The Modern Regime Volume I Part 6

"There are men,"[1257] he said, "who I have made independent, but I know well where to find them and keep them from being ungrateful."

In effect, if he has endowed them magnificently it is with domains a.s.signed to them in conquered countries, which insures their fortune being his fortune. Besides, in order that they may not enjoy any pecuniary stability, he expressly encourages them and all his grand dignitaries to make extravagant outlays; thus, through their financial embarra.s.sments be holds them in a leash. "We have seen most of his marshals, constantly pressed by their creditors, come to him for a.s.sistance, which he has given as he fancied, or as he found it for his interest to attach some one to him."[1258]

Thus, beyond the universal ascendancy which his power and genius have conferred on him, he craves a personal, supplementary, and irresistible hold on everybody. Consequently,[1259] "he carefully cultivates all the bad pa.s.sions.... he is glad to find the bad side in a man, so as to get him in his power"; the thirst for money in Savary, the Jacobin defects of Fouche, the vanity and sensuality of Cambaceres, the careless cynicism and "the easy immorality" of Talleyrand, the "dry bluntness"

of Duroc, the courtier-like insipidity of Maret, "the silliness" of Berthier; he brings this out, diverts himself with it, and profits by it. "Where he sees no vice, he encourages weaknesses, and, in default of anything better, he provokes fear, so that he may be ever and continually the strongest.. ..He dreads ties of affection, and strives to alienate people from each other.... He sells his favors only by arousing anxiety; he thinks that the best way to attach individuals to him is to compromise them, and often, even, to ruin them in public opinion."--"If Caulaincourt is compromised," said he, after the murder of the Duc d'Enghien, "it is no great matter, he will serve me all the better."

Once that the creature is in his clutches, let him not imagine that he can escape or withhold anything of his own accord; all that he has belongs to him. Zeal and success in the performance of duty, punctual obedience within limits previously designated, is not enough; behind the functionary he claims the man. "All that may well be," he replies, to whatever may be said in praise of him,[1260] "but he does not belong to me as I would like." It is devotion which he exacts, and, by devotion, he means the irrevocable and complete surrender "of the entire person, in all his sentiments and opinions." According to him, writes a witness, "one must abandon every old habit, even the most trifling, and be governed by one thought alone, that of his will and interests."[1261]

For greater security, his servitors ought to extinguish in themselves the critical sense. "What he fears the most is that, close to him or far off, the faculty of judging should be applied or even preserved."

"His idea is a marble groove," out of which no mind should diverge.[1262] Especially as no two minds could think of diverging at the same time, and on the same side, their concurrence, even when pa.s.sive, their common understanding, even if kept to themselves, their whispers, almost inaudible, const.i.tute a league, a faction, and, if they are functionaries, "a conspiracy." On his return from Spain he declares, with a terrible explosion of wrath and threats,[1263] "that the ministers and high dignitaries whom he has created must stop expressing their opinions and thoughts freely, that they cannot be otherwise than his organs, that treason has already begun when they begin to doubt, and that it is under full headway when, from doubt, they proceed to dissent." If, against his constant encroachments, they strive to preserve a last refuge, if they refuse to abandon their conscience to him, their faith as Catholics or their honor as honest men, he is surprised and gets irritated. In reply to the Bishop of Ghent, who, in the most respectful manner, excuses himself for not taking a second oath that is against his conscience, he rudely turns his back, and says, "Very well, sir, your conscience is a blockhead!"[1264] Portalis, director of the publishing office,[1265] having received a papal brief from his cousin, the Abbe d'Astros, respected a confidential communication; he simply recommended his cousin to keep this doc.u.ment secret, and declared that, if it were made public, he would prohibit its circulation; by way of extra precaution he notified the prefect of police. But he did not specially denounce his cousin, have the man arrested and the doc.u.ment seized. On the strength of this, the Emperor, in full council of state, apostrophizes him to his face, and, "with one of those looks which go straight through one,"[1266] declares that he has committed "the vilest of perfidies"; he bestows on him for half an hour a hailstorm of reproaches and insults, and then orders him out of the room as if a lackey who had been guilty of a theft. Whether he keeps within his function or not, the functionary must be content to do whatever is demanded of him, and readily antic.i.p.ate every commission. If his scruples arrest him, if he alleges personal obligations, if he had rather not fail in delicacy, or even in common loyalty, he incurs the risk of offending or losing the favor of the master, which is the case with M. de Remusat,[1267] who is unwilling to become his spy, reporter, and denunciator for the Faubourg Saint-Germain, who does not offer, at Vienna, to pump out of Madame d'Andre the address of her husband so that M. d'Andre may be taken and immediately shot. Savary, who was the negotiator for his being given up, kept constantly telling M. de Remusat, "You are going against your interest--I must say that I do not comprehend you!" And yet Savary, himself minister of the police, executor of most important services, head manager of the murder of the Duc d'Enghien and of the ambuscade at Bayonne, counterfeiter of Austrian bank-notes for the campaign of 1809 and of Russian banknotes for that of 1812,[1268] Savary ends in getting weary; he is charged with too many dirty jobs; however hardened his conscience it has a tender spot; he discovers at last that he has scruples. It is with great repugnance that, in February, 1814, he executes the order to have a small infernal machine prepared, moving by clock-work, so as to blow up the Bourbons on their return into France.[1269] "Ah," said he, giving himself a blow on the forehead, "it must be admitted that the Emperor is sometimes hard to serve!"

If he exacts so much from the human creature, it is because, in playing the game he has to play, he must absorb everything; in the situation in which he has placed himself, caution is unnecessary. "Is a statesman,"

said he, "made to have feeling? Is he not wholly an eccentric personage, always alone by himself, he on one side and the world on the other?"[1270]

In this duel without truce or mercy, people interest him only whilst they are useful to him; their value depends on what he can make out of them; his sole business is to squeeze them, to extract to the last drop whatever is available in them.

"I find very little satisfaction in useless sentiments," said he again,[1271] "and Berthier is so mediocre that I do not know why I waste my time on him. And yet when I am not set against him, I am not sure that I do not like him."

He goes no further. According to him, this indifference is necessary in a statesman. The gla.s.s he looks through is that of his own policy;[1272] he must take care that it does not magnify or diminish objects.--Therefore, outside of explosions of nervous sensibility, "he has no consideration for men other than that of a foreman for his workmen,"[1273] or, more precisely, for his tools; once the tool is worn out, little does he care whether it rusts away in a corner or is cast aside on a heap of sc.r.a.p-iron. "Portalis, Minister of Justice,[1274]

enters his room one day with a downcast look and his eyes filled with tears. 'What's the matter with you, Portalis?' inquired Napoleon, 'are you ill? 'No, sire, but very wretched. The poor Archbishop of Tours, my old schoolmate...' 'Eh, well, what has happened to him?' 'Alas, sire, he has just died.' 'What do I care? he was no longer good for anything.'"

Owning and making the most of men and of things, of bodies and of souls, using and abusing them at discretion, even to exhaustion, without being responsible to any one, he reaches that point after a few years where he can say as glibly and more despotically than Louis XIV. himself,

"My armies, my fleets, my cardinals, my councils, my senate, my populations, my empire."[1275]

Addressing army corps about to rush into battle:

"Soldiers, I need your lives, and you owe them to me."

He says to General Dorsenne and to the grenadiers of the guard:[1276]

"I hear that you complain that you want to return to Paris, to your mistresses. Undeceive yourselves. I shall keep you under arms until you are eighty. You were born to the bivouac, and you shall die there."

How he treats his brothers and relations who have become kings; how he reins them in; how he applies the spur and the whip and makes them trot and jump fences and ditches, may be found in his correspondence; every stray impulse to take the lead, even when justified by an unforeseen urgency and with the most evident good intention, is suppressed as a deviation, is arrested with a brusque roughness which strains the loins and weakens the knees of the delinquent. The amiable Prince Eugene, so obedient and so loyal,[1277] is thus warned:

"If you want orders or advice from His Majesty in the alteration of the ceiling of your room you should wait till you get them; were Milan burning and you asked orders for putting out the fire, you should let Milan burn until you got them... His Majesty is displeased, and very much displeased, with you; you must never attempt to do his work. Never does he like this, and he will never forgive it."

This enables us to judge of his tone with subalterns. The French battalions are refused admission into certain places in Holland:[1278]

"Announce to the King of Holland, that if his ministers have acted on their own responsibility, I will have them arrested and all their heads cut off."

He says to M. de Segur, member of the Academy commission which had just approved M. de Chateaubriand's discourse:[1279]

"You, and M. de Fontaines, as state councillor and grand master, I ought to put in Vincennes.... Tell the second cla.s.s of the Inst.i.tute that I will have no political subjects treated at its meetings.....If it disobeys, I will break it up like a bad club.

Even when not angry or scolding,[1280] when the claws are drawn in, one feels the clutch. He says to Beugnot, whom he has just berated, scandalously and unjustly,--conscious of having done him injustice and with a view to produce an effect on the bystanders,--

"Well, you great imbecile, you have got back your brains?"

On this, Beugnot, tall as a drum-major, bows very low, while the smaller man, raising his hand, seizes him by the ear, "a heady mark of favor,"

says Beugnot, a sign of familiarity and of returning good humor. And better yet, the master deigns to lecture Beugnot on his personal tastes, on his regrets, on his wish to return to France: What would he like? To be his minister in Paris? "Judging by what he saw of me the other day I should not be there very long; I might die of worry before the end of the month." He has already killed Portalis, Cretet, and almost Treilhard, even though he had led a hard life: he could no longer urinate, nor the others either. The same thing would have happened to Beignot, if not worse....

"Stay here.... after which you will be old, or rather we all shall be old, and I will send you to the Senate to drivel at your ease."

Evidently,[1281] the nearer one is to his person the more disagreeable life becomes.[1282] "Admirably served, promptly obeyed to the minute, he still delights in keeping everybody around him in terror concerning the details of all that goes on in his palace." Has any difficult task been accomplished? He expresses no thanks, never or scarcely ever praises, and, which happens but once, in the case of M. de Champagny, Minister of Foreign Affairs, who is praised for having finished the treaty of Vienna in one night, and with unexpected advantages;[1283] this time, the Emperor has thought aloud, is taken by surprise; "ordinarily, he manifests approbation only by his silence."--When M. de Remusat, prefect of the palace, has arranged "one of those magnificent fetes in which all the arts minister to his enjoyment," economically, correctly, with splendor and success, his wife never asks her husband[1284] if the Emperor is satisfied, but whether he has scolded more or less.

"His leading general principle, which he applies in every way, in great things as well as in small ones, is that a man's zeal depends upon his anxiety."

How insupportable the constraint he exercises, with what crushing weight his absolutism bears down on the most tried devotion and on the most pliable characters, with what excess he tramples on and wounds the best dispositions, up to what point he represses and stifles the respiration of the human being, he knows as well as anybody. He was heard to say,

"The lucky man is he who hides away from me in the depths of some province."

And, another day, having asked M. de Segur what people would say of him after his death, the latter enlarged on the regrets which would be universally expressed. "Not at all," replied the Emperor; and then, drawing in his breath in a significant manner indicative of universal relief, he replied,

"They'll say, 'Whew!'"[1285]

IV. His Bad Manners.

His bearings in Society.--His deportment toward Women.--His disdain of Politeness.

There are very few monarchs, even absolute, who persistently, and from morning to night, maintain a despotic att.i.tude. Generally, and especially in France, the sovereign makes two divisions of his time, one for business and the other for social duties, and, in the latter case, while always head of the State, he is also head of his house: for he welcomes visitors, entertains his guests, and, that his guests may not be robots, he tries to put them at their ease.--That was the case with Louis XIV.[1286]--polite to everybody, always affable with men, and sometimes gracious, always courteous with women, and some times gallant, carefully avoiding brusqueness, ostentation, and sarcasms, never allowing himself to use an offensive word, never making people feel their inferiority and dependence, but, on the contrary, encouraging them to express opinions, and even to converse, tolerating in conversation a semblance of equality, smiling at a repartee, playfully telling a story--such was his drawing-room const.i.tution. The drawing-room as well as every human society needs one, and a liberal one; otherwise life dies out. Accordingly, the observance of this const.i.tution in by-gone society is known by the phrase savoir-vivre, and, more rigidly than anybody else, Louis XIV. submitted himself to this code of proprieties.

Traditionally, and through education, he had consideration for others, at least for the people around him; his courtiers becoming his guests without ceasing to be his subjects.

There is nothing of this sort with Napoleon. He preserves nothing of the etiquette he borrows from the old court but its rigid discipline and its pompous parade. "The ceremonial system," says an eyewitness, "was carried out as if it had been regulated by the tap of a drum; everything was done, in a certain sense, 'double-quick.'[1287]... This air of precipitation, this constant anxiety which it inspires," puts an end to all comfort, all ease, all entertainment, all agreeable intercourse; there is no common bond but that of command and obedience. "The few individuals he singles out, Savary, Duroc, Maret, keep silent and simply transmit orders.... We did not appear to them, in doing what we were ordered to do, and we did not appear to ourselves, other than veritable machines, all resembling, or but little short of it, the elegant gilded arm-chairs with which the palaces of Saint-Cloud and the Tuileries had just been embellished."

For a machine to work well it is important that the machinist should overhaul it frequently, which this one never fails to do, especially after a long absence. Whilst he is on his way from Tilsit, "everybody anxiously examines his conscience to ascertain what he has done that this rigid master will find fault with on his return. Whether spouse, family, or grand dignitary, each is more or less disturbed; while the Empress, who knows him better than any one, naively says, 'As the Emperor is so happy it is certain that he will do a deal of scolding!'"[1288] Actually, he has scarcely arrived when he gives a rude and vigorous wrench of the bolt; and then, "satisfied at having excited terror all around, he appears to have forgotten what has pa.s.sed and resumes the usual tenor of his life." "Through calculation as well as from taste,[1289] he never ceases to be a monarch"; hence, "a mute, frigid court.... more dismal than dignified; every face wears an expression of uneasiness... a silence both dull and constrained."

At Fontainebleau, "amidst splendors and pleasures," there is no real enjoyment nor anything agreeable, not even for himself. "I pity you," said M. de Talleyrand to M. de Remusat, "you have to amuse the unamusable." At the theatre he is abstracted or yawns. Applause is prohibited; the court, sitting out "the file of eternal tragedies, is mortally bored.... the young ladies fall asleep, people leave the theatre, gloomy and discontented."--There is the same constraint in the drawing-room. "He did not know how to appear at ease, and I believe that he never wanted anybody else to be so, afraid of the slightest approach to familiarity, and inspiring each with a fear of saying something offensive to his neighbor before witnesses.... During the quadrille, he moves around amongst the rows of ladies, addressing them with some trifling or disagreeable remark," and never does he accost them otherwise than "awkwardly and ill at his ease." At bottom, he distrusts them and is ill-disposed toward them.[1290] It is because "the power they have acquired in society seems to him an intolerable usurpation.--"Never did he utter to a woman a graceful or even a well-turned compliment, although the effort to find one was often apparent on his face and in the tone of his voice.... He talks to them only of their toilet, of which he declares himself a severe and minute judge, and on which he indulges in not very delicate jests; or again, on the number of their children, demanding of them in rude language whether they nurse them themselves; or again, lecturing them on their social relations."[1291] Hence, "there is not one who does not rejoice when he moves off."[1292] He would often amuse himself by putting them out of countenance, scandalizing and bantering them to their faces, driving them into a corner the same as a colonel worries his canteen women.

"Yes, ladies, you furnish the good people of the Faubourg Saint-Germain with something to talk about. It is said, Madame A..., that you are intimate with Monsieur B..., and you Madame C...., with Monsieur D." On any intrigue chancing to appear in the police reports, "he loses no time in informing the husband of what is going on."--He is no less indiscreet in relation to his own affairs;[1293] when it is over he divulges the fact and gives the name; furthermore, he informs Josephine in detail and will not listen to any reproach: "I have a right to answer all your objections with an eternal I!"

This term, indeed, answers to everything, and he explains it by adding: "I stand apart from other men. I accept n.o.body's conditions," nor any species of obligation, no code whatever, not even the common code of outward civility, which, diminishing or dissimulating primitive brutality, allows men to a.s.sociate together without clashing. He does not comprehend it, and he repudiates it. "I have little liking,"[1294]

he says, "for that vague, leveling word propriety (convenances), which you people fling out every chance you get. It is an invention of fools who want to pa.s.s for clever men; a kind of social muzzle which annoys the strong and is useful only to the mediocre... Ah, good taste! Another cla.s.sic expression which I do not accept." "It is your personal enemy"; says Talleyrand to him, one day, "if you could have shot it away with bullets, it would have disappeared long ago!"--It is because good taste is the highest attainment of civilization, the innermost vestment which drapes human nudity, which best fits the person, the last garment retained after the others have been cast off, and which delicate tissue continues to hamper Napoleon; he throws it off instinctively, because it interferes with his natural behavior, with the uncurbed, dominating, savage ways of the vanquisher who knocks down his adversary and treats him as he pleases.

V. His Policy.

His tone and bearing towards Sovereigns.--His Policy.--His means and ends.--After Sovereigns he sets populations against him.--Final opinion of Europe.

Such behavior render social intercourse impossible, especially among the independent and armed personages known as nations or States. This is why they are outlawed in politics and in diplomacy and every head of a State or representative of a country, carefully and on principle, abstains from them, at least with those on his own level. He is bound to treat these as his equals, humor them, and, accordingly, not to give way to the irritation of the moment or to personal feeling; in short, to exercise self-control and measure his words. To this is due the tone of manifestos, protocols, dispatches, and other public doc.u.ments the formal language of legations, so cold, dry, and elaborated, those expressions purposely attenuated and smoothed down, those long phrases apparently spun out mechanically and always after the same pattern, a sort of soft wadding or international buffer interposed between contestants to lessen the shocks of collision. The reciprocal irritations between States are already too great; there are ever too many unavoidable and regrettable encounters, too many causes of conflict, the consequences of which are too serious; it is unnecessary to add to the wounds of interest the wounds of imagination and of pride; and above all, it is unnecessary to amplify these without reason, at the risk of increasing the obstacles of to-day and the resentments of to-morrow.--With Napoleon it is just the opposite: his att.i.tude, even at peaceful interviews, remains aggressive and militant; purposely or in-voluntarily, he raises his hand and the blow is felt to be coming, while, in the meantime, he insults. In his correspondence with sovereigns, in his official proclamations, in his deliberations with amba.s.sadors, and even at public audiences,[1295] he provokes, threatens, and defies.[1296] He treats his adversary with a lofty air, insults him often to his face, and charges him with the most disgraceful imputations.[1297] He divulges the secrets of his private life, of his closet, and of his bed; he defames or calumniates his ministers, his court, and his wife;[1298] he purposely stabs him in the most sensitive part. He tells one that he is a dupe, a betrayed husband; another that he is an abettor of a.s.sa.s.sination; he a.s.sumes the air of a judge condemning a criminal, or the tone of a superior reprimanding an inferior, or, at best, that of a teacher taking a scholar to task. With a smile of pity, he points out mistakes, weak points, and incapacity, and shows him beforehand that he must be defeated. On receiving the envoy of the Emperor Alexander at Wilna,[1299] be says to him:

"Russia does not want this war; none of the European powers are in favor of it; England herself does not want it, for she foresees the harm it will do to Russia, and even, perhaps, the greatest... I know as well as yourself, and perhaps even better, how many troops you have. Your infantry in all amounts to 120,000 men and your cavalry to about 60,000 or 70,000; I have three times as many.... The Emperor Alexander is badly advised. How can he tolerate such vile people around him--an Armfeld, an intriguing, depraved, rascally fellow, a ruined debauchee, who is known only by his crimes and who is the enemy of Russia; a Stein, driven from his country like an outcast, a miscreant with a price on his head; a Bennigsen, who, it is said, has some military talent, of which I know nothing, but whose hands are steeped in blood?[12100].... Let him surround himself with the Russians and I will say nothing.... Have you no Russian gentlemen among you who are certainly more attached to him than these mercenaries? Does he imagine that they are fond of him personally? Let him put Armfeld in command in Finland and I have nothing to say; but to have him about his person, for shame!.... What a superb perspective opened out to the Emperor Alexander at Tilsit, and especially at Erfurt!.... He has spoilt the finest reign Russia ever saw.... How can he admit to his society such men as a Stein, an Armfeld, a Vinzingerode? Say to the Emperor Alexander, that as he gathers around him my personal enemies it means a desire to insult me personally, and, consequently, that I must do the same to him. I will drive all his Baden, Wurtemburg, and Weimar relations out of Germany. Let him provide a refuge for them in Russia!"

Note what he means by--personal insult[12101], how he intends to avenge himself by reprisals of the worst kind, to what excess he carries his interference, how he enters the cabinets of foreign sovereigns, forcibly entering and breaking, to drive out their councilors and control their meetings: like the Roman senate with an Antiochus or a Prusias, like an English Resident with the King of Oude or of Lah.o.r.e. With others as at home, he cannot help but act as a master. The aspiration for universal dominion is in his very nature; it may be modified, kept in check, but never can it be completely stifled."[12102]

It declares itself on the organization of the Consulate. It explains why the peace of Amiens could not last; apart from the diplomatic discussions and behind his alleged grievances, his character, his exactions, his avowed plans, and the use he intends making of his forces form the real and true causes of the rupture. In comprehensible sometimes even in explicit terms, he tells the English: Expel the Bourbons from your island and close the mouths of your journalists. If this is against your const.i.tution so much the worse for it, or so much the worse for you. "There are general principles of international law to which the (special) laws of states must give way."[12103] Change your fundamental laws. Suppress the freedom of the press and the right of asylum on your soil, the same as I have done. "I have a very poor opinion of a government which is not strong enough to interdict things objectionable to foreign governments."[12104] As to mine, my interference with my neighbors, my late acquisitions of territory, that does not concern you: "I suppose that you want to talk about Piedmont and Switzerland? These are trifles"[12105] "Europe recognizes that Holland, Italy, and Switzerland are at the disposition of France.[12106]