Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

[1799-1815 A.D.] shaded with weeping willows, had long been a favourite spot for his meditations. He was laid in the coffin in his three-cornered hat, military surtout, leather under-dress, and boots, as he appeared on the field of battle. The place of sepulture was consecrated by an English clergyman according to the form of the church of England. The coffin was lowered amidst the speechless emotion and tears of all present; three successive volleys of musketry and artillery announced that the mighty conqueror was laid in his grave; a simple stone, of great size, was placed over his remains; and the solitary willow wept over the tomb of him for whom the earth itself had once hardly seemed a fitting mausoleum.o

ESTIMATES OF NAPOLEON

Lamartine's Estimate

The intelligence of Napoleon's death changed the immense terror, which had beset Europe during his life, into immense pity. When people ceased to fear him, they ceased to hate. Impartial minds began to do him justice. Genius and glory were not denied to him; but it was deplored that so much genius and so much glory had been consecrated only to the personal greatness of one man, instead of being devoted to the amelioration of the world. This is where he failed to his destiny, to God, to humanity, to France, and to himself. The fine part of his character was not equalled by the good. He was the greatest man of modern times, but he was also the most sterile in results for the human race. He wasted France and Europe for fourteen years, without imparting to them an idea, a liberty, or a virtue. He shook the world without displacing it. France, however, which owes him a severe judgment, owes him also impartial gratitude. He made her illustrious, he made her resound with the splendour of his own name, during the early part of a century, through the universe. It is a service to aggrandise the name of one's country, for the name of a people is a spell in time and history, and a certain claim to immortality."

Edmond Schérer's Estimate

History, in judging the total of Napoleon's career, will pronounce it sterile and disastrous. If one seeks to discover what he really wished, what he did, what he left, one finds nothing. He acted without object, lived upon chance, bestirred himself in a vacuum. He may have saved France, but to allow her to fall deeper than before. He did not give his great mind to the service of one grand idea. He has not attached his name to any work. He rendered no service to humanity. He represented nothing in history. He pursued that insensate and barbarous thing, war, for the sake of war. He piled up conquests after the manner of the ancient Eastern despots.

Napoleon was not a statesman because he had no political ideas. And what must we say, if, instead of placing ourselves at the point of view of French politics, we wish to judge him from that of civilisation. Civilisation is composed of moral ideas, and he misunderstood them all. What contempt of humanity! What ignorance of its instincts and its needs! What a misconception of modern society! What contempt of everything spiritual! He knew only force, and in matters of thought only that which serves force. He trampled under foot all rights. As he understood only the lower parts of government, so he understood in civil society only the material elements.

[1799-1815 A.D.]

He restored the church, but only to keep it under his hand and govern it. He reorganised the Institute, but he conceived eloquence, poetry, and literature only as charged with burning an eternal incense in his honour. He gave us a code, but he refused us institutions. He re-established our finances and suppressed our liberties. He showed himself, properly speaking, neither virtuous, nor vicious. He was one of the southern natures, in which the moral side of the man was simply wanting. That is why he is at once great and so small, so astonishing and so vulgar.z

Sir William Napier's Estimate

The annual expenditure of France was scarcely half that of England; and Napoleon rejected public loans, which are the life-blood of state corruption. He left no debt. Under him no man devoured the public substance in idleness merely because he was of a privileged class; the state servants were largely paid, but they were made to labour effectually for the state. They did not eat their bread and sleep. His system of public accounts, remarkable for its exactness, simplicity, and comprehensiveness, was vitally opposed to public fraud and therefore extremely unfavourable to corruption. Napoleon's power was supported in France by that deep sense of his goodness as a sovereign, and that admiration for his genius which pervaded the poorer and middle classes of the people; by the love they bore him, and still bear for his memory, because he cherished the principles of a just equality. They loved him also for his incessant activity in the public service, his freedom from private vices; and because his public works, wondrous for their number, their utility, and grandeur, never stood still: under him the poor man never wanted work. To France he gave noble institutions, a comparatively just code of laws, and glory unmatched since the days of the Romans. His Cadastre, more extensive and perfect than the Doomsday Book, that monument of the wisdom and greatness of our Norman Conqueror, was alone sufficient to endear him to the nation. Rapidly advancing under his vigorous superintendence, it registered and taught every man the true value and nature of his property, and all its liabilities public or private. It was designed and ably adapted to fix and secure titles to property, to prevent frauds, to abate litigation, to apportion the weight of taxes equally and justly, to repress the insolence of the tax-gatherer without injury to the revenue, and to secure the sacred freedom of the poor man's home. French Cadastre, although not original, would, from its comprehensiveness, have been, when completed, the greatest boon ever conferred upon a civilised nation by a statesman.

The

To say that the emperor was supported by his soldiers, is to say that he was supported by the people; because the law of conscription, that mighty staff on which France leaned when all Europe attempted to push her down,

[ocr errors]

the conscription, without which she could never have sustained the dreadful war of antagonist principles entailed upon her by the Revolution, that energetic law, which he did not establish, but by which he freed from abuse and rendered great, national, and endurable, by causing it to strike equally on all classes, the conscription made the soldiers the real representatives of the people. The troops idolised Napoleon, well they might; and to say their attachment commenced only when they became soldiers, is to acknowledge that his excellent qualities and greatness of mind turned hatred into devotion the moment he was approached. But Napoleon never was hated by the people of France; he was their own creation and they loved him

[1799-1815 A.D.] as never monarch was loved before. His march from Cannes to Paris, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of poor men, who were not soldiers, can never be effaced or even disfigured.

Jules Barni's Estimate

That monster, the legend of Napoleon, is still before us, always devouring truth and historical morality; and the pretended philosophy of history which sanctifies this legend by elevating the Cæsars as great and providential men, and presents malefactors as saviours of the people-this detestable philosophy of history has reached its greatest hour of triumph.

History does not offer us any subject of study more extraordinary. Where shall we find in fact a more marvellous fate than that of the man who, from a simple officer of artillery, made himself absolute master of France; filled all Europe with the terror of his arms; raised the throne which had been swept away by the storms of the Revolution, to place himself on it under the name of emperor, distributed the spoils of the conquered countries, as if to vassals, amongst his brothers and comrades-at-arms; endeavoured in fact in the nineteenth century to realise a universal monarchy; succumbed under the strokes of all the European powers united against him; saw himself compelled to abdicate, and reduced to reigning in the island of Elba, he the erstwhile master of France and Europe. He soon escaped to reappear for a moment at the Tuileries; and vanquished again, went to die a prisoner on a rock of the Atlantic Ocean, leaving a name as famous as that of Alexander and Cæsar, a name which was in every mouth and all imaginations, as he said himself at St. Helena.

But contrary to legend, Napoleon, far from being the continuer of the Revolution, had been, according to the expression of Madame de Staël, “the first of the counter-revolutionists." The 18th Brumaire, far from having been an act of salvation, had been a misfortune for France, and, in any case, a crime. In fact his exile to St. Helena had been the too just expiation, as badly borne as well merited, of the many outrages which had commenced at 18th Brumaire.bb

Lord Rosebery's Estimate

By the philosopher, and still more by the philosopher who believes in the divine guidance of human affairs, the true relation of Napoleon to the world's history will be reduced to a very simple conception: that he was launched into the world as a great natural or supernatural force, as a scourge and a scavenger, to effect a vast operation, partly positive, but mainly negative; and that when he has accomplished that work he is withdrawn as swiftly as he came. Cæsar, Attila, Tamerlane, and Mohammed are forces of this kind; the last a much more potent and abiding factor in the universe than Napoleon-another proof, if proof were needed, of how small is the permanent effect of warfare alone on the history of mankind. These men make great epochs; they embody vast transitions; they perplex and appal their contemporaries; but when viewed at a distance, they are seen to be periodical and necessary incidents of the world's movement. The details of their career, their morals, their methods, are then judged, interesting though they may be, to be merely subordinate details.

Scavenger is a coarse word, yet it accurately represents Napoleon's first function as ruler. We do not discuss his military greatness; that is universally acknowledged. To the civilian eye he seems, at his best, the greatest

[1799-1815 A.D.]

of all soldiers. Later on, even civilians may see faults. But, let what will be subtracted, there remains an irreducible maximum of fame and exploit.

His financial management, by which he sustained a vast empire with power and splendour, but with rigid economy, and without a debt, is a marvel and a mystery. In all the offices of state he knew everything, inspired everything.

Into a career of a score of years he crowded his own dazzling career, his conquests, his triumphant assault on the Old World. In that brief space we see the lean, hungry conqueror swell into the sovereign, and then into the sovereign of sovereigns. Then comes the catastrophe. He loses the balance of his judgment and becomes a curse to his own country, and to all others. He has ceased to be sane. The intellect and energy are still there, but, as it were, in caricature; they have become monstrosities. Body and mind are affected by the prolonged strain to be more than mortal. Then there is the inevitable collapse; and at St. Helena we are watching, with curious compassion, the reaction and decline.

There is one question which English people ask about great men, which one cannot put with regard to Napoleon without a sense of incongruity which approaches the grotesque. Was Napoleon a good man? The irresistible smile with which we greet the question proves, we think, not the proved iniquity, but the exceptional position of this unique personality. Ordinary measures and tests do not appear to apply to him. We seem to be trying to span a mountain with a tape. But that he was great in the sense of being extraordinary and supreme we can have no doubt. If greatness stands for natural power, for predominance, for something human beyond humanity, then Napoleon was assuredly great. Besides that indefinable spark which we call genius, he represents a combination of intellect and energy which has never perhaps been equalled, never, certainly, surpassed. He carried human faculty to the farthest point of which we have accurate knowledge. Napoleon lived under the modern microscope. Under the fiercest glare of scrutiny he enlarged indefinitely the limits of human conception and human possibility. Till he had lived no one could realise that there could be so stupendous a combination of military and civil genius, such comprehension of view united to such grasp of detail, such prodigious vitality of body and mind. "He contracts history," said Madame d'Houdetot, "and expands imagination." "He has thrown a doubt," said Lord Dudley, "on all past glory; he has made all future renown impossible.' This is hyperbole, but with a substance of truth. No name represents so completely and conspicuously dominion, splendour, and catastrophe. He raised himself by the use, and ruined himself by the abuse, of superhuman faculties.x

BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS

[The letter is reserved for Editorial Matter.]

CHAPTER I. THE EARLY YEARS OF LOUIS XV (1715-1748 A.D.)

FRANÇOIS P. G. GUIZOT, Histoire de France. - GEORGE W. KITCHIN, History of France. d ELIZABETH CHARLOTTE, Duchess of Orleans, Mémoires. _e PIERRE E. LEMONTEY, Histoire de la Régence et de la minorité de Louis XV. - FRIEDRICH C. SCHLOSSER, History of the Eighteenth Century. - DUC DE SAINT-SIMON, Mémoires.-P. E. LEVASSEUR, Recherches historiques sur le système de Law. -JAMES WHITE, History of France.-COMTE ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, Histoire philosophique du règne de Louis XV. LOUIS P. ANQUETIL, Histoire de France. EYRE EVANS CROWE, History of France. m HENRI MARTIN, Histoire de France." ADRIEN M. DE NOAILLES, Mémoires.-JEAN C. L. S. DE SISMONDI, Histoire des Français. - PAROUET de Voltaire, Le siècle de Louis XIV. - CLEOPHAS DARESTE DE LA CHAVANNE, Histoire de France. MARECHAL DE SAXE, Lettres et Mémoires. - 'SAINTRENÉ DE TAILLANDIER, Maurice de Saxe. Étude historique.—'MARQUIS D'ARGENSON,

Mémoires.

CHAPTER II. THE REGENCY OF POMPADOUR

CHARLES LACRETELLE, Histoire de France pendant le XVIII siècle. E. E. CROWE, op. cit. -d EDMOND ET JULES HUOT DE GONCOURT, Les Maitresses de Louis XV. — COMTE DE CARNE La monarchie française au 18. siècle.-MARQUIS D'ARGENSON, op. cit.— MOUFFLE D'ANGERVILLE, La vie privée de Louis XV.-C. DARESTE DE LA CHAVANNE, op. cit.-JEANNE L. H. CAMPAN, Mémoires.-J. C. L. S. DE SISMONDI, op. cit. — JEAN FRANÇOIS MARMONTEL, Mémoires.-F. C. SCHLOSSER, op. cit. m EDMOND J. F. BARBIER, Journal du règne de Louis XV.-"JEAN L. D'ALEMBERT, Euvres. -° HERMANN J. T. HETTNER, Geschichte der Französichen Literatur im XVIIIten Jahrhundert.—P CHARLES P. DUCLOS, Mémoires secrets des règnes de Louis XIV et Louis XV. - PAUL GAULOT, Bibliothèque de Souvenirs et récits militaires. -- H. MARTIN, op. cit. COMTE DE SEGUR, Mémoires. 'G. W. KITCHIN, op. cit. — " FREDERICK II, Euvres posthumes. — PIERRE JEan Georges CABANIS, Rapports du physique et du moral de l'homme.

[ocr errors]

CHAPTER III. THE LAST DECADE OF LOUIS XV (1764-1774 A.D.)

'G. W. KITCHIN, op. cit. - THEOPHILE LAVALLÉE, Histoire des Français.-d F. C. SCHLOSSER, op. cit. · -J. B. R. CAPEFIGUE, Louis XV et la société du XVIII. siècle. —ƒ J. C. L. S. DE SISMONDI, op. cit. — C. Dareste de la ChavannE, op. cit. — Pierre Victor de BESENVAL, Mémoires. -BARON DE MONTESQUIEU, Esprit des Lois. - CHARLES LACRETELLE, op. cit. COMTE ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, op. cit. 'COMTE DE SÉGUR, op. cit.— m LOUIS BACHAUMONT, Mémoires secrets. H. MARTIN, op. cit.-JEAN L. SOULAVIE, Mémoires Historiques et Politiques du Règne de Louis XVI. -P THOMAS CARLYLE, The French Revolution. - EDMOND ET JULES HUOT DE GONCOURT, op. cit.

[ocr errors]

CHAPTER IV. THE AGE OF VOLTAIRE

[ocr errors]

ALFRED RAMBAUD, Histoire de la civilization Française. VICTOR DURUY, Histoire de France.―d C. Dareste de LA CHAVANNE, op. cit. — H. MARTIN, op. cit. — A. F. VILLEMAIN, Cours de littérature française. — HENRY ŚMITH WILLIAMS, The Story of the Nineteenth Century Science.

« ZurückWeiter »