The Modern Regime Volume I Part 5

Remark this observation of the uncles--it sums up the experiences of a man of his time and of his country; it is what social life in Corsica inculcated; morals and manners there adapted themselves to each other through an unfailing connection. The moral law, indeed, is such because similar customs prevail in all countries and at all times where the police is powerless, where justice cannot be obtained, where public interests are in the hands of whoever can lay hold of them, where private warfare is pitiless and not repressed, where every man goes armed, where every sort of weapon is fair, and where dissimulation, fraud, and trickery, as well as gun or poniard, are allowed, which was the case in Corsica in the eighteenth century, as in Italy in the fifteenth century.--Hence the early impressions of Bonaparte similar to those of the Borgias and of Macchiavelli; hence, in his case, that first stratum of half-thought which, later on, serves as the basis of complete thought; hence, the whole foundation of his future mental edifice and of the conceptions he subsequently entertains of human society. Afterwards, on leaving the French schools and every time he returns to them and spends any time in them, the same impressions, often renewed, intensify in his mind the same final conclusion. In this country, report the French commissioners,[1229] "the people have no idea of principle in the abstract," nor of social interest or justice. "Justice does not exist; one hundred and thirty a.s.sa.s.sinations have occurred in ten years....

The inst.i.tution of juries has deprived the country of all the means for punis.h.i.+ng crime; never do the strongest proofs, the clearest evidence, lead a jury composed of men of the same party, or of the same family as the accused, to convict him; and, if the accused is of the opposite party, the juries likewise acquit him, so as not to incur the risk of revenge, slow perhaps but always sure."--"Public spirit is unknown."

There is no social body, except any number of small parties hostile to each other.... One is not a Corsican without belonging to some family, and consequently attached to some party; he who would serve none, would be detested by all.... All the leaders have the same end in view, that of getting money no matter by what means, and their first care is to surround themselves with creatures entirely devoted to them and to whom they give all the offices.... The elections are held under arms, and all with violence.... The victorious party uses its authority to avenge itself on their opponents, and multiplies vexations and outrages... .

The leaders form aristocratic leagues with each other.... and mutually tolerate abuses. They impose no a.s.sessment or collection (of taxes) to curry favor with electors through party spirit and relations.h.i.+ps....

Customs-duties serve simply to compensate friends and relatives....

Salaries never reach those for whom they are intended. The rural districts are uninhabitable for lack of security. The peasants carry guns even when at the plow. One cannot take a step without an escort; a detachment of five or six men is often sent to carry a letter from one post-office to another."

Interpret this general statement by the thousands of facts of which it is the summary; imagine these little daily occurrences narrated with all their material accompaniments, and with sympathetic or angry comments by interested neighbors, and we have the moral lessons taught to young Bonaparte.[1230] At table, the child has listened to the conversation of his elders, and at a word uttered, for instance, by his uncle, or at a physiognomic expression, a sign of approbation, a shrug of the shoulders, he has divined that the ordinary march of society is not that of peace but of war; he sees by what ruses one maintains one's-self, by what acts of violence one makes ones way, by what sort of help one mounts upward. Left to himself the rest of the day, to the nurse Ilaria, or to Saveria the housekeeper, or to the common people amongst whom he strays at will, he listens to the conversation of sailors or of shepherds a.s.sembled on the public square, and their simple exclamations, their frank admiration of well-planned ambuscades and lucky surprises, impress more profoundly on him, often repeated with so much energy, the lessons which he has already learned at home. These are the lessons taught by things. At this tender age they sink deep, especially when the disposition is favorable, and in this case the heart sanctions them beforehand, because education finds its confederate in instinct.

Accordingly, at the outbreak of the Revolution, on revisiting Corsica, he takes life at once as he finds it there, a combat with any sort of weapon, and, on this small arena, he acts unscrupulously, going farther than anybody.[1231] If he respects justice and law, it is only in words, and even here ironically; in his eyes, law is a term of the code, justice a book term, while might makes right.

A second blow of the coining-press gives another impression of the same stamp on this character already so decided, while French anarchy forces maxims into the mind of the young man, already traced in the child's mind by Corsican anarchy; the lessons of things provided by a society going to pieces are the same as those of a society which is not yet formed.--His sharp eyes, at a very early period, see through the flourish of theory and the parade of phrases; they detect the real foundation of the Revolution, namely, the sovereignty of unbridled pa.s.sions and the conquest of the majority by the minority; conquering or conquered, a choice must be made between these two extreme conditions; there is no middle course. After the 9th of Thermidor, the last veils are torn away, and the instincts of license and domination, the ambitions of individuals, fully display themselves. There is no concern for public interests or for the rights of the people; it is clear that the rulers form a band, that France is their prey, and that they intend to hold on to it for and against everybody, by every possible means, including bayonets. Under this civil regime, a clean sweep of the broom at the center makes it necessary to be on the side of numbers.--In the armies, especially in the army of Italy, republican faith and patriotic abnegation, since the territory became free, have given way to natural appet.i.tes and military pa.s.sions.[1232] Barefoot, in rags, with four ounces of bread a day, paid in a.s.signats which are not accepted in the markets, both officers and men desire above all things to be relieved of their misery; "the poor fellows, after three years of longing on the summits of the Alps, reach the promised land, and want to enjoy it."[1233] Another spur consists in the pride which is stimulated by the imagination and by success; add to this the necessity for finding an outlet for their energy, the steam and high pressure of youth; nearly all are very young men, who regard life, in Gallic or French fas.h.i.+on, as a party of pleasure and as a duel. But to feel brave and to prove that one is so, to face bullets for amus.e.m.e.nt and defiantly, to abandon a successful adventure for a battle and a battle for a ball, to enjoy ones-self and take risks to excess, without dissimulating, and with no other object than the sensation of the moment,[1234] to revel in excitement through emulation and danger, is no longer self-devotion, but giving one's-self up to one's fancies; and, for all who are not harebrained, to give one's-self up to one's fancies means to make one's way, obtain promotion, pillage so as to become rich, like Ma.s.sena, and conquer so as to become powerful, like Bonaparte.--All this is understood between the general and his army from the very first,[1235]

and, after one year's experience, the understanding is perfect. One moral is derived from their common acts, vague in the army, precise in the general; what the army only half sees, he sees clearly; if he urges his comrades on, it is because they follow their own inclination. He simply has a start on them, and is quicker to make up his mind that the world is a grand banquet, free to the first-comer, but at which, to be well served, one must have long arms, be the first to get helped, and let the rest take what is left.

So natural does this seem to him, he says so openly and to men who are not his intimates; to Miot, a diplomat, and to Melzi a foreigner:

"Do you suppose, says he to them,[1236] after the preliminaries of Leoben, "that to make great men out of Directory lawyers, the Carnots'

and the Barras, I triumph in Italy? Do you suppose also that it is for the establishment of a republic? What an idea! A republic of thirty million men! With our customs, our vices, how is that possible? It is a delusion which the French are infatuated with and which will vanish along with so many others. What they want is glory, the gratification of vanity--they know nothing about liberty. Look at the army! Our successes just obtained, our triumphs have already brought out the true character of the French soldier. I am all for him. Let the Directory deprive me of the command and it will see if it is master. The nation needs a chief, one who is famous though his exploits, and not theories of government, phrases and speeches by ideologists, which Frenchmen do not comprehend.... As to your country, Monsieur de Melzi, it has still fewer elements of republicanism than France, and much less ceremony is essential with it than with any other... In other respects, I have no idea of coming to terms so promptly with Austria. It is not for my interest to make peace. You see what I am, what I can do in Italy. If peace is brought about, if I am no longer at the head of this army which has become attached to me, I must give up this power, this high position I have reached, and go and pay court to lawyers in the Luxembourg. I should not like to quit Italy for France except to play a part there similar to that which I play here, and the time for that has not yet come--the pear is not ripe."

To wait until the pear is ripe, but not to allow anybody else to gather it, is the true motive of his political fealty and of his Jacobin proclamations: "A party in favor of the Bourbons is raising its head; I have no desire to help it along. One of these days I shall weaken the republican party, but I shall do it for my own advantage and not for that of the old dynasty. Meanwhile, it is necessary to march with the Republicans," along with the worst, and' the scoundrels about to purge the Five Hundred, the Ancients, and the Directory itself, and then re-establish in France the Reign of Terror.--In effect, he contributes to the 18th of Fructidor, and, the blow struck, he explains very clearly why he took part in it:

"Do not believe[1237] I did it in conformity with the ideas entertained by those with whom I acted. I did--not want a return of the Bourbons, and especially if brought back by Moreau's army and by Pichegru...

Finally, I will not take the part of Monk, I will not play it, and I will not have others play it.... As for myself, my dear Miot, I declare to you that I can no longer obey; I have tasted command and I cannot give it up. My mind is made up. If I cannot be master I will leave France."

There is no middle course for him between the two alter natives. On returning to Paris he thinks of "overthrowing the Directory,[1238]

dissolving the councils and of making himself dictator"; but, having satisfied himself that there was but little chance of succeeding, "he postpones his design" and falls back on the second course. "This is the only motive of his expedition into Egypt."[1239]--That, in the actual condition of France and of Europe, the expedition is opposed to public interests, that France deprives itself of its best army and offers its best fleet to almost certain destruction, is of little consequence provided, in this vast and gratuitous adventure, Bonaparte finds the employment he wants, a large field of action and famous victories which, like the blasts of a trumpet, will swell beyond the seas and renew his prestige: in his eyes, the fleet, the army, France, and humanity exist only for him and are created only for his service.--If, in confirmation of this persuasion, another lesson in things is still necessary, it will be furnished by Egypt. Here, absolute sovereign, free of any restraint, contending with an inferior order of humanity, he acts the sultan and accustoms himself to playing the part.[1240] His last scruples towards the human species disappear; "I became disgusted with Rousseau"; he is to say, later on, "After seeing the Orient: the savage man is a dog,"[1241] and, in the civilized man, the savage is just beneath the skin; if the intellect has become somewhat polished, there is no change in his instincts. A master is as necessary to one as to the other--a magician who subjugates his imagination, disciplines him, keeps him from biting without occasion, ties him up, cares for him, and takes him out hunting. He is born to obey, does not deserve any better lot, and has no other right.

Become consul and afterward emperor, he applies the theory on a grand scale, and, in his hands, experience daily furnishes fresh verifications of the theory. At his first nod the French prostrate themselves obediently, and there remain, as in a natural position; the lower cla.s.s, the peasants and the soldiers, with animal fidelity, and the upper cla.s.s, the dignitaries and the functionaries, with Byzantine servility.--The republicans, on their side, make no resistance; on the contrary, among these he has found his best governing instruments--senators, deputies, state councilors, judges, and administrators of every grade.[1242] He has at once detected behind their sermonizing on liberty and equality, their despotic instincts, their craving for command, for leaders.h.i.+p, even as subordinates; and, in addition to this, with most of them, the appet.i.te for money or for sensual pleasures. The difference between the delegate of the Committee of Public Safety and the minister, prefect, or subprefect under the Empire is small; it is the same person in two costumes: at first in the carmagnole, and later in the embroidered coat. If a rude, poor puritan, like Cambon or Baudot, refuses to don the official uniform, if two or three Jacobin generals, like Lecourbe and Delmas, grumble at the coronation parade, Napoleon, who knows their mental grasp, regards them as ignoramuses, limited to and rigid inside a fixed idea.--As to the cultivated and intelligent liberals of 1789, he consigns them with a word to the place where they belong; they are "ideologists"; in other words, their pretended knowledge is mere drawing-room prejudice and the imagination of the study. "Lafayette is a political ninny," the eternal "dupe of men and of things."[1243] With Lafayette and some others, one embarra.s.sing detail remains namely:

* impartiality and generosity,

* constant care for the common good,

* respect for others,

* the authority of conscience,

* loyalty,

* and good faith.

In short, n.o.ble and pure motives.

Napoleon does not accept the denial thus given to his theory; when he talks with people, he questions their moral n.o.bleness. "General Dumas,"[1244] said he, abruptly, to Mathieu Dumas, "you were one of the imbeciles who believed in liberty?" "Yes, sire, and I was and am still one of that cla.s.s." "And you, like the rest, took part in the Revolution through ambition?" "No, sire, I should have calculated badly, for I am now precisely where I stood in 1790."

"You were not sufficiently aware of the motives which prompted you; you cannot be different from other people; it is all personal interest. Now, take Ma.s.sena. He has glory and honors enough; but he is not content.

He wants to be a prince, like Murat and like Bernadotte. He would risk being shot to-morrow to be a prince. That is the incentive of Frenchmen."--

His system is based on this. The most competent witnesses, and those who were most familiar with him certify to his fixed idea on this point.

"His opinions on men," writes M. de Metternich,[1245] "centered on one idea, which, unfortunately for him, had acquired in his mind the force of an axiom; he was persuaded that no man who was induced to appear on the public stage, or who was merely engaged in the active pursuits of life, governed himself, or was governed, otherwise than by his interest."

According to him, Man is held through his egoistic pa.s.sions, fear, cupidity, sensuality, self-esteem, and emulation; these are the mainsprings when he is not under excitement, when he reasons. Moreover, it is not difficult to turn the brain of man; for he is imaginative, credulous, and subject to being carried away; stimulate his pride or vanity, provide him with an extreme and false opinion of himself and of his fellow-men, and you can start him off head downward wherever you please.[1246]--None of these motives is ent.i.tled to much respect, and beings thus fas.h.i.+oned form the natural material for an absolute government, the ma.s.s of clay awaiting the potter's hand to shape it. If parts of this ma.s.s are obdurate, the potter has only to crush and pound them and mix them thoroughly.

Such is the final conception on which Napoleon has anch.o.r.ed himself, and into which he sinks deeper and deeper, no matter how directly and violently he may be contradicted by palpable facts. Nothing will dislodge him; neither the stubborn energy of the English, nor the inflexible gentleness of the Pope, nor the declared insurrection of the Spaniards, nor the mute insurrection of the Germans, nor the resistance of Catholic consciences, nor the gradual disaffection of the French; the reason is, that his conception is imposed on him by his character;[1247]

he sees man as he needs to see him.

III. Napoleon's Dominant Pa.s.sion: Power.

His mastery of the will of others.--Degree of submission required by him.--His mode of appreciating others and of profiting by them.--Tone of command and of conversation.

We at last confront his dominant pa.s.sion, the inward abyss into which instinct, education, reflection, and theory have plunged him, and which is to engulf the proud edifice of his fortune--I mean, his ambition. It is the prime motor of his soul and the permanent substance of his will, so profound that he no longer distinguishes between it and himself, and of which he is sometimes unconscious.

"I," said he to Roederer,[1248] "I have no ambition," and then, recollecting himself, he adds, with his ordinary lucidity, "or, if I have any, it is so natural to me, so innate, so intimately a.s.sociated with my existence, that it is like the blood which flows in my veins and the atmosphere I breathe."--

Still more profoundly, he likens it to that unconscious, savage, and irresistible emotion which vibrates the soul from one end to the other, to this universal thrill moving all living beings, animal or moral, to those keen and terrible tremors which we call the pa.s.sion of love.

"I have but one pa.s.sion,[1249] one mistress, and that is France. I sleep with her. She has never been false to me. She lavishes her blood and treasures on me. If I need 500,000 men, she gives them to me."

Let no one come between him and her. Let Joseph, in relation to the coronation, abstain from claiming his place, even secondary and prospective, in the new empire; let him not put forth his fraternal rights.[1250] "It is to wound me in the most tender spot." This he does, and, "Nothing can efface that from my souvenirs. It is as if he had told an impa.s.sioned lover that he had slept with his mistress, or merely that he hoped to succeed with her. My mistress is power. I have worked too hard to obtain her, to let her be ravished from me, or even suffer anybody to covet her." This ambition, as avid as it is jealous, which becomes exasperated at the very idea of a rival, feels hampered by the mere idea of setting a limit to it; however vast the acquired power, he would like to have it still more vast; on quitting the most copious banquet, he still remains insatiate. On the day after the coronation he said to Decres:[1251]

"I come too late, there is no longer anything great to accomplish.

I admit that my career is brilliant and that I have made my way successfully. But what a difference alongside of antiquity! Take Alexander! After having conquered Asia, and proclaimed himself to the people as the son of Jupiter, with the exception of Olympias, who knew what all this meant, and Aristotle, and a few Athenian pedants, the entire Orient believed him. Very well, should I now declare that I was the son of G.o.d Almighty, and proclaim that I am going to wors.h.i.+p him under this t.i.tle, every market woman would hoot at me as I walked along the streets. People nowadays know too much. Nothing is left to do."

And yet, even on this secluded, elevated domain, and which twenty centuries of civilization keeps inaccessible, he still encroaches, and to the utmost, in a roundabout way, by laying his hand on the Church, and next on the Pope; here, as elsewhere, he takes all he can get.

Nothing in his eyes, is more natural; he has a right to it, because he is the only capable one.

"My Italian people[1252] must know me well enough not to forget that there is more in my little finger than in all their brains put together."

Alongside of him, they are children, "minors," the French also, and likewise the rest of mankind. A diplomat, who often saw him and studied him under all as aspects, sums up his character in one conclusive phrase:

"He considered himself an isolated being in this world, made to govern and direct all minds as he pleased."[1253]

Hence, whoever has anything to do with him, must abandon his independence and become his tool of government.

"That terrible man," often exclaimed Decres[1254] "has subjugated us all! He holds all our imaginations in his hands, now of steel and now of velvet, but whether one or the other during the day n.o.body knows, and there is no way to escape from them whatever they seize on they never let go!"

Independence of any kind, even eventual and merely possible, puts him in a bad mood; intellectual or moral superiority is of this order, and he gradually gets rid of it;[1255] toward the end he no longer tolerates alongside of him any but subject or captive spirits. His princ.i.p.al servants are machines or fanatics, a devout wors.h.i.+pper, like Maret, a gendarme, like Savary,[1256] ready to do his bidding. From the outset, he has reduced his ministers to the condition of clerks; for he is administrator as well as ruler, and in each department he watches details as closely as the entire ma.s.s. Accordingly, he requires simply for head of departments active pen pushers, mute executors, docile and special hands, no need for honest and independent advisers.

"I should not know what to do with them," he said, "if they were not to a certain extent mediocre in mind and character."

As to his generals, he admits himself that "he likes to award fame only to those who cannot stand it." In any event, "he must be sole master in making or unmaking reputations," according to his personal requirements.

Too brilliant a soldier would become too important; a subordinate should never be tempted to be less submissive. To this end he studies what he will omit in his bulletins, what alterations and what changes shall be made in them.

"It is convenient to keep silent about certain victories, or to convert the defeat of this or that marshal into a success. Sometimes a general learns by a bulletin of an action that he was never in and of a speech that he never made."

If he complains, he is notified to keep still, or by way of recompense he is allowed to pillage, levy contributions, and enrich himself. On becoming duke or hereditary prince, with half a million or a million of revenue from his estate, he is not less held in subjection, for the creator has taken precautions against his own creations.