Ida M. Tarbell

“ One may be convinced that the fundamental principles of his life were despotic; that he used the noble ideas of personal liberty, of equality, and of fraternity, as a tyrant; that the whole tendency of his civil and military system was to concentrate a power in a single pair of hands, never to distribute it where it belonged, among the people; one may feel that he frequently sacrificed personal dignity to a theatrical desire to impose on the crowd as a hero of classic proportions, a god from Olympus; one may groan over the blood he spilt. ”

“ But he cannot refuse to acknowledge that no man ever comprehended more clearly the splendid science of war; he cannot fail to bow to the genius which conceived and executed the Italian campaign, which fought the classic battles of Austerlitz, Jena, and Wagram. These deeds are great epics. They move in noble, measured lines, and stir us by their might and perfection. It is only a genius of the most magnificent order which could handle men and materials as Napoleon did. ”

“ But Napoleon refused; it was the soldiers upon whom he called.
“We have not been conquered [he told the army] . Come and range yourselves under the standard of your chief; his existence depends upon you; his interests, his honor, and his glory are yours. Victory will march at double-quick time. The eagle with the national colors will fly from steeple to steeple to the towers of Notre Dame. Then you will be able to show your scars with honor; then you will be able to boast of what you have done; you will be the liberators of the country....” ”

“ The monarchy of 1830 is the only and the legitimate heir of the past of which France is so proud. It is the duty of this monarchy, which was the first to rally all the forces and to conciliate all the aspirations of the French Revolution, fearlessly to raise and honor the statue and the tomb of the popular hero. There is one thing, one only, which does not fear comparison with glory—that is liberty. ”

“ In one of these romps the little, low silk slippers which the Empress always wore slipped off, and Napoleon, seizing them, threw them into the surf, making Josephine walk back to her carriage in stocking feet. It was with such frolics that the two enlivened the days at Marrac, in the summer of 1808. Their journey back to Paris was a triumphal procession, wherein Josephine, by her tact, her amiability, her unflagging interest, won every heart. Never had she seemed more admirable to Napoleon as an Empress, never more charming as a woman. ”

“ She aroused hope among the aristocrats that she would secure them favors from the government—was she not one of themselves? Was not her first husband a viscount and a victim of the guillotine. She really wanted everybody to be pleased, and by her mere amiability she came as near as a human being can to pleasing everybody.
She was wise, too, in her dealings with people. She never pretended to know anything about politics—that was Napoleon’s business; but if she could do them a favor, she would; and straightway she wrote a note or took her carriage to intercede, personally, for them. ”

“ Hortense was a favorite of Napoleon. He had loved her first because she was Josephine’s daughter. After she left school and was constantly of the household, he grew more and more attached to her, more and more anxious for her happiness. Hortense, though she never ceased to fear Napoleon, loved him with the enthusiasm of a young girl for a conquering hero. She seems never to have questioned his will—never to have doubted his affection for her. ”

“ He is even more imposing as a statesman. When one confronts the France of 1799, corrupt, crushed, hopeless, false to the great ideals she had wasted herself for, and watches Napoleon firmly and steadily bring order into this chaos, give the country work and bread, build up her broken walls and homes, put money into her pocket and restore her credit, bind up her wounds and call back her scattered children, set her again to painting pictures and reading books, to smiling and singing, he has a Napoleon greater than the general. ”

“ But Josephine, though pleased by Napoleon’s devotion, and certainly encouraging him, hesitated. Certainly marriage with the young Corsican was a venture at which a more courageous woman than she might have hesitated, and she, poor woman, had had enough of ventures. Every one so far had ended in disaster—her marriage had ended in separation, her reconciliation with her husband in his death, her property had been lost in a revolution. All she asked of life was an opportunity to settle Eugène and Hortense, and freedom and money enough to be gay. ”

“ Their life at this time was rather that of two crowned heads than that of a general of an army and his wife. They lived in the greatest state, protected by strict etiquette and surrounded by the officers of the army of Italy and representatives from Austria and the Italian states. Audiences with the General were daily sought by the greatest men of Italy. In all this pageant of power Josephine moved as naturally and easily as if she had been born to it. On every side she won friends; no one came to the chateau who did not go away to praise her good taste, her simplicity, her anxiety to please. ”

“ As for Hortense and Eugène, he looked upon them as his children, and should do for them as he would for his own.
This new idea of her fate had great effect on Josephine; and when her friends came to her to console her, weep as she might, she defended Napoleon, and presented the divorce as a sacrifice which they were together making for France. “The Emperor is as nearly heart-broken as I am,” she sobbed. “It cannot be helped. There must be an heir to consolidate the Empire.” ”

“ England is right, gentlemen; the noble way in which restitution has been made will knit the bonds which unite us. It will wipe out all traces of a sorrowful past. The time has come when the two nations should remember only their glory. The frigate freighted with the mortal remains of Napoleon will return to the mouth of the Seine. They will be placed in the Invalides. A solemn celebration and grand religious and military ceremonies will consecrate the tomb which must guard them forever. ”

“ My only Josephine, away from you there is no happiness; away from you, the world is a desert in which I stand alone, with no chance of tasting the delicious joy of pouring out my heart. You have robbed me of more than my soul; you are the sole thought of 59my life. If I am worn out by all the torments of events, and fear the issue, if men disgust me, if I am ready to curse life, I place my hand on my heart; your image is beating there. I look at it, and love is for me perfect happiness ”

“ Above all, in this new society there must be no irregularities, no scandals. The government must be respectable. There should be no speculators, no contractors, no fakirs, no persons of immorality of any sort; only honest people, and they must behave. Order, decency, and dignity were to prevail in the Consulate. No more impromptu suppers for Josephine, no more dinners with Barras and Mme. Tallien and their like, no more moonlight walks in the garden at Malmaison. ”

“ Soldiers! you have precipitated yourselves like a torrent from the summit of the Apennines; you have driven back and dispersed all that opposed your march. Piedmont, liberated from Austrian tyranny, has yielded to her natural sentiments of peace and amity towards France. Milan is yours, and the Republican flag floats throughout Lombardy, while the Dukes of Modena and Parma owe their political existence solely to your generosity. The army which so haughtily menaced you, finds no barrier to secure it from your courage. ”

“ With them were confined men from every rank of life, princes, merchants, sailors, chimney-sweeps, along with women and children. Almost daily a group was called to die, but their places were quickly filled. The awful tragedy of their lot drew Josephine and her husband no closer together. It is a terrible comment on the times that no one thought it strange that Beauharnais should have paid court here at the gate of death to a beautiful woman, a prisoner like himself, or that Josephine should have been so intimate with General Hoche, also a prisoner, that history has made a record of the fact. ”

“ As a matter of fact, Napoleon regarded the divorce as a great state affair. To perpetuate France’s peace, stability, glory, an heir was necessary; therefore he and Josephine who loved each other parted. They suffered that France might live. The divorce then, was to be regarded as a sacrificial rite, and Josephine was to be placed before the country as a noble victim to whom the greatest honor then and ever should be shown. Such was Napoleon’s idea, and quietly, in this month after his return from Schönbrunn, he was preparing a ceremony which would put the affair in this light to the country. ”

“ From the populace Alexander and Talleyrand feared nothing; it was too exhausted to ask anything but peace. Their most serious difficulty was the army. All over the country the cry of the common soldiers was, “Let us go to the emperor.” “The army,” declared Alexander, “is always the army; as long as it is not with you, gentlemen, you can boast of nothing. The army represents the French nation; if it is not won over, what can you accomplish that will endure?”
Every influence of persuasion, of bribery, of intimidation, was used with the soldiers and generals. ”

“ The buoyant courage, the amazing audacity which had induced him to return from Elba, seemed to leave him. He became sad and preoccupied. No doubt much of this sadness was due to the refusal of Austria to restore his wife and child, and to the bitter knowledge that Marie Louise had succumbed to foreign influences and had promised never again to see her husband.
If the allies had allowed the French to manage their affairs in their own way, it is probable that Napoleon would have mastered the situation, difficult as it was. ”

“ In his final words to Josephine, he even charged his death to the plots of the aristocrats, upholding the republic even as it struck him.
None of the Viscount de Beauharnais’s courage was shared by Josephine in her imprisonment. It is true that the majority of the women who suffered death in the French Revolution faced it bravely. Josephine was not of their blood. From the beginning of her imprisonment, she wept continually before everybody, and her favorite occupation was reading her fortune with cards; and yet cowardly as she was, no one was better loved. ”

“ But to despoil Spain was to be false to an ally which had served him for years with fidelity, and at an awful cost to herself. It is true that her service had been through fear, not love. It is true that at one critical moment (when Napoleon was in Poland, in 1807) she had tried to escape; but, nevertheless, it remained a fact that for France Spain had lost colonies, sacrificed men and money, and had seen her fleet go down at Trafalgar. In taking her throne, Napoleon had none of the excuses which had justified him in interfering in Italy, in Germany, in Holland, in Switzerland. ”

“ This native force of Napoleon explains, at least partially, his hold on men; it explains, too, the contrasts of his character. Never was there a life lived so full of lights and shades, of majors and minors. It was a kaleidoscope, changing at every moment. Beside the most practical and commonplace qualities are the most idealistic. No man ever did more drudgery, ever followed details more slavishly; yet who ever dared so divinely, ever played such hazardous games of chance? No man ever planned more for his fellows, yet who ever broke so many hearts? ”

“ Napoleon’s plan and purpose could not be mistaken.
“Spaniards [he proclaimed at Madrid] , your destinies are in my hands. Reject the poison which the English have spread among you; let your king be certain of your love and your confidence, and you will be more powerful and happier than ever. I have destroyed all that was opposed to your prosperity and greatness; I have broken the fetters which weighed upon the people; a liberal constitution gives you, instead of an absolute, a tempered and constitutional monarchy. It depends upon you that this constitution shall become law. ”