This pencil portrait by David is nothing but a rapid sketch, but its iconographic interest is undeniable. David doubtless executed this design towards the end of 1797, after Bonaparte’s return from Italy. It belongs to Monsieur Cheramy, a Paris lawyer.—A. D.
The salons were watched, and it is certain that those whose habitués criticised Napoleon freely were reported. One serious rupture resulted from the supervision of the salons, that with Madame de Staël. She had been an ardent admirer of Napoleon in the beginning of the Consulate, and Bourrienne tells several amusing stories of the disgust Napoleon showed at the letters of admiration and sentiment which she wrote him even so far back as the Italian campaign. If the secretary is to be believed, Madame de Staël told Napoleon, in one of these letters, that they were certainly created for each other, that it was an error in human institutions that the mild and tranquil Josephine was united to his fate, that nature evidently had intended for a hero such as he, her own soul of fire. Napoleon tore the letter to pieces, and he took pains thereafter to announce with great bluntness to Madame de Staël, whenever he met her, his own notions of women, which certainly were anything but “modern.”
As the centralization of the government increased, Madame de Staël and her friends criticized Napoleon more freely and sharply than they would have done, no doubt, had she not been incensed by his personal attitude towards her. This hostility increased until, in 1803, the First Consul ordered her out of France. “The arrival of this woman, like that of a bird of omen, has always been the signal for some trouble,” he said in giving the order. “It is not my intention to allow her to remain in France.”
In 1807 this order was repeated, and many of Madame de Staël’s friends were included in the proscription:
“I have written to the Minister of Police to send Madame de Staël to Geneva. This woman continues her trade of intriguer. She went near Paris in spite of my orders. She is a veritable plague. Speak seriously to the Minister, for I shall be obliged to have her seized by the gendarmerie. Keep an eye upon Benjamin Constant; if he meddles with anything I shall send him to his wife at Brunswick. I will not tolerate this clique.”
But when one compares the policy of restriction during the Consulate with what it had been under the old régime and during the Revolution, it certainly was far in advance in liberty, discretion, and humanity. The republican government to-day, in its repression of anarchy, and socialism has acted with less wisdom and less respect for freedom of thought than Napoleon did at this period of his career; and that, too, in circumstances less complicated and critical. If there were still dull rumors of discontent, a cabinet noir, a restricted press, a censorship over the theatre, proscriptions, even imprisonments and executions, on the whole France was happy.
“Not only did the interior wheels of the machine commence to run smoothly,” says the Duchesse d’Abrantès, “but the arts themselves, that most peaceful part of the interior administration, gave striking proofs of the returning prosperity of France. The exposition at the Salon that year (1800) was remarkably fine. Guérin, David, Gérard, Girodet, a crowd of great talents, spurred on by the emulation which always awakes the fire of genius, produced works which must some time place our school at a high rank.”
The art treasures of Europe were pouring into France. Under the direction of Denon, that indefatigable dilettante and student, who had collected in the expedition in Egypt more entertaining material than the whole Institute, and had written a report of it which will always be preferred to the “Great Work,” the galleries of Paris were reorganized and opened two days of the week to the people. Napoleon inaugurated this practice himself. Not only was Paris supplied with galleries; those department museums which to-day surprise and delight the tourist in France were then created at Angers, Antwerp, Autun, Bordeaux, Brussels, Caen, Dijon, Geneva, Grenoble, Le Mans, Lille, Lyons, Mayence, Marseilles, Montpellier, Nancy, Nantes, Rennes, Rouen, Strasburg, Toulouse, and Tours. The prix de Rome, for which there had been no money in the treasury for some time, was reëstablished.
Every effort was made to stimulate scientific research. The case of Volta is one to the point. In 1801 Bonaparte called the eminent physicist to Paris to repeat his experiments before the Institute. He proposed that a medal should be given him, with a sum of money, and in his honor he established a prize of sixty thousand francs, to be awarded to any one who should make a discovery similar in value to Volta’s.[1] An American—Robert Fulton—was about the same time encouraged by the First Consul. Fulton was experimenting with his submarine torpedo and diving boat, and for four years had been living in Paris and besieging the Directory to grant him attention and funds. Napoleon took the matter up as soon as Fulton brought it to him, ordered a commission appointed to look into the invention, and a grant of ten thousand francs for the necessary experiments.
The Institute was reorganized, and to encourage science and the arts he founded, in 1804, twenty-two prizes, nine of which were of ten thousand francs each, and thirteen of five thousand francs each. They were to be awarded every ten years by the emperor himself, on the 18th Brumaire. The first distribution of these prizes was to have taken place in 1809, but the judges could not agree on the laureates; and before a conclusion was reached, the empire had fallen.
These busts are in Sèvres biscuit. The first, which is much superior to the other two, is attributed to Boizot. The manufactory of Sèvres produced many such busts, especially in the consular period, and Bonaparte, anxious to see his face everywhere, encouraged the production and diffusion of them. I have before me an official document which shows that from the commencement of the year VI. to the end of the year IX. the factory produced more than four hundred busts and thirteen hundred medallions of Bonaparte.—A. D.
In literature and in music, as in art and science, there was a renewal of activity. A circle of poets and writers gathered about the First Consul. Paisiello was summoned to Paris to direct the opera and conservatory of music. There was a revival of dignity and taste in strong contrast to the license and carelessness of the Revolution. The incroyable passed away. The Greek costume disappeared from the street. Men and women began again to dress, to act, to talk, according to conventional forms. Society recovered its systematic ways of doing things, and soon few signs of the general dissolution which had prevailed for ten years were to be seen.
Once more the traveller crossed France in peace; peasant and laborer went undisturbed about their work, and slept without fear. Again the people danced in the fields and “sang their songs as they had in the days before the Revolution.” “France has nothing to ask from Heaven,” said Regnault de Saint Jean d’Angély, “but that the sun may continue to shine, the rain to fall on our fields, and the earth to render the seed fruitful.”
Painted by A. Gérard in 1803. Engraved by Richomme in 1835.
1. The Volta prize has been awarded only three or four times. An award of particular interest to Americans was that made in 1880 to Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone. The amount of the prize was a little less than ten thousand dollars. Dr. Bell, being already in affluent circumstances, upon receiving this prize, set it apart to be used for the benefit of the deaf, in whose welfare he had for many years taken a great interest. He invested it in another invention of his, which proved to be very profitable, so that the fund came to amount to one hundred thousand dollars. This he termed the Volta Fund. Some of this fund has been applied by Dr. Bell to the organization of the Volta Bureau, which collects all valuable information that can be obtained with reference to not only deaf-mutes as a class, but to deaf-mutes individually. Twenty-five thousand dollars has been given to the Association for the Promotion of Teaching Speech to the Deaf. Napoleon is thus indirectly the founder of one of the most interesting and valuable present undertakings of the country.
CHAPTER X
PREPARATIONS FOR WAR WITH ENGLAND—FLOTILLA AT BOULOGNE—SALE OF LOUISIANA
In the spring of 1803 the treaty of Amiens, which a year before had ended the long war with England, was broken. Both countries had many reasons for complaint. Napoleon was angry at the failure to evacuate Malta. The perfect freedom allowed the press in England gave the pamphleteers and caricaturists of the country an opportunity to criticize and ridicule him. He complained bitterly to the English ambassadors of this free press, an institution in his eyes impractical and idealistic. He complained, too, of the hostile émigrés allowed to collect in Jersey; of the presence in England of such a notorious enemy of his as Georges Cadoudal; and of the sympathy and money the Bourbon princes and many nobles of the old régime received in London society. Then, too, he regarded the country as his natural and inevitable enemy. England to Napoleon was only a little island which, like Corsica and Elba, naturally belonged to France, and he considered it part of his business to get possession of her.
England, on the other hand, looked with distrust at the extension of Napoleon’s influence on the Continent. Northern Italy, Switzerland, Holland, Parma, Elba, were under his protectorate. She had been deeply offended by a report published in Paris, on the condition of the Orient, in which the author declared that with six thousand men the French could reconquer Egypt; she resented the violent articles in the official press of Paris in answer to those of the free press of England; her aristocratic spirit was irritated by Napoleon’s success; she despised this parvenu, this “Corsican scoundrel,” as Nelson called him, who had had the hardihood to rise so high by other than the conventional methods for getting on in the world which she sanctioned.
Real and fancied aggressions continued throughout the year of the peace; and when the break finally came, though both nations persisted in declaring that they did not want war, both were in a thoroughly warlike mood.
Napoleon’s preparations against England form one of the most picturesque military movements in his career. Unable to cope with his enemy at sea, he conceived the audacious notion of invading the island, and laying siege to London itself. The plan briefly was this—to gather a great army on the north shore of France, and in some port a flotilla sufficient to transport it to Great Britain. In order to prevent interference with this expedition, he would keep the enemy’s fleet occupied in the Mediterranean, or in the Atlantic, until the critical moment. Then, leading the English naval commander by stratagem in the wrong direction, he would call his own fleet to the Channel to protect his passage. He counted to be in London, and to have compelled the English to peace, before Nelson could return from the chase he would have led him.
The preparations began at once. The port chosen for the flotilla was Boulogne; but the whole coast from Antwerp to the mouth of the Seine bristled with iron and bronze. Between Calais and Boulogne, at Cape Gris Nez, where the navigation was the most dangerous, the batteries literally touched one another. Fifty thousand men were put to work at the stupendous excavations necessary to make the ports large enough to receive the flotilla. Large numbers of troops were brought rapidly into the neighborhood: fifty thousand men to Boulogne, under Soult; thirty thousand to Etaples, under Ney; thirty thousand to Ostend, under Davoust; reserves to Arras, Amiens, Saint-Omer.
The work of preparing the flat-bottomed boats, or walnut-shells, as the English called them, which were to carry over the army, went on in all the ports of Holland and France, as well as in interior towns situated on rivers leading to the sea. The troops were taught to row, each soldier being obliged to practise two hours a day so that the rivers of all the north of France were dotted with land-lubbers handling the oar, the most of them for the first time.
In the summer of 1803, Napoleon went to the north to look after the work. His trip was one long ovation. Le Chemin d’Angleterre was the inscription the people of Amiens put on the triumphal arch erected to his honor, and town vied with town in showing its joy at the proposed descent on the old-time enemy.
Such was the interest of the people, that a thousand projects were suggested to help on the invasion, some of them most amusing. In a learned and thoroughly serious memorial, one genius proposed that while the flotilla was preparing, the sailors be employed in catching dolphins, which should be shut up in the ports, tamed, and taught to wear a harness, so as to be driven, in the water, as horses are on land. This novel power was to transport the French to the opposite side of the Channel.
Napoleon occupied himself not only with the preparations at Boulogne and with keeping Nelson busy elsewhere. Every project which could possibly facilitate his undertaking or discomfit his enemies, he considered. Fulton’s diving boat, the “Nautilus,” and his submarine torpedoes, were at that time attracting the attention of the war departments of civilized countries. Already Napoleon had granted ten thousand francs to help the inventor. From the camp at Boulogne he again ordered the matter to be looked into. Fulton promised him a machine which “would deliver France and the whole world from British oppression.”
GRAY REDINGOTE AND PETIT CHAPEAU WORN BY NAPOLEON.
“I have just read the project of Citizen Fulton, engineer, which you have sent me much too late,” he wrote, “since it is one that may change the face of the world. Be that as it may, I desire that you immediately confide its examination to a commission of members chosen by you among the different classes of the Institute. There it is that learned Europe would seek for judges to resolve the question under consideration. A great truth, a physical, palpable truth, is before my eyes. It will be for these gentlemen to try and seize it and see it. As soon as their report is made, it will be sent to you, and you will forward it to me. Try and let the whole be determined within eight days, as I am impatient.”
He had his eye on every point of the earth where he might be weak, or where he might weaken his enemy. He took possession of Hanover. The Irish were promised aid in their efforts for freedom. “Provided that twenty thousand united Irishmen join the French army on its landing,” France is to give them in return twenty-five thousand men, forty thousand muskets, with artillery and ammunition, and a promise that the French government will not make peace with England until the independence of Ireland has been proclaimed.
An attack on India was planned, his hope being that the princes of India would welcome an invader who would aid them in throwing off the English yoke. To strengthen himself in the Orient, he sought by letters and envoys to win the confidence, as well as to inspire the awe, of the rulers of Turkey and Persia.
The sale of Louisiana to the United States dates from this time. This transfer, of such tremendous importance to us, was made by Napoleon purely for the sake of hurting England. France had been in possession of Louisiana but three years. She had obtained it from Spain only on the condition that it should “at no time, under no pretext, and in no manner, be alienated or ceded to any other power.” The formal stipulation of the treaties forbade its sale. But Napoleon was not of a nature to regard a treaty, if the interest of the moment demanded it to be broken. To sell Louisiana now would remove a weak spot from France, upon which England would surely fall in the war. More, it would put a great territory, which he could not control, into the hands of a country which, he believed, would some day be a serious hindrance to English ambition. He sold the colony for the same reason that former French governments had helped the United States in her struggles for independence—to cripple England. It would help the United States, but it would hurt England. That was enough; and with characteristic eagerness he hurried through the negotiations.
“I have just given England a maritime rival which, sooner or later, will humble her pride,” he said exultingly, when the convention was signed. The sale brought him twelve million dollars, and the United States assumed the French spoliation claims.
This sale of Louisiana caused one of the first violent quarrels between Lucien Bonaparte and Napoleon. Lucien had negotiated the return of the American territory to France in 1800. He had made a princely fortune out of the treaty, and he was very proud of the transaction; and when his brother Joseph came to him one evening in hot haste, with the information that the General wanted to sell Louisiana, he hurried around to the Tuileries in the morning to remonstrate.
Napoleon was in his bath, but, in the mode of the time, he received his brothers. He broached the subject himself, and asked Lucien what he thought.
“I flatter myself that the Chambers will not give their consent.”
“You flatter yourself?” said Napoleon. “That’s good, I declare.”
“I have already said the same to the First Consul,” cried Joseph.
“And what did I answer?” said Napoleon, splashing around indignantly in the opaque water.
“That you would do it in spite of the Chambers.”
“Precisely. I shall do it without the consent of anyone whomsoever. Do you understand?”
Joseph, beside himself, rushed to the bathtub, and declared that if Napoleon dared do such a thing he would put himself at the head of an opposition and crush him in spite of their fraternal relations. So hot did the debate grow that the First Consul sprang up shouting: “You are insolent! I ought——” but at that moment he slipped and fell back violently. A great mass of perfumed water drenched Joseph to the skin, and the conference broke up.
An hour later, Lucien met his brother in his library, and the discussion was resumed, only to end in another scene, Napoleon hurling a beautiful snuff-box upon the floor and shattering it, while he told Lucien that if he did not cease his opposition he would crush him in the same way. These violent scenes were repeated, but to no purpose. Louisiana was sold.
Painted and engraved by order of the Emperor. Engraved by Desnoyers, after portrait painted by Gérard in 1805.
CHAPTER XI
OPPOSITION TO NAPOLEON—THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE EMPIRE—KING OF ITALY
While the preparation for the invasion was going on, the feeling against England was intensified by the discovery of a plot against the life of the First Consul. Georges Cadoudal, a fanatical royalist, who was accused of being connected with the plot of the 3d Nivôse (December 24), and who had since been in England, had formed a gigantic conspiracy, having as its object nothing less than the assassination of Napoleon in broad daylight, in the streets of Paris.
He had secured powerful aid to carry out his plan. The Bourbon princes supported him, and one of them was to land on the north coast and put himself at the head of the royalist sympathizers as soon as the First Consul was killed. In this plot was associated Pichegru, who had been connected with the 18th Fructidor. General Moreau, the hero of Hohenlinden, was suspected of knowing something of it.
It came to light in time, and a general arrest was made of those suspected of being privy to it. The first to be tried and punished was the Duc d’Enghien, who had been seized at Ettenheim, in Baden, a short distance from the French frontier, on the supposition that he had been coming secretly to Paris to be present at the meetings of the conspirators. His trial at Vincennes was short, his execution immediate. There is good reason to believe that Napoleon had no suspicion that the Duc d’Enghien would be executed so soon as he was, and even to suppose that he would have lightened the sentence if the punishment had not been pushed on with an irregularity and inhumanity that recalls the days of the Terror.
The execution was a severe blow to Napoleon’s popularity, both at home and abroad. Fouché’s cynical remark was just: “The death of the Duc d’Enghien is worse than a crime; it is a blunder.” Chateaubriand, who had accepted a foreign embassy, resigned at once, and a number of the old aristocracy, such as Pasquier and Molé, who had been saying among themselves that it was their duty to support Napoleon’s splendid work of reorganization, went back into obscurity. In society the effect was distressing. The members of Napoleon’s own household met him with averted faces and sad countenances, and Josephine wept until he called her a child who understood nothing of politics. Abroad there was a revulsion of sympathy, particularly in the cabinets of Russia, Prussia, and Austria.
The trial of Cadoudal and Moreau followed. The former with several of his accomplices was executed. Moreau was exiled for two years. Pichegru committed suicide in the Temple.
This plot showed Napoleon and his friends that a Jacobin or royalist fanatic might any day end the life upon which the scheme of reorganization depended. It is true he had already been made First Consul for life by a practically unanimous vote, but there was need of strengthening his position and providing a succession. In March, six days after the death of the Duc d’Enghien, the Senate proposed to him that he complete his work and take the throne. In April the Council of State and the Tribunate took up the discussion. The opinion of the majority was voiced by Regnault de Saint Jean d’Angély: “It is a long time since all reasonable men, all true friends of their country, have wished that the First Consul would make himself emperor, and reëstablish, in favor of his family, the old principles of hereditary succession. It is the only means of securing permanency for his own fortune, and to the men whom merit has raised to high offices. The Republic, which I loved passionately, while I detested the crimes of the Revolution, is now in my eyes a mere Utopia. The First Consul has convinced me that he wishes to possess supreme power only to render France great, free, and happy, and to protect her against the fury of factions.”
The Senate soon after proceeded in a body to the Tuileries. “You have extricated us from the chaos of the past,” said the spokesman; “you enable us to enjoy the blessings of the present; guarantee to us the future.” On the 18th of May, 1804, when thirty-five years old, Napoleon was first addressed as “sire,” and congratulated on his elevation to the throne of the French people.
Immediately his household took on the forms of royalty. His mother was Madame Mère; Joseph, Grand Elector, with the title of Imperial Highness; Louis, Constable, with the same title; his sisters were Imperial Highnesses. Titles were given to all officials; the ministers were excellencies; Cambacérès and Le Brun, the Second and Third Consuls, became Arch-Chancellor and Arch-Treasurer of the Empire. Of his generals, Berthier, Murat, Moncey, Jourdan, Masséna, Augereau, Bernadotte, Soult, Brune, Lannes, Mortier, Ney, Davoust, and Bessières were made marshals. The red button of the Legion of Honor was scattered in profusion. The title of citoyen, which had been consecrated by the Revolution, was dropped, and hereafter everybody was called monsieur.
Two of Napoleon’s brothers, unhappily, had no part in these honors. Jerome, who had been serving as lieutenant in the navy, had, in 1803, while in the United States, married a Miss Elizabeth Patterson of Baltimore. Napoleon forbade the recording of the marriage, and declared it void. As Jerome had not as yet given up his wife, he had no share in the imperial rewards. Lucien was likewise omitted, and for a similar reason. His first wife had died in 1801, and much against Napoleon’s wishes he had married a Madame Jouberthon, to whom he was deeply attached; nothing could induce him to renounce his wife and take the Queen of Etruria, as Napoleon wished. The result of his refusal was a violent quarrel between the brothers, and Lucien left France.
This rupture was certainly a grief to Napoleon. Madame de Rémusat draws a pathetic little picture of the effect upon him of the last interview with Lucien:
“It was near midnight when Bonaparte came into the room; he was deeply dejected, and, throwing himself into an arm-chair, he exclaimed in a troubled voice, ‘It is all over! I have broken with Lucien, and ordered him from my presence.’ Madame Bonaparte began to expostulate. ‘You are a good woman,’ he said, ‘to plead for him.’ Then he rose from his chair, took his wife in his arms, and laid her head softly on his shoulder, and with his hand still resting on the beautiful head, which formed a contrast to the sad, set countenance so near it, he told us that Lucien had resisted all his entreaties, and that he had resorted equally in vain to both threats and persuasion. ‘It is hard, though,’ he added, ‘to find in one’s own family such stubborn opposition to interests of such magnitude. Must I, then, isolate myself from every one? Must I rely on myself alone? Well! I will suffice to myself; and you, Josephine—you will be my comfort always.’”
A fever of etiquette seized on all the inhabitants of the imperial palace of Saint Cloud. The ponderous regulations of Louis XIV. were taken down from the shelves in the library, and from them a code began to be compiled. Madame Campan, who had been First Bedchamber Woman to Marie Antoinette, was summoned to interpret the solemn law, and to describe costumes and customs. Monsieur de Talleyrand, who had been made Grand Chamberlain, was an authority who was consulted on everything.
“We all felt ourselves more or less elevated,” says Madame de Rémusat. “Vanity is ingenious in its expectations, and ours were unlimited. Sometimes it was disenchanting, for a moment, to observe the almost ridiculous effect which this agitation produced upon certain classes of society. Those who had nothing to do with our brand new dignities said with Montaigne, ‘Let us avenge ourselves by railing at them.’ Jests, more or less witty, and puns, more or less ingenious, were lavished on these new-made princes, and somewhat disturbed our brilliant visions; but the number of those who dare to censure success is small, and flattery was much more common than criticism.”
No one was more severe in matters of etiquette than Napoleon himself. He studied the subject with the same attention that he did the civil code, and in much the same way. “In concert with Monsieur de Ségur,” he wrote De Champagny, “you must write me a report as to the way in which ministers and ambassadors should be received.... It will be well for you to enlighten me as to what was the practice at Versailles, and what is done at Vienna and St. Petersburg. Once my regulations adopted, everyone must conform to them. I am master, to establish what rules I like in France.”
He had some difficulty with his old comrades-in-arms, who were accustomed to addressing him in the familiar second singular, and calling him Bonaparte, and who persisted, occasionally, even after he was “sire,” in using the language of easy intimacy. Lannes was even removed for some time from his place near the emperor for an indiscretion of this kind.
In August, 1804, the new emperor visited Boulogne to receive the congratulations of his army and distribute decorations. His visit was celebrated by a magnificent fête. Those who know the locality of Boulogne, remember, north of the town, an amphitheatre-like plain, in the centre of which is a hill. In this plain sixty thousand men were camped. On the elevation was erected a throne. Hereby stood the chair of Dagobert; behind it the armor of Francis I.; and around rose scores of blood-stained, bullet-shot flags, the trophies of Italy and Egypt. Beside the emperor was the helmet of Bayard, filled with the decorations to be distributed. Up and down the coast were the French batteries; in the port lay the flotilla; to the right and left stretched the splendid army.
Just as the ceremonies were finished, a fleet of over a thousand boats came sailing into the harbor to join those already there, while out in the Channel English officers and sailors, with levelled glasses, watched from their vessels the splendid armament, which was celebrating its approaching descent on their shores.
On December 1st the Senate presented the emperor the result of the vote taken among the people as to whether hereditary succession should be adopted. There were two thousand five hundred and seventy-nine votes against; three million five hundred and seventy-five thousand for—a vote more nearly unanimous than that for the life consulate, there being something like nine thousand against him then.
The next day Napoleon was crowned at Notre Dame. The ceremony was prepared with the greatest care. Grand Master of Ceremonies de Ségur, aided by the painter David, drew up the plan and trained the court with great severity in the etiquette of the occasion. He had the widest liberty, it even being provided that “if it be indispensable, in order that the cortége arrive at Notre Dame with greater facility, to pull down some houses,” it should be done. By a master stroke of diplomacy Napoleon had persuaded Pope Pius VII. to cross the Alps to perform for him the solemn and ancient service of coronation.
Of this ceremony we have no better description than that of Madame Junot:
“Who that saw Notre Dame on that memorable day can ever forget it? I have witnessed in that venerable pile the celebration of sumptuous and solemn festivals; but never did I see anything at all approximating in splendor the spectacle exhibited at Napoleon’s coronation. The vaulted roof re-echoed the sacred chanting of the priests, who invoked the blessing of the Almighty on the ceremony about to be celebrated, while they awaited the arrival of the Vicar of Christ, whose throne was prepared near the altar. Along the ancient walls covered with magnificent tapestry were ranged, according to their rank, the different bodies of the state, the deputies from every city; in short, the representatives of all France assembled to implore the benediction of Heaven on the sovereign of the people’s choice. The waving plumes which adorned the hats of the senators, counsellors of state, and tribunes; the splendid uniforms of the military; the clergy in all their ecclesiastical pomp; and the multitude of young and beautiful women, glittering in jewels, and arrayed in that style of grace and elegance which is only seen in Paris;—altogether presented a picture which has, perhaps, rarely been equalled, and certainly never excelled.
“The Pope arrived first; and at the moment of his entering the Cathedral, the anthem Tu es Petrus was commenced. His Holiness advanced from the door with an air at once majestic and humble. Ere long, the firing of a cannon announced the departure of the procession from the Tuileries. From an early hour in the morning the weather had been exceeding unfavorable. It was cold and rainy, and appearances seemed to indicate that the procession would be anything but agreeable to those who joined it. But, as if by the especial favor of Providence, of which so many instances are observable in the career of Napoleon, the clouds suddenly dispersed, the sky brightened up, and the multitudes who lined the streets from the Tuileries to the Cathedral, enjoyed the sight of the procession without being, as they had anticipated, drenched by a December rain. Napoleon, as he passed along, was greeted by heartfelt expressions of enthusiastic love and attachment.
Designed and engraved by Longhi, in 1812, for “Vite e Ritratti di illustri Italiani.”
“On his arrival at Notre Dame, Napoleon ascended the throne, which was erected in front of the grand altar. Josephine took her place beside him, surrounded by the assembled sovereigns of Europe. Napoleon appeared singularly calm. I watched him narrowly, with a view of discovering whether his heart beat more highly beneath the imperial trappings than under the uniform of the guards; but I could observe no difference, and yet I was at the distance of only ten paces from him. The length of the ceremony, however, seemed to weary him; and I saw him several times check a yawn. Nevertheless, he did everything he was required to do, and did it with propriety. When the Pope anointed him with the triple unction on his head and both hands, I fancied, from the direction of his eyes, that he was thinking of wiping off the oil rather than of anything else; and I was so perfectly acquainted with the workings of his countenance, that I have no hesitation in saying that was really the thought that crossed his mind at that moment. During the ceremony of anointing, the Holy Father delivered that impressive prayer which concluded with these words: ‘Diffuse, O Lord, by my hands, the treasures of your grace and benediction on your servant Napoleon, whom, in spite of our personal unworthiness, we this day anoint emperor, in your name.’ Napoleon listened to this prayer with an air of pious devotion; but just as the Pope was about to take the crown, called the Crown of Charlemagne, from the altar, Napoleon seized it, and placed it on his own head. At that moment he was really handsome, and his countenance was lighted up with an expression of which no words can convey an idea.
“He had removed the wreath of laurel which he wore on entering the church, and which encircles his brow in the fine picture of Gérard. The crown was, perhaps, in itself, less becoming to him; but the expression excited by the act of putting it on, rendered him perfectly handsome.
“When the moment arrived for Josephine to take an active part in the grand drama, she descended from the throne and advanced towards the altar, where the emperor awaited her, followed by her retinue of court ladies, and having her train borne by the Princesses Caroline, Julie, Eliza, and Louis. One of the chief beauties of the Empress Josephine was not merely her fine figure, but the elegant turn of her neck, and the way in which she carried her head; indeed, her deportment altogether was conspicuous for dignity and grace. I have had the honor of being presented to many real princesses, to use the phrase of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, but I never saw one who, to my eyes, presented so perfect a personification of elegance and majesty. In Napoleon’s countenance I could read the conviction of all I have just said. He looked with an air of complacency at the empress as she advanced towards him; and when she knelt down, when the tears, which she could not repress, fell upon her clasped hands, as they were raised to Heaven, or rather to Napoleon, both then appeared to enjoy one of those fleeting moments of pure felicity which are unique in a lifetime, and serve to fill up a lustrum of years. The emperor performed, with peculiar grace, every action required of him during the ceremony; but his manner of crowning Josephine was most remarkable: after receiving the small crown, surmounted by the cross, he had first to place it on his own head, and then to transfer it to that of the empress. When the moment arrived for placing the crown on the head of the woman whom popular superstition regarded as his good genius, his manner was almost playful. He took great pains to arrange this little crown, which was placed over Josephine’s tiara of diamonds; he put it on, then took it off, and finally put it on again, as if to promise her she should wear it gracefully and lightly.”
The fate of France had no sooner been settled, as Napoleon believed, than it became necessary to decide on what should be done with Italy. The crown was offered to Joseph, who refused it. He did not want to renounce his claim to that of France, and finally Napoleon decided to take it himself. A new constitution was prepared for the country by the French Senate, and, when all was arranged, Napoleon started on April 1st for Italy. A great train accompanied him, and the trip was of especial interest. The party crossed the Alps by Mont Cenis, and the road was so bad that the carriages had to be taken to pieces and carried over, while the travellers walked. This trip really led to the fine roads which now cross Mont Cenis. At Alessandria Napoleon halted, and on the field of Marengo ordered a review of the manœuvres of the famous battle. At this review he even wore the coat and hat he had worn on that famous day four years before.
By the time the imperial party was ready to enter Milan, on May 13, it had increased to a triumphal procession, and the entry was attended by most enthusiastic demonstrations. On May 26 the coronation took place. The iron crown, used so long for the coronation of the Lombard kings, had been brought out for the occasion. When the point in the ceremony was reached where the crown was to be placed on Napoleon’s head, he seized it, and with his own hands placed it on his head, repeating in a loud voice the words inscribed on the crown: “God gives it to me; beware who touches it.” Josephine was not crowned Queen of Italy, but watched the scene from a gallery above the altar.
Napoleon remained in Italy for another month, engaged in settling the affairs of the country. The order of the Crown of Iron was created, the constitution settled, Prince Eugène was made viceroy, and Genoa was joined to the Empire.
Lithograph by Raffet.
CHAPTER XII
CAMPAIGN OF 1805—CAMPAIGN OF 1806–1807—PEACE OF TILSIT
Austria looked with jealousy on this increase of power, and particularly on the change in the institutions of her neighbors. In assuming control of the Italian and Germanic States, Napoleon gave the people his code and his methods; personal liberty, equality before the law, religious toleration, took the place of the unjust and narrow feudal institutions. These new ideas were quite as hateful to Austria as the disturbance in the balance of power, and more dangerous to her system. Russia and Prussia felt the same suspicion of Napoleon as Austria did. All three powers were constantly incited to action against France by England, who offered unlimited gold if they would but combine with her. In the summer of 1805 Austria joined England and Russia in a coalition against France. Prussia was not yet willing to commit herself.
The great army which for so many months had been gathering around Boulogne, preparing for the descent on England, waited anxiously for the arrival of the French fleet to cover its passage. But the fleet did not come; and, though hoping until the last that his plan would still be carried out, Napoleon quietly and swiftly made ready to transfer the army of England into the Grand Army, and to turn its march against his continental enemies.
Never was his great war rule, “Time is everything,” more thoroughly carried out. “Austria will employ fine phrases in order to gain time,” he wrote Talleyrand, “and to prevent me accomplishing anything this year; ... and in April I shall find one hundred thousand Russians in Poland, fed by England, twenty thousand English at Malta, and fifteen thousand Russians at Corfu. I should then be in a critical position. My mind is made up.” His orders flew from Boulogne to Paris, to the German States, to Italy, to his generals, to his naval commanders. By the 28th of August the whole army had moved. A month later it had crossed the Rhine, and Napoleon was at its head.
The force which he commanded was in every way an extraordinary one. Marmont’s enthusiastic description was in no way an exaggeration:
“This army, the most beautiful that was ever seen, was less redoubtable from the number of its soldiers than from their nature. Almost all of them had carried on war and had won victories. There still existed among them something of the enthusiasm and exaltation of the Revolutionary campaigns; but this enthusiasm was systematized. From the supreme chief down—the chiefs of the army corps, the division commanders, the common officers and soldiers—everybody was hardened to war. The eighteen months in splendid camps had produced a training, an ensemble, which has never existed since to the same degree, and a boundless confidence. This army was probably the best and the most redoubtable that modern times have seen.”
The force responded to the imperious genius of its commander with a beautiful precision which amazes and dazzles one who follows its march. So perfectly had all been arranged, so exactly did every corps and officer respond, that nine days after the passage of the Rhine, the army was in Bavaria, several marches in the rear of the enemy. The weather was terrible, but nothing checked them. The emperor himself set the example. Day and night he was on horseback in the midst of his troops; once for a week he did not take off his boots. When they lagged, or the enemy harassed them, he would gather each regiment into a circle, explain to it the position of the enemy, the imminence of a great battle, and his confidence in his troops. These harangues sometimes took place in driving snowstorms, the soldiers standing up to their knees in icy slush. By October 13th, such was the extraordinary march they had made, the emperor was able to issue this address to the army:
“Soldiers, a month ago we were encamped on the shores of the ocean, opposite England, when an impious league forced us to fly to the Rhine. Not a fortnight ago that river was passed; and the Alps, the Neckar, the Danube, and the Lech, the celebrated barriers of Germany, have not for a minute delayed our march.... The enemy, deceived by our manœuvres and the rapidity of our movements, is entirely turned.... But for the army before you, we should be in London to-day, have avenged six centuries of insult, and have liberated the sea.
“Remember to-morrow that you are fighting against the allies of England.