Napoleon

“ Thrice did the fickle goddess cast Napoleon to the ground in the first two years of his new life, only that his wondrous gifts and sublime self-confidence might tower aloft the more conspicuously, bewildering alike the malcontents of Paris, the generals of the old Empire, the peoples of the Levant, and the statesmen of Britain. Of all these triumphs assuredly the last was not the least. The Peace of Amiens left France the arbitress of Europe, and, by restoring to her all her lost colonies, it promised to place her in the van of the oceanic and colonizing peoples. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Napoleon was a scholar, stimulating intellect to its mightiest achievements. The scholars of Paris, gratefully united to weave a chaplet for the brow of their honored associate and patron. Napoleon was, for those days of profligacy and unbridled lust, a model of purity of morals, and of irreproachable integrity. The proffered bribe of millions could not tempt him. The dancing daughters of Herodias, with all their blandishments, could not lure him from his life of Herculean toil and from? his majestic patriotism. The wine which glitters in the cup, never vanquished him. ”

“ We have briefly epitomized Napoleon’s early career, his doings in the Revolution, in Italy, and in Egypt, unto the time that France’s worship of his military genius raised him to the rank of First Consul, and gave him in effect the power of a king. No one dared question his word, the army was at his beck and call, the nation lay prostrate at his feet—not in fear but in admiration. Such was the state of affairs in France in the closing year of the eighteenth century. The Revolution was at an end, the Republic existed only as a name; Napoleon was the autocrat of France and the terror of Europe. ”

“ Never had Napoleon’s power seemed so great, nor his court so splendid. His vassal kings came to Paris with brilliant retinues, the kings of Saxony, Bavaria, Westphalia, Würtemberg, and Naples, the Viceroy of Italy, the Queen of Holland, besides princes and dukes by the dozen. Paris had become the capital of Continental Europe, and from Paris went forth the law to eighty million people. All Frenchmen realized the grandeur of this huge empire; but many a wise Frenchman was oppressed by anxieties. What if the Emperor should suddenly die? ”

“ This triumphal journey of Napoleon for nearly seven hundred miles, through the heart of France, alone and unaided invading a kingdom of thirty millions of inhabitants, vanquishing all the armies of the Bourbons, and regaining the throne without drawing a sword or firing a musket, presents one of the most remarkable instances on record of the power of one mighty mind over human hearts. Boundless enthusiasm, from citizens and soldiers, greeted him every step of his way. ”

“ God in his mercy has chosen Napoleon to be his representative on earth. The Queen of Heaven has marked, by the most magnificent of presents, the anniversary of the day which witnessed his glorious entrance into her domains. Heavenly Virgin! as a special testimony of your love for the French, and your all-powerful influence with your son, you have connected the first of your solemnities with the birth of the great Napoleon. ”

“ Napoleon knows no party; no prejudice attaches to his administration. All opinions, all sects, all talents, form themselves in a group about him; a new order of things commences.
The nation recovers breath, and blesses him; the people of other states admire him; kings respect him; every one is happy,—every one fells himself once more honoured in being a Frenchman.
Shortly, he is raised to the throne; he becomes Emperor. Every one knows the rest. Every one knows with what lustre, with what power, he dignified his crown. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ At her expiring voice, Napoleon, interrupting his mysterious destinies, hastens from the banks of the Nile; traverses the seas, at the risk of his liberty and of his reputation; and lands alone upon the French shore. Every heart leaps at seeing him again. Acclamations, public rejoicing, and triumph attend him into the capital. At sight of him the different factions droop, parties blend themselves into one; he rules, and the revolution is chained.
The mere weight of opinion, the influence of one single man, effected every thing. ”

“ You, you have done nothing but submit to principles, to your conviction, to the truth; for such are your doctrines that Napoleon, four times elected by a great nation, must necessarily, in spite of your public denials, have found himself a sovereign in the bottom of your hearts. Look into your consciences!... Now, Napoleon has lost nothing but his throne; a reverse has snatched it from him; success would have fixed it with him for ever. He has seen eleven hundred thousand men march against him. Their generals, their sovereigns, have every where proclaimed that his person was their sole object. ”

“ The ephemeral success of my enemies detached you for a moment from my empire. In my exile, upon a rock in the sea, I heard your complaint; the God of Battles has decided the fate of your beautiful provinces; Napoleon is among you; you are worthy to be Frenchmen. Rise in a body; join my invincible phalanxes to exterminate the remainder of these barbarians, who are your enemies and mine; they fly, with rage and despair in their hearts."
Napoleon's Proclamation to the French People on His Second Abdication, June 22, 1815. ”

“ Lowering clouds and pitiless rain robbed the scene of all brilliance, but wreathed it with a certain sombre majesty. On the one side was the fair city, the centre of German art and culture, hastily girdled with redoubts and intrenchments manned now by some 120,000 defenders. Fears and murmurings had vanished as soon as the Emperor appeared; and though in many homes men still longed for the triumph of the allies, yet loyalty to their King and awe of Napoleon held the great mass of the citizens true to his alliance. As for the French soldiery, their enthusiasm was unbounded. ”

“ Napoleon had become a thorough man of the world. Hard experience had driven away sentimental illusions. The visionary of the Corsican sea-lulled grotto, the patriotic dreamer of the Brienne garden-harbor, had died some time ago. The man who now commanded the Army of the Interior was different altogether. Reading, experience, observation, the stern teachings of necessity, had taught him to believe that the Italian proverb was true, “One must not be too good, if one would succeed.” ”

“ 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. The enterprise was undeniably magnificent in its grandeur and noble in its object. He had two foes to encounter, each formidable, the royalists of combined Europe and the mob of Paris. ”

“ Napoleon is no more; he can expect nothing from him: and his publication has rendered the two others his bitter enemies, who have deprived him of his situation, and threaten to disturb his repose; for his real crime, in their eyes, is the warm zeal, which he has displayed, of a friend to the laws and to decorum; who, indignant at the mean and indecorous vexations to which Napoleon had been exposed, drags the true authors of them to light, in order to exculpate his country. ”

“ The Emperor Napoleon was conquered by the very nature of things, before the fruits of his unmeasured ambition had had time to ripen, and before all Europe, indignant and wearied out, was at length roused up against him. ”

“ Under the solemn Pyramids, Napoleon saw that day;
“Comrades,” he cried, “from those old heights, Fame watches the deeds you do,
The eyes of forty centuries are fixed this day on you!”
They answered him with ringing shouts, they were eager for the fray,
Napoleon held their central square, in front was bold Desaix ”

“ It is an episode of miracles, in which Napoleon throughout appears supernatural in the resources of genius, the energy of mind, the celerity of motion, the steadiness of views, and the sublimity of courage, which he there evinced. Nothing can be compared with the prodigies he performed, except indeed the indefatigable ardour of a handful of brave men, who, as if strangers to the wants of nature, when deprived of food and rest, seemed to multiply before the enemy’s legions, were incessantly engaged, and always victorious. ”

“ Napoleon was the appointed chief of the troops, and they were filling the streets with enthusiastic shouts of "Live Napoleon." The Council of Ancients were entirely at his disposal. And a large party in the Council of Five Hundred were also wholly subservient to his will. Napoleon, proud, silent, reserved, fully conscious of his own intellectual supremacy, and regarding the generals, the statesmen, and the multitude around him, as a man contemplates children, ascended the grand staircase of the Tuileries as if it were his hereditary home. ”

“ He elbowed his way through the brilliant throng, crowding the door and the apartment of Napoleon's dwelling, and presented to him the ordinance. Napoleon was ready to receive it. He stepped upon the balcony, gathered his vast retinue of powerful guests before him, and in a loud and firm voice, read to them the decree. "Gentlemen," said he, "will you help me save the Republic?" One simultaneous burst of enthusiasm rose from every lip, as drawing their swords from their scabbards they waved them in the air and shouted, "We swear it, we swear it." ”

“ Of military glory Napoleon had obtained for the French more, beyond all comparison, than was ever gained by any people within an equal number of years. Possessed of absolute power over a great empire, he had used the means, at his disposal, of drawing to himself many adherents,—of founding the fortunes of many. ”

“ Nowadays it seems to us almost impossible to believe that for a whole fortnight no news was received of the French Army of 300,000 men, and still more that Napoleon, 'the man who filled the universe with his name and Europe with his presence,' should have disappeared like a pilgrim lost in the snow. ”

“ Such was the prophecy of Napoleon to his rather questioning followers as they neared the coast of Provence. It seemed the wildest of dreams. Could the man, who had been wellnigh murdered by the rabble of Avignon and Orgon, hope to march in peace through that royalist province? And, if he ever reached the central districts where men loved him better, would the soldiery dare to disobey the commands of Soult, the new Minister of War, of Ney, Berthier, Macdonald, St. Cyr, Suchet, Augereau, and of many more who were now honestly serving the Bourbons? The King and his brothers had no fears. ”

“ The uninterrupted success that for so many years attended the arms of Napoleon, gave him a moral influence doubling his actual force. Exciting at once terror, admiration, and hatred, he absorbed the whole attention of an astonished world, and openly or secretly all men acknowledged the power of his wonderful genius. ”

“ Then these words of Napoleon, which I have often heard him repeat, were verified:—“In the course of time, nothing will be thought so fine, or strike the attention so much, as the doing of justice to me.... I shall gain ground every day in the minds of the people. ”

“ You will understand all this better when you come to read the history of France, and see through how many noble but mistaken efforts that fair European land struggled from tyranny to freedom. In these efforts Napoleon had a share; and it was his boyhood of privation and his youth of discouragement that made him a man of purpose, of persistence and endeavor, raising him step by step, in the days when men needed leaders but found none, until this one finally proved himself a leader indeed, and, grasping the reins of command, advanced steadily from the barracks to a throne. ”

“ We here approach one of the most interesting experiments of the modern world, which, if successful, would profoundly have altered the face of Europe and the character of its States. Even in its failure it attests Napoleon's vivid imagination and boundless mental resources. He aspired to be more than Emperor of the French: he wished to make his Empire a cosmopolitan realm, whose confines might rival those of the Holy Roman Empire of one thousand years before, and embrace scores of peoples in a grand, well-ordered European polity. ”