The Modern Regime Volume I Part 3

[Footnote 1124: "Memorial," Aug. 3, 1816.]

[Footnote 1125: Bourrienne, I., 171. (Original text of the "Souper de Beaucaire.")]

[Footnote 1126: Yung, II., 430, 431. (Words of Charlotte Robespierre.) Bonaparte as a souvenir of his acquaintance with her, granted her a pension, under the consulate, of 3600 francs.--Ibid. (Letter of Tilly, charge d'affaires at Genoa, to Buchot, commissioner of foreign affairs.) Cf. in the "Memorial," Napoleon's favorable judgment of Robespierre.]

[Footnote 1127: Yung, II., 455. (Letter from Bonaparte to Tilly, Aug.

7, 1794.) Ibid., III., 120. (Memoirs of Lucien.) "Barras takes care of Josephine's dowry, which is the command of the army in Italy." Ibid., II., 477. (Grading of general officers, notes by Scherer on Bonaparte.) "He knows all about artillery, but is rather too ambitious, and too intriguing for promotion."]

[Footnote 1128: De Segur, I., 162.--La Fayette, "Memoires," II., 215.

"Memorial" (note dictated by Napoleon). He states the reasons for and against, and adds, speaking of himself: "These sentiments, twenty-five years of age, confidence in his strength, his destiny, determined him."

Bourrienne, I., 51: "It is certain that he has always bemoaned that day; he has often said to me that he would give years of his life to efface that page of his history."]

[Footnote 1129: "Memorial," I., Sept 6, 1815. "It is only after Lodi that the idea came to me that I might, after all, become a decisive actor on our political stage. Then the first spark of lofty ambition gleamed out." On his aim and conduct in the Italian campaign of Sybel, "Histoire de l'Europe pendant la Revolution Francaise" (Dosquet translation), vol. IV., books II. and III., especially pp.182, 199, 334, 335, 406, 420, 475, 489.]

[Footnote 1130: Yung, III., 213. (Letter of M. de Sucy, August 4, 1797.)]

[Footnote 1131: Ibid., III., 214. (Report of d'Entraigues to M. de Mowikinoff, Sept., 1797.) "If there was any king in France which was not himself, he would like to have been his creator, with his rights at the end of his sword, this sword never to be parted with, so that he might plunge it in the king's bosom if he ever ceased to be submissive to him."--Miot de Melito, I., 154. (Bonaparte to Montebello, before Miot and Melzi, June, 1797.) Ibid, I., 184. (Bonaparte to Miot, Nov. 18, 1797, at Turin.)]

[Footnote 1132: D'Haussonville, "L'eglise Romaine et la Premier Empire,"

I., 405. (Words of M. Cacault, signer of the Treaty of Tolentino, and French Secretary of Legation at Rome, at the commencement of negotiations for the Concordat.) M. Cacaut says that he used this expression, "After the scenes of Tolentino and of Leghorn, and the fright of Manfredini, and Matei threatened, and so many other vivacities."]

[Footnote 1133: Madame de Stael, "Considerations sur la Revolution Francaise," 3rd part, ch. XXVI., and 4th part, ch. XVIII.]

[Footnote 1134: Portrait of Bonaparte in the "Cabinet des Etampes,"

"drawn by Guerin, engraved by Fiesinger, deposited in the National Library, Vendemiaire 29, year VII."]

[Footnote 1135: Madame de Remusat, "Memoires," I., 104.--Miot de Melito, I., 84.]

[Footnote 1136: Madame de Stael, "Considerations," etc., 3rd part, ch.

XXV.--Madame de Remusat, II., 77.]

[Footnote 1137: Stendhal, "Memoires sur Napoleon," narration of Admiral Decres.--Same narration in the "Memorial."]

[Footnote 1138: De Segur, I., 193.]

[Footnote 1139: Roederer, "Oeuvres completes," II., 560. (Conversations with General Lasalle in 1809, and Lasalle's judgment on the debuts of Napoleon).]

[Footnote 1140: Another instance of this commanding influence is found in the case of General Vandamme, an old revolutionary soldier still more brutal and energetic than Augereau. In 1815, Vandamme said to Marshal d'Ornano, one day, on ascending the staircase of the Tuileries together: "My dear fellow, that devil of a man (speaking of the Emperor) fascinates me in a way I cannot account for. I, who don't fear either G.o.d or the devil, when I approach him I tremble like a child. He would make me dash through the eye of a needle into the fire!" ("Le General Vandamme," by du Ca.s.se, II., 385).]

[Footnote 1141: Roederer, III., 356. (Napoleon himself says, February 11, 1809): "I, military! I am so, because I was born so; it is my habit, my very existence. Wherever I have been I have always had command. I commanded at twenty-three, at the siege of Toulon; I commanded at Paris in Vendemiaire; I won over the soldiers in Italy the moment I presented myself. I was born for that."]

[Footnote 1142: Observe the various features of the same mental and moral structure among different members of the family. (Speaking of his brothers and sisters in the "Memorial" Napoleon says): "What family as numerous presents such a splendid group?"--"Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), chancelier de France, in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. Vol. I. p. 400. (This author, a young magistrate under Louis XVI., a high functionary under the Empire, an important political personage under the restoration and the July monarchy, is probably the best informed and most judicious of eye-witnesses during the first half of our century.): "Their vices and virtues surpa.s.s ordinary proportions and have a physiognomy of their own. But what especially distinguishes them is a stubborn will, and inflexible resolution.... All possessed the instinct of their greatness." They readily accepted "the highest positions; they even got to believing that their elevation was inevitable.... Nothing in the incredible good fortune of Joseph astonished him; often in January, 1814, I heard him say over and over again that if his brother had not meddled with his affairs after the second entry into Madrid, he would still be on the throne of Spain.

As to determined obstinacy we have only to refer to the resignation of Louis, the retirement of Lucien, and the resistances of Fesch; they alone could stem the will of Napoleon and sometimes break a lance with him.--Pa.s.sion, sensuality, the habit of considering themselves outside of rules, and self-confidence combined with talent, super abound among the women, as in the fifteenth century. Elisa, in Tuscany, had a vigorous brain, was high spirited and a genuine sovereign, notwithstanding the disorders of her private life, in which even appearances were not sufficiently maintained." Caroline at Naples, "without being more scrupulous than her sisters," better observed the proprieties; none of the others so much resembled the Emperor; "with her, all tastes succ.u.mbed to ambition"; it was she who advised and prevailed upon her husband, Murat, to desert Napoleon in 1814. As to Pauline, the most beautiful woman of her epoch, "no wife, since that of the Emperor Claude, surpa.s.sed her in the use she dared make of her charms; nothing could stop her, not even a malady attributed to the strain of this life-style and for which we have so often seen her borne in a litter."--Jerome, "in spite of the uncommon boldness of his debaucheries, maintained his ascendancy over his wife to the last."--On the "pressing efforts and attempts" of Joseph on Maria Louise in 1814, Chancelier Pasquier, after Savary's papers and the evidence of M. de Saint-Aignan, gives extraordinary details.--"Mes souvenirs sur Napoleon, 346, by the count Chaptal: "Every member of this numerous family (Jerome, Louis, Joseph, the Bonaparte sisters) mounted thrones as if they had recovered so much property."]

[Footnote 1143: Burkhardt, "Die Renaissance in Italien,"

pa.s.sim.--Stendhal, "Histoire de la peinture en Italie"(introduction), and" Rome, Naples, et Florence," pa.s.sim.--"Notes par le Comte Chaptal": When these notes are published, many details will be found in them in support of the judgment expressed in this and the following chapters.

The psychology of Napoleon as here given is largely confirmed by them.]

[Footnote 1144: Roederer, III, 380 (1802).]

[Footnote 1145: Napoleon uses the French word just which means both fair, justifiable, pertinent, correct, and in music true.]

[Footnote 1146: "Memorial."]

[Footnote 1147: De Pradt, "Histoire de l'Amba.s.sade dans la grande-d.u.c.h.e de Varsovie en 1812," preface, p. X, and 5.]

[Footnote 1148: Roederer, III., 544 (February 24, 1809). Cf. Meneval, "Napoleon et Marie-Louise, souvenirs historiques," I., 210-213.]

[Footnote 1149: Pelet de la Lozere," Opinions de Napoleon au conseil d'etat," p.8.--Roederer, III., 380.]

[Footnote 1150: Mollien, "Memoires," I., 379; II., 230.--Roederer, III., 434. "He is at the head of all things. He governs, administrates, negotiates, works eighteen hours a day, with the clearest and best organized head; he has governed more in three years than kings in a hundred years."--Lavalette, "Memoires," II., 75. (The words of Napoleon's secretary on Napoleon's labor in Paris, after Leipsic) "He retires at eleven, but gets up at three o'clock in the morning, and until the evening there is not a moment he does not devote to work.

It is time this stopped, for he will be used up, and myself before he is."--Gaudin, Duc de Gaete, "Memoires," III. (supplement), p.75. Account of an evening in which, from eight o'clock to three in the morning, Napoleon examines with Gaudin his general budget, during seven consecutive hours, without stopping a minute.--Sir Neil Campbell, "Napoleon at Fontainebleau and at Elbe," p.243. "Journal de Sir Neil Campbell a' l'ile d'Elbe": I never saw any man, in any station in life, so personally active and so persistent in his activity. He seems to take pleasure in perpetual motion and in seeing those who accompany him completely tired out, which frequently happened in my case when I accompanied him.. . Yesterday, after having been on his legs from eight in the morning to three in the afternoon, visiting the frigates and transports, even to going down to the lower compartments among the horses, he rode on horseback for three hours, and, as he afterwards said to me, to rest himself."]

[Footnote 1151: The starting-point of the great discoveries of Darwin is the physical, detailed description he made in his study of animals and plants, as living; during the whole course of life, through so many difficulties and subject to a fierce compet.i.tion. This study is wholly lacking in the ordinary zoologist or botanist, whose mind is busy only with anatomical preparations or collections of plants. In every science, the difficulty lies in describing in a nutsh.e.l.l, using significant examples, the real object, just as it exists before us, and its true history. Claude Bernard one day remarked to me, "We shall know physiology when we are able to follow step by step a molecule of carbon or azote in the body of a dog, give its history, and describe its pa.s.sage from its entrance to its exit."]

[Footnote 1152: Thibaudeau, "Memoires sur le Consulat," 204. (Apropos of the tribunate): "They consist of a dozen or fifteen metaphysicians who ought to be flung into the water; they crawl all over me like vermin."]

[Footnote 1153: Madame de Remusat, I., 115: "He is really ignorant, having read very little and always hastily."--Stendhal, "Memoires sur Napoleon": "His education was very defective....He knew nothing of the great principles discovered within the past one hundred years," and just those which concern man or society. "For example, he had not read Montesquieu as this writer ought to be read, that is to say, in a way to accept or decidedly reject each of the thirty-one books of the 'Esprit des lois.' He had not thus read Bayle's Dictionary nor the Essay on the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. This ignorance of the Emperor's was not perceptible in conversation, and first, because he led in conversation, and next because with Italian finesse no question put by him, or careless supposition thrown out, ever betrayed that ignorance."--Bourrienne. I., 19, 21: At Brienne, "unfortunately for us, the monks to whom the education of youth was confided knew nothing, and were too poor to pay good foreign teachers.... It is inconceivable how any capable man ever graduated from this educational inst.i.tution."--Yung, I., 125 (Notes made by him on Bonaparte, when he left the Military Academy): "Very fond of the abstract sciences, indifferent to others, well grounded in mathematics and geography."]

[Footnote 1154: Roederer, III., 544 (March 6, 1809), 26, 563 (Jan. 23, 1811, and Nov. 12, 1813).]

[Footnote 1155: Mollien, I., 348 (a short time before the rupture of the peace of Amiens), III., 16: "It was at the end of January, 1809, that he wanted a full report of the financial situation on the 31st of December, 1808 .... This report was to be ready in two days."--III., 34: "A complete balance sheet of the public treasury for the first six months of 1812 was under Napoleon's eyes at Witebsk, the 11th of August, eleven days after the close of these first six months. What is truly wonderful is, that amidst so many different occupations and preoccupations.... he could preserve such an accurate run of the proceedings and methods of the administrative branches about which he wanted to know at any moment.

n.o.body had any excuse for not answering him, for each was questioned in his own terms; it is that singular apt.i.tude of the head of the State, and the technical precision of his questions, which alone explains how he could maintain such a remarkable ensemble in an administrative system of which the smallest threads centered in himself."]

[Footnote 1156: 200 years after the death of Napoleon Sir Alfred Ayer thus writes in "LANGUAGE, TRUTH AND LOGIC": 'Actually, we shall see that the only test to which a form of scientific procedure which satisfies the necessary condition of self-consistency is subject, is the test of its success in practice. We are ent.i.tled to have faith in our procedure just so long as it does the work it is designed to do--that is, enables us to predict future experience, and so to control our environment.'

And on the Purpose of Inquiry: 'The traditional disputes of philosophers are, for the most part, as unwarranted as they are unfruitful. The surest way to end them is to establish beyond question what should be the purpose and the method of philosophical inquiry.' (SR.)]

[Footnote 1157: An expression of Mollien.]

[Footnote 1158: Meneval, I., 210, 213.--Roederer, III., 537, 545 (February and March, 1889): Words of Napoleon: "At this moment it was nearly midnight."--Ibid., IV., 55 (November, 1809). Read the admirable examination of Roederer by Napoleon on the Kingdom of Naples. His queries form a vast systematic and concise network, embracing the entire subject, leaving no physical or moral data, no useful circ.u.mstance not seized upon.--Segur, II., 231: M. De Segur, ordered to inspect every part of the coast-line, had sent in his report: "'I have seen your reports,' said the First Consul to me, 'and they are exact.

Nevertheless, you forgot at Osten two cannon out of the four.'--And he pointed out the place, 'a roadway behind the town.' I went out overwhelmed with astonishment that among thousands of cannon distributed among the mounted batteries or light artillery on the coast, two pieces should not have escaped his recollection."--"Correspondance," letter to King Joseph, August 6, 1806: "The admirable condition of my armies is due to this, that I give attention to them every day for an hour or two, and, when the monthly reports come in, to the state of my troops and fleets, all forming about twenty large volumes. I leave every other occupation to read them over in detail, to see what difference there is between one month and another. I take more pleasure in reading those than any young girl does in a novel."--Cadet de Ga.s.sicourt, "Voyage en Autriche"(1809). On his reviews at Schoenbrunn and his verification of the contents of a pontoon-wagon, taken as an example.]

[Footnote 1159: One ancient French league equals app. 4 km. (SR.)]

[Footnote 1160: Bourrienne, II., 116; IV., 238: "He had not a good memory for proper names, words, and dates, but it was prodigious for facts and localities. I remember that, on the way from Paris to Toulon, he called my attention to ten places suitable for giving battle.... It was a souvenir of his youthful travels, and he described to me the lay of the ground, designating the positions he would have taken even before we were on the spot." March 17, 1800, puncturing a card with a pin, he shows Bourrienne the place where he intends to beat Melas, at San Juliano. "Four months after this I found myself at San Juliano with his portfolio and dispatches, and, that very evening, at Torre-di-Gafolo, a league off, I wrote the bulletin of the battle under his dictation" (of Marengo).--De Segur, II., 30 (Narrative of M. Daru to M. De Segur Aug.

13, 1805, at the headquarters of La Manche, Napoleon dictates to M. Daru the complete plan of the campaign against Austria): "Order of marches, their duration, places of convergence or meeting of the columns, attacks in full force, the various movements and mistakes of the enemy, all, in this rapid dictation, was foreseen two months beforehand and at a distance of two hundred leagues.... The battle-field, the victories, and even the very days on which we were to enter Munich and Vienna were then announced and written down as it all turned out.... Daru saw these oracles fulfilled on the designated days up to our entry into Munich; if there were any differences of time and not of results between Munich and Vienna, they were all in our favor."--M. de La Vallette, "Memoires,"

II., p. 35. (He was postmaster-general): "It often happened to me that I was not as certain as he was of distances and of many details in my administration on which he was able to set me straight."--On returning from the camp at Bologna, Napoleon encounters a squad of soldiers who had got lost, asks what regiment they belong to, calculates the day they left, the road they took, what distance they should have marched.

and then tells them, "You will find your battalion at such a halting place."--At this time, "the army numbered 200,000 men."]

[Footnote 1161: Madame de Remusat, I., 103, 268.]

[Footnote 1162: Thibaudeau, p.25, I (on the Jacobin survivors): "They are nothing but common artisans, painters, etc., with lively imaginations, a little better instructed than the people, living amongst the people and exercising influence over them."--Madame de Remusat, I., 271 (on the royalist party): "It is very easy to deceive that party because its starting-point is not what it is, but what it would like to have."--I., 337: "The Bourbons will never see anything except through the Oeil de Boeuf."--Thibaudeau, p.46: "Insurrections and emigrations are skin diseases; terrorism is an internal malady." Ibid., 75: "What now keeps the spirit of the army up is the idea soldiers have that they occupy the places of former n.o.bles."]

[Footnote 1163: Thibaudeau, pp.419 to 452. (Both texts are given in separate columns.) And pa.s.sim, for instance, p.84, the following portrayal of the decadal system of wors.h.i.+p under the Republic: "It was imagined that citizens could be got together in churches, to freeze with cold and hear, read, and study laws, in which there was already but little fun for those who executed them." Another example of the way in which his ideas expressed themselves through imagery (Pelet de la Lozere, p. 242): "I am not satisfied with the customs regulations on the Alps. They show no life. We don't hear the rattle of crown pieces pouring into the public treasury." To appreciate the vividness of Napoleon's expressions and thought the reader must consult, especially, the five or six long conversations, noted on the very evening of the day they occurred by Roederer; the two or three conversations likewise noted by Miot de Melito; the scenes narrated by Beugnot; the notes of Pelet de la Lozere and by Stanislas de Girardin, and nearly the entire volume by Thibaudeau.]

[Footnote 1164: Pelet de la Lozere, 63, 64. (On the physiological differences between the English and the French.)--Madame de Remusat, I., 273, 392: "You, Frenchmen, are not in earnest about anything, except, perhaps, equality, and even here you would gladly give this up if you were sure of being the foremost.... The hope of advancement in the world should be cherished by everybody.... Keep your vanity always alive The severity of the republican government would have worried you to death.

What started the Revolution? Vanity. What will end it? Vanity, again.

Liberty is merely a pretext."--III., 153 "Liberty is the craving of a small and privileged cla.s.s by nature, with faculties superior to the common run of men; this cla.s.s, therefore, may be put under restraint with impunity; equality, on the contrary, catches the mult.i.tude."--Thibaudeau, 99: "What do I care for the opinions and cackle of the drawing-room? I never heed it. I pay attention only to what rude peasants say." His estimates of certain situations are masterpieces of picturesque concision. "Why did I stop and sign the preliminaries of Leoben? Because I played vingt-et-un and was satisfied with twenty." His insight into (dramatic) character is that of the most sagacious critic.