Beacon Lights of History Volume Ix Part 2

of Wendover; and he proudly accepted the honor, and was the idol of his const.i.tuents until he presumed to disregard their instructions in matters of which he considered they were incompetent to judge. His famous letter to the electors, in which he refutes and ridicules their claim to instruct him, as the shoemakers of Lynn wished to instruct Daniel Webster, is a model of irony, as well as a dignified rebuke of all ignorant const.i.tuencies, and a lofty exposition of the duties of a statesman rather than of a politician.

He had also incurred the displeasure of the Bristol electors by his manly defence of the rights of the Irish Catholics, who since the conquest of William III. had been subjected to the most unjust and annoying treatment that ever disgraced a Protestant government. The injustices under which Ireland groaned were nearly as repulsive as the cruelties inflicted upon the Protestants of France during the reign of Louis XIV. "On the suppression of the rebellion under Tyrconnel," says Morley, "nearly the whole of the land was confiscated, the peasants were made beggars and outlaws, the Penal Laws against Catholics were enforced, and the peasants were prostrate in despair." Even in 1765 "the native Irish were regarded by their Protestant oppressors with exactly that combination of intense contempt and loathing, rage and terror, which his American counterpart would have divided between the Indian and the Negro." Not the least of the labors of Burke was to bring to the attention of the nation the wrongs inflicted on the Irish, and the impossibility of ruling a people who had such just grounds for discontent. "His letter upon the propriety of admitting the Catholics to the elective franchise is one of the wisest of all his productions,--so enlightened is its idea of toleration, so sagacious is its comprehension of political exigencies." He did not live to see his ideas carried out, but he was among the first to prepare the way for Catholic emanc.i.p.ation in later times.

But a greater subject than colonial rights, or Indian wrongs, or persecution of the Irish Catholics agitated the mind of Burke, to which he devoted the energies of his declining years; and this was, the agitation growing out of the French Revolution. When that "roaring conflagration of anarchies" broke out, he was in the full maturity of his power and his fame,--a wise old statesman, versed in the lessons of human experience, who detested sophistries and abstract theories and violent reforms; a man who while he loved liberty more than any political leader of his day, loathed the crimes committed in its name, and who was sceptical of any reforms which could not be carried on without a wanton destruction of the foundations of society itself. He was also a Christian who planted himself on the cert.i.tudes of religious faith, and was shocked by the flippant and shallow infidelity which pa.s.sed current for progress and improvement. Next to the infidel spirit which would make Christianity and a corrupted church identical, as seen in the mockeries of Voltaire, and would destroy both under the guise of hatred of superst.i.tion, he despised those sentimentalities with which Rousseau and his admirers would veil their disgusting immoralities. To him hypocrisy and infidelity, under whatever name they were baptized by the new apostles of human rights, were mischievous and revolting. And as an experienced statesman he held in contempt the inexperience of the Revolutionary leaders, and the unscrupulous means they pursued to accomplish even desirable ends.

No man more than Burke admitted the necessity of even radical reforms, but he would have accomplished them without bloodshed and cruelties. He would not have removed undeniable evils by introducing still greater ones. He regarded the remedies proposed by the Revolutionary quacks as worse than the disease which they professed to cure. No man knew better than he the corruptions of the Catholic church in France, and the persecuting intolerance which that church had stimulated there ever since the revocation of the Edict of Nantes,--an intolerance so cruel that to be married unless in accordance with Catholic usage was to live in concubinage, and to be suspected of Calvinism was punishable by imprisonment or the galleys. But because the established church was corrupt and intolerant, he did not see the necessity for the entire and wholesale confiscation of its lands and possessions (which had not been given originally by the nation, but were the bequests of individuals), thereby giving a vital wound to all the rights of property which civilization in all countries has held sacred and inviolable. Burke knew that the Bourbon absolute monarchy was oppressive and tyrannical, extravagant and indifferent to the welfare of the people; but he would not get rid of it by cutting off the head of the king, especially when Louis was willing to make great concessions: he would have limited his power, or driven him into exile as the English punished James II. He knew that the n.o.bles abused their privileges; he would have taken them away rather than attempt to annul their order, and decimate them by horrid butcheries. He did not deny the necessity of reforms so searching that they would be almost tantamount to revolution; but he would not violate both const.i.tutional forms and usages, and every principle of justice and humanity, in order to effect them.

To Burke's mind, the measures of the revolutionists were all mixed up with impieties, sophistries, absurdities, and blasphemies, to say nothing of cruelties and murders. What good could grow out of such an evil tree? Could men who ignored all duties be the expounders of rights?

What structure could last, when its foundation was laid on the sands of hypocrisy, injustice, ignorance, and inexperience? What sympathy could such a man as Burke have for atheistic theories, or a social progress which scorned the only conditions by which society can be kept together?

The advanced men who inaugurated the Reign of Terror were to him either fools, or fanatics, or a.s.sa.s.sins. He did not object to the meeting of the States-General to examine into the intolerable grievances, and, if necessary, to strip the king of tyrannical powers, for such a thing the English parliament had done; but it was quite another thing for _one branch_ of the States-General to const.i.tute itself the nation, and usurp the powers and functions of the other two branches; to sweep away, almost in a single night, the const.i.tution of the realm; to take away all the powers of the king, imprison him, mock him, insult him, and execute him, and then to cut off the heads of the n.o.bles who supported him, and of all people who defended him, even women themselves, and convert the whole land into a Pandemonium! What contempt must he have had for legislators who killed their king, decimated their n.o.bles, robbed their clergy, swept away all social distinctions, abolished the rites of religion,--all symbols, honors, and privileges; all that was ancient, all that was venerable, all that was poetic, even to abbey churches; yea, dug up the very bones of ancient monarchs from the consecrated vaults where they had reposed for centuries, and scattered them to the winds; and then amid the mad saturnalia of sacrilege, barbarity, and blasphemy to proclaim the reign of "Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality," with Marat for their leader, and Danton for their orator, and Robespierre for their high-priest; and, finally, to consummate the infamous farce of reform by openly setting up a wanton woman as the idol of their worship, under the name of the G.o.ddess of Reason!

But while Burke saw only one side of these atrocities, he did not close his eyes to the necessity for reforms. Had he been a Frenchman, he would strenuously have lifted up his voice to secure them, but in a legal and const.i.tutional manner,--not by violence, not by disregarding the principles of justice and morality to secure a desirable end. He was one of the few statesmen then living who would not do evil that good might come. He was no Jesuit. There is a cla.s.s of politicians who would have acted differently; and this cla.s.s, in his day, was made up of extreme and radical people, with infidel sympathies. With this cla.s.s he was no favorite, and never can be. Conservative people judge him by a higher standard; they shared at the time in his sympathies and prejudices.

Even in America the excesses of the Revolution excited general abhorrence; much more so in England. And it was these excesses, this mode of securing reform, not reform itself, which excited Burke's detestation. Who can wonder at this? Those who accept crimes as a necessary outbreak of revolutionary pa.s.sions adopt a philosophy which would veil the world with a funereal and diabolical gloom. Reformers must be taught that no reforms achieved by crime are worth the cost. Nor is it just to brand an ill.u.s.trious man with indifference to great moral and social movements because he would wait, sooner than upturn the very principles on which society is based. And here is the great difficulty in estimating the character and labors of Burke. Because he denounced the French Revolution, some think he was inconsistent with his early principles. Not at all; it was the crimes and excesses of the Revolution he denounced, not the impulse of the French people to achieve their liberties. Those crimes and excesses he believed to be inconsistent with an enlightened desire for freedom; but freedom itself, to its utmost limit and application, consistent with law and order, he desired. Is it necessary for mankind to win its greatest boons by going through a sea of anarchies, madness, a.s.sa.s.sinations, and ma.s.sacres? Those who take this view of revolution, it seems to me, are neither wise nor learned.

If a king makes war on his subjects, they are warranted in taking up arms in their defence, even if the civil war is followed by enormities.

Thus the American colonies took up arms against George III.; but they did not begin with crimes. Louis XVI. did not take up arms against his subjects, nor league against them, until they had crippled and imprisoned him. He made even great concessions; he was willing to make still greater to save his crown. But the leaders of the revolution were not content with these, not even with the abolition of feudal privileges; they wanted to subvert the monarchy itself, to abolish the order of n.o.bility, to sweep away even the Church,--not the Catholic establishment only, but the Christian religion also, with all the inst.i.tutions which time and poetry had consecrated. Their new heaven and new earth was not the reign of the saints, which the millenarians of Cromwell's time prayed for devoutly, but a sort of communistic equality, where every man could do precisely as he liked, take even his neighbor's property, and annihilate all distinctions of society, all inequalities of condition,--a miserable, fanatical dream, impossible to realize under any form of government which can be conceived. It was this spirit of reckless innovation, promulgated by atheists and drawn logically from some principles of the "Social Contract" of which Rousseau was the author, which excited the ire of Burke. It was license, and not liberty.

And while the b.l.o.o.d.y and irreligious excesses of the Revolution called out his detestation, the mistakes and incapacity of the new legislators excited his contempt. He condemned a _compulsory_ paper currency,--not a paper currency, but a compulsory one,--and predicted bankruptcy. He ridiculed an army without a head,--not the instrument of the executive, but of a military democracy receiving orders from the clubs. He made sport of the legislature ruled by the commune, and made up not of men of experience, but of adventurers, stock-jobbers, directors of a.s.signats, trustees for the sale of church-lands, who "took a const.i.tution in hand as savages would a looking-gla.s.s,"--a body made up of those courtiers who wished to cut off the head of their king, of those priests who voted religion a nuisance, of those lawyers who called the laws a dead letter, of those philosophers who admitted no argument but the guillotine, of those sentimentalists who chanted the necessity of more blood, of butchers and bakers and brewers who would exterminate the very people who bought from them.

And the result of all this wickedness and folly on the mind of Burke was the most eloquent and masterly political treatise probably ever written,--a treatise in which there may be found much angry rhetoric and some unsound principles, but which blazes with genius on every page, which coruscates with wit, irony, and invective; scornful and sad doubtless, yet full of moral wisdom; a perfect thesaurus of political truths. I have no words with which to express my admiration for the wisdom and learning and literary excellence of the "Reflections on the French Revolution" as a whole,--so luminous in statement, so accurate in the exposure of sophistries, so full of inspired intuitions, so Christian in its tone. This celebrated work was enough to make any man immortal. It was written and rewritten with the most conscientious care.

It appeared in 1790; and so great were its merits, so striking, and yet so profound, that thirty thousand copies were sold in a few weeks. It was soon translated into all the languages of Europe, and was in the hands of all thinking men. It was hailed with especial admiration by Christian and conservative cla.s.ses, though bitterly denounced by many intelligent people as gloomy and hostile to progress. But whether liked or disliked, it made a great impression, and contributed to settle public opinion in reference to French affairs. What can be more just and enlightened than such sentiments as these, which represent the spirit of the treatise:--

"Because liberty is to be cla.s.sed among the blessings of mankind, am I to felicitate a madman who has escaped from the restraints of his cell?

There is no qualification for government but virtue and wisdom. Woe be to that country that would madly reject the service of talents and virtues. Nothing is an adequate representation of a State that does not represent its ability as well as property. Men have a right to justice, and the fruits of industry, and the acquisitions of their parents, and the improvement of their offspring,--to instruction in life and consolation in death; but they have no right to what is unreasonable, and what is not for their benefit. The new professors are so taken up with rights that they have totally forgotten duties; and without opening one new avenue to the understanding, they have succeeded in stopping those that lead to the heart. Those who attempt by outrage and violence to deprive men of any advantage which they hold under the laws, proclaim war against society. When, I ask, will such truths become obsolete among enlightened people; and when will they become stale?"

But with this fierce protest against the madness and violence of the French Revolution, the wisdom of Burke and of the English nation ended.

The most experienced and sagacious man of his age, with all his wisdom and prescience, could see only one side of the awful political hurricane which he was so eloquent in denouncing. His pa.s.sions and his prejudices so warped his magnificent intellect, that he could not see the good which was mingled with the evil; that the doctrine of equality, if false when applied to the actual condition of men at their birth, is yet a state to which the inst.i.tutions of society tend, under the influence of education and religion; that the common brotherhood of man, mocked by the tyrants which feudalism produced, is yet to be drawn from the Sermon on the Mount; that the blood of a plebeian carpenter is as good as that of an aristocratic captain of artillery; that public burdens which bear heavily on the poor should also be shared equally by the rich; that all laws should be abolished which inst.i.tute unequal privileges; that taxes should be paid by n.o.bles as well as by peasants; that every man should be unfettered in the choice of his calling and profession; that there should be unbounded toleration of religious opinions; that no one should be arbitrarily arrested and confined without trial and proof of crime; that men and women, with due regard to the rights of others, should be permitted to marry whomsoever they please; that, in fact, a total change in the spirit of government, so imperatively needed in France, was necessary. These were among the great ideas which the reformers advocated, but which they did not know how practically to secure on those principles of justice which they abstractly invoked,--ideas never afterwards lost sight of, in all the changes of government. And it is remarkable that the flagrant evils which the Revolution so ruthlessly swept away have never since been revived, and never can be revived any more than the oracles of Dodona or the bulls of Mediaeval Rome; amid the storms and the whirlwinds and the fearful convulsions and horrid anarchies and wicked pa.s.sions of a great catastrophe, the imperishable ideas of progress forced their way.

Nor could Burke foresee the ultimate results of the Revolution any more than he would admit the truths which were overshadowed by errors and crimes. Nor, inflamed with rage and scorn, was he wise in the remedies he proposed. Only G.o.d can overrule the wrath of man, and cause melodious birth-songs to succeed the agonies of dissolution. Burke saw the absurdity of sophistical theories and impractical equality,--liberty running into license, and license running into crime; he saw pretensions, quackeries, inexperience, folly, and cruelty, and he prophesied what their legitimate effect would be: but he did not see in the Revolution the pent-up indignation and despair of centuries, nor did he hear the voices of hungry and oppressed millions crying to heaven for vengeance. He did not recognize the chastening hand of G.o.d on tyrants and sensualists; he did not see the arm of retributive justice, more fearful than the daggers of Roman a.s.sa.s.sins, more stern than the overthrow of Persian hosts, more impressive than the handwriting on the wall of Belshazzar's palace; nor could he see how creation would succeed destruction amid the burnings of that vast funeral pyre. He foresaw, perhaps, that anarchy would be followed by military despotism; but he never antic.i.p.ated a Napoleon Bonaparte, or the military greatness of a nation so recently ground down by Jacobin orators and sentimental executioners. He never dreamed that out of the depths and from the clouds and amid the conflagration there would come a deliverance, at least for a time, in the person of a detested conqueror; who would restore law, develop industry, secure order, and infuse enthusiasm into a country so nearly ruined, and make that country glorious beyond precedent, until his mad pa.s.sion for unlimited dominion should arouse insulted nations to form a coalition which even he should not be powerful enough to resist, gradually hemming him round in a king-hunt, until they should at last confine him on a rock in the ocean, to meditate and to die.

Where Burke and the nation he aroused by his eloquence failed in wisdom, was in opposing this revolutionary storm with bayonets. Had he and the leaders of his day confined themselves to rhetoric and arguments, if ever so exaggerated and irritating; had they allowed the French people to develop their revolution in their own way, as they had the right to do,--then the most dreadful war of modern times, which lasted twenty years, would have been confined within smaller limits. Napoleon would have had no excuse for aggressive warfare; Pitt would not have died of a broken heart; large standing armies, the curse of Europe, would not have been deemed so necessary; the ancient limits of France might have been maintained; and a policy of development might have been inaugurated, rather than a policy which led to future wars and national humiliation.

The gigantic struggles of Napoleon began when France was attacked by foreign nations, fighting for their royalties and feudalities, and aiming to suppress a domestic revolution which was none of their concern, and which they imperfectly understood.

But at this point we must stop, for I tread on ground where only speculation presumes to stand. The time has not come to solve such a mighty problem as the French Revolution, or even the career of Napoleon Bonaparte. We can p.r.o.nounce on the logical effects of right and wrong,--that violence leads to anarchy, and anarchy to ruin; but we cannot tell what would have been the destiny of France if the Revolution had not produced Napoleon, nor what would have been the destiny of England if Napoleon had not been circ.u.mvented by the powers of Europe.

On such questions we are children; the solution of them is hidden by the screens of destiny; we can only speculate. And since we short-sighted mortals cannot tell what will be the ultimate effect of the great agitations of society, whether begun in n.o.ble aspirations or in depraved pa.s.sions, it is enough for us to settle down, with firm convictions, on what we can see,--that crimes, under whatever name they go, are eternally to be reprobated, whatever may be the course they are made to take by Him who rules the universe. It would be difficult to single out any memorable war in this world's history which has not been ultimately overruled for the good of the world, whatever its cause or character,--like the Crusades, the most unfortunate in their immediate effects of all the great wars which nations have madly waged. But this only proves that G.o.d is stronger than devils, and that he overrules the wrath of man. "It must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh." There is only one standard by which to judge the actions of men; there is only one rule whereby to guide nations or individuals,--and that is, to do right; to act on the principles of immutable justice.

Now, whatever were the defects in the character or philosophy of Burke, it cannot be denied that this was the law which he attempted to obey, the rule which he taught to his generation. In this light, his life and labors command our admiration, because he _did_ uphold the right and condemn the wrong, and was sufficiently clear-headed to see the sophistries which concealed the right and upheld the wrong. That was his peculiar excellence. How loftily his majestic name towers above the other statesmen of his troubled age! Certainly no equal to him, in England, has since appeared, in those things which give permanent fame.

The man who has most nearly approached him is Gladstone. If the character of our own Webster had been as reproachless as his intellect was luminous and comprehensive, he might be named in the same category of ill.u.s.trious men. Like the odor of sanct.i.ty, which was once supposed to emanate from a Catholic saint, the halo of Burke's imperishable glory is shed around every consecrated retreat of that land which thus far has been the bulwark of European liberty. The English nation will not let him die; he cannot die in the hearts and memories of man any more than can Socrates or Washington. No nation will be long ungrateful for eminent public services, even if he who rendered them was stained by grave defects; for it is services which make men immortal. Much more will posterity reverence those benefactors whose private lives were in harmony with their principles,--the Hales, the L'Hopitals, the Hampdens of the world. To this cla.s.s Burke undeniably belonged. All writers agree as to his purity of morals, his generous charities, his high social qualities, his genial nature, his love of simple pleasures, his deep affections, his reverence, his Christian life. He was a man of sorrows, it is true, like most profound and contemplative natures, whose labors are not fully appreciated,--like Cicero, Dante, and Michael Angelo. He was doomed, too, like Galileo, to severe domestic misfortunes. He was greatly afflicted by the death of his only son, in whom his pride and hopes were bound up. "I am like one of those old oaks which the late hurricane has scattered about me," said he. "I am torn up by the roots; I lie prostrate on the earth." And when care and disease hastened his departure from a world he adorned, his body was followed to the grave by the most ill.u.s.trious of the great men of the land, and the whole nation mourned as for a brother or a friend.

But it is for his writings and published speeches that he leaves the most enduring fame; and what is most valuable in his writings is his elucidation of fundamental principles in morals and philosophy. And here was his power,--not his originality, for which he was distinguished in an eminent degree; not learning, which amazed his auditors; not sarcasm, of which he was a master; not wit, with which he brought down the house; not pa.s.sion, which overwhelmed even such a man as Hastings; not fluency, with every word in the language at his command; not criticism, so searching that no sophistry could escape him; not philosophy, musical as Apollo's lyre,--but _insight_ into great principles, the moral force of truth clearly stated and fearlessly defended. This elevated him to a sphere which words and gestures, and the rich music and magnetism of voice and action can never reach, since it touched the heart and the reason and the conscience alike, and produced convictions that nothing can stifle. There were more famous and able men than he, in some respects, in Parliament at the time. Fox surpa.s.sed him in debate, Pitt in ready replies and adaptation to the genius of the house, Sheridan in wit, Townsend in parliamentary skill, Mansfield in legal ac.u.men; but no one of these great men was so forcible as Burke in the statement of truths which future statesmen will value. And as he unfolded and applied the imperishable principles of right and wrong, he seemed like an ancient sage bringing down to earth the fire of the divinities he invoked and in which he believed, not to chastise and humiliate, but to guide and inspire.

In recapitulating the services by which Edmund Burke will ultimately be judged, I would say that he had a hand in almost every movement for which his generation is applauded. He gave an impulse to almost every political discussion which afterwards resulted in beneficent reform.

Some call him a croaker, without sympathy for the ideas on which modern progress is based; but he was really one of the great reformers of his day. He lifted up his voice against the slave-trade; he encouraged and lauded the labors of Howard; he supported the just claims of the Catholics; he attempted, though a churchman, to remove the restrictions to which dissenters were subjected; he opposed the cruel laws against insolvent debtors; he sought to soften the asperities of the Penal Code; he labored to abolish the custom of enlisting soldiers for life; he attempted to subvert the dangerous powers exercised by judges in criminal prosecutions for libel; he sought financial reform in various departments of the State; he would have abolished many useless offices in the government; he fearlessly exposed the wrongs of the East India Company; he tried to bring to justice the greatest political criminal of the day; he took the right side of American difficulties, and advocated a policy which would have secured for half a century longer the allegiance of the American colonies, and prevented the division of the British empire; he advocated measures which saved England, possibly, from French subjugation; he threw the rays of his genius over all political discussions; and he left treatises which from his day to ours have proved a mine of political and moral wisdom, for all whose aim or business it has been to study the principles of law or government.

These, truly, were services for which any country should be grateful, and which should justly place Edmund Burke on the list of great benefactors. These const.i.tute a legacy of which all nations should be proud.

AUTHORITIES.

Works and Correspondence of Edmund Burke; Life and Times of Edmund Burke, by Macknight (the ablest and fullest yet written); An Historical Study, by Morley (very able); Lives of Burke by Croly, Prior, and Bisset; Grenville Papers; Parliamentary History; the Encyclopaedia Britannica has a full article on Burke; Ma.s.sey's History of England; Chatham's Correspondence; Moore's Life of Sheridan; also the Lives of Pitt and Fox; Lord Brougham's Sketch of Burke; C.W. Dilke's Papers of a Critic; Boswell's Life of Johnson. The most brilliant of Burke's writings, "Reflections on the French Revolution," should be read by everybody.

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.

A.D. 1769-1821.

THE FRENCH EMPIRE.

It is difficult to say anything new about Napoleon Bonaparte, either in reference to his genius, his character, or his deeds.

His genius is universally admitted, both as a general and an administrator. No general so great has appeared in our modern times. He ranks with Alexander and Caesar in ancient times, and he is superior to Gustavus Adolphus, Turenne, Conde, Marlborough, Frederic II., Wellington, or any of the warriors who have figured in the great wars of Europe, from Charlemagne to the battle of Waterloo. His military career was so brilliant that it dazzled contemporaries. Without the advantages of birth or early patronage, he rose to the highest pinnacle of human glory. His victories were prodigious and unexampled; and it took all Europe to resist him. He aimed at nothing less than universal sovereignty; and had he not, when intoxicated with his conquests, attempted impossibilities, his power would have been practically unlimited in France. He had all the qualities for success in war,--insight, fertility of resource, rapidity of movement, power of combination, coolness, intrepidity, audacity, boldness tempered by calculation, will, energy which was never relaxed, powers of endurance, and all the qualities which call out enthusiasm and attach soldiers and followers to personal interests. His victorious career was unchecked until all the nations of Europe, in fear and wrath, combined against him. He was a military prodigy, equally great in tactics and strategy,--a master of all the improvements which had been made in the art of war, from Epaminondas to Frederic II.

His genius for civil administration was equally remarkable, and is universally admitted. Even Metternich, who detested him, admits that "he was as great as a statesman as he was as a warrior, and as great as an administrator as he was as a statesman." He brought order out of confusion, developed the industry of his country, restored the finances, appropriated and rewarded all eminent talents, made the whole machinery of government subservient to his aims, and even seemed to animate it by his individual will. He ruled France as by the power of destiny. The genius of Richelieu, of Mazarin, and of Colbert pale before his enlightened mind, which comprehended equally the principles of political science and the vast details of a complicated government. For executive ability I know no monarch who has surpa.s.sed him.

We do not a.s.sociate with military genius, as a general rule, marked intellectual qualities in other spheres. But Napoleon was an exception to this rule. He was tolerably well educated, and he possessed considerable critical powers in art, literature, and science. He penetrated through all shams and impostures. He was rarely deceived as to men or women. He could be eloquent and interesting in conversation.

Some of his expressions pierced like lightning, and were exceedingly effective. His despatches were laconic and clear. He knew something about everybody of note, and if he had always been in a private station his intellectual force would have attracted attention in almost any vocation he might have selected. His natural vivacity, wit, and intensity would have secured friends and admirers in any sphere.

Nor are the judgments of mankind less unanimous in reference to his character than his intellect and genius. He stands out in history in a marked manner with two sides,--great and little, good and bad. None can deny him many good qualities. His industry was marvellous; he was temperate in eating and drinking; he wasted no precious time; he rewarded his friends, to whom he was true; he did not persecute his enemies unless they stood in his way, and unless he had a strong personal dislike for them, as he had for Madame de Stael; he could be magnanimous at times; he was indulgent to his family, and allowed his wife to buy as many India shawls and diamonds as she pleased; he was never parsimonious in his gifts, although personally inclined to economy; he generally ruled by the laws he had accepted or enacted; he despised formalities and etiquette; he sought knowledge from every quarter; he encouraged merit in all departments; he was not ruled by women, like most of the kings of France; he was not enslaved by prejudices, and was lenient when he could afford to be; and in the earlier part of his career he was doubtless patriotic in his devotion to the interests of his country.

Moreover, many of his faults were the result of circ.u.mstances, and of the unprecedented prosperity which he enjoyed. Pride, egotism, tyranny, and ostentation were to be expected of a man whose will was law. Nearly all men would have exhibited these traits, had they been seated on such a throne as his; and almost any man's temper would have occasionally given way under such burdens as he a.s.sumed, such hostilities as he encountered, and such treasons as he detected. Surrounded by spies and secret enemies, he was obliged to be reserved. With a world at his feet, it was natural that he should be arbitrary and impatient of contradiction. There have been successful railway magnates as imperious as he, and bank presidents as supercilious, and clerical dignitaries as haughty, in their smaller spheres. Pride, consciousness, and egotism are the natural result of power and flattery in all conditions of life; and when a single man controls the destinies of nations, he is an exception to the infirmities of human nature if he does not seek to bend everything before his haughty will. There have been many Richelieus, there has been but one Marcus Aurelius; many Hildebrands, only one Alfred; many Ahabs, only one David, one St. Louis, one Washington.

But with all due allowance for the force of circ.u.mstances in the development of character, and for those imperial surroundings which blind the arbiters of nations, there were yet natural traits of character in Napoleon which call out the severest reprobation, and which make him an object of indignation and intense dislike among true-minded students of history. His egotism was almost superhuman, his selfishness was most unscrupulous, his ambition absolutely boundless. He claimed a monopoly in perfidy and lying; he had no idea of moral responsibility; he had no sympathy with misfortune, no conscience, no fear of G.o.d. He was cold, hard, ironical, and scornful. He was insolent in his treatment of women, brusque in manners, severe on all who thwarted or opposed him.

He committed great crimes in his ascent to supreme dominion, and mocked the reason, the conscience, and the rights of mankind. He broke the most solemn treaties; he was faithless to his cause; he centred in himself the interests he was intrusted to guard; he recklessly insulted all the governments of Europe; he put himself above Providence; he disgracefully elevated his brothers; he sought to aggrandize himself at any cost, and ruthlessly grasped the sceptre of universal dominion as if he were an irresistible destiny whom it was folly to oppose, In all this he aimed to be greater than conscience.

Such was the character of a despot who arose upon the ruins of the old monarchy,--the product of a revolution, whose ideas he proposed to defend. Most historians, and all moralists, are on the whole unanimous in this verdict. As for his deeds, they rise up before our minds, compelling admiration and awe. He was the incarnation of force; he performed the most brilliant exploits of our modern times.

The question then arises, whether his marvellous gifts and transcendent opportunities were directed to the good of his country and the cause of civilization. In other words, did he render great services to France, which make us forget his faults? How will he be judged by enlightened posterity? May he be ranked among great benefactors, like Constantine.

Charlemagne, Theodosius, Peter the Great, and Oliver Cromwell? It is the privilege of great sovereigns to be judged for their services rather than by their defects.

Let us summon, then, this great Emperor before the bar of universal reason. Let him make his own defence. Let us first hear what he has to say for himself, for he is the most distinguished culprit of modern times, and it may yet take three generations to place him in his true historical niche; and more, his fame, though immortal, may forever be in doubt, like that of Julius Caesar, whom we still discuss.

This great man may quietly yet haughtily say to us who seek to take his measure: "It is for my services to France that I claim to be judged. I do not claim perfection. I admit I made grand mistakes; I even committed acts which the world stigmatizes as crimes. I seized powers which did not belong to me; I overthrew const.i.tutions; I made myself supreme; I mocked the old powers of earth; I repudiated the ideas in the name of which I climbed to a throne; I was harsh, insolent, and tyrannical; I divorced the wife who was the maker of my fortune; I caused the a.s.sa.s.sination of the Duc d'Enghien; I invaded Spain and Russia; and I wafted the names of my conquering generals to the ends of the earth in imprecations and curses. These were my mistakes,--crimes, if you please to call them; but it is not for these you must judge me. Did I not come to the rescue of law and order when France was torn with anarchies? Did I not deliver the const.i.tuted authorities from the mob? Did I not rescue France from foreign enemies when they sought to repress the Revolution and restore the Bourbons? Was I not the avenger of twenty-five hungry millions on those old tyrants who would have destroyed their nationality? Did I not break up those combinations which would have perpetuated the enslavement of Europe? Did I not seek to plant liberty in Italy and destroy the despotisms of German princes? Did I not give unity to great States and enlarge their civilization? Did I not rebuke and punish Austria, Prussia, Russia, and England for interfering with our Revolution and combining against the rights of a republic? Did I not elevate France, and give scope to its enterprise, and develop its resources, and inspire its citizens with an unknown enthusiasm, and make the country glorious, so that even my enemies came to my court to wonder and applaud? And did I not leave such an immortal prestige, even when I was disarmed and overthrown by the armies of combined Christendom, that my ill.u.s.trious name, indelibly engraved in the hearts of my countrymen, was enough to seat my nephew on the throne from which I was torn, and give to his reign a glory scarcely inferior to my own? These were my services to France,--the return of centralized power amid anarchies and discontents and laws which successive revolutions have not destroyed, but which shall blaze in wisdom through successive generations."

Now, how far can these claims be substantiated? Was Napoleon, although a usurper, like Cromwell and Caesar, also a benefactor like them; and did his fabric of imperialism prove a blessing to civilization? What, in reality, were his services? Do they offset his aspirations and crimes?

Is he worthy of the praises of mankind? Great deeds he performed, but did they ultimately tend to the welfare of France and of Europe?

It was a great service which Napoleon rendered to France, in the beginning of his career, at the siege of Toulon, when he was a lieutenant of artillery. He disobeyed, indeed, the orders of his superiors, but won success by the skill with which he planted his cannon, showing remarkable genius. This service to the Republic was not forgotten, although he remained long unemployed, living obscurely at Paris with straitened resources. By some means he caught the ear of Barras, the most able of the Directory, and was intrusted with the defence of the Convention in a great crisis, and saved it by his "whiff of grapeshot," as Carlyle calls his dispersion of the mob in the streets of Paris, from the steps of St. Roch. This, doubtless, was a service to the cause of law and order, since he acted under orders, and discharged his duty, like an obedient servant of the const.i.tuted authorities, without reluctance, and with great skill,--perhaps the only man of France, at that time, who could have done that important work so well, and with so little bloodshed. Had the sections prevailed,--and it was feared that they would,--the anarchy of the worst days of the Revolution would have resulted. But this decisive action of the young officer, intrusted with a great command, put an end for forty years to the a.s.sumption of unlawful weapons by the mob. There was no future insurrection of the people against government till Louis Philippe was placed upon the throne in 1830. Napoleon here vindicated not only the cause of law and order, but the Revolution itself; for in spite of its excesses and crimes, it had abolished feudalism, unequal privileges, the reign of priests and n.o.bles, and a worn-out monarchy; it had proclaimed a const.i.tutional government, in the face of all the European despotisms; it had a.s.serted that self-government was a possibility, even in France; it had inspired the whole nation with enthusiasm, and proclaimed the Republic when hostile armies were ready to march upon the soil of France and restore the Bourbons. All the impulses of the Revolution were generous; all its struggles were heroic, although it was sullied with crimes, and was marked by inexperience and follies. The nation rallied around a great idea,--an idea which is imperishable, and destined to unbounded triumph. To this idea of liberty Napoleon was not then unfaithful, although some writers a.s.sert that he was ready to draw his sword in any cause which promised him promotion.

The National Convention, which he saved by military genius and supreme devotion to it, had immortalized itself by inspiring France with heroism; and after a struggle of three years with united Christendom, jealous of liberty, dissolved itself, and transferred the government to a Directory.

This Directory, in reward of the services which Napoleon had rendered, and in admiration of his genius, bestowed upon him the command of the army of Italy. Probably Josephine, whom he then married, had sufficient influence with Barras to secure the appointment. It was not popular with the generals, of course, to have a young man of twenty-six, without military prestige, put over their heads. But results soon justified the discernment of Barras.

At the head of only forty thousand men, poorly clad and equipped and imperfectly fed, Napoleon in four weeks defeated the Sardinians, and in less than two years, in eighteen pitched battles, he destroyed the Austrian armies which were about to invade France. That glorious campaign of 1796 is memorable for the conquest of Piedmont and Lombardy, and the establishment of French supremacy in Italy. Napoleon's career on the banks of the Po was so brilliant, unexpected, and startling, that his nation was filled with equal astonishment and admiration. Instead of predicted ruin, there was unexampled victory. The enthusiasm of the French was unbounded. Had Napoleon died at the Bridge of Lodi, he would have pa.s.sed down in history as a Judas Maccabaeus. In this campaign he won the hearts of his soldiers, and secured the admiration of his generals. There was something new in his system of fighting, not seen at least in modern times,--a rapid ma.s.sing of his troops, and a still more rapid concentration of them upon the weak points of the enemy's lines, coming down on them like a mountain torrent, and sweeping everything before him, in defiance of all rules and precedents. A new master in the art of war, greater than Conde, or Turenne, or Marlborough, or Frederic II., had suddenly arisen, with amazing audacity and faith in himself.

The deliverance of republican France from four great Austrian armies was a grand service; and Napoleon merited its grat.i.tude and all the honors he received. He had violated no trust thus far. He was still Citizen Bonaparte, professing liberal principles, and fighting under the flag of liberty, to make the Republic respected, independent, and powerful. He robbed Italy, it is true, of some of her valuable pictures, and exacted heavy contributions; but this is war. He was still the faithful servant of France.

On his return to Paris as a conqueror, the people of course were enthusiastic in their praises, and the Government was jealous. It had lost the confidence of the nation. All eyes were turned upon the fortunate soldier who had shown so much ability, and who had given glory to the country. He may not yet have meditated usurpation, but he certainly had dreams of power. He was bent on rising to a greater height; but he could do nothing at present, nor did he feel safe in Paris amid so much envy, although he lived simply and shunned popular idolatry. But his restless nature craved activity; so he sought and obtained an army for the invasion of Egypt. He was inspired with a pa.s.sion of conquest, and the Directory was glad to get rid of so formidable a rival.