of patriotism. The Spaniards wanted their own, even if it was feudal
and oppressive. A constitution which they had been forced to accept,
seemed to them odious and shameful, if liberal.
The obstinacy and horror of their resistance was nowhere so tragic and so
heroic as at the siege of Saragossa, going on at the time Napoleon, at
Madrid, was issuing his decrees and proclamations. Saragossa had been
fortified when the insurrection against King Joseph broke out. The town
was surrounded by convents, which were turned into forts. Men, women,
and children took up arms, and the priests, cross in hand, and dagger at the
belt, led them. No word of surrender was tolerated within the walls. At the
beginning Napoleon regarded the defence of Saragossa as a small affair,
and wished to try persuasion on the people. There was at Paris a well
known Aragon noble whom he urged to go to Saragossa and calm the
popular excitement. The man accepted the mission. When he arrived in the
town the people hurried forth to meet him, supposing he had come to aid in
the resistance. At the first word of submission he spoke he was assailed by
the mob, and for nearly a year lay in a dungeon.
The peasants of the vicinity of Saragossa were quartered in the town,
each family being given a house to defend. Nothing could drive them from
their posts. They took an oath to resist until death, and regarded the
probable destruction of themselves and their families with stoical
indifference. The priests had so aroused their religious exultation, and were
able to sustain it at such a pitch, that they never wavered before the daily
horrors they endured.
The French at first tried to drive them from their posts by sallies made
into the town, but the inhabitants rained such a murderous fire upon them
from towers, roofs, windows, even the cellars, that they were obliged to
retire. Exasperated by this stubborn resistance they resolved to blow up the
town, inch by inch. The siege was begun in the most terrible and destructive
manner, but the people were unmoved by the danger. “While a house was
being mined, and the dull sound of the rammers warned them that death
was at hand, not one left the house which he had sworn to defend, and we
could hear them singing litanies. Then, at the moment the walls flew into
the air and fell back with a crash, crushing the greater part of them, those

who had escaped would collect about the ruins, and sheltering themselves
behind the slightest cover, would recommence their sharpshooting.”
Marshal Lannes commanded before Saragossa. Touched by the devotion
and the heroism of the defenders, he proposed an honorable capitulation.
The besieged scorned the proposition, and the awful process of
undermining went on until the town was practically blown to pieces.

BERNADOTTE. ABOUT
1798.

Engraved by Fiesinger, after
Guérin.

For such resistance there was no end but extermination. For the first time
in his career Napoleon had met sublime popular patriotism, a passion before
which diplomacy, flattery, love of gain, force, lose their power.
It was for but a short time that the emperor could give his personal
attention to the Spanish war. Certain wheels in his great machine were not
revolving smoothly. In his own capital, Paris, there was friction among
certain influential persons. The peace of the Continent, necessary to the
Peninsular war, and which Alexander had guaranteed, was threatened.
Under these circumstances it was impossible to remain in Spain.

THE EYE OF THE MASTER.

After Raffet.

CHAPTER XVI

TALLEYRAND’S TREACHERY—THE CAMPAIGN OF 1809—WAGRAM

T wo unscrupulous and crafty men, both of singular ability, caused the
interior trouble which called Napoleon from Spain. These men were
Talleyrand and Fouché. The latter we saw during the Consulate as
Minister of Police. Since, he had been once dismissed because of his
knavery, and restored, largely for the same quality. His cunning was too
valuable to dispense with. The former, Talleyrand, made Minister of
Foreign Affairs in 1799, had handled his negotiations with the extraordinary
skill for which he was famous, until, in 1807, Napoleon’s mistrust of his
duplicity, and Talleyrand’s own dislike for the details of his position, led to
the portfolio being taken from him, and he being made Vice-Grand Elector.
He evidently expected, in accepting this change, to remain as influential as
ever with Napoleon. The knowledge that the emperor was dispensing with
his services made him resentful, and his devotion to the imperial cause
fluctuated according to the attention he received.
Now, Napoleon’s course in Spain had been undertaken at the advice of
Talleyrand, largely, and he had repeated constantly, in the early
negotiations, that France ought not to allow a Bourbon to remain enthroned
at her borders. Yet, as the affair went on, he began slyly to talk against the
enterprise. At Erfurt, where Napoleon had been impolitic enough to take
him, he initiated himself into Alexander’s good graces, and prevented
Napoleon’s policy towards Austria being carried out. When Napoleon
returned to Spain, Talleyrand and Fouché, who up to this time had been
enemies, became friendly, and even appeared in public, arm in arm. If
Talleyrand and Fouché had made up, said the Parisians, there was mischief
brewing.
Napoleon was not long in knowing of their reconciliation. He learned
more, that the two crafty plotters had written Murat that in the event of

“something happening,” that is, of Napoleon’s death or overthrow, they
should organize a movement to call him to the head of affairs; that,
accordingly, he must hold himself ready.
Napoleon returned to Paris immediately, removed Talleyrand from his
position at court, and, at a gathering of high officials, treated him to one of
those violent harangues with which he was accustomed to flay those whom
he would disgrace and dismiss.
“You are a thief, a coward, a man without honor; you do not believe in God; you have all your life
been a traitor to your duties; you have deceived and betrayed everybody; nothing is sacred to you;
you would sell your own father. I have loaded you down with gifts, and there is nothing you would
not undertake against me. For the past ten months you have been shameless enough, because you
supposed, rightly or wrongly, that my affairs in Spain were going astray, to say to all who would
listen to you that you always blamed my undertakings there; whereas it was you yourself who first
put it into my head, and who persistently urged it. And that man, that unfortunate [he meant the Duc
d’Enghien], by whom was I advised of the place of his residence? Who drove me to deal cruelly with
him? What, then, are you aiming at? What do you wish for? What do you hope? Do you dare to say?
You deserve that I should smash you like a wineglass. I can do it, but I despise you too much to take
the trouble.”

All of this was undoubtedly true, but, after having publicly said it, there
was but one safe course for Napoleon—to put Talleyrand where he could no
longer continue his plotting. He made the mistake, however, of leaving him
at large.
The disturbance of the Continental peace came from Austria. Encouraged
by Napoleon’s absence in Spain, and the withdrawal of troops from
Germany, and urged by England to attempt to again repair her losses,
Austria had hastily armed herself, hoping to be able to reach the Rhine
before Napoleon could collect his forces and meet her. At this moment
Napoleon could command about the same number of troops as the
Austrians, but they were scattered in all directions, while the enemy’s were
already consolidated. The question became, then, whether he could get his
troops together before the Austrians attacked. From every direction he
hurried them across France and Germany towards Ratisbonne. On the 12th
of April he heard in Paris that the Austrians had crossed the Inn. On the
17th the emperor was in his headquarters at Donauwörth, his army well in
hand. “Neither in ancient or modern times,” says Jomini, “will one find
anything which equals in celerity and admirable precision the opening of
this campaign.”

In the next ten days a series of combats broke the Austrian army, drove
the Archduke Charles, with his main force, north of the Danube, and opened
the road to Vienna to the French. On the 12th of May, one month from the
day he left Paris, Napoleon wrote from Schönbrunn, “We are masters of
Vienna.” The city had been evacuated.
Napoleon lay on the right bank of the Danube; the Austrian army under
the Archduke Charles was coming towards the city by the left bank; it was
to be a hand-to-hand struggle under the walls of Vienna. The emperor was
uncertain of the archduke’s plans, but he was determined that he should not
have a chance to reënforce his army. The battle must be fought at once, and
he prepared to go across the river to attack him. The place of crossing he
chose was south of Vienna, where the large island Lobau divides the stream.
Bridges had to be built for the passage, and it was with the greatest
difficulty that the work was accomplished, for the river was high and the
current swift, and anchors and boats were scarce. Again and again the boats
broke apart. Nevertheless, about thirty thousand of the French got over, and
took possession of the villages of Aspern and Essling, where they were
attacked on May 21st by some eighty thousand Austrians.

BATTLE OF WAGRAM.

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

The battle which followed lasted all day, and the French sustained
themselves heroically. That night reënforcements were gotten over, so that
the next day some fifty-five thousand men were on the French side.
Napoleon fought with the greatest obstinacy, hoping that another division
would soon succeed in getting over, and would enable him to overcome the
superior numbers of the Austrians. Already the battle was becoming a hand-
to-hand fight, when the terrible news came that the bridge over the Danube
had gone down. The Austrians had sent floating down the swollen river
great mills, fire-boats, and masses of timber fastened together in such a way
as to become battering-rams of frightful power when carried by the rapid
stream. All hope of aid was gone, and, as the news spread, the army
resigned itself to perish sword in hand. The carnage which followed was
horrible. Towards evening one of the bravest of the French marshals,
Lannes, was fatally wounded. It seemed as if fortune had determined on the
loss of the French, and Napoleon decided to retreat to the island of Lobau,
where he felt sure that he could maintain his position, and secure supplies
from the army on the right bank, until he had time to build bridges and unite
his forces.
Communications were soon established with the right bank, but the isle
of Lobau was not deserted; it was used, in fact, as a camp for the next few
weeks, while Napoleon was sending to Italy, to France, and to Germany, for
new troops. A heavy reënforcement came to him from Italy with news
which did much to encourage him. When the war began, an Austrian army
had invaded Italy, and at first had success in its engagements against the
French under the Viceroy of Italy, Eugène de Beauharnais. The news of the
ill-luck of the Austrians at home, and of the march on Vienna, had
discouraged the leader, Archduke John, brother of Archduke Charles, and he
had retreated, Eugène following. Such were the successes of the French on
this retreat, that the Austrians finally retired out of their way, leaving them a
free route to Vienna, and Eugène soon united his army to that of the
emperor.
With the greatest rapidity the French now secured and strengthened their
communications with Italy and with France, and gathered troops about
Vienna. The whole month of June was passed in this way, hostile Europe
repeating the while that Napoleon was shut in by the Austrians and could
not move, and that he was idling his time in luxury at the castle of
Schönbrunn, where he had established his headquarters. But this month of

apparent inactivity was only a feint. By the 1st of July the French Army had
reached one hundred and fifty thousand men. They were in admirable
condition, well drilled, fresh, and confident. Their communications were
strong, their camps good, and they were eager for battle.
The Austrians were encamped at Wagram, to the north of the Danube.
They had fortified the banks opposite the island of Lobau in a manner
which they believed would prevent the French from attempting a passage;
but in arranging their fortification they had completely neglected a certain
portion of the bank on which Napoleon seemed to have no designs. But this
was the point, naturally, which Napoleon chose for his passage, and on the
night of July 4th he effected it. On the morning of the 5th his whole army of
one hundred and fifty thousand men, with four hundred batteries, was on
the left bank. In the midst of a terrible storm this great mass of men, with all
its equipments, had crossed the main Danube, several islands and channels,
had built six bridges, and by daybreak had arranged itself in order. It was an
unheard-of feat.
Pushing his corps forward, and easily sweeping out of his way the
advance posts, Napoleon soon had his line facing that of the Austrians,
which stretched from near the Danube to a point east of Wagram. At seven
o’clock on the evening of July 5th the French attacked the left and centre of
the enemy, but without driving them from their position. The next morning
it was the Archduke Charles who took the offensive, making a movement
which changed the whole battle. He attacked the French left, which was
nearest the river, with fifty thousand men, intending to get on their line of
communication and destroy the bridges across the Danube. The troops on
the French centre were obliged to hurry off to prevent this, and the army
was weakened for a moment, but not long. Napoleon determined to make
the Archduke Charles, who in person commanded this attack on the French
left, return, not by following him, but by breaking his centre; and he turned
his heavy batteries against this portion of the army, and followed them by a
cavalry attack, which routed the enemy. At the same time their left was
broken, and the troops which had been engaging it were free to hurry off
against the Austrian right, which was trying to reach the bridges, and which
were being held in check with difficulty at Essling. As soon as the archduke
saw what had happened to his left and centre he retired, preferring to
preserve as much as possible of his army in good order. The French did not
pursue. The battle had cost them too heavily. But if the Austrians escaped

from Wagram with their army, and if their opponents gained little more than
the name of a victory, they were too discouraged to continue the war, and
the emperor sued for peace.

THE LITTLE CORPORAL.

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

after the desecration by the
Commune.—A. D.

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

MARIE LOUISE IN ROYAL
ROBES. 1810.

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

CHAPTER XVII

THE DIVORCE—A NEW WIFE—AN HEIR TO THE CROWN

T o further the universal peace he desired, to prevent plots among his
subordinates who would aspire to his crown in case of his sudden
death, and to assure a succession, Napoleon now decided to take a
step long in mind—to divorce Josephine, by whom he no longer hoped to
have heirs.
In considering Napoleon’s divorce of Josephine, it must be remembered
that stability of government was of vital necessity to the permanency of the
Napoleonic institutions. Napoleon had turned into practical realities most of
the reforms demanded in 1789. True, he had done it by the exercise of
despotism, but nothing but the courage, the will, the audacity of a despot
could have aroused the nation in 1799. Napoleon felt that these institutions
had been so short a time in operation that in case of his death they would
easily topple over, and his kingdom go to pieces as Alexander’s had. If he
could leave an heir, this disaster would, he believed, be averted.
Then, would not a marriage with a foreign princess calm the fears of his
Continental enemies? Would they not see in such an alliance an effort on
the part of new, liberal France to adjust herself harmoniously to the system
of government which prevailed on the Continent?
Thus, by a new marriage, he hoped to prevent at his death a series of
fresh revolutions, save the splendid organization he had created, and put
France in greater harmony with her environment. It is to misunderstand
Napoleon’s scheme, to attribute this divorce simply to a gigantic egotism.
To assure his dynasty, was to assure France of liberal institutions. His
glorification was his country’s. In reality there were the same reasons for
divorcing Josephine that there had been for taking the crown in 1804.
Josephine had long feared a separation. The Bonapartes had never cared
for her, and even so far back as the Egyptian campaign had urged Napoleon

to seek a divorce. Unwisely, she had not sought in her early married life to
win their affection any more than she had to keep Napoleon’s; and when the
emperor was crowned, they had done their best to prevent her coronation.
When, for state reasons, the divorce seemed necessary, Josephine had no
supporters where she might have had many.
Her grief was more poignant because she had come to love her husband
with a real ardor. The jealousy from which he had once suffered she now
felt, and Napoleon certainly gave her ample cause for it. Her anxiety was
well known to all the court, the secretaries Bourrienne and Méneval, and
Madame de Rémusat being her special confidants. Since 1807 it had been
intense, for it was in that year that Fouché, probably at Napoleon’s
instigation, tried to persuade the empress to suggest the divorce herself as
her sacrifice to the country.
After Wagram it became evident to her that at last her fate was sealed;
but though she beset Méneval and all the members of her household for
information, it was only a fortnight before the public divorce that she knew
her fate. It was Josephine’s own son and daughter, Eugène and Hortense,
who broke the news to her; and it was on the former that the cruel task fell
of indorsing the divorce in the Senate in the name of himself and his sister.
Josephine was terribly broken by her disgrace, but she bore it with a
sweetness and dignity which does much to make posterity forget her earlier
frivolity and insincerity.
“I can never forget [says Pasquier] the evening on which the discarded empress did the honors of
her court for the last time. It was the day before the official dissolution. A great throng was present,
and supper was served, according to custom, in the gallery of Diana, on a number of little tables.
Josephine sat at the centre one, and the men went around her, waiting for that particularly graceful
nod which she was in the habit of bestowing on those with whom she was acquainted. I stood at a
short distance from her for a few minutes, and I could not help being struck with the perfection of her
attitude in the presence of all these people who still did her homage, while knowing full well that it
was for the last time; that in an hour she would descend from the throne, and leave the palace never
to reënter it. Only women can rise superior to such a situation, but I have my doubts as to whether a
second one could have been found to do it with such perfect grace and composure. Napoleon did not
show so bold a front as did his victim.”

There is no doubt but that Napoleon suffered deeply over the separation.
If his love had lost its illusion, he was genuinely attached to Josephine, and
in a way she was necessary to his happiness. After the ceremony of
separation, he was to go to Saint Cloud, she to Malmaison. While waiting
for his carriage, he returned to his study in the palace. For a long time he sat

silent and depressed, his head on his hand. When he was summoned he
rose, his face distorted with pain, and went into the empress’s apartment.
Josephine was alone.
When she saw the emperor, she threw herself on his neck, sobbing aloud.
He pressed her to his bosom, kissed her again and again, until overpowered
with emotion, she fainted. Leaving her to her women, he hurried to his
carriage.
Méneval, who saw this sad parting, remained with Josephine until she
became conscious. When he left, she begged him not to let the emperor
forget her, and to see that he wrote her often.

NAPOLEON.

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

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

Josephine returned to Malmaison to live, but Napoleon took care that she
should have, in addition, another home, giving her Navarre, a château near
Evreux, some fifty miles from Paris. She had an income of some four
hundred thousand dollars a year, and the emperor showed rare
thoughtfulness in providing her with everything she could want. She was to
deny herself nothing, take care of her health, pay no attention to the gossip
she heard, and never doubt of his love. Such were the recommendations of
the frequent letters he wrote her. Sometimes he went to see her, and he told
her all the details of his life. It is certain that he neglected no opportunity of
comforting her, and that she, on her side, finally accepted her lot with
resignation and kindliness.
Over two years before the divorce a list of the marriageable princesses of
Europe had been drawn up for Napoleon. This list included eighteen names
in all, the two most prominent being Marie Louise of Austria, and Anna
Paulowna, sister of Alexander of Russia. At the Erfurt conference the
project of a marriage with a Russian princess had been discussed, and
Alexander had favored it; but now that an attempt was made to negotiate
the affair, there were numerous delays, and a general lukewarmness which
angered Napoleon. Without waiting for the completion of the Russian
negotiations, he decided on Marie Louise.

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

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

The marriage ceremony was performed in Vienna on March 12, 1810, the
Archduke Charles acting for Napoleon. The emperor first saw his new wife
some days later on the road between Soissons and Compiègne, where he
had gone to meet her in most unimperial haste, and in contradiction to the
pompous and complicated ceremony which had been arranged for their first
interview. From the beginning he was frankly delighted with Marie Louise.
In fact, the new empress was a most attractive girl, young, fresh, modest
well-bred, and innocent. She entirely filled Napoleon’s ideal of a wife, and
he certainly was happy with her.
Marie Louise in marrying Napoleon had felt that she was a kind of
sacrificial offering, for she had naturally a deep horror of the man who had
caused her country so much woe; but her dread was soon dispelled, and she
became very fond of her husband. Outside of the court the two led an
amusingly simple life, riding together informally early in the morning, in a
gay Bohemian way; sitting together alone in the empress’s little salon, she
at her needlework, he with a book. They even indulged now and then in
quiet little larks of their own, as one day when Marie Louise attempted to
make an omelet in her apartments. Just as she was completely engrossed in
her work, the emperor came in. The empress tried to conceal her culinary
operations, but Napoleon detected the odor.
“What is going on here? There is a singular smell, as if something was
being fried. What, you are making an omelet! Bah! you don’t know how to
do it. I will show you how it is done.”
And he set to work to instruct her. They got on very well until it came to
tossing it, an operation Napoleon insisted on performing himself, with the

result that he landed it on the floor.
On March 20, 1811, the long desired heir to the French throne was born.
It had been arranged that the birth of the child should be announced to the
people by cannon shot; twenty-one if it were a princess, one hundred and
one if a prince. The people who thronged the quays and streets about the
Tuileries waited with inexpressible anxiety as the cannon boomed forth; one
—two—three. As twenty-one died away the city held its breath; then came
twenty-two. The thundering peals which followed it were drowned in the
wild enthusiasm of the people. For days afterward, enervated by joy and the
endless fêtes given them, the French drank and sang to the King of Rome.
In all these rejoicings none were so touching as at Navarre, where
Josephine, on hearing the cannon, called together her friends and said, “We,
too, must have a fête. I shall give you a ball, and the whole city of Evreux
must come and rejoice with us.”
Napoleon was the happiest of men, and he devoted himself to his son
with pride. Reports of the boy’s condition appear frequently in his letters;
he even allowed him to be taken without the empress’s knowledge to
Josephine, who had begged to see him.

CHAPTER XVIII

TROUBLE WITH THE POPE—THE CONSCRIPTION—EVASIONS OF THE BLOCKADE
—THE TILSIT AGREEMENT BROKEN

“T his child in concert with our Eugène will constitute our happiness
and that of France,” so Napoleon had written Josephine after the
birth of the King of Rome, but it soon became evident that he was
wrong. There were causes of uneasiness and discontent in France which had
been operating for a long time, and which were only aggravated by the
apparent solidity that an heir gave to the Napoleonic dynasty.
First among these was religious disaffection. Towards the end of 1808,
being doubtful of the Pope’s loyalty, Napoleon had sent French troops to
Rome; the spring following, without any plausible excuse, he had annexed
four Papal States to the kingdom of Italy; and in 1809 the Pope had been
made a prisoner at Savona. When the divorce was asked, it was not the
Pope, but the clergy, of Paris, who had granted it. When the religious
marriage of Marie Louise and Napoleon came to be celebrated, thirteen
cardinals refused to appear; the “black cardinals” they were thereafter
called, one of their punishments for non-appearance at the wedding being
that they could no longer wear their red gowns. To the pious all this friction
with the fathers of the Church was a deplorable irritation. It was impossible
to show contempt for the authority of Pope and cardinals and not wound
one of the deepest sentiments of France, and one which ten years before
Napoleon had braved most to satisfy.

NAPOLEON AND POPE
PIUS VII. IN CONFERENCE
AT FONTAINEBLEAU.

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

To the irritation against the emperor’s church policy was added bitter
resentment against the conscription, that tax of blood and muscle demanded
of the country. Napoleon had formulated and attempted to make tolerable
the principle born of the Revolution, which declared that every male citizen
of age owed the state a service of blood in case it needed him. The wisdom
of his management of the conscription had prevented discontent until 1807;
then the draft on life had begun to be arbitrary and grievous. The laws of
exemptions were disregarded. The “only son of his mother” no longer
remained at her side. The father whose little children were motherless must
leave them; aged and helpless parents no longer gave immunity. Those who
had bought their exemption by heavy sacrifices were obliged to go. Persons
whom the law made subject to conscription in 1807, were called out in
1806; those of 1808, in 1807. So far was this premature drafting pushed,
that the armies were said to be made up of “boy soldiers,” weak, unformed
youths, fresh from school, who wilted in a sun like that of Spain, and
dropped out in the march.
At the rate at which men had been killed, however, there was no other
way of keeping up the army. Between 1804 and 1811 one million seven
hundred thousand men had perished in battle. What wonder that now the

boys of France were pressed into service! At the same time the country was
overrun with the lame, the blind, the broken-down, who had come back
from war to live on their friends or on charity. It was not only the funeral
crape on almost every door which made Frenchmen hate the conscription, it
was the crippled men whom they met at every corner.

THE KING OF ROME. 1811.

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

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

The relations of the brothers grew more and more bitter. Napoleon
resented the half support Louis gave him, and as a punishment he took
away his provinces, filled his forts with French troops, threatened him with
war if he did not break up the trade. So far did these hostilities go, that in
the summer of 1810 King Louis abdicated in favor of his son and retired to
Austria. Napoleon tried his best to persuade him at least to return into
French territory, but he refused. This break was the sadder because Louis
was the brother for whom Napoleon had really done most.
Joseph was not happier than Louis. The Spanish war still went on, and no
better than in 1808. Joseph, humbled and unhappy, had even prayed to be
freed of the throne.
The relations with Sweden were seriously strained. Since 1810
Bernadotte had been by adoption the crown prince of that country. Although
he had emphatically refused, in accepting the position, to agree never to
take up arms against France, as Napoleon wished him to do, he had later
consented to the continental blockade, and had declared war against
England; but this declaration both England and Sweden considered simply
as a façon de parler. Napoleon, conscious that Bernadotte was not carrying
out the blockade, and irritated by his persistent refusal to enter into French
combinations, and pay tribute to carry on French wars, had suppressed his
revenues as a French prince—Bernadotte had been created Prince of Ponte-
Corvo in 1806—had refused to communicate with him, and when the King
of Rome was born had sent back the Swedish decoration offered. Finally, in
January, 1812, French troops invaded certain Swedish possessions, and the
country concluded an alliance with England and Russia.

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

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

With Russia, the “other half” of the machine, the ally upon whom the
great plan of Tilsit and Erfurt depended, there was such a bad state of
feeling that, in 1811, it became certain that war would result. Causes had
been accumulating upon each side since the Erfurt meeting.
The continental system weighed heavily on the interests of Russia. The
people constantly rebelled against it and evaded it in every way. The
business depressions from which they suffered they charged to Napoleon,
and a strong party arose in the empire which used every method of showing
the czar that the “unnatural alliance,” as they called the agreement between
Alexander and Napoleon, was unpopular. The czar could not refuse to listen
to this party. More, he feared that Napoleon was getting ready to restore
Poland. He was offended by the haste with which his ally had dismissed the
idea of marriage with his sister and had taken up Marie Louise. He
complained of the changes of boundaries in Germany. Napoleon, on his
part, saw with irritation that English goods were admitted into Russia. He
resented the failure of Alexander to join heartily in the wide-sweeping
application he had made of the Berlin and Milan Decrees, and to persecute
neutral flags of all nations, even of those so far away from the Continent as
the United States. He remembered that Russia had not supported him
loyally in 1809. He was suspicious, too, of the good understanding which
seemed to be growing between Sweden, Russia, and England.

THE DUKE OF
REICHSTADT.

Engraved by W. Bromley,
after Sir Thomas Lawrence.

During many months the two emperors remained in a half-hostile
condition, but the strain finally became too great. War was inevitable, and
Napoleon set about preparing for the struggle. During the latter months of
1811 and the first of 1812 his attention was given almost entirely to the
military and diplomatic preparations necessary before beginning the
Russian campaign. By the 1st of May, 1812, he was ready to join his army,
which he had centred at Dresden. Accompanied by Marie Louise he arrived
at Dresden on the 16th of May, 1812, where he was greeted by the Emperor
of Austria, the King of Prussia, and other sovereigns with whom he had
formed alliances.
The force Napoleon had brought to the field showed graphically the
extension and the character of the France of 1812. The “army of twenty
nations,” the Russians called the host which was preparing to meet them,
and the expression was just, for in the ranks there were Spaniards,
Neapolitans, Piedmontese, Slavs, Kroats, Bavarians, Dutchmen, Poles,
Romans, and a dozen other nationalities, side by side with Frenchmen.
Indeed, nearly one-half the force was said to be foreign. The Grand Army,
as the active body was called, numbered, to quote the popular figures, six
hundred and seventy-eight thousand men. It is sure that this is an
exaggerated number, though certainly over half a million men entered
Russia. With reserves, the whole force numbered one million one hundred
thousand. The necessity for so large a body of reserves is explained by the

length of the line of communication Napoleon had to keep. From the
Nieman to Paris the way must be open, supply stations guarded, fortified
towns equipped. It took nearly as many men to insure the rear of the Grand
Army as it did to make up the army itself.

PORTRAIT OF THE KING
OF ROME.

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

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

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

NAPOLEON READING.

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

CHAPTER XIX

THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN—THE BURNING OF MOSCOW—A NEW ARMY

I f one draws a triangle, its base stretching along the Nieman from Tilsit
to Grodno, its apex on the Elbe, he will have a rough outline of the
“army of twenty nations” as it lay in June, 1812. Napoleon, some two
hundred and twenty-five thousand men around him, was at Kowno,
hesitating to advance, reluctant to believe that Alexander would not make
peace.
When he finally moved, it was not with the precision and swiftness
which had characterized his former campaigns. When he began to fight, it
was against new odds. He found that his enemies had been studying the
Spanish campaigns, and that they had adopted the tactics which had so
nearly ruined his armies in the Peninsula: they refused to give him a general
battle retreating constantly before him; they harassed his separate corps
with indecisive contests; they wasted the country as they went. The people
aided their soldiers as the Spaniards had done. “Tell us only the moment,
and we will set fire to our buildings,” said the peasants.

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

Engraved by Tardieu, after
Gérard.

By the 12th of August, Napoleon was at Smolensk, the key of Moscow.
At a cost of twelve thousand men killed and wounded, he took the town,
only to find, instead of the well-victualled shelter he hoped, a smoking ruin.
The French army had suffered frightfully from sickness, from scarcity of
supplies, and from useless fighting on the march from the Nieman to
Smolensk. They had not had the stimulus of a great victory; they began to
feel that this steady retreat of the enemy was only a fatal trap into which
they were falling. Every consideration forbade them to march into Russia so
late in the year, yet on they went towards Moscow, over ruined fields and
through empty villages. This terrible pursuit lasted until September 7th,
when the Russians, to content their soldiers, who were complaining loudly
because they were not allowed to engage the French, gave battle at
Borodino, the battle of the Moskova, as the French call it.
At two o’clock in the morning of this engagement, Napoleon issued one
of his stirring bulletins:
“Soldiers! Here is the battle which you have so long desired! Henceforth the victory depends upon
you; it is necessary for us. It will give you abundance, good winter quarters, and a speedy return to
your country! Behave as you did at Austerlitz, at Friedland, at Vitebsk, at Smolensk, and the most
remote posterity will quote with pride your conduct on this day; let it say of you: he was at the great
battle under the walls of Moscow.”

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

ATTENTION! THE EMPEROR HAS HIS EYE ON US.

By Raffet.

Moscow was entered on the 15th of September. Here the French found at
last food and shelter, but only for a few hours. That night Moscow burst
into flames, set on fire by the authorities, by whom it had been abandoned.
It was three days before the fire was arrested. It would cost Russia two
hundred years of time, two hundred millions of money, to repair the loss
which she had sustained, Napoleon wrote to France.
Suffering, disorganization, pillage, followed the disaster. But Napoleon
would not retreat. He hoped to make peace. Moscow was still smoking
when he wrote a long description of the conflagration to Alexander. The
closing paragraph ran:
“I wage war against your Majesty without animosity; a note from you before or after the last battle
would have stopped my march, and I should even have liked to sacrifice the advantage of entering
Moscow. If your Majesty retains some remains of your former sentiments, you will take this letter in
good part. At all events, you will thank me for giving you an account of what is passing at Moscow.”

“I will never sign a peace as long as a single foe remains on Russian
ground,” the Emperor Alexander had said when he heard that Napoleon had
crossed the Nieman. He kept his word in spite of all Napoleon’s overtures.
The French position grew worse from day to day. No food, no fresh
supplies, the cold increasing, the army disheartened, the number of
Russians around Moscow growing larger. Nothing but a retreat could save
the remnant of the French. It began on October 19th, one hundred and
fifteen thousand men leaving Moscow. They were followed by forty
thousand vehicles loaded with the sick and with what supplies they could

get hold of. The route was over the fields devastated a month before. The
Cossacks harassed them night and day, and the cruel Russian cold dropped
from the skies, cutting them down like a storm of scythes. Before Smolensk
was reached, thousands of the retreating army were dead.

NAPOLEON AFTER THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN.

Napoleon had ordered that provisions and clothing should be collected at
Smolensk. When he reached the city he found that his directions had not
been obeyed. The army, exasperated beyond endurance by this
disappointment, fell into complete and frightful disorganization, and the rest
of the retreat was like the falling back of a conquered mob.
There is no space here for the details of this terrible march and of the
frightful passage of the Beresina. The terror of the cold and starvation
wrung cries from Napoleon himself.
“Provisions, provisions, provisions,” he wrote on November 29th from
the right bank of the Beresina. “Without them there is no knowing to what
horrors this undisciplined mass will proceed.”
And again: “The army is at its last extremity. It is impossible for it to do
anything, even if it were a question of defending Paris.”
The army finally reached the Nieman. The last man over was Marshal
Ney. “Who are you?” he was asked. “The rear guard of the Grand Army,”
was the sombre reply of the noble old soldier.
Some forty thousand men crossed the river, but of these there were many
who could do nothing but crawl to the hospitals, asking for “the rooms

where people die.” It was true, as Desprez said, the Grand Army was dead.
It was on this horrible retreat that Napoleon received word that a curious
thing had happened in Paris. A general and an abbé, both political prisoners,
had escaped, and actually had succeeded in the preliminaries of a coup
d’état overturning the empire, and substituting a provisional government.
They had carried out their scheme simply by announcing that Napoleon
was dead, and by reading a forged proclamation from the senate to the
effect that the imperial government was at an end and a new one begun. The
authorities to whom these conspirators had gone had with but little
hesitation accepted their orders. They had secured twelve hundred soldiers,
had locked up the prefect of police, and had taken possession of the Hôtel
de Ville.
The foolhardy enterprise went, it is true, only a little way, but far enough
to show Paris that the day of easy revolution had not passed, and that an
announcement of the death of Napoleon did not bring at once a cry of
“Long live the King of Rome!” The news of the Malet conspiracy was an
astonishing revelation to Napoleon himself of the instability of French
public sentiment. He saw that the support on which he had depended most
to insure his institutions, that is, an heir to his throne, was set aside at the
word of a worthless agitator. The impression made on his generals by the
news was one of consternation and despair. The emperor read in their faces
that they believed his good fortune was waning. He decided to go to Paris
as soon as possible.
On December 5th he left the army, and after a perilous journey of twelve
days reached the French capital. It took as great courage to face France now
as it had taken audacity to attempt the invasion of Russia. The grandest
army the nation had ever sent out was lying behind him dead. His throne
had tottered for an instant in sight of all France. Hereafter he could not
believe himself invincible. Already his enemies were suggesting that since
his good genius had failed him once, it might again.
No one realized the gravity of the position as Napoleon himself, but he
met his household, his ministers, the Council of State, the Senate, with an
imperial self-confidence and a sang froid which are awe-inspiring under the
circumstances. The horror of the situation of the army was not known in
Paris on his arrival, but reports came in daily until the truth was clear to
everybody. But Napoleon never lost countenance. The explanations

necessary for him to give to the Senate, to his allies, and to his friends, had
all the serenity and the plausibility of a victor—a victor who had suffered,
to be sure, but not through his own rashness or mismanagement. The
following quotation from a letter to the King of Denmark illustrates well his
public attitude towards the invasion and the retreat from Moscow:
“The enemy were always beaten, and captured neither an eagle nor a gun from my army. On the
7th of November the cold became intense; all the roads were found impracticable; thirty thousand
horses perished between the 7th and the 16th. A portion of our baggage and artillery wagons was
broken and abandoned; our soldiers, little accustomed to such weather, could not endure the cold.
They wandered from the ranks in quest of shelter for the night, and, having no cavalry to protect
them, several thousands fell into the hands of the enemy’s light troops. General Sanson, chief of the
topographic corps, was captured by some Cossacks while he was engaged in sketching a position.
Other isolated officers shared the same fate. My losses are severe, but the enemy cannot attribute to
themselves the honor of having inflicted them. My army has suffered greatly, and suffers still, but
this calamity will cease with the cold.”

To every one he declared that it was the Russians, not he, who had
suffered. It was their great city, not his, which was burnt; their fields, not
his, which were devastated. They did not take an eagle, did not win a battle.
It was the cold, the Cossacks, which had done the mischief to the Grand
Army; and that mischief? Why, it would be soon repaired. “I shall be back
on the Nieman in the spring.”
But the very man who in public and private calmed and reassured the
nation, was sometimes himself so overwhelmed at the thought of the
disaster which he had just witnessed, that he let escape a cry which showed
that it was only his indomitable will which was carrying him through; that
his heart was bleeding. In the midst of a glowing account to the legislative
body of his success during the invasion, he suddenly stopped. “In a few
nights everything changed. I have suffered great losses. They would have
broken my heart if I had been accessible to any other feelings than the
interest, the glory, and the future of my people.”

THEY GRUMBLED, BUT THEY FOLLOWED ALWAYS.

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

In the teeth of the terrible news coming daily to Paris, Napoleon began
preparations for another campaign. To every one he talked of victory as
certain. Those who argued against the enterprise he silenced temporarily.
“You should say,” he wrote Eugène, “and yourself believe, that in the next
campaign I shall drive the Russians back across the Nieman.” With the first
news of the passage of the Beresina chilling them, the Senate voted an army
of three hundred and fifty thousand men; the allies were called upon; even
the marine was obliged to turn men over to the land force.
But something besides men was necessary. An army means muskets and
powder and sabres, clothes and boots and headgear, wagons and cannon and
caisson; and all these it was necessary to manufacture afresh. The task was
gigantic; but before the middle of April it was completed, and the emperor
was ready to join his army.
The force against which Napoleon went in 1813 was the most
formidable, in many respects, he had ever encountered. Its strength was
greater. It included Russia, England, Spain, Prussia, and Sweden, and the

allies believed Austria would soon join them. An element of this force more
powerful than its numbers was its spirit. The allied armies fought Napoleon
in 1813 as they would fight an enemy of freedom. Central Europe had come
to feel that further French interference was intolerable. The war had become
a crusade. The extent of this feeling is illustrated by an incident in the
Prussian army. In the war of 1812 Prussia was an ally of the French, but at
the end of the year General Yorck, who commanded a Prussian division,
went over to the enemy. It was a dishonorable action from a military point
of view, but his explanation that he deserted as “a patriot acting for the
welfare of his country” touched Prussia; and though the king disavowed the
act, the people applauded it.
Throughout the German states the feeling against Napoleon was bitter. A
veritable crusade had been undertaken against him by such men as Stein,
and most of the youth of the country were united in the Tagendbund, or
League of Virtue, which had sworn to take arms for German freedom.
When Alexander followed the French across the Nieman, announcing
that he came bringing “deliverance to Europe,” and calling on the people to
unite against the “common enemy,” he found them quick to understand and
respond.
Thus, in 1813 Napoleon did not go against kings and armies, but against
peoples. No one understood this better than he did himself, and he
counselled his allies that it was not against the foreign enemy alone that
they had to protect themselves. “There is one more dangerous to be feared
—the spirit of revolt and anarchy.”

CHAPTER XX

CAMPAIGN OF 1813—CAMPAIGN OF 1814—ABDICATION

T he campaign opened May 2, 1813, southwest of Leipsic, with the
battle of Lützen. It was Napoleon’s victory, though he could not
follow it up, as he had no cavalry. The moral effect of Lützen was
excellent in the French army. Among the allies there was a return to the old
dread of the “monster.” By May 8th the French occupied Dresden; from
there they crossed the Elbe, and on the 21st fought the battle of Bautzen,
another incomplete victory for Napoleon. The next day, in an engagement
with the Russian rear guard, Marshal Duroc, one of Napoleon’s warmest
and oldest friends, was killed. It was the second marshal lost since the
campaign began, Bessières having been killed at Lützen.
The French obtained Breslau on June 1st, and three days later an
armistice was signed, lasting until August 10th. It was hoped that peace
might be concluded during this armistice. At that moment Austria held the
key to the situation. The allies saw that they were defeated if they could not
persuade her to join them. Napoleon, his old confidence restored by a series
of victories, hoped to keep his Austrian father-in-law quiet until he had
crushed the Prussians and driven the Russians across the Nieman. Austria
saw her power, and determined to use it to regain territory lost in 1805 and
1809, and Metternich came to Dresden to see Napoleon. Austria would keep
peace with France, he said if Napoleon would restore Illyria and the Polish
provinces, would send the Pope back to Rome, give up the protectorate of
the Confederation of the Rhine, restore Naples and Spain. Napoleon’s
amazement and indignation were boundless.

THE DUKE OF
REICHSTADT.

Engraved by Benedetti, after
Daffinger.

“How much has England given you for playing this rôle against me,
Metternich?” he asked.
A semblance of a congress was held at Prague soon after, but it was only
a mockery. Such was the exasperation and suffering of Central Europe, that
peace could only be reached by large sacrifices on Napoleon’s part. These
he refused to make. There is no doubt but that France and his allies begged
him to compromise; that his wisest counsellors advised him to do so. But he
repulsed with irritation all such suggestions. “You bore me continually
about the necessity of peace,” he wrote Savary. “I know the situation of my
empire better than you do; no one is more interested in concluding peace
than myself, but I shall not make a dishonorable peace, or one that would
see us at war again in six months.... These things do not concern you.”
By the middle of August the campaign began. The French had in the field
some three hundred and sixty thousand men. This force was surrounded by
a circle of armies, Swedish, Russian, Prussian, and Austrian, in all some
eight hundred thousand men. The leaders of this hostile force included,
besides the natural enemies of France, Bernadotte, crown prince of Sweden,
who had fought with Napoleon in Italy, and General Moreau, the hero of
Hohenlinden. Moreau was on Alexander’s staff. He had reached the army
the night that the armistice expired, having sailed from the United States on
the 21st of June, at the invitation of the Russian emperor, to aid in the

campaign against France. He had been greeted by the allies with every mark
of distinction. Another deserter on the allies’ staff was the eminent military
critic Jomini. In the ranks were stragglers from all the French corps, and the
Saxons were threatening to leave the French in a body, and go over to the
allies.
The second campaign of 1813 opened brilliantly for Napoleon, for at
Dresden he took twenty thousand prisoners, and captured sixty cannon. The
victory turned the anxiety of Paris to hopefulness, and their faith in
Napoleon’s star was further revived by the report that Moreau had fallen,
both legs carried off by a French bullet. Moreau himself felt that fate was
friendly to the emperor. “That rascal Bonaparte is always lucky,” he wrote
his wife, just after the amputation of his legs.
But there was something stronger than luck at work; the allies were
animated by a spirit of nationality, indomitable in its force, and they were
following a plan which was sure to crush Napoleon in the long run. It was
one laid out by Moreau; a general battle was not to be risked, but the corps
of the French were to be engaged one by one, until the parts of the army
were disabled. In turn Vandamme, Oudinot, MacDonald, Ney, were
defeated, and in October the remnants of the French fell back to Leipsic.
Here the horde that surrounded them was suddenly enlarged. The Bavarians
had gone over to the allies.
A three days’ battle at Leipsic exhausted the French, and they were
obliged to make a disastrous retreat to the Rhine, which they crossed
November 1st. Ten days later the emperor was in Paris.
The situation of France at the end of 1813 was deplorable. The allies lay
on the right bank of the Rhine. The battle of Vittoria had given the Spanish
boundary to Wellington, and the English and Spanish armies were on the
frontier. The allies which remained with the French were not to be trusted.
“All Europe was marching with us a year ago,” Napoleon said; “to-day all
Europe is marching against us.” There was despair among his generals,
alarm in Paris. Besides, there seemed no human means of gathering up a
new army. Where were the men to come from? France was bled to death.
She could give no more. Her veins were empty.
“This is the truth, the exact truth, and such is the secret and the
explanation of all that has since occurred,” says Pasquier. “With these
successive levies of conscriptions, past, present, and to come; with the

Guards of Honor; with the brevet of sub-lieutenant forced on the young
men appertaining to the best families, after they had escaped the conscript,
or had supplied substitutes in conformity with the provisions of the law,
there did not remain a single family which was not in anxiety or in
mourning.”
Yet hedged in as he was by enemies, threatened by anarchy, supported by
a fainting people, Napoleon dallied over the peace the allies offered. The
terms were not dishonorable. France was to retire, as the other nations,
within her natural boundaries, which they designated as the Rhine, the Alps,
and the Pyrenees. But the emperor could not believe that Europe, whom he
had defeated so often, had power to confine him within such limits. He
could not believe that such a peace would be stable, and he began
preparations for resistance. Fresh levies of troops were made. The Spanish
frontier he attempted to secure by making peace with Ferdinand,
recognizing him as King of Spain. He tried to settle his trouble with the
Pope.
While he struggled to simplify the situation, to arouse national spirit, and
to gather reënforcements, hostile forces multiplied and closed in upon him.
The allies crossed the Rhine. The corps législatif took advantage of his
necessity to demand the restoration of certain rights which he had taken
from them. In his anger at their audacity, the emperor alienated public
sympathy by dissolving the body. “I stood in need of something to console
me,” he told them, “and you have sought to dishonor me. I was expecting
that you would unite in mind and deed to drive out the foreigner; you have
bid him come. Indeed, had I lost two battles, it would not have done France
any greater evil.” To crown his evil day, Murat, Caroline’s husband, now
King of Naples, abandoned him. This betrayal was the more bitter because
his sister herself was the cause of it. Fearful of losing her little glory as
Queen of Naples, Caroline watched the course of events until she was
certain that her brother was lost, and then urged Murat to conclude a peace
with England and Austria.
This accumulation of reverses, coming upon him as he tried to prepare
for battle, drove Napoleon to approach the allies with proposals of peace. It
was too late. The idea had taken root that France, with Napoleon at her
head, would never remain in her natural limits; that the only hope for

Europe was to crush him completely. This hatred of Napoleon had become
almost fanatical, and made any terms of peace with him impossible.
By the end of January, 1814, the emperor was ready to renew the
struggle. The day before he left Paris, he led the empress and the King of
Rome to the court of the Tuileries, and presented them to the National
Guard. He was leaving them what he held dearest in the world, he told
them. The enemy were closing around; they might reach Paris; they might
even destroy the city. While he fought without to shield France from this
calamity, he prayed them to protect the priceless trust left within. The
nobility and sincerity of the feeling that stirred the emperor were
unquestionable; tears flowed down the cheeks of the men to whom he
spoke, and for a moment every heart was animated by the old emotion, and
they took with eagerness the oath he asked.
The next day he left Paris. The army he commanded did not number
more than sixty thousand men. He led it against a force which, counting
only those who had crossed the Rhine, numbered nearly six hundred
thousand.
In the campaign of two months which followed, Napoleon several times
defeated the allies. In spite of the terrible disadvantages under which he
fought, he nearly drove them from the country. In every way the campaign
was worthy of his genius. But the odds against him were too tremendous.
The saddest phase of his situation was that he was not seconded. The
people, the generals, the legislative bodies, everybody not under his
personal influence seemed paralyzed. Augereau, who was at Lyons, did
absolutely nothing, and the following letter to him shows with what energy
and indignation Napoleon tried to arouse his stupefied followers.

“Nogent, 21st February, 1814.

“... What! six hours after having received the first troops coming from Spain you were not in the
field! Six hours’ repose was sufficient. I won the action of Nangis with a brigade of dragoons coming
from Spain, which, since it left Bayonne, had not unbridled its horses. The six battalions of the
division of Nismes want clothes, equipment, and drilling, say you. What poor reasons you give me
there, Augereau! I have destroyed eighty thousand enemies with conscripts having nothing but
knapsacks! The National Guards, say you, are pitiable. I have four thousand here, in round hats,
without knapsacks, in wooden shoes, but with good muskets, and I get a great deal out of them. There
is no money, you continue; and where do you hope to draw money from? You want wagons; take
them wherever you can. You have no magazines; this is too ridiculous. I order you, twelve hours after
the reception of this letter, to take the field. If you are still Augereau of Castiglione, keep the
command; but if your sixty years weigh upon you, hand over the command to your senior general.
The country is in danger, and can be saved by boldness and good will alone....
“Napoleon.”

1814.

Etched by Ruet, after
Meissonier. Original in
Walters’s gallery, Baltimore.
Meissonier was fond of short
titles, and very often in his
historical works made choice
of only a simple date. Among
such titles are 1806, 1807,
1814, which might very well
be replaced by Battle of Jena,
Friedland, and Campaign of
France. This last subject he
treated twice under different
aspects. First, in the famous
canvas, his great masterpiece,
where we see a gloomy, silent

Napoleon, with face
contracted by anguish, slowly
riding at the head of his
discouraged staff across the
snowy plains of Champagne.
This important work forms
part of the collection of
Monsieur Chauchard of Paris,
who bought it for eight
hundred thousand francs. The
second picture is the one
reproduced here, in which
Napoleon is represented at the
same period, but only at the
outset of this terrible
campaign—the last act but
one of the Napoleonic
tragedy. The carefully studied
face shows as yet no
expression of discouragement,
but rather a determined hope
of success. Napoleon wears
the traditionary gray overcoat
over the costume of the
Chasseurs de la Garde, and
rides his faithful little mare
Marie, painted with a living,
nervous effect that cannot be
too much admired.
Meissonier, inaccessible to
the poetic seductions of
symbolism, has nevertheless
indicated here in a superb
manner the gloomy future of
the hero, by surrounding his
luminous form with darkness,
and casting on his brow the
shadow of a stormy,
threatening sky.—A. D.

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

The most serious concern of Napoleon in this campaign was that the
empress and the King of Rome should not be captured. He realized that the
allies might reach Paris at any time, and repeatedly he instructed Joseph,
who had been appointed lieutenant-general in his absence, what to do if the
city was threatened.
“Never allow the empress or the King of Rome to fall into the hands of the enemy.... As far as I am
concerned, I would rather see my son slain than brought up at Vienna as an Austrian prince; and I
have a sufficiently good opinion of the empress to feel persuaded that she thinks in the same way, as
far as it is possible for a woman and a mother to do so. I never saw Andromaque represented without
pitying Astyanax surviving his family, and without regarding it as a piece of good fortune that he did
not survive his father.”

Throughout the two months there were negotiations for peace. They
varied according to the success or failure of the emperor or the allies.
Napoleon had reached a point where he would gladly have accepted the
terms offered at the close of 1813. But those were withdrawn. France must
come down to her limits in 1789. “What!” cried Napoleon, “leave France
smaller than I found her? Never.”
The frightful combination of forces closed about him steadily, with the
deadly precision of the chamber of torture, whose adjustable walls
imperceptibly, but surely, draw together, day by day, until the victim is
crushed. On the 30th of March Paris capitulated. The day before, the Regent
Marie Louise with the King of Rome and her suite had left the city for
Blois. The allied sovereigns entered Paris on the 1st of April. As they
passed through the streets, they saw multiplying, as they advanced, the
white cockades which the grandes dames of the Faubourg St. Germain had
been making in anticipation of the entrance of the foreigner, and the only
cries which greeted them as they passed up the boulevards were, “Long live
the Bourbons! Long live the sovereigns! Long live the Emperor Alexander.”
The allies were in Paris, but Napoleon was not crushed. Encamped at
Fontainebleau, his army about him, the soldiers everywhere faithful to him,
he had still a large chance of victory, and the allies looked with uneasiness
to see what move he would make. It was due largely to the wit of
Talleyrand that the standing ground which remained to the emperor was
undermined. That wily diplomat, whose place it was to have gone with the
empress to Blois, had succeeded in getting himself shut into Paris, and, on
the entry of the allies, had joined Alexander, whom he had persuaded to
announce that the allied powers would not treat with Napoleon nor with any

member of his family. This was eliminating the most difficult factor from
the problem. By his fine tact Talleyrand brought over the legislative bodies
to this view.
From the populace Alexander and Talleyrand feared nothing; it was too
exhausted to ask anything but peace. Their most serious difficulty was the
army. All over the country the cry of the common soldiers was, “Let us go
to the emperor.” “The army,” declared Alexander, “is always the army; as
long as it is not with you, gentlemen, you can boast of nothing. The army
represents the French nation; if it is not won over, what can you accomplish
that will endure?”
Every influence of persuasion, of bribery, of intimidation, was used with
the soldiers and generals. They were told in phrases which could not but
flatter them; “You are the most noble of the children of the country, and you
cannot belong to the man who has laid it waste.... You are no longer the
soldiers of Napoleon; the Senate and all France release you from your
oaths.”
The older officers on Napoleon’s staff at Fontainebleau were unsettled by
adroit communications sent from Paris. They were made to believe that they
were fighting against the will of the nation and of their comrades. When this
disaffection had become serious, one of Napoleon’s oldest and most trusted
associates, Marmont, suddenly deserted. He led the vanguard of the army.
This treachery took away the last hope of the imperial cause, and on April
11, 1814, Napoleon signed the act of abdication at Fontainebleau. The act
read:
“The allied powers having proclaimed that the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte is the only obstacle
to the reëstablishment of peace in Europe, the Emperor Napoleon, faithful to his oath, declares that
he renounces, for himself and his heirs, the thrones of France and Italy, and that there is no personal
sacrifice, even that of his life, which he is not ready to make in the interest of France.”

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

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

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

François, after Delaroche,
1845.

CHAPTER XXI

RULER OF THE ISLAND OF ELBA—RETURN TO PARIS—THE HUNDRED DAYS—THE
SECOND ABDICATION

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

The Elbans received their new ruler with all the pomp which their means
and experience permitted. The entire population celebrated his arrival as a
fête. The new flag which the emperor had chosen—white ground with red
bar and three yellow bees—was unfurled, and saluted by the forts of the
nation and by the foreign vessels in port. The keys of the chief town of the
island were presented to him, a Te Deum was sung. If these honors seemed
poor and contemptible to Napoleon in comparison with the splendor of the
fêtes to which he had become accustomed, he gave no sign, and played his
part with the same seriousness as he had when he received his crown.
His life at Elba was immediately arranged methodically, and he worked
as hard and seemingly with as much interest as he had at Paris. The affairs
of his new state were his chief concern, and he set about at once to
familiarize himself with all their details. He travelled over the island in all
directions, to acquaint himself with its resources and needs. At one time he
made the circuit of his domain, entering every port, and examining its
condition and fortifications. Everywhere that he went he planned and began

works which he pushed with energy. Fine roads were laid out; rocks were
levelled; a palace and barracks were begun. From his arrival his influence
was beneficial. There was a new atmosphere at Elba, the islanders said.
The budget at Elba was administered as rigidly as that of France had
been, and the little army was drilled with as great care as the Guards
themselves. After the daily review of his troops, he rode on horseback, and
this promenade became a species of reception, the islanders who wanted to
consult him stopping him on his route. It is said that he invariably listened
to their appeals.
Elba was enlivened constantly during Napoleon’s residence by tourists
who went out of their way to see him. The majority of these curious persons
were Englishmen; with many of them he talked freely, receiving them at his
house, and letting them carry off bits of stone or of brick from the premises
as souvenirs.
His stay was made more tolerable by the arrival of Madame mère and of
the Princess Pauline and the coming of twenty-six members of the National
Guard who had crossed France to join him. But his great desire that Marie
Louise and the King of Rome should come to him was never gratified. It is
told by one of his companions on the island, that he kept carefully
throughout his stay a stock of fireworks which had fallen into his
possession, planning to use them when his wife and boy should arrive, but,
sadly enough, he never had an occasion to celebrate that event.
While to all appearances engrossed with the little affairs of Elba,
Napoleon was, in fact, planning the most dramatic act of his life. On the
26th of February, 1815, the guard received an order to leave the island. With
a force of eleven hundred men, the emperor passed the foreign ships
guarding Elba, and on the afternoon of the 1st of March landed at Cannes
on the Gulf of Juan. At eleven o’clock that night he started towards Paris.
He was trusting himself to the people and the army. If there never was an
example of such audacious confidence, certainly there never was such a
response. The people of the South received him joyfully, offering to sound
the tocsin and follow him en masse. But Napoleon refused; it was the
soldiers upon whom he called.
“We have not been conquered [he told the army]. Come and range yourselves under the standard of
your chief; his existence depends upon you; his interests, his honor, and his glory are yours. Victory
will march at double-quick time. The eagle with the national colors will fly from steeple to steeple to

the towers of Notre Dame. Then you will be able to show your scars with honor; then you will be
able to boast of what you have done; you will be the liberators of the country....”

At Grenoble there was a show of resistance. Napoleon went directly to
the soldiers, followed by his guard.
“Here I am; you know me. If there is a soldier among you who wishes to
kill his emperor, let him do it.”
“Long live the emperor!” was the answer; and in a twinkle six thousand
men had torn off their white cockades and replaced them by old soiled
tricolors. They drew them from the inside of their caps, where they had
been concealing them since the exile of their hero. “It is the same that I
wore at Austerlitz,” said one as he passed the emperor. “This,” said another,
“I had at Marengo.”

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

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

Fontainebleau, which he reached on March 19th. The same day Louis
XVIII. fled from Paris.
The change of sentiment in these few days was well illustrated in a
French paper which, after Napoleon’s return, published the following
calendar gathered from the royalist press.

February 25.—“The exterminator has signed a treaty offensive and
defensive. It is not known with whom.”
February 26.—“The Corsican has left the island of Elba.”
March 1.—“Bonaparte has debarked at Cannes with eleven hundred
men.”
March 7.—“General Bonaparte has taken possession of Grenoble.”
March 10.—“Napoleon has entered Lyons.”
March 19.—“The emperor reached Fontainebleau to-day.”
March 19.—“His Imperial Majesty is expected at the Tuileries to-
morrow, the anniversary of the birth of the King of Rome.”

BEFORE WATERLOO.

After a lithograph by Charlet.

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

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

“What was the happiest period of your life as emperor?” O’Meara asked
Napoleon once at St. Helena.
“The march from Cannes to Paris,” he replied immediately.
His happiness was short-lived. The overpowering enthusiasm which had
made that march possible could not endure. The bewildered factions which
had been silenced or driven out by Napoleon’s reappearance recovered from
their stupor. The royalists, exasperated by their own flight, reorganized.
Strong opposition developed among the liberals. It was only a short time
before a reaction followed the delirium which Napoleon’s return had caused
in the nation. Disaffection, coldness, and plots succeeded. In face of this
revulsion of feeling, the emperor himself underwent a change. The buoyant
courage, the amazing audacity which had induced him to return from Elba,
seemed to leave him. He became sad and preoccupied. No doubt much of
this sadness was due to the refusal of Austria to restore his wife and child,
and to the bitter knowledge that Marie Louise had succumbed to foreign
influences and had promised never again to see her husband.
If the allies had allowed the French to manage their affairs in their own
way, it is probable that Napoleon would have mastered the situation,
difficult as it was. But this they did not do. In spite of his promise to
observe the treaties made after his abdication, to accept the boundaries
fixed, to abide by the Congress of Vienna, the coalition treated him with
scorn, affecting to mistrust him. He was the disturber of the peace of the
world, a public enemy; he must be put beyond the pale of society, and they
took up arms, not against France, but against Napoleon. France, as it
appeared, was not to be allowed to choose her own rulers.

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

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

The position in which Napoleon found himself on the declaration of war
was of exceeding difficulty, but he mastered the opposition with all his old
genius and resources. Three months after the landing at Cannes he had an
army of two hundred thousand men ready to march. He led it against at
least five hundred thousand men.
On June 15th, Napoleon’s army met a portion of the enemy in Belgium,
near Brussels, and on July 16th, 17th, and 18th were fought the battles of
Ligny, Quatre Bras, and Waterloo, in the last of which he was completely
defeated. The limits and nature of this sketch do not permit a description of

the engagement at Waterloo. The literature on the subject is perhaps richer
than that on any other subject in military science. Thousands of books
discuss the battle, and each succeeding generation takes it up as if nothing
had been written on it. But while Waterloo cannot be discussed here, it is
not out of place to notice that among the reasons for its loss are certain ones
which interest us because they are personal to Napoleon. He whose great
rule in wars was, “Time is everything,” lost time at Waterloo. He who had
looked after everything which he wanted well done, neglected to assure
himself of such an important matter as the exact position of his enemy. He
who once had been able to go a week without sleep, was ill. Again, if one
will compare carefully the Bonaparte of Guérin (page 108) with the
Napoleon of Girodet (page 240), he will understand, at least partially, why
the battle of Waterloo was lost.

THE EIGHT EPOCHS OF THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON.

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

1. Vendémiaire.
2. Consulate.
3. Empire.
4. Austerlitz.
5. Wagram.
6. Moscow.

7. Waterloo.
8. St. Helena.

The defeat was complete; and when the emperor saw it, he threw himself
into the battle in search of death. As eagerly as he had sought victory at
Arcola, Marengo, Austerlitz, he sought death at Waterloo. “I ought to have
died at Waterloo,” he said afterwards; “but the misfortune is that when a
man seeks death most he cannot find it. Men were killed around me, before,
behind—everywhere. But there was no bullet for me.”
He returned immediately to Paris. There was still force for resistance in
France. There were many to urge him to return to the struggle, but such was
the condition of public sentiment that he refused. The country was divided
in its allegiance to him; the legislative body was frightened and quarrelling;
Talleyrand and Fouché were plotting. Besides, the allies proclaimed to the
nation that it was against Napoleon alone that they waged war. Under these
circumstances Napoleon felt that loyalty to the best interest of France
required his abdication; and he signed the act anew, proclaiming his son
emperor under the title of Napoleon II.
Leaving Paris, the fallen emperor went to Malmaison, where Josephine
had died only thirteen months before. A few friends joined him—Queen
Hortense, the Duc de Rovigo, Bertrand, Las Cases, and Méneval. He
remained there only a few days. The allies were approaching Paris, and the
environs were in danger. Napoleon offered his services to the provisional
government, which had taken his place, as leader in the campaign against
the invader, promising to retire as soon as the enemy was repulsed, but he
was refused. The government feared him, in fact, more than it did the allies,
and urged him to leave France as quickly as possible. In his disaster he
turned to America as a refuge, and gave his family rendezvous there.
Various plans were suggested for getting to the United States. Among the
offers of aid to carry out his desire which were made to Napoleon, Las
Cases speaks of one coming from an American in Paris, who wrote:
“While you were at the head of a nation you could perform any miracle, you might conceive any
hopes; but now you can do nothing more in Europe. Fly to the United States! I know the hearts of the
leading men and the sentiments of the people of America. You will there find a second country and
every source of consolation.”

Mr. S. V. S. Wilder, an American shipping merchant who lived in France
during the time of Napoleon’s power, and who had been much impressed by
the changes brought about in society and politics under his rule, offered to
help him to escape. He proposed that the emperor disguise himself as a
valet for whom he had a passport. On board the ship the emperor was to
conceal himself in a hogshead until the danger-line was crossed. This
hogshead was to have a false compartment in it. From the end in view,
water was to drip incessantly. Mr. Wilder proposed to take Napoleon to his
own home in Bolton, Massachusetts, when they arrived in America. It is
said that the emperor seriously considered this scheme, but finally declined,
because he would leave his friends behind him, and for them Mr. Wilder
could not possibly provide. Napoleon explained one day to Las Cases at St.
Helena what he intended to do if he had reached America. He would have
collected all his relatives around him, and thus would have formed the
nucleus of a national union, a second France. Such were the sums of money
he had given them that he thought they might have realized at least forty
millions of francs. Before the conclusion of a year, the events of Europe
would have drawn to him a hundred millions of francs and sixty thousand
individuals, most of them possessing wealth, talent, and information.
“America [he said] was, in all respects, our proper asylum: It is an immense continent, possessing
the advantage of a peculiar system of freedom. If a man is troubled with melancholy, he may get into
a coach and drive a thousand leagues, enjoying all the way the pleasures of a common traveller. In
America you may be on a footing of equality with everyone; you may, if you please, mingle with the
crowd without inconvenience, retaining your own manners, your own language, your own religion.”

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

NAPOLEON EMBARKING ON THE “BELLEROPHON.”

Designed and engraved by Baugeau.

CHAPTER XXII

NAPOLEON’S SURRENDER TO ENGLAND—SENT TO ST. HELENA—LIFE IN EXILE—
DEATH OF NAPOLEON

W hen it became evident that it was impossible to escape to the
United States, Napoleon considered two courses—to call upon the
country and renew the conflict, or seek an asylum in England. The
former was not only to perpetuate the foreign war, it was to plunge France
into civil war; for a large part of the country had come to the conclusion of
the allies—that as long as Napoleon was at large, peace was impossible.
Rather than involve France in such a disaster, the emperor resolved at last to
give himself up to the English, and sent the following note to the regent:
“Royal Highness: Exposed to the factions which divide my country and to the hostility of the
greatest powers of Europe, I have closed my political career. I have come, like Themistocles to seek
the hospitality of the British nation. I place myself under the protection of their laws, which I claim
from your Royal Highness as the most powerful, the most constant, and the most generous of my
enemies.
“Napoleon.”

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

NAPOLEON ON BOARD THE “NORTHUMBERLAND.”

Engraved by Steele, after Orchardson.

Napoleon’s surrender to the English was made, as he says, with full
confidence in their hospitality. Certainly hospitality was the last thing to
expect of England under the circumstances, and there was something
theatrical in the demand for it. The “Bellerophon” was no sooner in the
harbor of Plymouth than it became evident that he was regarded not as a
guest, but as a prisoner. Armed vessels surrounded the ship he was on;
extraordinary messages were hurried to and fro; sinister rumors ran among
the crew. The Tower of London, a desert isle, the ends of the earth, were
talked of as the hospitality England was preparing.
But if there was something theatrical, even humorous, in the idea of
expecting a friendly welcome from England, there was every reason to
suppose that she would receive him with dignity and consideration.
Napoleon had been an enemy worthy of English metal. He had been
defeated only after years of struggle. Now that he was at her feet, her own
self-respect demanded that she treat him as became his genius and his
position. To leave him at large was, of course, out of the question; but
surely he could have been made a royal prisoner and been made to feel that
if he was detained it was because of his might.
The British government no sooner realized that it had its hands on
Napoleon than it was seized with a species of panic. All sense of dignity, all
notions of what was due a foe who surrendered, were drowned in hysterical
resentment. The English people as a whole did not share the government’s

terror. The general feeling seems to have been similar to that which Charles
Lamb expressed to Southey: “After all, Bonaparte is a fine fellow, as my
barber says, and I should not mind standing bareheaded at his table to do
him service in his fall. They should have given him Hampton Court or
Kensington, with a tether extending forty miles round London.”

LONGWOOD, NAPOLEON’S HOUSE AT ST. HELENA.

Etching by Chienon.

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

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

NAPOLEON AT ST.
HELENA.

By Delaroche.

The most serious concern Napoleon felt in facing his new life was that he
would have no occupation. He saw at once that St. Helena would not be an
Elba. But he resolutely made occupations. He sought conversation, studied
English, played games, began to dictate his memoirs. It is to this admirable

determination to find something to do, that we owe his clear, logical
commentaries, his essays on Cæsar, Turenne, and Frederick, his sketch of
the Republic, and the vast amount of information in the journals of his
devoted comrades, O’Meara, Las Cases, Montholon.
But no amount of forced occupation could hide the desolation of his
position. The island of St. Helena is a mass of jagged, gloomy rocks; the
nearest land is six hundred miles away. Isolated and inaccessible as it is, the
English placed Napoleon in its most sombre and remote part—a place
called Longwood, at the summit of a mountain, and to the windward. The
houses at Longwood were damp and unhealthy. There was no shade. Water
had to be carried some three miles.
The governor, Sir Hudson Lowe, was a tactless man, with a propensity
for bullying those whom he ruled. He was haunted by the idea that
Napoleon was trying to escape, and he adopted a policy which was more
like that of a jailer than of an officer. In his first interview with the emperor
he so antagonized him that Napoleon soon refused to see him. Napoleon’s
antipathy was almost superstitious. “I never saw such a horrid
countenance,” he told O’Meara. “He sat on a chair opposite to my sofa, and
on the little table between us there was a cup of coffee. His physiognomy
made such an unfavorable impression upon me that I thought his evil eye
had poisoned the coffee, and I ordered Marchand to throw it out of the
window. I could not have swallowed it for the world.”
Aggravated by Napoleon’s refusal to see him, Sir Hudson Lowe became
more annoying and petty in his regulations. All free communication
between Longwood and the inhabitants of the island was cut off. The
newspapers sent Napoleon were mutilated; certain books were refused; his
letters were opened. A bust of his son brought to the island by a sailor was
withheld for weeks. There was incessant haggling over the expenses of his
establishment. His friends were subjected to constant annoyance. All news
of Marie Louise and of his son was kept from him.
It is scarcely to be wondered at that Napoleon was often peevish and
obstinate under this treatment, or that frequently, when he allowed himself
to discuss the governor’s policy with the members of his suite, his temper
rose, as Montholon said, “to thirty-six degrees of fury.” His situation was
made more miserable by his ill health. His promenades were so guarded by

sentinels and restricted to such limits that he finally refused to take exercise,
and after that his disease made rapid marches.
His fretfulness, his unreasonable determination to house himself, his
childish resentment at Sir Hudson Lowe’s conduct, have led to the idea that
Napoleon spent his time at St. Helena in fuming and complaining. But if
one will take into consideration the work that the fallen emperor did in his
exile, he will have a quite different impression of this period of his life. He
lived at St. Helena from October, 1815, to May, 1821. In this period of five
and a half years he wrote or dictated enough matter to fill the four good-
sized volumes which complete the bulky correspondence published by the
order of Napoleon III., and he furnished the great collection of
conversations embodied in the memoirs published by his companions.
This means a great amount of thinking and planning; for if one will go
over these dictations and writings to see how they were made, he will find
that they are not slovenly in arrangement or loose in style. On the contrary,
they are concise, logical, and frequently vivid. They are full of errors, it is
true, but that is due to the fact that Napoleon had not at hand any official
documents for making history. He depended almost entirely on his memory.
The books and maps he had, he used diligently, but his supply was limited
and unsatisfactory.
It must be remembered, too, that this work was done under great physical
difficulties. He was suffering keenly much of the time after he reached the
island. Even for a well man, working under favorable circumstances, the
literary output of Napoleon at St. Helena would be creditable. For one in his
circumstances it was extraordinary. A look at it is the best possible
refutation of the common notion that he spent his time at St. Helena fuming
at Sir Hudson Lowe and “stewing himself in hot water,” to use the
expression of the governor.
Before the end of 1820 it was certain that he could not live long. In
December of that year the death of his sister Eliza was announced to him.
“You see, Eliza has just shown me the way. Death, which had forgotten my
family, has begun to strike it. My turn cannot be far off.” Nor was it. On
May 5, 1821, he died.
His preparations for death were methodical and complete. During the last
fortnight of April all his strength was spent in dictating to Montholon his
last wishes. He even dictated, ten days before the end, the note which he

wished sent to Sir Hudson Lowe to announce his death. The articles he had
in his possession at Longwood he had wrapped up and ticketed with the
names of the persons to whom he wished to leave them. His will
remembered numbers of those whom he had loved or who had served him.
Even the Chinese laborers then employed about the place were
remembered. “Do not let them be forgotten. Let them have a few score of
napoleons.”

NAPOLEON’S LAST DAY.

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

The will included a final word on certain questions on which he felt
posterity ought distinctly to understand his position. He died, he said, in the
apostolical Roman religion. He declared that he had always been pleased
with Marie Louise, whom he besought to watch over his son. To this son,
whose name recurs repeatedly in the will, he gave a motto—All for the
French people. He died prematurely, he said, assassinated by the English
oligarchy. The unfortunate results of the invasion of France he attributed to

the treason of Marmont, Augereau, Talleyrand, and Lafayette. He defended
the death of the Duc d’Enghien. “Under similar circumstances I should act
in the same way.” This will is sufficient evidence that he died as he had
lived, courageously and proudly, and inspired by a profound conviction of
the justice of his own cause. In 1822 the French courts declared the will
void.
They buried him in a valley beside a spring he loved, and though no
monument but a willow marked the spot, perhaps no other grave in history
is so well known. Certainly the magnificent mausoleum which marks his
present resting place in Paris has never touched the imagination and the
heart as did the humble willow-shaded mound in St. Helena.

NAPOLEON LYING DEAD.

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

The peace of the world was insured. Napoleon was dead. But though he
was dead, the echo of his deeds was so loud in the ears of France and
England that they tried every device to turn it into discord or to drown it by
another and a newer sound. The ignoble attempt was never entirely
successful, and the day will come when personal and partisan
considerations will cease to influence judgments on this mighty man. For he
was a mighty man. One may be convinced that the fundamental principles
of his life were despotic; that he used the noble ideas of personal liberty, of
equality, and of fraternity, as a tyrant; that the whole tendency of his civil
and military system was to concentrate a power in a single pair of hands,

never to distribute it where it belonged, among the people; one may feel
that he frequently sacrificed personal dignity to a theatrical desire to impose
on the crowd as a hero of classic proportions, a god from Olympus; one
may groan over the blood he spilt. But he cannot refuse to acknowledge that
no man ever comprehended more clearly the splendid science of war; he
cannot fail to bow to the genius which conceived and executed the Italian
campaign, which fought the classic battles of Austerlitz, Jena, and Wagram.
These deeds are great epics. They move in noble, measured lines, and stir us
by their might and perfection. It is only a genius of the most magnificent
order which could handle men and materials as Napoleon did.
He is even more imposing as a statesman. When one confronts the France
of 1799, corrupt, crushed, hopeless, false to the great ideals she had wasted
herself for, and watches Napoleon firmly and steadily bring order into this
chaos, give the country work and bread, build up her broken walls and
homes, put money into her pocket and restore her credit, bind up her
wounds and call back her scattered children, set her again to painting
pictures and reading books, to smiling and singing, he has a Napoleon
greater than the general.
Nor were these civil deeds transient. France to-day is largely what
Napoleon made her, and the most liberal institutions of continental Europe
bear his impress. It is only a mind of noble proportions which can grasp the
needs of a people, and a hand of mighty force which can supply them.

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

But he was greater as a man than as a warrior or statesman; greater in that
rare and subtle personal quality which made men love him. Men went down
on their knees and wept at sight of him when he came home from Elba—
rough men whose hearts were untrained, and who loved naturally and
spontaneously the thing which was lovable. It was only selfish, warped,
abnormal natures, which had been stifled by etiquette and diplomacy and
self-interest, who abandoned him. Where nature lived in a heart, Napoleon’s
sway was absolute. It was not strange. He was in everything a natural man;
his imagination, his will, his intellect, his heart, were native, untrained.
They appealed to unworldly men in all their rude, often brutal strength and
sweetness. If they awed them, they won them.
This native force of Napoleon explains, at least partially, his hold on
men; it explains, too, the contrasts of his character. Never was there a life
lived so full of lights and shades, of majors and minors. It was a
kaleidoscope, changing at every moment. Beside the most practical and
commonplace qualities are the most idealistic. No man ever did more
drudgery, ever followed details more slavishly; yet who ever dared so
divinely, ever played such hazardous games of chance? No man ever
planned more for his fellows, yet who ever broke so many hearts? No man
ever made practical realities of so many of liberty’s dreams, yet it was by
despotism that he gave liberal and beneficent laws. No man was more
gentle, none more cruel. Never was there a more chivalrous lover until he
was disillusioned; a more affectionate husband, even when faith had left
him; yet no man ever trampled more rudely on womanly delicacy and
reserve.
He was valorous as a god in danger, loved it, played with it; yet he would
turn pale at a broken mirror, cross himself if he stumbled, fancy the coffee
poisoned at which an enemy had looked.
He was the greatest genius of his time, perhaps of all time, yet he lacked
the crown of greatness—that high wisdom born of reflection and
introspection which knows its own powers and limitations, and never
abuses them; that fine sense of proportion which holds the rights of others
in the same solemn reverence it demands for its own.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE SECOND FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON—REMOVAL OF NAPOLEON’S REMAINS
FROM ST. HELENA TO THE BANKS OF THE SEINE IN 1840

It is my wish that my ashes may repose on the banks of the Seine, in the
midst of the French people, whom I have loved so well.—Testament of
Napoleon, 2d Clause.
He wants not this; but France shall feel the want
Of this last consolation, thought so scant;
Her honor, fame, and faith demand his bones,
To rear above a pyramid of thrones;
Or carried onward, in the battle’s van,
To form, like Guesclin’s dust, her talisman.
But be it as it is, the time may come,
His name shall beat the alarm like Ziska’s drum.

—Byron, in The Age of Bronze.

O n May 12, 1840, Louis Philippe being king of the French people, the
Chamber of Deputies was busy with a discussion on sugar tariffs. It
had been dragging somewhat, and the members were showing signs
of restlessness. Suddenly the Count de Rémusat, then Minister of the
Interior, appeared, and asked a hearing for a communication from the
government.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “the king has ordered his Royal Highness
Monseigneur the Prince de Joinville[2] to go with his frigate to the island of
St. Helena, there to collect the remains of the Emperor Napoleon.”
A tremor ran over the House. The announcement was utterly unexpected.
Napoleon to come back! The body seemed electrified, and the voice of the
minister was drowned for a moment in applause. When he went on it was to
say:

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

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

“We have come to ask for an appropriation which shall enable us to
receive the remains in a fitting manner, and to raise an enduring tomb to
Napoleon.”
“Très bien! Très bien!” cried the House.
“The government, anxious to discharge a great national duty, asked
England for the precious treasure which fortune had put into her hands.
“The thought of France was welcomed as soon as expressed. Listen to the
reply of our magnanimous ally:
“‘The government of her Majesty hopes that the promptness of her response will be considered in
France as a proof of her desire to efface the last traces of those national animosities which armed
France and England against each other in the life of the emperor. The government of her Majesty
dares to hope that if such sentiments still exist in certain quarters, they will be buried in the tomb
where the remains of Napoleon are to be deposited.’”

The reading of this generous and dignified communication caused a
profound sensation, and cries of “Bravo! bravo!” re-echoed through the
hall. The minister, so well received, grew eloquent.
“England is right, gentlemen; the noble way in which restitution has been
made will knit the bonds which unite us. It will wipe out all traces of a
sorrowful past. The time has come when the two nations should remember
only their glory. The frigate freighted with the mortal remains of Napoleon
will return to the mouth of the Seine. They will be placed in the Invalides. A
solemn celebration and grand religious and military ceremonies will
consecrate the tomb which must guard them forever.
“It is important, gentlemen, that this august sepulchre should not remain
exposed in a public place, in the midst of a noisy and inappreciative
populace. It should be in a silent and sacred spot, where all those who honor
glory and genius, grandeur and misfortune, can visit it and meditate.
“He was emperor and king. He was the legitimate sovereign of our
country. He is entitled to burial at Saint-Denis. But the ordinary royal
sepulchre is not enough for Napoleon. He should reign and command
forever in the spot where the country’s soldiers repose, and where those
who are called to defend it will seek their inspiration. His sword will be
placed on his tomb.
“Art will raise beneath the dome of the temple consecrated to the god of
battles a tomb worthy, if that be possible, of the name which shall be
engraved upon it. This monument must have a simple beauty, grand
outlines, and that appearance of eternal strength which defies the action of
time. Napoleon must have a monument lasting as his memory....
“Hereafter France and France alone, will possess all that remains of
Napoleon. His tomb, like his fame, will belong to no one but his country.
The monarchy of 1830 is the only and the legitimate heir of the past of
which France is so proud. It is the duty of this monarchy, which was the
first to rally all the forces and to conciliate all the aspirations of the French
Revolution, fearlessly to raise and honor the statue and the tomb of the
popular hero. There is one thing, one only, which does not fear comparison
with glory—that is liberty.”
Throughout this speech, every word of which was an astonishment to the
Chamber, sincere and deep emotion prevailed. At intervals enthusiastic
applause burst forth. For a moment all party distinctions were forgotten.

The whole House was under the sway of that strange and powerful emotion
which Napoleon, as no other leader who ever lived, was able to inspire.
When the minister followed his speech by the draft of a law for a special
credit of one million francs, a member, beside himself with excitement,
moved that rules be laid aside and the law voted without the legal
preliminaries. The president refused to put so irregular a motion, but the
House would not be quiet. The deputies left their places, formed in groups
in the hemicycle, surrounded the minister, congratulating him with fervor.
They walked up and down, gesticulating and shouting. It was fully half an
hour before the president was able to bring them to order, and then they
were in anything but a working mood.
“The president must close this session,” cried an agitated member; “the
law which has just been proposed has caused too great emotion for us to
return now to discussing sugar.” But the president replied very properly, and
a little sententiously, that the Chamber owed its time to the country’s
business, and that it must give it. And, in spite of their excitement, the
members had to go back to their sugar.
But how had it come about that the French government had dared burst
upon the country with so astounding a communication. There were many
explanations offered. A curious story which went abroad took the credit
from the king and gave it to O’Connell, the Irish agitator. As the story went,
O’Connell had warned Lord Palmerston that he proposed to present a bill in
the Commons for returning Napoleon’s remains to France.
“Take care,” said Lord Palmerston. “Instead of pleasing the French
government, you may embarrass it seriously.”
“That is not the question,” answered O’Connell. “The question for me is
what I ought to do. Now, my duty is to propose to the Commons to return
the emperor’s bones. England’s duty is to welcome the motion. I shall make
my propositions, then, without disturbing myself about whom they will
flatter or wound.”
“So be it,” said Lord Palmerston. “Only give me fifteen days.”
“Very well,” answered O’Connell.
Immediately Lord Palmerston wrote to Monsieur Thiers, then at the head
of the French Ministry, that he was about to be forced to tell the country
that England had never refused to return the remains of Napoleon to France,

because France had never asked that they be returned. As the story goes,
Monsieur Thiers advised Louis Philippe to forestall O’Connell, and thus it
came about that Napoleon’s remains were returned to France.
The grande pensée, as the idea was immediately called, seems, however,
to have originated with Monsieur Thiers, who saw in it a means of
reawakening interest in Louis Philippe. He believed that the very audacity
of the act would create admiration and applause. Then, too, it was in
harmony with the claim of the régime; that is, that the government of 1830
united all that was best in all the past governments of France, and so was
stronger than any one of them. The mania of both king and minister for
collecting and restoring made them think favorably of the idea. Already
Louis Philippe had inaugurated galleries at Versailles, and hung them with
miles of canvas, celebrating the victories of all his predecessors. In the
gallery of portraits he had placed Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI. beside
Madame Roland, Charlotte Corday, Robespierre, and Napoleon and his
marshals.
He had already replaced the statue of Napoleon on the top of the Column
Vendôme. He had restored cathedrals, churches, and châteaux, put up
statues and monuments, and all this he had done with studied indifference
to the politics of the individuals honored.
Yet while so many little important personages were being exalted, the
remains of the greatest leader France had ever known, were lying in a far
away island. Louis Philippe felt that no monument he could build to the
heroes of the past would equal restoring Napoleon’s remains.
The matter was simpler, because it was almost certain that England
would not block the path. The entente cordiale, whose base had been laid
by Talleyrand nearly ten years earlier, had become a comparatively solid
peace, and either nation was willing to go out of the way, if necessary, to do
the other a neighborly kindness. France was so full of good will that she
was even willing to ask a favor. Her confidence was well placed. Two days
after Guizot, then the French minister to England, had explained the project
to Lord Palmerston, and made his request, he had his reply.
The remains of the “emperor” were at the disposition of the French. Of
the “emperor,” notice! After twenty-five years England recalled the act of
her ministers in 1815, and recognized that France made Napoleon emperor
as well as general.

The announcement that Napoleon’s remains were to be brought back,
produced the same effect upon the country at large that it had upon the
Chamber—a moment of acute emotion, of all-forgetting enthusiasm. But in
the Chamber and the country the feeling was short-lived. The political
aspects of the bold movement were too conspicuous. A chorus of criticisms
and forebodings arose. It was more of Monsieur Thiers’ clap-trap, said
those opposed to the English policy of the government. What particularly
angered this party, was the words “magnanimous ally” in the minister’s
address.
The Bonapartes feigned to despise the proposed ceremony. It was
insufficient for the greatness of their hero. One million francs could not
possibly produce the display the object demanded. Another point of theirs
was more serious. The emperor was the legitimate sovereign of the country,
they said, quoting from the minister’s speech to the Chamber, and they
added: “His title was founded on the senatus consultum of the year 12,
which, by an equal number of suffrages, secured the succession to his
brother Joseph. It was then unquestionably Joseph Bonaparte who was
proclaimed emperor of the French by the Minister of the Interior, and amid
the applause of the deputies.”
Scoffers said that Louis Philippe must have discovered that his soft
mantle of popularity was about worn out, if he was going to make one of
the old gray redingote of a man whom he had called a monster. The
Legitimists denied that Napoleon was a legitimate sovereign with a right to
sleep at Saint-Denis like a Bourbon or a Valois. The Orleanists were
wounded by the hopes they saw inspired in the Bonapartists by this
declaration. The Republicans resented the honor done to the man whom
they held up as the greatest of all despots.
There was a conviction among many that the restoration was premature,
and probably would bring on the country an agitation which would
endanger the stability of the throne. It was tempting the Bonaparte
pretensions certainly, and perhaps arousing a tremendous popular sentiment
to support them.
While the press and government, the clubs and cafés, discussed the
political side of the question, the populace quietly revived the Napoleon
legend. Within two days after the government had announced its intentions,
commerce had begun to take advantage of the financial possibilities in the

approaching ceremony. New editions of the “Lives” of Napoleon which
Vernet and Raffet had illustrated, were advertised. Dumas’ “Life” and
Thiers’ “Consulate and Empire” were announced. Memoirs of the period,
like those of the Duchesse d’Abrantès and of Marmont, were revived.
As on the announcement of Napoleon’s death in 1821, there was an
inundation of pamphlets in verse and prose; of portraits and war
compositions, lithographs, engravings, and wood-cuts; of thousands of little
objects such as the French know so well how to make. The shops and street
carts were heaped with every conceivable article à la Napoléon. The legend
grew as the people gazed.
On July 7th the “Belle Poule,” the vessel which was to conduct the
Prince de Joinville, the commander of the expedition, to St. Helena, sailed
from Toulon accompanied by the “Favorite.” In the suite of the Prince were
several old friends of Napoleon: the Baron las Cases, General Gourgaud,
Count Bertrand, and four of his former servants. All these persons had been
with him at St. Helena.
The Prince de Joinville had not received his orders to go on the
expedition with great pleasure. Two of his brothers had just been sent to
Africa to fight, and he envied them their opportunities for adventures and
glory; and, besides, he was sick of a most plebeian complaint, the measles.
“One day as I lay in high fever,” he says in his “Memoirs,” “I saw my father
appear, followed by Monsieur de Rémusat, then Minister of the Interior.
This unusual visit filled me with astonishment, and my surprise increased
when my father said, ‘Joinville, you are to go out to St. Helena and bring
back Napoleon’s coffin.’ If I had not been in bed already I should have
fallen down flat, and at first blush I felt no wise flattered when I compared
the warlike campaign my brothers were on with the undertaker’s job I was
being sent to perform in the other hemisphere. But I served my country, and
I had no right to discuss my orders.”
If the young prince was privately a little ashamed of his task, publicly he
adapted himself admirably to the occasion.

NAPOLEON’S TOMB AT
ST. HELENA.

From a recent photograph.

A voyage of sixty-six days brought the “Belle Poule,” on October 8th, to
St. Helena, where she was welcomed by the English with every honor.
Indeed, throughout the affair the attitude of the English was dignified and
generous. They showed plainly their desire to satisfy and flatter the pride
and sentiment of the French.
It had been decided that the exhumation of the body and its transfer to the
French should take place on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the arrival of
Napoleon at the island. The disinterment was begun at midnight on October
15th, the English conducting the work, and a number of the French,
including those of the party who had been with Napoleon at his death, being
present. The work was one of extraordinary difficulty, for the same
remarkable precautions against escape were taken in Napoleon’s death as
had been in his life.
The grave in the Valley of Napoleon, as the place had come to be called,
was surrounded by an iron railing set in a heavy stone curb. Over the grave
was a covering of six-inch stone which admitted to a vault eleven feet deep,
eight feet long, and four feet eight inches broad. The vault was apparently
filled with earth, but digging down some seven feet a layer of Roman
cement was found; this broken, laid bare a layer of rough-hewn stone ten
inches thick, and fastened together by iron clamps. It took four and one-half
hours to remove this layer. The stone up, the slab forming the lid of the

interior sarcophagus was exposed, enclosed in a border of Roman cement
strongly attached to the walls of the vault. So stoutly had all these various
coverings been sealed with cement and bound by iron bands, that it took the
large party of laborers ten hours to reach the coffin.
As soon as exposed the coffin was purified, sprinkled with holy water,
consecrated by a De Profundis, and then raised with the greatest care, and
carried into a tent which had been prepared for it. After the religious
ceremonies, the inner coffins were opened. “The outermost coffin was
slightly injured,” says an eye witness; “then came one of lead, which was in
good condition, and enclosed two others—one of tin and one of wood. The
last coffin was lined inside with white satin, which, having become
detached by the effect of time, had fallen upon the body and enveloped it
like a winding-sheet, and had become slightly attached to it.
“It is difficult to describe with what anxiety and emotion those who were
present waited for the moment which was to expose to them all that was left
of the Emperor Napoleon. Notwithstanding the singular state of
preservation of the tomb and coffins, we could scarcely hope to find
anything but some misshapen remains of the least perishable part of the
costume to evidence the identity of the body. But when Dr. Guillard raised
the sheet of satin, an indescribable feeling of surprise and affection was
experienced by the spectators, many of whom burst into tears. The emperor
himself was before their eyes! The features of the face, though changed,
were perfectly recognizable; the hands extremely beautiful; his well known
costume had suffered but little, and the colors were easily distinguished.
The attitude itself was full of ease, and but for the fragments of satin lining
which covered, as with fine gauze, several parts of the uniform, we might
have believed we still saw Napoleon lying on his bed of state.”
A solemn procession was now formed, and the coffin borne over the
rugged hills of St. Helena to the quay. “We were all deeply impressed,” says
the Prince de Joinville, “when the coffin was seen coming slowly down the
mountain side to the firing of cannon, escorted by British infantry with arms
reversed, the band playing, to the dull rolling accompaniment of the drums,
that splendid funeral march which English people call the Dead March in
Saul.”
At the head of the quay, the Prince de Joinville, attended by the officers
of the French vessels, was waiting to receive the remains of the emperor. In

the midst of the most solemn military funeral rites the French embarked
with their precious charge. “The scene at that moment was very fine,”
continues the prince. “A magnificent sunset had been succeeded by a
twilight of the deepest calm. The British authorities and the troops stood
motionless on the beach, while our ship’s guns fired a royal salute. I stood
in the stern of my long-boat, over which floated a magnificent tricolor flag,
worked by the ladies of St. Helena. Beside me were the generals and
superior officers. The pick of my topmen, all in white, with crape on their
arms, and bareheaded like ourselves, rowed the boat in silence, and with the
most admirable precision. We advanced with majestic slowness, escorted by
the boats bearing the staff. It was very touching, and a deep national
sentiment seemed to hover over the whole scene.”
But no sooner did the coffin reach the French cutter than mourning was
changed to triumph. Flags were unfurled, masts squared, drums set a-
beating, and salvos poured from ports and vessels. The emperor had come
back to his own!
Three days later the “Belle Poule” was en route for France. One incident
alone marked her return. A passing vessel brought the news that war had
been declared between France and England. The Prince de Joinville was
only twenty-two, a hot-headed youth, and the news of war immediately
convinced him that England had her fleet out watching for him, ready to
carry off Napoleon again. He rose to the height of his fears. The elegant
furnishings of the saloons of his vessel were torn out and thrown overboard
to make room for the batteries; the men were made ready for fighting, and
everybody on board was compelled to take an oath to sink the vessel before
allowing the remains to be taken. This done, the “Belle Poule” went her
way peacefully to Cherbourg, where she arrived on November 30th, forty-
three days after leaving St. Helena.
The town of Cherbourg owes much to Napoleon—her splendid harbors,
and great tracts of land rescued from the sea—and she honored the return of
his remains with every pomp. Even the poor of the town were made to
rejoice by lavish gifts in the emperor’s honor; and one of the chief squares
—one he had redeemed from the sea—became the Place Napoleon.
The vessels lay eight days at Cherbourg, for the arrival had been a
fortnight earlier than was anticipated, and nothing was ready for the
celebration at Paris; but the time was none too long for the thousands who

flocked in interminable processions to the vessels. When the vessels left for
Havre, Cherbourg was so excited that she did what must have seemed to the
nervous inhabitants an extravagance, even in Napoleon’s honor, she fired a
thousand guns!
The passage of the flotilla from Cherbourg to Paris took seven days. At
almost every town and hamlet elaborate demonstrations were made. At
Havre and Rouen they were especially magnificent.
A striking feature of the river cortége was the ceremonies at the various
bridges under which the vessels passed. The most elaborate of these was at
Rouen, where the central arch of the suspension bridge had been formed
into an immense arch of triumph. The decorations were the exclusive work
of wounded legionary officers and soldiers of the Empire. When the vessel
bearing the coffin passed under, the veterans showered down upon it
wreaths of flowers and branches of laurel.
These elaborate and grandiose ceremonies were not, however, the really
touching feature of the passage. The hill-sides and river-banks were
crowded with people from all the surrounding country, who sometimes even
pressed into the river in order better to see the vessels. Those on the flotilla
saw aged peasants firing salutes with ancient muskets, old men kneeling
with uncovered heads on the sod, and others, their heads in their hands
weeping—these men were veterans of the Empire paying homage to the
passage of their hero.
It was on the afternoon of December 14th, just as the sun was setting
radiantly behind Mt. Valerian, that the flotilla reached Courbevoie, a few
miles from Paris, where Napoleon’s body was first to touch French soil. The
bridge at Courbevoie, the islands of Neuilly, the hills which rise from the
Seine, were crowded, far as the eye could reach, with a throng drawn from
the entire country around.
The flotilla as it approached was a brilliant sight. At the head was the
“Dorade,” a cross at her prow, and, behind, the coffin. It was draped in
purple velvet, surrounded by flags and garlands of oak and cypress, and
surmounted by a canopy of black velvet ornamented with silver and masses
of floating black plumes. Between cross and coffin stood the Prince de
Joinville in full uniform, and behind him Generals Bertrand and Gourgaud
and the Abbé Coquereau, almoner of the expedition. The vessels following
the “Dorade” bore the crews of the “Belle Poule” and the “Favorite” and the

military bands. A magnificent funeral boat, on whose deck there was a
temple of bronzed wood, hung with splendid draperies of purple and gold,
brought up the official procession. Behind followed numberless craft of all
descriptions. Majestic funeral marches and salvos of artillery accompanied
the advance.

THE FUNERAL PROCESSION IN PARIS. FUNERAL
CAR PASSING DOWN THE CHAMPS ELYSÉES.

At Courbevoie the flotilla anchored. Notwithstanding the intense cold,
thousands of people camped all night on the hill-sides and shores, their
bivouac fires illuminating the landscape.
Only those who have seen Paris on the day of a great fête or ceremony
can picture to themselves the 15th of December, 1840. The day was
intensely cold, eight degrees below the freezing point, but at five o’clock in
the morning, when the drums began beating, and the guns booming, the
populace poured forth, taking up their positions along the line of the
expected procession. This line was fully three miles in length, and ran from
Courbevoie to the Arc de Triomphe by way of Neuilly, thence down the
Champs Elysées, across the Place and Bridge de la Concorde, and along the
quai to the Esplanade des Invalides. From one end to the other it was
packed on either side a hundred deep, before nine o’clock. The journals of
the day compute the number of visitors expected in Paris as about half a
million. Inside and outside of the Hôtel des Invalides alone, thirty-six
thousand places were given to the Minister of the Interior, and that did not
cover one-tenth of the requests he received. It is certain that nearly a million

persons saw the entry of Napoleon’s remains. The people hung from the
trees, crowded the roofs, stood on ladders of every description, filled the
windows, and literally swarmed over the walks and grass plots. A brisk
business went on in elevated positions. A ladder rung cost five francs
($1.00); the man who had a cart across which he had laid boards, rented
standing-room at from five to ten francs. As for windows and balconies—
they sold for fabulous prices, in spite of the fact that the placard fenêtrés et
balcons à louer appeared in almost every house from Neuilly to the
Invalides, even in many a magnificent hotel of the Champs Elysées. Fifty
francs ($10.00) was the price of the meanest window; a good one cost one
hundred francs ($20.00); three thousand francs ($600.00) were paid for
good balconies. One speculator rented a vacant house for the day for five
thousand francs ($1,000.00), and made money on his investment.
The crowd made every preparation to keep warm; some of them carried
foot-stoves filled with live coals, others little hand-warmers. At intervals
along the procession great masses of the spectators danced to keep up their
circulation. Vendors of all sorts of articles did a thriving business. Every
article was, of course, Napoleonized; one even bought gauffrettes and
Madeleines cut out in the shape of Napoleons. There were badges of every
form—imperial eagles, bees, crowns, even the petit chapeau. Many
pamphlets in prose and verse had a great sale, especially those of Casimir
Delavigne, Victor Hugo, and Barthélemy; though all these stately odes were
far outstripped by one song, thousands upon thousands of copies of which
were sold. It ran:
“Premier capitaine du monde
Depuis le siége de Toulon,
Tant sur la terre que sur l’onde
Tout redoutait Napoleon.

“Du Nil au nord de la Tamise!
Devant lui l’ennemi fuyait,
Avant de combattre, il tremblait
Voyant sa redingote grise.”

The cortége which had brought this crowd together was magnificent in
the extreme. A brilliant military display formed the first portion:
gendarmerie, municipal guards, officers, infantry, cavalry, artillery, cadets
from the important schools, national guards. But this had little effect on the
crowd. The genuine interest began when Marengo, Napoleon’s famous

battle-horse appeared—it was not Marengo, but it looked like him, which
for spectacular purposes was just as well; and the saddle and bridle were
genuine. The defile now became exciting. The commission of St. Helena
appeared in carriages, then the Marshals of France, the Prince de Joinville,
the crews of the vessels which had been to St. Helena, finally the funeral
car, a magnificent creation over thirty feet high, its design and ornaments
symbolic. Sixteen black horses in splendid trappings drew the car, whose
funeral pall was held by a marshal and an admiral of France, by the Duc de
Reggio and General Bertrand.
The passing of the car was everywhere greeted with sincere emotion,
profound reverence. Even the opposition recognized the genuineness of the
feeling; many of them owned to sharing it for one moment of self-
forgetfulness, and they began to ask themselves, as Lamartine had asked the
Chamber six months before, what they had been thinking of to allow the
French heart and imagination to be so fired? Even cynical Englishmen who
looked on with stern or contemptuous countenances, said to themselves
meditatively that night, as they sat by their fire resting, “Something good
must have been in this man, something loving and kindly, that has kept his
name so cherished in the popular memory and gained him such lasting
reverence and affection.”
Following the car came those who had been intimately associated with
the emperor in his life—his aides-de-camp and civil and military officers.
Many of them had been with him in famous battles; some were at
Fontainebleau in 1814, others at Malmaison in 1815. The veterans of the
Imperial Guard followed; behind them a deputation from Ajaccio.
From Courbevoie to the Hôtel des Invalides, one walked through a hedge
of elaborate decorations—of bees, eagles, crowns, N’s; of bucklers,
banners, and wreaths bearing the names of famous victories; of urns blazing
with incense; of rostral columns; masts bearing trophies of arms and
clusters of flags; flaming tripods; allegorical statues; triumphal arches; great
banks of seats draped in imperial purple and packed with spectators, and
phalanges of soldiers.
On the top of the Arc de Triomphe was an imposing apotheosis of
Napoleon. Each side of the Pont de la Concorde was adorned with huge
statues. On the Esplanade des Invalides the car passed between an avenue
of thirty-two statues of great French kings, heroes, and heroines—Charles

Martel, Charlemagne, Clovis, Bayard, Jeanne d’Arc, Latour d’Auvergne,
Ney. The chivalry and valor of France welcomed Napoleon home. Oddly
enough, this hedge of statues ended in one of Napoleon himself; the
incongruity of the arrangements struck even the gamins. “Tiens,” cried one
urchin, “voilà comme l’empereur fait la queue à lui-mème.” (“Hello, see
there how the emperor brings up his own procession.”)
The procession passed quietly from one end to the other of the route, to
the great relief of the authorities. Difficulty was anticipated from several
sources: from the Anglophobes, the Revolutionists, the Legitimists, the
Bonapartists, and the great mass of dissatisfied, who, no matter what form
of rule they are under, are always against the government. The greatest fear
seems to have been on the part of the English. Thackeray, who was in town
at the time, gives an amusing picture of his own nervousness on the
morning of the 15th.
“Did the French nation, or did they not, intend to offer up some of us English over the imperial
grave? And were the games to be concluded by a massacre? It was said in the newspapers that Lord
Granville had despatched circulars to all the English residents in Paris, begging them to keep their
homes. The French journals announced this news, and warned us charitably of the fate intended for
us. Had Lord Granville written? Certainly not to me. Or had he written to all except me? And was I
the victim—the doomed one?—to be seized directly I showed my face in the Champs Elysées, and
torn in pieces by French patriotism to the frantic chorus of the Marseillaise? Depend on it, Madame,
that high and low in this city on Tuesday were not altogether at their ease, and that the bravest felt no
small tremor. And be sure of this, that as his Majesty Louis Philippe took his nightcap off his royal
head that morning, he prayed heartily that he might at night put it on in safety.”

Fortunately Thackeray’s courage conquered, and so we have the
entertaining “Second Funeral of Napoleon,” by “Michael Angelo Titmarsh.”
In spite of all forebodings, the hostile displays were nothing more than
occasional cries of “A bas les Anglais,” a few attempts to promenade the
tricolor flag and drown Le Premier Capitaine du Monde by the
Marseillaise, and a strong indignation when it was learned that the
representatives of the allies had refused to be present at the final ceremony.
Most of the observers of the funeral attributed the good order of the
crowd to the cold. A correspondent of the “National Intelligence” of that
date says:
“If this business had fallen in the month of June or July, with all its excitements, spontaneous and
elaborate, I should have deemed a sanguinary struggle between the government and the mob certain
or highly probable. The present military array might answer for an approaching army of Cossacks.

Forty or fifty thousand troops remain in the barracks within and camps without, besides the regular
soldiery and National Guards in the field, ready to act against the domestic enemy.
“Providentially the cold increased to the utmost keenness; the genial currents of the insurrectionary
and revolutionary soul were frozen.”

The climax of the pageant was in the temple of the Invalides. The
spacious church was draped in the most magnificent and lavish fashion, and
adorned with a perfect bewilderment of imperial emblems. The light was
shut out by hangings of violet velvet; tripods blazing with colored flames,
and thousands upon thousands of waxen candles in brilliant candelabra
lighted the temple. Under the dome, in the place of the altar, stood the
catafalque which was to receive the coffin.

THE FUNERAL MASS IN
THE CHURCH OF THE
HOTEL DES INVALIDES.
THE CATAFALQUE ON
WHICH THE COFFIN
RESTS IS SEEN IN THE
DISTANCE.

From early in the morning the galleries, choir, and tribunes of the
Invalides were packed by a distinguished company. There were the
Deputies and Senators—neither of which had been represented in the
cortége—the judicial and educational bodies, the officers of army and navy,
the ambassadors and representatives of foreign governments, the king, and
the court.

But none of these dignitaries were of more than passing interest that day.
The centre of attention, until the coffin entered, was the few old soldiers of
the Empire to be seen in the company; most prominent of these was
Marshal Moncey, the decrepit governor of the Invalides.
It was two o’clock in the afternoon when the Archbishop of Paris,
preceded by a splendid cross-bearer, and followed by sixteen incense boys
and long rows of white-clad priests, left the church to meet the procession.
They returned soon. Following them were the Prince de Joinville and a
select few from the grand cortége without, attending Napoleon’s coffin.
As it passed, the great assemblage was swayed by an extraordinary
emotion. There is no one of those who have described the day who does not
speak of the sudden, intense agitation which thrilled the company, whether
he refers to it half-humorously as Thackeray, who told how “everybody’s
heart was thumping as hard as possible,” or cries with Victor Hugo:
“Sire: En ce moment-là, vouz aurez pour royaume.
Tous les fronts, tous les cœurs qui battront sous le ciel,
Les nations feront asseoir votre fantôme,
Au trone universel.”

The king descended from his throne and advanced to meet the cortége.
“Sire,” said the Prince de Joinville, “I present to you the body of Napoleon,
which, in accordance with your commands, I have brought back to France.”
“I receive it in the name of France,” replied Louis Philippe.
Such at least is what the “Moniteur” affirms was said, but the “Moniteur”
is an official journal whose business is, not to tell what really happens, but
what the government would prefer to have happen. The Prince de Joinville
gives a different version: “The king received the body at the entrance to the
nave, and there rather a comical scene took place. It appears that a little
speech which I was to have delivered when I met my father, and also the
answer he was to give me, had been drawn up in council, only the
authorities had omitted to inform me concerning it. So when I arrived I
simply saluted with my sword, and then stood aside. I saw, indeed, that this
silent salute, followed by retreat, had thrown something out; but my father
after a moment’s hesitation, improvised some appropriate sentence, and the
matter was arranged in the ‘Moniteur.’”
Beside the king stood an officer, bearing a cushion; on it lay the sword of
Austerlitz. Marshal Soult handed it to the king, who, turning to Bertrand,

said:
“General, I commission you to place the emperor’s glorious sword on the
bier.”
And Bertrand, trembling with emotion, laid the sword reverently on his
idol’s coffin. The great company watched the scene in deepest silence. The
only sound which broke the stillness was the half-stifled sobs of the gray-
haired soldiers of the Invalides, who stood in places of honor near the
catafalque.
The king and the procession returned to their places, and then followed a
majestic funeral mass. The Requiem of Mozart, as rendered that day by all
the great singers of Paris, is one of the historic musical performances of
France. The archbishop then sprinkled the coffin with holy water, the king
taking the brush from him for the same sacred duty.
The funeral was over. Napoleon lay at last “on the banks of the Seine,
among the people whom he had so loved.” For eight days after the
ceremony the church remained open to the public, and in spite of the
terrible cold thousands stood from morning until night waiting patiently
their turn to enter. After hours of waiting, they frequently were sent away,
only to come back earlier the next day. In this company were numbers of
veterans of the imperial army who had made the journey to Paris from
distant parts of the kingdom. In the delegation from Belgium were many
who had walked part of the way, not being able to pay full coach fare.
Banquets and dinners followed the funeral. At one of these, a “sacred
toast to the immortal memory” was drunk kneeling. In a dozen theatres of
Paris the translation of the remains was dramatized. At the Porte Saint-
Martin, the actor who took the part of Sir Hudson Lowe had a season of
terror, he being in constant danger of violence from the wrought-up
audience.
The advertising columns of the newspapers of the day blazed for weeks
with announcements of Napoleonized articles; the holiday gifts prepared for
the booths of the boulevards and squares, and for the magnificent shops of
the Palais Royal and the fashionable streets, whatever their nature—to eat,
to wear, to look at—were made up as memorials. Paris seemed to be
Napoleon-mad.
In the February following the funeral, the coffin of Napoleon was
transferred from the catafalque in the centre of the church to a chapelle

ardente in the basement at one side. The chapel was richly draped in silk
and gold, and hung with trophies. On the coffin lay the imperial crown, the
emperor’s sword, and the hat which he had worn at Eylau, and which he
had given to Gros when he ordered the battle of Eylau painted. Over the
coffin waved the flags taken at Austerlitz.
Here Napoleon’s body lay until the mausoleum was finished. This
magnificent structure was designed by Visconti, the eminent architect, who
had planned the entire decorations of the 15th of December. Visconti utterly
ignored the appropriations in executing the monument, ordering what he
wanted, regardless of its cost. For the marble from which Pradier made the
twelve colossal figures around the tomb, he sent to Carrara; the porphyry
which was used to inclose the coffin, he obtained in Finland.
In this magnificent sepulchre Napoleon still sleeps. Duroc and Bertrand
lie on either side of the entrance to the chamber, guarding him in death as in
life; and to the right and left of the entrance to the church are the tombs of
his brothers Jerome and Joseph. On the stones about him are inscribed the
names he made glorious! over him are draped scores of trophies; attending
him are the veterans of the Invalides.
“Qu’il dorme en paix sous cette voute!
C’est un casque bien fait, sans doute,
Pour cette tête de géant.”

2. The Prince of Joinville was the third son of Louis Philippe.

JOSEPHINE, EMPRESS OF
THE FRENCH.

Reproduction of the model of
the marble statue exhibited in
the Salon of 1857, and
executed for the town of St.
Pierre (Martinique), the native
country of Josephine. This
statue as by the sculptor Vital-
Dubray. The plaster cast is in
the Versailles museum.

Life of Josephine

CHAPTER I

FAMILY—EARLY SURROUNDINGS—EUGENE DE BEAUHARNAIS—MARRIAGE—
SEPARATION FROM HER HUSBAND

T he proudest monument in the Island of Martinique, in the French West
Indies, so any inhabitant will tell you, is the statue of a woman in the
town of St. Pierre. The woman thus honored is Josephine, once
Empress of the French People, who, so the legend on the pedestal of the
statue relates was born at the hamlet of Trois Ilets, Martinique, on June 23,
1763.
If one searches in the legends of the island for an explanation of the
position to which the child of this humble spot arose, he will find nothing
more serious than the prophecy of an old negress, made to the little girl
herself, that one day she would be Queen of France. If he looks in the
chronicles of the island for an explanation, he will find nothing to indicate
that she could ever rise higher than the life of an indolent creole, a life
narrowed by poverty and made tolerable chiefly by the beauty of the nature
about her and by her own happy indifference of temperament.
Joseph Tascher de la Pagerie, the child’s father, was the eldest son of a
noble of Blois, France, who went to Martinique in the first quarter of the
eighteenth century chiefly because he could not succeed in anything in his
own country. He did no better in Martinique than he had done in France and
was only able to start his children in life by dint of soliciting favors for
them from his well-to-do relatives at home. For Joseph he obtained a small
military position, but the lad was no better at improving his opportunities
than his father had been and returned to Martinique after a few years a
lieutenant of marines—without a place.
When soliciting failed, nothing was left in those days for a nobleman
who did not relish work but marriage, and Joseph succeeded, by help of his
friends, in making a very good one with Mlle. Rose-Claire des Vergers de

Sannois, whose father was of noble descent and, what was more to the
point, was prosperous and of good standing in Martinique. Joseph went to
live on a charming plantation belonging to his father-in-law, just back from
the sea and near the village of Trois Ilets. Soon after this, war with the
English called him into service as a defender of the French West Indies. The
war was not long, and for his services he secured a pension of 450 livres
(about ninety dollars). It came none too soon, for a passing hurricane
devastated the plantation at Trois Ilets in 1766, and drove the family into
one of the sugar houses to live. M. de la Pagerie was never able to repair the
damages to his plantation done by the storm or build another home for his
family. He never, indeed, followed any steady employment, but idled his
life away in gaming, intrigue, and soliciting—always in debt, always in bad
odor among honest men—his only asset his birth.
But to the happiness of little Josephine it mattered very little in those
days whether her home was a sugar-house or a palace, her father an honest
man or a sycophant. Her days were spent under the brilliant skies, in the
forests or the open fields, chasing birds and butterflies, and gathering the
gorgeous tropical flowers which to the end of her life she passionately
loved. Almost her only companions were the negroes of the plantations,
who gave her willing admiration and obedience. Untaught, unrestrained,
idolized by slaves, knowing nothing but the tropical luxury and beauty of
the nature about her, she developed like the birds and the negroes,
becoming, it is true, a graceful, beautiful little animal, but with hardly more
moral sense than they and with even less sense of responsibility.
Josephine was ten years old before it occurred to anybody to send her to
school. So far her only instruction had been what little she had gathered
from a mother occupied with younger children; from the priest of Trois
Ilets, who, it is fair to suppose, must have at least tried to teach her the
catechism, and from the curious lore and gossip of the negroes. At ten,
however, she was sent to a convent at Fort Royale, where she remained
some four years. Here she was taught such rudimentary knowledge as
enabled her to read,—if not understand, to write a polite note, to dance,—
not very well, to sing, and play the guitar a little. It was a small equipment,
but no doubt as good as most young girls of Martinique possessed in that
day. Indeed many a noble-born maid in France started out with less in the
eighteenth century, and it was quite as much as one would suppose from her
position that she would need—more than she used indeed, for little Yeyette,

as Josephine was called, if amiable and obedient when she left the convent,
was indolent and vain, loving far better her childish play of decorating
herself with brilliant flowers and watching her own image in the clear water
of the pools on the plantation, than she did books and music; and the loving
flattery of her old nurse was dearer to her than any amusement she found in
the meager society of the island, where she now was to take her place and,
her parents hoped, help retrieve the bad fortunes of the family by a good
marriage.
The opportunity came quickly. Josephine had been but a few months out
of the convent when one day her father laid before her what must have been
a bewildering and, one would suppose, a terrifying proposition—would she
like to leave Martinique and go to France, there to marry Alexander de
Beauharnais. The boy was not unknown to her. Like herself, he was born in
Martinique, and though he had left there when she was only seven years old
and he ten, it is not unlikely that she had seen him occasionally at the home
of her grandmother who cared for him in the absence of his father and
mother in France.
The influence which had led the father of Alexander de Beauharnais to
ask for the hand of a daughter of M. de la Pagerie for his son was not
altogether creditable. The two families had never known each other until
1757, when M. de Beauharnais came to Martinique as its governor. The
elder M. de la Pagerie was not slow in seeking the new governor’s
acquaintance and support for his family, for the latter was rich and in favor
with the king at Versailles. The relation prospered sufficiently for M. de la
Pagerie to secure a place in the household of the governor for one of his
daughters. He could have done nothing better for his family. This daughter
was not long in gaining an important influence over both M. and Mme. de
Beauharnais, and in winning as a husband M. Renaudin, an excellent man
and prosperous. This for herself. For her family, she secured so many favors
from the governor that it became a matter of serious criticism and finally,
added to other indiscretions, led to a divorce between her and M. Renaudin.
All this scandal did not influence the governor, however, and when, in
1761, he left Martinique, on account of the dissatisfaction with his
administration there, and hurried to France with his wife to make his peace
at Versailles, Mme. Renaudin went, too. There she prospered, buying a
home and laying aside money. It was M. de Beauharnais’s money, people
said. However this may be, it is certain that she exercised great influence

over him, that for her he neglected his wife, and that after the latter’s death
the friendship or liaison continued until his death.
From all this it will be seen that Mme. Renaudin was a clever woman,
intent on making the most out of the one really strong relation she had been
able to form in her life. She was clever enough to see, when Alexander was
brought to France after his mother’s death, that his love and gratitude would
be one of her strongest cards with the father in the future. She set to work to
win the boy’s heart, and she succeeded admirably. In his eyes, she took his
mother’s place, and her influence over him was almost unlimited.
By the time he was seventeen, Alexander de Beauharnais was a most
attractive youth. He had been well educated in the manner of his time,
having been, with his elder brother, under the care of an excellent tutor for a
number of years, two of which, at least, were passed in Germany. After his
brother entered the army, Alexander and his tutor joined the household of
the Duke de la Rochefoucauld and there studied with the latter’s nephews.
In this aristocratic atmosphere he imbibed all the new liberal ideas of the
day; he learned, at the same time, the graces of the most exquisite French
society and the philosophy of Rousseau. Alexander was seventeen years old
when his education was pronounced finished, and a search was made for a
place for him suitable to his birth, his relations, and his ambition. Thanks,
largely, to the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, he was made a lieutenant in the
army.
No sooner was his position in the world fixed, than Mme. Renaudin
made up her mind that he must marry one of her nieces in Martinique. It
mattered not at all that Alexander had not yet thought of marriage. Mme.
Renaudin persuaded him it would be a good thing—not a difficult task for
her since at marriage the youth was to come into a much larger income than
he then enjoyed. Alexander satisfied, she soon persuaded his father to write
to M. de la Pagerie. The letter shows the whole situation:—“My children,”
wrote M. de Beauharnais, “each enjoy an annual income of 40,000 livres
(about $8,000). You are free to give me your daughter to share the fortune
of my chevalier. The respect and affection he has for Mme. Renaudin make
him eager to marry one of her nieces. You see that I consent freely to his
wishes by asking the hand of your second daughter, whose age is more
suited to his. If your eldest daughter (Josephine) had been a few years
younger, I certainly should have preferred her, as she is pictured quite as

favorably to me as the other; but my son, who is only seventeen and a half,
thinks that a young lady of fifteen is too near his own age.”
Now, just before this letter reached Martinique, the second daughter of
M. de la Pagerie had died of fever. The chance was not to be missed,
however, and the father hastened to write to M. de Beauharnais that he
might have either of the two daughters remaining; Josephine or Marie, the
latter then a child of between eleven and twelve years. From the long
correspondence which followed, one gathers that it is the elders in the
transaction who really count. Alexander is resigned, little Marie absolutely
refuses to leave her mother, and Josephine, of whom little is said, seems to
be willing, even eager for the adventure. The upshot of it was that, in
October, 1779, M. de la Pagerie sailed for France with Josephine. He
arrived at Brest in November, worn out by the passage, and there his sister,
Mme. Renaudin, came with Alexander to meet them. If the first impression
of his fiancée did not arouse any enthusiasm in Alexander, it at least offered
no reason for breaking the engagement. “She is not so pretty as I expected,”
he wrote to his father; “but I can assure you that the frankness and
sweetness of her character are beyond anything we have been told.”
From Brest the little party travelled together to Paris, where the marriage
took place on December 12. The young pair at once went to live with the
Marquis de Beauharnais, and that winter Josephine was introduced into the
brilliant society of the capital. She seems to have made but a poor
impression, for in spite of the 20,000 livres that Mme. Renaudin had spent
on her trousseau, she had after all a provincial air which irritated her
husband, accustomed as he was to the ease and elegance of aristocratic
Paris. What was worse in his eyes, she seemed to have no desire to improve
herself on the models he laid down. Poor little Josephine had no head for
the exaggerated sentiment, the fine speculations, and the chatter about
liberty, nature and the social contract which flowed so glibly from every
French tongue in those days. She loved pretty gowns and jewels and
childish amusements; above all, she demanded to be loved exclusively and
passionately by her handsome young husband. When he scolded her, she
cried, and when he devoted himself to brighter women, she was jealous;
and so before the first six months of their married life was over, Josephine
was seeing many unhappy hours, and the Viscount gladly left her behind
when he was called to his regiment. Nevertheless, in his absence, he wrote
her long letters, largely of advice on what she should study, and took pains

to laugh at her jealousy and her complaints. The birth of their first child, in
September, 1781, a boy, who received the name of Eugène, did little to
restore peace between the two. The Viscount continued to spend much time
away from Paris, either with his regiment or in travel, and when at home, he
did not always share his pleasures with his wife. The tactics with which
Josephine met his restlessness and his indifference were the worst possible
to be used on a man whose passion was for ideas, for elevated sentiments,
for bold and brilliant actions—she was amiable and indolent as a kitten
until a new neglect came, and then she gave up to a continuous weeping.
One reason, no doubt, of the restlessness of Beauharnais was his failure
to advance in his profession as fast as he desired. He had been made a
captain, but he wished for a regiment; and when late in 1782 a descent of
the English on Martinique threatened, he enlisted for service there. Peace
was made between France and England before he had an opportunity to
distinguish himself, but he remained in Martinique some time. He had
fallen in love there; and unhappily his new mistress had persuaded him that
Josephine had had love affairs of her own before she left Martinique to
marry him. There was never any proof of the truth of any of the stories she
retailed to him; but Beauharnais was glad to have a reason for deserting his
wife, and he wrote her a brutal letter, in which he justified his demand for a
divorce by the righteous indignation which had seized him when he heard
of her follies. The letter reached Josephine in the summer of 1783. In the
April before, she had given birth to a daughter, christened Hortense-
Eugénie. It was the first word she had received from her husband since her
confinement.
Beauharnais reached Paris in October (his mistress had preceded him);
and in spite of the efforts of his family and friends, all of whom took
Josephine’s part, he secured a separation. She, however, received from the
courts the fullest reparation possible, considering the Viscount’s means—a
pension for herself and the children; the custody of Eugène, until he was
five years old, and permanent possession of Hortense.
Josephine now went to live at the Abbey de Panthemont, a refuge for
women of the French nobility who had suffered in one way or another. Here
her youth, beauty, sweetness of disposition, and her misfortune made her a
favorite with many a noble dame; and she soon learned in this atmosphere

more of the ways of aristocratic society than she had learned in all her
previous married life.
After nearly a year in the Abbey, Josephine returned to her father-in-law,
who was living at Fontainebleau. The life she here took up pleased her very
well. She had an income for herself and children of something over $2,000
a year, she was free, she knew many amusing people, she had admirers,
many say, lovers,—we should be surprised more if she had not had them
than if she had, it was the way of her world. She was devoted to her
children, she cared for the Marquis de Beauharnais and Mme. Renaudin in
their illnesses, and she corresponded regularly with her husband—whom
she never saw—concerning their children. In 1788, she broke the monotony
of her life by a trip to Martinique, taking Hortense with her. She remained
some two years in the island—a sad two years, for both her father and her
sister were very ill at the time, and both died soon after her return to Paris,
in the fall of 1790.

CHAPTER II

JOSEPHINE IN THE REVOLUTION—IMPRISONED AT LES CARMES—STRUGGLE
FOR EXISTENCE—MARRIAGE WITH BONAPARTE

W hen Josephine returned to Paris in 1790, she found the city in full
revolution. In the two years she had been gone the States Generals
had met, the Bastile had fallen, the National Assembly had begun
to make France over. In the front of all this activity moved her husband,
Viscount de Beauharnais. Like his patron, the Duke de la Rouchefoucauld,
Beauharnais was an ardent advocate of liberty and equality. Sent to the
States General by his friends at Blois, he had joined the few noblemen there
who in 1789 espoused the cause of the Revolution, and soon was one of the
leaders of the faction. Later he was sent to the National Assembly, where he
took an active part in framing the constitution. He was a power even in the
Jacobin Society.
At this date the revolution was still the fashion among the elegant in
Paris, and the Viscount really was one of the most popular and influential
young noblemen in the town. His success, the ardor with which he preached
the fine theories of the day, perhaps a growing realization that his treatment
of his wife was too baldly inconsistent with his profession, softened the
Viscount’s heart towards Josephine, and when she returned he went to see
her. A kind of reconciliation followed. They continued to live apart, but they
saw each other constantly in society. The Viscount no doubt was the more
willing to sustain the relation of a good friend and advisor to his wife, when
he saw that in the years since their separation she had developed into a most
charming woman of the world, and that her beauty, grace, tact, and
readiness to oblige had won her a large circle of friends, including many in
that aristocratic circle of which he vaunted himself on being a member. This
good understanding with Beauharnais did much for Josephine’s peace of
mind. It was in a way a victory, and her friends congratulated her. At the

same time any honors which came to the Viscount reflected on her, and she
steadily became more noticed.
In June, 1791, Beauharnais was elected president of the Constituent
Assembly. A few days later, the King and Queen fled to Varennes. As the
head of the Assembly, the Viscount was the leader of France for the time. It
was he who sat for one hundred and twenty-six and one-half consecutive
hours on the bench during the violent session which followed the King’s
flight; it was he who questioned the captured King, when he was returned,
and directed the distracted proceedings which followed. Indeed, until the
dissolution of the body in September, he was one of the most prominent
men in France.
Josephine had her share of his glory, and in these months added largely to
her circle of acquaintances from the motley crowd which the levelling of
things had brought together in French society. She met many of the
aristocrats unknown to her until then; but what was vastly more important,
she made acquaintances among the “true patriots”, those who had been born
in the third estate, and who were already beginning to consider themselves
the only part of the population fit to conduct the general regeneration of
France. In 1792, war breaking out, Beauharnais went to the front, where he
made a respectable record, which he himself reported frequently to the
Assembly in glowing letters, filled with good advice to that body. He was
steadily advanced until, in May, 1793, he was made general-in-chief of the
Army of the North. During all this period Josephine was in Paris or the
vicinity, and there were few more active women there than she. Whether
advised by her husband or not she had the wit to make the acquaintance of
the men of each new party as fast as it came into power. Thus, when the
Girondins were at the helm in 1792, she hastened to interview them one by
one, to demonstrate to them her devotion to the new civism, to extol the
patriotism of her husband, General de Beauharnais. The acquaintance made,
she immediately had a favor to ask—this friend was in prison, that one
wanted a passport. All through the agitated winter of 1792 and 1793
Josephine was busy getting her friends out of prison and out of France. She
seems to have had no fear for herself. As a matter of fact, the men who
helped her were so convinced of her simple goodness of heart that they
granted her much which would have been denied a more intelligent woman,
and they did not question her loyalty. Was she not, too, the wife of General
de Beauharnais? That fact did not, however, hold value for many months.

Beauharnais’s conduct came into question before the Assembly; he
resigned, offering to go into the line. The privilege was denied him, and he
was retired from the army. He went at once to his family home near Blois,
and threw himself actively into the work of the municipality and of the
Jacobins. Josephine, warned of possible danger from her husband’s
downfall and fearing the new law against the suspected, decided to leave
Paris. She rented, in the winter, a little house at Croissy, not far out of the
city, and near many of her friends, and there lived as quietly as she could.
One method that she took of showing her devotion to democratic principles
was to bind Eugène, who had been in school for several years, as an
apprentice to a carpenter; and it is said that Hortense was placed with a
dressmaker to learn the trade.
The Viscount escaped arrest until the spring of 1794; then the committee
of Public Safety remembered him. There seems to have been no reason for
his arrest other than that he was a noble—certainly no man in France had
surpassed him in vehement republicanism or had been more fertile in
schemes for saving the country. He was taken immediately to Paris, and
confined in the prison of les Carmes. A month later, Josephine followed
him. Her activity for her friends had continued after the retirement of her
husband and the efforts she began at once to make to save him when he was
arrested, caused a virtuous patriot to suggest anonymously to the authorities
that she too ought to be looked after. She was promptly arrested.
For three months husband and wife lived side by side in that awful
prison, the walls of which still bore the red imprints made in the September
massacre, and in garden of which blood still oozed, it was believed, from
the roots of the tree where murdered men had been stacked up by the score.
With them were confined men from every rank of life, princes, merchants,
sailors, chimney-sweeps, along with women and children. Almost daily a
group was called to die, but their places were quickly filled. The awful
tragedy of their lot drew Josephine and her husband no closer together. It is
a terrible comment on the times that no one thought it strange that
Beauharnais should have paid court here at the gate of death to a beautiful
woman, a prisoner like himself, or that Josephine should have been so
intimate with General Hoche, also a prisoner, that history has made a record
of the fact.

Many efforts were made to save the Viscount and his wife, chiefly under
their direction, for they were allowed to see their friends, and also their
children. It is quite possible that certain petitions in their favor which have
been found in the French archives, bearing the names of Eugène and
Hortense, were dictated by the Viscount himself. But every effort was
useless, and on July 21 Beauharnais was taken to the Conciergerie: the next
day he was tried; the next guillotined. To the end he was brave and self-
controlled. In his final words to Josephine, he even charged his death to the
plots of the aristocrats, upholding the republic even as it struck him.
None of the Viscount de Beauharnais’s courage was shared by Josephine
in her imprisonment. It is true that the majority of the women who suffered
death in the French Revolution faced it bravely. Josephine was not of their
blood. From the beginning of her imprisonment, she wept continually
before everybody, and her favorite occupation was reading her fortune with
cards; and yet cowardly as she was, no one was better loved. There was
reason enough for this. No one was kinder, no one more willing to do a
service, no one had been more active for others than she, when at liberty.
All the good will of the prison came out in full when, on August 6, less than
a fortnight after her husband’s death, she was set free. There was as general
rejoicing as there would have been over the release of a child.
It is not certain through whose influence Josephine obtained her freedom.
Mme. Tallien has generally been credited with securing it, but Masson in
his delving has found dates which make it improbable that the legend
current can be true. According to this, Mme. Tallien (then Mme. de
Fontenay) and Josephine were fellow-prisoners, and it was at les Carmes
that their friendship began. However, the prison records show that Mme.
Tallien was never confined at les Carmes, but at la Petite Force; so that a
part at least of the legend is impossible. That she may have interested
herself in Josephine’s behalf is quite possible, even probable. She may have
known Mme. de Beauharnais before her imprisonment. It is well known
that, as soon as she received her own freedom she became an ardent
advocate of that clemency which was made possible by the fall of
Robespierre on the ninth Thermidor and that she rescued many persons. She
may very well have included Josephine among the first of those she sought
to save. Her task in this case would not have been difficult, for Josephine
was known to most of the members of the Terrorist Government and was
probably on terms of intimacy with some of them. At all events, Josephine

was set free on August 6, and she immediately went to Croissy to pass the
autumn.
The problems which now confronted Josephine were serious enough for
the most practical and resourceful of women. The chaos in French business
affairs made it very difficult for her to get her hand on money coming to
her. Her husband’s property was tied up by his death so that she could
realize nothing from it, and the value of what she did secure of her income
must have been sadly reduced by the general depreciation which had
resulted from the Reign of Terror and from the war, and by the exorbitant
prices of even the commonest necessaries of life—bread at this time was
over twenty francs a pound. Her situation was still more difficult because
the personal property of herself, her children, and husband was all in the
hands of the authorities. She had no linen, furniture, silver, clothing,
nothing needful in her daily life. To keep house in the simplest way, she had
to beg and borrow, and it was many months before she was able to secure
her own articles of clothing and her household furniture.
With two children to care for and with a town apartment and a country
cottage on her hands, she was in a very difficult position.
That Josephine was able to keep her homes, care for her children, and
retain her position in the society of the Directory was due to the friendship
and protection of two men, Hoche and Barras. Hoche had been liberated
from les Carmes before Josephine, and put in charge of an army, and he at
once took Eugène on his staff, thus freeing Josephine’s mind of that care.
For a few months she managed by diligent borrowing and mortgaging to
keep things going. In all of her efforts to repair her fortune and secure to her
children the estate of Beauharnais, she enlisted her friends, especially Mme.
Tallien, who just then was at the height of her power. The two became very
intimate, and the Viscountess de Beauharnais was soon one of the women
oftenest seen at the functions given by the members of the Directory as well
as at all the more intimate gatherings of that society. She became as great a
favorite among the dissipated and prodigal company as she had been among
the aristocratic ladies of the Abbey de Panthemont or in the motley
company at les Carmes. It was to be expected that she could not long be an
intimate of Mme. Tallien’s salon without finding a protector. She found him
in Barras, a member of the Directory, its most influential member in fact, a
prince of corruption, but a man of elegance, and ability.