Bonaparte

“ What a contrast presents itself when we compare the famous flag of the army of Italy, which the youthful conqueror, Bonaparte, carried to the Directory, with those drooping eagles who had now to defend the aerie whence they had so often taken flight to spread their triumphant wings over Europe! Here we see the difference between liberty and absolute power! Napoleon, the son of liberty, to whom he owed everything, had disowned his mother, and was now about to fall. ”

“ Bonaparte appeared to the people with all the prestige of his former and recent victories; he had planted the victorious French tricolor upon the summit of the capitol, and of the pyramids; he had given to France the most acceptable of presents, “glory;” he had adorned her brow with so many laurels, that he himself seemed to the people as if radiant with glory. All felt the need of a hero, of a dictator, to put an end to the prevailing anarchy and disturbances, and they knew that Bonaparte was the only one who could achieve this gigantic work. ”

“ Had Napoleon Bonaparte, with his extraordinary Genius, and transcendent military talents, possessed an ordinary portion of Judgment or common Sense, France might have been for ages the preponderating Power in Europe, and he might have transmitted to his Posterity the most powerful Empire upon Earth, and a name to stand by the side of Alexander, Cæsar and Charlemagne—A name surrounded by such a blaze of Glory as to blind the eyes of all humankind to the baseness of its origin and even to the blood with which it would still have been polluted. ”

“ The Bonaparte, who here constitutes himself Chief of the Slum-Proletariat; who only here finds again in plenteous form the interests which he personally pursues; who, in this refuse, offal and wreck of all classes, recognizes the only class upon which he can depend unconditionally;—this is the real Bonaparte, the Bonaparte without qualification. An old and crafty roue, he looks upon the historic life of nations, upon their great and public acts, as comedies in the ordinary sense, as a carnival, where the great costumes, words and postures serve only as masks for the pettiest chicaneries. ”

“ Of all the great and remarkable men of modern times, Napoleon Bonaparte was the most wonderful. He was a son of a lawyer of Corsica, an island in the Mediterranean sea, belonging to France. From a humble station he rose to be the emperor of France, and the greatest general of modern times. He hurled kings from their thrones, and put others in their places. He dismembered empires, and created new ones. He made the whole earth ring with his mighty deeds. ”

“ Fifteen years pass, years of war and convulsion unexampled in Europe since the cataclysm of the fifth century, the century of Alaric and Attila—and within that space, those fifteen years, what a revolution in all the sentiments, the hopes, the aspirations of men! The Consul Bonaparte has become the Emperor Napoleon, the arch-enemy of Liberty and of the human race. France, the world's forlorn hope in 1800, is, in 1815, the gathering place of the armies of Europe, risen in arms against her! ”

“ Bonaparte laboured to establish in France not only an absolute government, but, what is still worse, a military one. He considered a decree signed by his hand possessed of a magic virtue capable of transforming his generals into able diplomatists, and so he sent them on embassies, as if to show the Sovereigns to whom they were accredited that he soon meant to take their thrones by assault. ”

“ Every sentence spoken by Napoleon and every line of his writing, deserves reading, as it is the sense of France.
Bonaparte was the idol of common men because he had in transcendent degree the qualities and powers of common men. There is a certain satisfaction in coming down to the lowest ground of politics, for we get rid of cant and hypocrisy. Bonaparte wrought, in common with that great class he represented, for power and wealth,- but Bonaparte, specially, without any scruple as to the means. All the sentiments which embarrass men's pursuit of these objects, he set aside. ”

“ The fame of Bonaparte, who commanded that army, had now surpassed that of all the other generals; his victories paled the glory of their successes, and it was already a mark of distinction to have served under his command.
The walls of the hospital were scrawled over with the names of his victories; rude sketches of Alpine passes, terrible ravines, or snow-clad peaks met the eye every where; and the one magical name, “Bonaparte,” written beneath, seemed the key to all their meaning. With him war seemed to assume all the charms of romance. ”

“ The republic, having vaguely enlarged them, had fought for them as France had never fought before, because these things were not to be achieved for a dynasty, and were now illuminated by visions of human regeneration. Still England stood in the way. Bonaparte had given them new shape and new intensity with new definition; logically his success would stand for that most splendid of ideals which has ever dazzled poets, theologians, and kings—the universality of empire for peace and its arts, and the consequent elevation of all mankind. ”

“ But Bonaparte was a lion in the field only. In civil life, a cold-blooded, calculating, unprincipled usurper, without a virtue; no statesman, knowing nothing of commerce, political economy, or civil government, and supplying ignorance by bold presumption. ”

“ In thus rendering honour to the memory of Washington everybody would suppose that Bonaparte intended to imitate his example, and that their two names would pass in conjunction from mouth to mouth. A clever orator might be employed, who, while pronouncing a eulogium on the dead, would contrive to bestow some praise on the living; and when the people were applauding his love of liberty he would find himself one step nearer the throne, on which his eyes were constantly fixed. ”

“ After a brilliant series of triumphs, Bonaparte returned to Paris on the 20th of November, 1797, where he was hailed with the most rapturous applause by the people. The most magnificent preparations were made for his reception; entertainments were everywhere given him; the sky resounded with the reiterated shout-"Long live the general of the army of Italy;" he obtained a scat in the Institute, and the troops returning to France made him the subject of their songs. ”

“ His fame rises like one of those sanctuaries wherein flows a spring inexhaustible for the people.... What would be the rank of Bonaparte in the universe if he had added magnanimity to what there was heroical in him, and if, being at the same time Washington and Bonaparte, he had appointed Liberty for the heiress of his glory? ”

“ Many voices here and there, began to inquire "Where is Bonaparte, the conqueror of Italy, the conqueror of Egypt? He alone can save us." His world-wide renown turned the eyes of the nation to him as their only hope.
Under these circumstances Napoleon, then a young man but twenty-nine years of age, and who, but three years before, had been unknown to fame or to fortune, resolved to return to France, to overthrow the miserable government, by which the country was disgraced, to subdue anarchy at home and aggression from abroad, and to rescue thirty millions of people from ruin. ”

“ He strove to forget his domestic wretchedness by prosecuting, with new vigor, his schemes of grandeur. As he ascended the stairs of the Luxembourg, some of the guard, who had been with him in Italy, recognized his person, and he was instantly greeted, with enthusiastic shouts. "Long live Bonaparte." The clamor rolled like a voice of thunder through the spacious halls of the palace, and fell, like a death knell, upon the ears of the Directors. The populace upon the pavement, caught the sound and reechoed it from street to street. ”

“ Does not Bonaparte satisfy the ambition of a Frenchman? Does he wish a greater name than that at the head of his nation?”
“That's a brilliant lamp before us. But see there,” cried the abbé, as he flung open the shutter, and pointed to the bright moon that shone pale and beautiful in the clear sky—“see there! Is there not something grander far in the glorious radiance of the orb that has thrown its lustre on the world for ages? ”

“ Bells rung, cannon thundered, bonfires and illuminations blazed, rockets and fire-works, in meteoric splendor filled the air, bands of music poured forth their exuberant strains, and united Paris, thronging the garden of the Tuileries and flooding back into the Elysian Fields, rent the heavens with deafening shouts of exultation. As Napoleon stood at the window of his palace, witnessing this spectacle of a nation's gratitude, he said, "The sound of these acclamations is as sweet to me, as the voice of Josephine. How happy I am to be beloved by such a people." ”

“ The contrast between the ferocious bluster of the Directory and the generous simplicity of a great conqueror was not lost on the Italians nor on the moderate French. For them as for Bonaparte, a military and political aspirant in his first independence, everything, absolutely everything, was at stake in those earliest engagements; on the event hung not merely his career, but their release. In pleasant succession the spring days passed like a transformation scene. Success was in the air, not the success of accident, but the resultant of forethought and careful combination. ”

“ He was already a sovereign, in possession of regal power, such as no other monarch in Europe enjoyed. Upon one object all the energies of his mighty mind were concentrated. France was his estate, his diadem, his all. The glory of France was his glory, the happiness of France his happiness, the riches of France his wealth. Never did a father with more untiring self-denial and toil labor for his family, than did Napoleon through days of Herculean exertion and nights of sleeplessness devote every energy of body and soul to the greatness of France. ”

“ The moment was the eventful one, in which France was about once more to become a monarchy, and as may be inferred from the character of the people, it was a time of high excitement and enthusiasm. The nation, even in its humblest citizen, seemed to feel some of the reflected glory that glanced from the great achievements of Bonaparte, and his elevation was little other than a grand manifestation of national self-esteem. ”

“ Marius saw in Bonaparte the dazzling spectre which will always rise upon the frontier, and which will guard the future. Despot but dictator; a despot resulting from a republic and summing up a revolution. Napoleon became for him the man-people as Jesus Christ is the man-God. ”

“ Bonaparte, though personally and by nature a passionate and wilful man, felt bound, as the representative of a great movement, to exercise self-restraint, taking pains to live simply, dress plainly, almost shabbily, and continuing by calm calculation to refuse the enormous bribes which began and continued to be offered to him personally by the rulers of Italy. ”

“ I studied Bonaparte's policy closely, and I came to this conclusion on the subject, that he was governed by ambition, by the passion of dominion, and that no relations, on a footing of equality, between himself and any other power, could be of long duration. The other States of Europe had only to choose one of two things—submission or war. As to secondary States, they might thenceforth be considered as fiefs of the French Government; and as they could not resist, Bonaparte easily accustomed them to bend to his yoke. ”

“ Look at France, and see what we have to cope with, and consider what has made her what she is—a man! You will tell [383] me that she was great, and powerful, and formidable before the date of Bonaparte’s government—that he found in her great physical and moral resources—that he had but to turn them to account. True; and he did so. Compare the situation in which he found France with that to which he has raised her. I am no panegyrist of Bonaparte; but I cannot shut my eyes to the superiority of his talents—to the amazing ascendency of his genius. Tell me not of his measures and his policy. ”

“ The nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, and son of Hortense, was only known as the perpetrator of two very absurd attempts to overthrow the monarchy under Louis Philippe. But since the remains of the great Emperor had been returned to France by England, and the splendors of the past placed in striking contrast with a dull, lustreless present, there had been a revival of Napoleonic memories and enthusiasm. Here was an opportunity to unite two powerful sentiments in one man—a Napoleon at the head of Republican France would express the glory of the past and the hope of the future. ”

“ Bonaparte burst out laughing.
“How astonishing you are, you plebeians!” he said, “with your love for your former kings! Suppose that I did re-establish the throne (a thing, I assure you, I have not the smallest desire to do) , what return will you get, you who have shed your blood for the cause? Not even the confirmation of the rank you have won in it, colonel. Have you ever known in the royalist ranks a colonel who was not a noble? Did you ever hear of any man rising by his merits into that class of people? Whereas with me, Georges, you can attain to what you will. ”

“ Now let us pass on to the Journal de Paris. "It is a good thing to know," quoth the Journal de Paris, "that Bonaparte's name is not Napoleon, but Nicolas."
Really, Mr. Editor, what an excessively sublime apotheosis you make of yesterday's poor emperor! Instead of showing base ingratitude, like your contemporary, you flatter outrageously. Bonaparte did no more than presume to call himself Napoléon,—that is, the lion of the desert,—and here you make him Nicolas, which means Conqueror of the peoples. Ah! ”