Thomas E. Watson

“ Cannons, drums, military bands, the tramp of men and war-horses, the glitter of endless lines of soldiers, the songs which rouse the passions and the memories, the shouts of dense702 crowds stirred by electrical emotions—all these mark this December day as the gorgeous funeral car bears Napoleon to his final rest. There is the white war-horse, not Marengo, but one like him; and upon the horse is the saddle and the bridle Napoleon had used. There are his old Marshals Moncey, and Soult, and Oudinot; there is Bertrand and Gourgaud and Las Casas, the faithful companions of his long exile. ”

“ It was such a man who would read every letter, every petition addressed to him, and find time to answer all. Never too proud or too busy to hear the cry of the humblest, to reward the merit of the obscurest, to redress the grievance of the weakest, he was the man to make the highest headed general in the army—Vandamme himself, for instance,—apologized to the obscure captain who had been wantonly insulted. Any private in the ranks—the drummer boy, the grenadier—was free to step out and speak to Napoleon, and was sure to be heard as patiently as Talleyrand or Murat or Cambacérès in the palace. ”

“ It was her dearest object to break down the Continental system, and Louis was aiding her to the best of his slight ability. Could Napoleon be otherwise than furious? Had Holland been won merely that England should be enriched? Had he set his brother on a throne merely to weaken his own empire, and to set an example of disloyalty to other allies? At a time when Prussia, Austria, and even Russia were under contract to enforce the Continental system, was it tolerable that his own brother, in all-important Holland, should be throwing his ports open to the common foe? ”

“ France had well-nigh forgotten him. A generation of Frenchmen who knew not the Bourbons had grown up; and the abuses of the Old Order were known to the younger generation only as an almost incredible story, told in the evenings by older people, as the family circled about the hearthstone. So completely had the Revolution swept away the foul wrongs of the Bourbon system, that the younger generation could never be made to understand why their fathers hated it with such bitterness. Reined in by the iron hand of Napoleon, the nobles and the clericals of the Empire seemed to be harmless enough. ”

“ At last he was almost forced into his carriage and driven back to Fontainebleau. Making his way to one of the humblest rooms, he fell upon the bed, exhausted, heart-broken.
You go to France to-day, and you see around you everywhere, Napoleon. You hear, on all sides, Napoleon. Ask a Frenchman about other historic names, and he will reply with extravagant politeness. Leave him to speak for himself, and his raptures run to Napoleon. He is the Man; he is the ideal soldier, statesman, financier, developer, the creator of institutions, organizer of society, the inspiration of patriotism. ”

“ Napoleon himself took the oath, distributed the eagles to his enthusiastic soldiers, and in a far-reaching, sharply pitched voice delivered one of his masterly addresses.
“Emperor, consul, soldier, I owe everything to the people. In prosperity, in adversity, on the field of battle, in the council room, on the throne, in exile, France has been the soul and constant object of my thought and my efforts.” ”

“ These nobles of old France, who had fled from the dangers of the Revolution, and who had been restored by Napoleon, or by foreign bayonets, were as proud, as intolerant, as though they had accomplished the Bourbon restoration by themselves. They regarded the nobles of Napoleon’s creation with unconcealed contempt. The wives of men whose fathers had been ennobled for shady services to shadier Bourbon kings, looked with lofty scorn upon the ladies of such men as Marshal Ney, whom Napoleon had ennobled for service as gallant as any soldier ever rendered to France. ”

“ Schérer, discouraged, wished to resign. It was to this ill-fed, scantily clothed, unpaid, and discouraged army that Napoleon was sent; and it was this army which he thrilled with a trumpet-like proclamation.
“Soldiers! You are naked, badly fed. The government owes you much; it can give you nothing. Your endurance, and the courage you have shown, do you credit, but gain you no advantage, get you no glory. I will lead you into the most fertile plains in the world. Rich provinces, great cities, will be in your power; and there you will find honor, glory, and riches. ”

“ So they stood amid the burning wheat in the golden grain fields, beneath the torrid sun, and fought as Napoleon had never seen them fight—fought as men fight only when their souls are in it. And far off on the housetops, steeples, and battlements of old Vienna were straining eyes, beating hearts, hungry prayers, and the wild hope that these marauders from France would be scattered as the Turks had been scattered in that dread time long ago. ”

“ The Austrians never fought better. In sight of fathers and sons, of wives, daughters, sisters, sweethearts, who would not fight well for home and native land? What did the Austrian soldier know of the cause of the war? He knew as much as his masters chose to tell him; and in his heart he believed the French to be aggressors, tyrants, marauders, come to loot and ruin and enslave. ”

“ The plague, brought from Damietta by Kléber’s corps, had stricken down almost as many as had perished in the siege. To move the wounded and the sick was a heavy undertaking, but it was done. On the night of May 20, 1799, Napoleon began his retreat. A terrible retreat it was, over burning sands, under brazen skies, amid stifling dust, maddening thirst—and over all the dread shadow of the plague. In their selfish fears, the French became callous to the sufferings of the wounded and the sick. The weak, the helpless, were left to die in the desert. ”

“ When we remember the strength of dynastic prejudices, the influence of British money, the rising tide of German nationality and of hatred of Napoleon, the intense antagonism to French principles, the activity of royalist and clerical intrigue—it is difficult to escape the conclusion that had Napoleon yielded up what he had taken from Austria, he could have stopped at nothing short of a full surrender all along the line. And had he returned to France shorn of all that French blood had won, the storm of indignation there would have driven him from the throne. ”

“ Liberalism had risen from defeats, and made its will supreme. Both in England and in France the Old Order had passed away, principles more enlightened prevailed. A new day had dawned, not cloudless nor free from storm, but better and brighter than 1815 or 1821. In the year of our Lord 1840, the thought of the two great nations turned to the grave at St. Helena. France asked, and England gave—whom? The Emperor! Not “Bonaparte” nor “General Bonaparte,” save in the minds of the very small and the exceedingly venomous; but Napoleon, “the Emperor and king.” ”

“ Royalist Catholics were outdoing in the White Terror the atrocities of the Red. Italy was her old self again, and Murat had looked into the muzzles of the Bourbon muskets, and had said, with the last flash of the old courage and pride, “Save my face, aim at my heart—fire!” Every pander who could distort or create was adding to the piles of books in which the Corsican monster was devoted to damnation here and hereafter. Yet, in spite of all, the captive was serenely at ease about his future.
“History will do me justice. My work will speak for itself. ”

“ At the moment when Napoleon was saying this, Wellington was ordering the advance of his whole line; the Prussian guns were thundering on the French flank; and over the lost field ran the cry: “The Guard recoils! We are betrayed! Save himself who can!”
In vain Ney struggled to hold the rout; in vain the Emperor hoarsely shouted to his men to rally: it was dark; confusion was everywhere; and the French army, a mighty wreck, was swept from its moorings. English cavalry made furious charges, crying “No quarter!” and Napoleon had no cavalry reserves to meet the shock. ”

“ No wonder that Napoleon should be found sitting before a portrait of his son, with tears coursing down his cheeks.
Josephine was dead. The fall of the Emperor, her hero, her Cid, had bewildered and unnerved her. Frightened at the din of war that shook the whole realm, she had lived in terror at Malmaison. The allied kings paid her every attention, and in showing the King of Prussia over her lovely grounds when she was ill, broken out with an eruption, she had, it is said, brought on a fatal relapse. Murmuring the words “Elba”—“Bonaparte”—she died, while her hero was yet in exile. ”

“ Fathers, mothers, children, rushed wildly for safety to the quays, screaming with terror, and plunging into the boats in the maddest disorder. And all this while the guns, the terrible guns of Napoleon, were playing on the harbor and on the town, the balls crashing through dwellings, or cutting lanes through the shrieking fugitives on the quays, or sinking the boats which were carrying the wretched outcasts away. The English set fire to the arsenal, dockyard, and such ships as could not be carried off, and the glare shone far and wide over the ghastly tumult. ”

“ As long as time shall last his name will inspire not only the individual, but the masses also. Wherever a people have heard enough, read enough, thought enough to feel that absolutism in king or priest is wrong; that special privilege in clan or clique is wrong; that monopoly of power, patronage, wealth, or opportunity is wrong, there the name of Napoleon will be spoken with reverence, despot though he became, for in his innermost fibre he was a man of the people, crushing to atoms feudalism, caste, divine right, and hereditary imposture. ”

“ Napoleon tendered the crown to his brother Joseph. To the amazement of the world that preposterous egotist refused upon two grounds: first, Italy was too near to France for its king to enjoy that complete independence which Joseph felt necessary to his self-respect; second, the crown of France belonged to him, in prospect, as heir of the childless Napoleon; and Joseph would not exchange this selfish, shadowy claim for the certainty offered him by his too partial brother! Surely there never lived a man more be-cursed with ingrates of his own blood than Napoleon! ”

“ The captain and the crew of the British frigate had never seen the French Emperor save through the glasses of the English editors. Any one who knows how great is the power of an unbridled press to blacken the fairest name, distort beyond recognition the loftiest character, and blast the hopes of the noblest career, can readily comprehend what was the current British opinion of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1814. Seen through the eyes of Tory editors and pamphleteers, he was a man contrasted with whom Lucifer might well hope to become a popular hero. ”

“ Napoleon refused at first to believe: “the thing was preposterous.” The conquerors marched through the streets, the military bands playing, “To us is the victory,” but the vast solitude awed them as they marched.
The sight of the Kremlin, however, gave the conqueror a thrill of exultation. “Here I am at last! Here I am in Moscow, in the ancient palace of the Czars! in the Kremlin itself!”
Almost immediately, and in spite of all Napoleon could do, commenced the wholesale pillage of the city. Discipline relaxed, and marauders stormed the vacant houses on the hunt for loot. ”

“ Nothing would satisfy the Emperor but that Josephine must see his boy. Maria must not know; Maria being jealous of the ex-Empress. One day Napoleon had his child carried privately out to Bagatelle. Josephine was there. The little King of Rome was presented to her. Was she envious and jealous? Not so. She took the child in her arms, pressed it, kissed it, wept over it, prattled “baby talk” to it, fondling it with “unutterable tenderness” as though it were her own. Poor Josephine! Sternly truthful historians have told us about the infidelities and the want of honesty and scruple. ”