NAPOLEON AND HIS COURT

Napoleon and His Court

THERE was a time when France extended to the Baltic, the Ebro and the Tiber; when the term “Frenchmen” included Frenchmen, Spaniards, Italians, Belgians, Dutch, Germans and even a few stray Danes, Poles and Letts; when Rome was the second city of France, and Amsterdam the third; when the Emperor of the French was also King of Italy and Mediator of Switzerland; when one of his brothers was King of Spain, another, King of Westphalia, and one of his generals King of Naples; when all Germany was ruled by his vassals; when Poland was a French province in all but name; when Austria was the French Emperor’s subservient ally; and when one of his less successful generals had just been appointed ruler of Sweden.

Never, since the days of the Roman Empire, had one man held so much power, and never in all history has so much power been as rapidly acquired or as rapidly lost. In ten years Napoleon rose from the obscurity of a disgraced artillery officer to the dignity of the most powerful ruler in the world; in ten more he was a despised fugitive flying for his life from his enemies.

It is difficult for us nowadays to visualize such a state of affairs. To the people of that time life must have appeared like a wild nightmare, as impossibly logical as a lunatic’s dream. There seems to have been no doubt anywhere that the frantic hypertrophy could not last, and yet when the end was clearly at hand hardly a soul perceived its approach.

There was only one nation of Europe which escaped the mesmerism of the man in the grey coat, and that was the British. It was only in Britain that they did not speak of him with bated breath as “the Emperor,” and remained undaunted by his monstrous power and ruthless energy. To the English he was not His Imperial and Royal Majesty, Napoleon, Emperor of the French, King of Italy, Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine, and Mediator of the Helvetian Republic. No, the English thought of him merely as Boney, a fantastic figment of the imagination of the other peoples of the world, who were of course a queer lot with unaccountable fears and superstitions.

But this Boney, this Corsican Ogre, incredible though he was, loomed appallingly large upon the horizon. There were beacons all round the coast in case he landed; his privateers were the scourge of shipping; prices were at famine point and business was parlous on account of his activities; the militia was embodied and there was a ceaseless drain of recruits into the army; every village mourned the loss of a son who had enlisted and whose life had been thrown away in some harebrained expedition into ill-defined foreign parts. And yet on the other hand there were considerations which gave an aspect of unreality to the whole menace. England was constantly victorious at sea, and though Nelson might be mourned the glory of Trafalgar and the Nile cast the possibility of invasion into insignificance. The English people were confident that on land as well they would beat the French at every encounter. Not for nothing were Agincourt and Minden blazoned on English history, and Alexandria and Maida supplied whatever confirmation might be desired. Such disasters as that at Buenos Ayres were forgotten; confidence ran high. When Wellington gained a victory by which all Portugal was cleared of the French at one blow the public annoyance that even greater results had not been achieved, that the whole French army had not been captured, was extreme. There were few English people who did not think that, should Napoleon by some freak of fortune land in England, the veterans of Austerlitz and the almost legendary Imperial Guard would be routed by the militia and the hasty levies of the countryside. There was nothing which could drive the realities of war hard home into the public mind. If prices were high, then as compensation colonies fell into our hands, employment was fairly good, and the business of manufacturing arms and equipment was simply booming. Besides, intercourse with the Continent was not entirely cut off for the smugglers worked busily and successfully, and French lace and French fashions and French brandy circulated freely. It was hard for the average Englishman to realize that the Corsican Ogre was not merely an ogre, especially as the fantastic cartoons of the period and the wild legends which were current were more fitted to grace a child’s fairy-tale than to depict the most formidable enemy England had yet encountered.

On the mainland of Europe the picture was utterly reversed. The reality of war was only too obvious. The Emperor was no mere cartoonist’s figure drawn with disgusting detail. They had seen him; he had ridden into their capitals on his white horse in the midst of the army which had shattered their proud battalions over and over again. His power was terrible and his vengeance was swift. In half the countries of Europe a chance word might result in the careless speaker being flung next day into an unknown dungeon. His armies swarmed everywhere, and wherever they went they left a trail of desolation behind them. The peasants were starved and the landowners were ruined, to pay the enormous taxes which the indemnities he imposed demanded. The mass of the people, who had once hailed the great conqueror because his arrival meant their delivery from feudalism, now found themselves crushed under a despotism ten times more exacting. The Emperor was very real to them. Many of them now served new rulers who had been imposed upon them by him, and him alone. Wherever he appeared he was attended by a train of subject kings to whom his wish was law. At his word an Italian might find himself a Frenchman, or an Austrian a Bavarian. And this was no mere distinction without a difference. Once upon a time the peasant classes cared little about the politics of their rulers, or even about which ruler they served. The fate of a professional army was a royal, not a national concern. But now every able-bodied man found himself in the ranks. Badeners fought Portuguese on the question as to whether a Frenchman should rule Spain, and a hundred thousand Germans perished in the northern snows because the Emperor of the French wished to exclude English goods from Russian ports. The imposition was monstrous, and in consequence the question of nationality became of supreme importance. If a country made war upon Napoleon every citizen of that country now realized that defeat meant the continuance of a slavery as exasperating as it was degrading. The fact that their eventual victory left them very little freer does not enter into this argument. It is sufficient to say that Napoleon was regarded on the Continent with an interest agonizing in its intensity, and that this interest was nourished in a much more substantial fashion than prevailed in England.

It has been maintained and has infected all nationalities alike. The ability of the French nation to write telling memoirs is nowhere better displayed than in the period of the Empire. A large amount of very fascinating material was produced, by which the history of the period, which had previously been grossly distorted, was corrected and balanced. Details were worked out with an elaboration all too rare. The events in themselves were so exceedingly interesting, and the books about them were so well written, that it can hardly be considered surprising that more and more attention was turned towards the Empire. In addition, the fascinating personality of the Emperor concentrated and specialized the attention. More important than all, since events of huge importance turned merely upon his own whims and predilections, it was necessary to analyse and to examine the nature of the man who had this vast responsibility. It has become fashionable to inquire into every detail of his life, and there has grown up an enormous literature about him. Most of these books contain a fair amount of truth, but they nearly all contain a high proportion of lies. Napoleon himself was a good liar, but by now he is much more lied about than lying.

That coffee legend, for instance. Nine books on Napoleon out of ten say (with no more regard for physiology than for fact) that he was accustomed to drinking ten, twenty, even thirty cups of coffee a day. Napoleon drinking coffee is as familiar a figure to us as Sherlock Holmes injecting morphine, but both figures are equally apocryphal. The best authorities, people who really knew, are unanimous in saying that he never drank more than three cups a day. De Bausset, who was a Prefect of the Palace, and in charge of such arrangements, distinctly says he took only two, and goes out of his way to deny the rumours to the contrary which were already circulating. This is but one example out of many; perhaps we shall meet with others later on.

It is necessary first to sketch Napoleon’s career in brief, for the sake of later reference. The merest outline will suffice.

Napoleon began his military life under the old régime as an officer in the artillery; despite an inauspicious start, he attracted attention by his conduct at the siege of Toulon. Later he was nearly involved in the fall of Robespierre, but, extricating himself, he served with credit in the Riviera campaign of 1794. Next, he earned all the gratitude of which Barras was capable by crushing the revolt of the Sections against the Directory in 1795. By some means (it is certain that Josephine his wife had something to do with it) he obtained the command of the army of Italy; in 1796 and 1797 he crushed the Austrians and Piedmontese, conquered Piedmont and Lombardy, and made himself a name as the greatest living general. There followed the expedition to Egypt, where his successes (extolled as only he knew how) stood out in sharp contrast to the failures of the other French armies in Italy and Germany. Returning at the psychological moment, he seized the supreme power, and made himself First Consul. Masséna had already almost saved France by his victory at Zürich and his defence of Genoa, and Napoleon continued the work by a spectacular passage of the Alps and a perilously narrow victory at Marengo. Moreau settled the business by the battle of Hohenlinden. During the interval of peace which followed, Napoleon strengthened himself in every possible way. He codified the legal system, built up the Grand Army which later astonished the world, disposed of Moreau and various other possible rivals, assured the French people of his political wholeheartedness by shooting the Duc d’Enghien and by sending republicans wholesale to Cayenne; and finally grasped as much as possible of the shadow as well as the substance of royalty by proclaiming himself Emperor and receiving the Papal blessing at his coronation. But already he was at war again with England, and the following year (1805) Russia and Austria declared against him. He hurled the Grand Army across Europe with a sure aim. Mack surrendered at Ulm; out of seventy thousand men only a few escaped. At Austerlitz the Russian army was smitten into fragments. Austria submitted, and Napoleon triumphantly tore Tyrol and Venetia from her, gave crowns to his vassal rulers of Bavaria and Würtemberg, and proclaimed himself overlord of Germany as Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine. His brother Louis he made King of Holland; his brother Joseph King of Naples; his brother-in-law Murat Grand Duke of Berg. Prussia demurred, and was crushed almost out of existence at Jena. Russia, tardily moving to her support, was, after a hard fight at Eylau, beaten at Friedland (1807). At Tilsit the Emperors of the French and of Russia settled the fate of Continental Europe, and Jerome, the youngest brother of Napoleon, was given a new kingdom, Westphalia.

So far, nothing but glory and progress; but from now on, nothing but false steps and failure. First, the overrunning of Spain and the proclamation of Joseph as King of Spain. This brought Napoleon into contact with the enmity of a people instead of that merely of a king. It gave England a chance of effective military intervention, and it shook the world’s belief in the invulnerability of the Colossus by the defeats of Vimiero and Baylen. Austria made another effort for freedom in 1809, to submit tamely, after one victory and two defeats, when the game was by no means entirely lost. Hence followed further annexations and maltreatment. Then came blunder after blunder, while the Empire sagged through its sheer dead weight. The divorce of Josephine lost him the sympathy of the fervent Catholics and of the sentimentalists. The marriage with Marie Louise lost him the support of the republicans and of Russia. He quarrelled with his brother Louis, drove him from the country and annexed Holland. He tried to direct the Spanish war from Paris, with bad results. Annexation followed annexation in his attempt to shut the coasts to English trade. The Empire was gorged and surfeited, but Napoleon was inevitably forced to further action. Having irritated each other past bearing, he and Alexander of Russia drifted into war, and the snows of Russia swallowed up what few fragments of the old Grand Army had been spared from the Spanish and Danube campaigns. It was like a blow delivered by a dazed boxer—powerful, but ill-directed and easily avoided, so that the striker overbalances by his own momentum. Napoleon struggled once more to his feet. In 1813 he summoned to the eagles every Frenchman capable of bearing arms. But one by one his friends turned against him. Prussia, Austria, Saxony, Bavaria, each in turn joined the ranks of his enemies. His victories of Lützen, Bautzen and Dresden were of no avail. At Leipzig his army was shattered; he fought on desperately for a few more months, but at last he had to submit and abdicate.

A further effort after his escape from Elba ended with the disaster of Waterloo, and merely led to the last tragedy of St. Helena.

So much for the general. From this we can turn with relief to the particular; and from the particular, with perhaps even more relief, to the merely trivial.

OF course, we all know him. He was rather short and corpulent, and he wore a cocked hat, a green coat with red facings, and white breeches. Sometimes, when the mood took him, he would appear in trailing robes, with a wreath of laurel round his forehead. Very appropriate, admittedly, but—that wreath does appear a little incongruous, does it not? Then there are times when we see him on a white horse in the midst of the battle. One or two dead men are lying near him in graceful attitudes; one or two others are engaged in dying still more gracefully. His staff is round him; in the distance are long lines of infantry and volumes of cannon-smoke. But everything is so orderly and respectable that one cannot help thinking that even in that discreet, dim distance the dying are as careful about their manner as was Cæsar at the foot of Pompey’s statue. Verestchagin and others strike a different note, but they never saw Napoleon alive. We have portraits and pictures innumerable, but are we any nearer to the man himself—to what was inside the green coat and the cocked hat?

It is the same when we come to read the mountains of memoirs which have been written around him. There are solemn memoirs, there are indiscreet memoirs. There are abusive memoirs, there are flattering memoirs. There are memoirs, written in all honesty, during the reading of which one cannot help feeling that the writer would really like to begin personal pronouns referring to Him with a capital letter. And yet, after months—years, perhaps—of reading, one still feels that one knows nothing of him. One realizes, naturally, that he was a marvellously clever man, with a marvellous sense of his own cleverness. But of the man himself, of his little intimate desires and feelings, one remains ignorant. A century of memoir-reading will not do as much for us as would, say, a week’s sojourn alone with him on a desert island. What adds point to the argument is that obviously the writer of the most intimate memoirs was just as far from him as we are.

The fact of the matter is that Napoleon in all his life never had a friend. From his adolescence to his death there was nobody to whom he could speak unguardedly. It was not so much that he posed, as that he had himself well in hand on all occasions. He could unbend; he could pinch a grognard’s ear or crack jokes with his Guard; he could write passionate letters to Josephine or supplicatory ones to Walewska; but we realize that each of these displays is merely a flash from some new facet of the gem. To the design of the whole, to the light which glowed within secretly, we are perforce blind.

His tastes in art, which would be a valuable indication to his character, are variously rated by contemporaries. One thing is certain, and that is that art did not flourish under the Empire. A heavily censored press acts as a drag upon the wheel of progress in this, as in all other matters, but one cannot help thinking that this cessation of development is due as much to Napoleon’s lack of interest in the subject. David’s hard classicism and Isabey’s futilities are the best that the Empire can show in painting, while in sculpture (save perhaps for Houdon), in poetry, in romance, in criticism, not one names survives, with the slight exception of Madame de Staël. There is no French contemporary with Körner who could bear a moment’s comparison; there is not even any single achievement, like Rouget de l’Isle’s of the previous decade, to which France can point with pride. Napoleon’s own favourite works in literature make a rather curious list; tragedy was the only kind of dramatic literature which he favoured, although tragedy is the weakest part of the French drama, and in tragedy he ranked Corneille far above all others; Ossian’s poems, despite translation into French, had a great attraction for him, perhaps because the exalted wording appealed to him in his moments of fantastic planning; Goethe, the greatest living poet, held no fascination for him; but Rousseau did. Indeed Rousseau’s influence is clearly visible in many of Napoleon’s own writings. Beyond this, there is almost nothing modern which received the seal of his approval. The classics he read in translation, and solely for the sake of their matter. Music was not specially liked by him; he tolerated it because it roused in him the same sensations as did Ossian’s verse—it was a drug, a stimulant to him, but not a staple necessary. In painting he showed no special taste; the honours he gave David clearly indicate that he held no theories of his own on the subject. This list of likes and dislikes is non-committal; it can tell us little about Napoleon himself; and we are once more brought to an abrupt halt in our endeavour to discover what manner of man he really was.

Yet we can approach the question indirectly. Napoleon had no friend; there was never a time when he was taken off his guard. His soldiers loved him—stay! It was not love, it was adoration. That is the key to the mystery. It was not the love of one man for another; it was the worship of a God. But just as no man can be a hero to his own valet, so can no general be a God to his immediate subordinates. The rank and file could think of Marengo, of Austerlitz, of Jena, but what of the Marshals? At Marengo, France was on the verge of a frightful disaster. The slightest touch would have turned the scale, and Napoleon, hemmed in against the Alps, must have surrendered. What of France then, with a triumphant army at her frontier and not another regiment at hand? In the Austerlitz campaign it was nearly the same. Before Jena, Napoleon fell into error after error. Not until the next day was he made aware that only half the Prussian army had fought against him, and that he had recklessly exposed a single corps to meet the attack of the other half at Auerstädt. That Davout fought and won was Napoleon’s good fortune, not the result of his skill.

Looking back on fifteen years of unbroken success, the private soldiers might well believe Napoleon to be a God, but the Marshals were near enough to him to see the feet of clay. For them there was neither adoration nor love. He was their taskmaster, and a jealous one at that, lavish of reprimand and miserly of praise. He gave them wealth, titles, kingdoms even, but he never risked rivalry with himself by giving any one of them what they most desired—military power. The Peninsular War dragged on largely because he did not dare to entrust the supreme command of three hundred thousand men to a single general. With gold and glory even misers like Masséna became eventually satiated, and one by one they dropped away from his allegiance when the tide turned. It fell to Marmont, the only one of all the Marshals who owed everything to the Emperor, to surrender Paris to the Allies and complete his ruin. Not one of the twenty-six paladins accompanied their master to Elba or St. Helena; that was left to the junior officers such as Bertrand, Montholon and Gourgaud, who had been near enough to him to adore, but too far off to see faults. Yet even to these, life with their idol became at times unbearable, and more than one of them deserted before the end. In men Napoleon could not inspire the love that endures.

As regards women, it is an unpleasant task to venture a definite opinion. An aura of tradition has gradually developed around Josephine’s memory, and she is frequently looked upon as a woman who sacrificed herself for her love, and allowed herself to be divorced to aid her husband. Yet her most indignant partisan would not deny that she had much to lose beside her husband. The position of Queen of Queens; unlimited jewels; an unstinted wardrobe (and she was passionately fond of clothes); the prospect of the loss of all this might well have moved a woman to more tears even than Josephine shed. And of her affection for her husband one may be permitted to have suspicions. Her circumstances before the marriage were at least doubtful, and afterwards—those nasty rumours about Hippolyte Charles and others seem to have some foundation in fact.

Of Marie Louise mere mention is enough. When we come to discuss her later life and her conduct with Neipperg we shall find clear proof that she did not love Napoleon. The other women who came into his life are pale shades compared even to these two. With none of them was he in love, and none of them loved him, or came to share his exile. Madame Walewska visited him for a few days at Elba, but that was merely to seek further favours for herself and her son. After Waterloo she married; all her predecessors had already done the same. Women did not love Napoleon. We may picture Napoleon, then, going through life friendless and quite alone. Never a moment’s relaxation from the stiffness of his mental attitude of superiority; never the light of friendship in the eye of man or woman; every single person in Europe was either his slave or his enemy. To say the least, his was an isolated position. And yet, was he unhappy? Bourrienne tells us that in the early Revolution days Napoleon walked the streets, gaunt and passionate, with a lustful eye for rich carriages, ornate houses, and all the outward emblems of power. The phase ended as soon as power was his, and he passed easily into the condition of isolation which endured for the rest of his life. He was the Man of Destiny, the sole creature of his kind, and he was happy. His isolation never troubled him in the least. If ever he referred to it, it was in terms of satisfaction. He was guilty on more than one occasion of saying that he was above all law, and it is well known that he believed in his “star”; he believed that he was marked out by some inscrutable higher power (the limitations of whose exact nature he never defined) to achieve unbounded success and to wield a permanently unlimited power. It is difficult to imagine such a condition. The most ordinary or most modest man has usually an undying belief that his own ability transcends all others, and that Providence regards him with a special interest, but deeper still there is almost invariably a further feeling (often ignored, but usually obvious at a crisis) that this simply cannot be so. Even if this further feeling does not become apparent, a man’s sense of humour usually comes to his rescue and saves him from the uttermost absurdity. But Napoleon’s sense of humour was only feebly developed, and in many directions was totally wanting. On the other hand, there were certainly many reasons for his classification of himself as a different being from ordinary men. He never turned his hand to anything without achieving much greater success than his contemporaries. If a codification of law was required, then Napoleon codified laws, without one half of the difficulty previously experienced. He won battles over every general whom the Continent pitted against him. If a province was to be conquered, or, conquered, had to be reorganized, then Napoleon was ready at a moment’s notice to dictate the methods of procedure—and he was usually proved to be correct. For twelve years, from 1800 to 1812, Napoleon did not know what it was to fail in any matter under his own personal control, while during that period his successes were unprecedented. Besides, there were more convenient standards of comparison. He was able to work at a pace which wore out all his subordinates, and he was able to continue working long after they had been compelled to confess themselves beaten. In his capacity for mental labour he stood not merely unequalled, but unapproached. Even physically he was frequently able to display superiority; his staff over and over again were unable to endure fatigues which he bore unmoved. Lastly, he was usually able to bend to his will anyone with whom he came in contact. The unruly generals of the Army of Italy in 1796 gave way to him, when he was little more than a favoured upstart, with extraordinary mildness. He induced conscientious men like Lefebvre to agree to the most unscrupulous actions. Alexander of Russia, smarting under the defeats of Austerlitz and Friedland, was won over in the course of a few hours’ interview, and became Napoleon’s enthusiastic ally.

There certainly was a great deal in favour of the theory that Napoleon was a very remarkable man, but not even the greatest of men is justified in believing that he is different from other men in kind as well as in degree. The fact that Napoleon really did believe this is highly significant. It hints at something being wanting in his mental constitution, something similar to, but even more important than a sense of humour. His shameless duplicity in both his public and his private concerns points to the same end. His inability to gain the lasting friendship of any of those with whom he came in contact is another link in the chain of argument. His complete disbelief in the disinterestedness of the motives of any single human being completes it. Napoleon was one of the most brilliant thinkers the world has ever seen; he was the most practical and strenuous in action; he enjoyed for twenty years more good luck than anyone has ever deserved; but he had a meanness of soul unsurpassed in recorded history. As a machine, he was wellnigh perfect (until he began to wear out); as a man he was deplorably wanting.

IT was a common saying in the Napoleonic army that every man in the ranks carried a Marshal’s bâton in his knapsack. This was correct in theory, but in actual practice it hardly proved true. Every one of the twenty-six Marshals of the First Empire had held important commands before the rank was instituted.

Grouchy, the last Marshal to be created, was second-in-command of the Bantry Bay expedition in 1796, when Napoleon was just making his name; Jourdan had commanded the Army of the North as far back as 1794.

But if the title of Marshal was no more than their bare due, Napoleon certainly gave his generals other honours in plenty. One of them, Murat, he made a King; another, Bernadotte, after receiving the title of Sovereign Prince of Ponte Corvo, later became King of Sweden and Norway. Berthier was Sovereign Prince of Neufchâtel. Three other Marshals were created Princes of the Empire; thirteen were created Dukes; six, Counts; and the only one remaining, Poniatowski, was a Prince of Poland already.

Besides titles, wealth without limit was showered upon them. Suchet received half a million francs with his bâton; Davout in 1811 enjoyed an income, all told, of two million francs a year along with the unofficial dictatorship of Poland and the command of a hundred and fifty thousand men. It was Napoleon’s habit to bestow upon his generals huge estates in each country he conquered. Lefebvre received the domain of Johannisberg, on the Rhine, which had once belonged to the Emperor of Austria and later passed to the Metternich family, while Junot received a castle and estate of the unlucky King of Prussia. Nearly every man of mark was given five thousand acres or so in Poland, with the attached serfs. And Napoleon was the Apostle of the Revolution!

The one condition attached to the gifts was that the recipient must spend as much as possible in the capital. So Parisian shopkeepers grew fat and praised the Empire; the Paris mob battened on the crumbs which fell from the tables, and a feverish gaiety impressed the onlooker. Out in the subject countries was nothing but a grinding poverty, and in the countries recently conquered by France the tax-collectors strove to gather in enough to pay the indemnities, and even the rats starved because the Grand Army had passed that way.

It is when we come to examine the careers of the Marshals that we first meet evidence of one of the most curious and significant facts of Napoleon’s life. Everybody to whom Napoleon showed great favour; everyone who received his confidence; everyone, in consequence, who had appeared at one time to be on the direct road to unbounded prosperity, met with a most tragic and unfortunate end. Not a few of the worst set-backs which Napoleon experienced were due to the defects of those whom he had trusted and aggrandized, and many of his favourites, apparently too weak morally to endure the intoxication of success, turned against him when fortune ceased to smile upon him. Their deaths were tragic, and their lives were nearly all dishonourable.

Of all the Marshals, Berthier was the foremost in seniority, in precedence, and in favour. In every campaign which Napoleon fought, from 1796 to 1814, he held the position of Chief of Staff. The history of his military career during this period needs no repetition—it is one with Napoleon’s. Every conceivable honour was bestowed upon him. He was given the sovereignty of the principality of Neufchâtel and Valangin; in 1809 the additional title of Prince of Wagram; he was appointed a Senator, a Minister, Vice-Constable of France and a Grand Dignitary of the Empire; at Napoleon’s hands he received a bride of royal descent, in the person of a Princess of Bavaria; in 1810 the supreme honour was his of representing Napoleon at the preliminary ceremony of the marriage with Marie Louise. It seemed that he was one with Napoleon, his faithful shadow and devoted servant. And yet when Napoleon abdicated and was sent to Elba, Berthier threw in his lot with the Bourbons, and swore allegiance to them. Napoleon’s return and new accession to power during the Hundred Days, in consequence placed him in a terrible position. He was torn between his new allegiance and his old devotion to Napoleon. The strain proved too severe. He died at Bamberg, just before Waterloo, having flung himself from a high window in his despair.

The second senior of the Marshals was Joachim Murat. Murat was fortunate in two ways. He was able to handle large masses of cavalry with decision on a battlefield, and he married the sister of the Emperor. There was very little else to recommend him for distinction, but these two facts were sufficient to raise him to a throne. Napoleon appointed him to the command of the cavalry of the Grand Army. He made him a Prince and Grand Admiral of France. Next came a sovereignty—the Grand Duchy of Berg and Cleves, and two years later Murat mounted the throne which Joseph Bonaparte had just vacated, and became King of the Two Sicilies. So far, it was a highly satisfactory career for a man who had begun as the assistant of his father, the inn and posting-house keeper of La Bastide. Murat determined to keep his throne, and during the dark days of 1814 he turned against Napoleon, and marched at the head of his Neapolitans against the French. But retribution was swift. He lost his throne next year in a premature attempt to unite Italy, and in the end he was shot by the indignant Neapolitan Bourbons after the miserable failure of an attempt on his part to recover his crown after the fashion set by Napoleon in his descent from Elba.

It is, perhaps, a pardonable digression to consider here what might have happened had Murat retained his throne. It is certain that he would have been as progressive as the Austrians and his own weak nature would have allowed. It is possible that the United Italy party would have looked towards his dynasty instead of to the House of Savoy. The growing Napoleonic tradition would have aided. Perhaps to-day we might behold in the south a King of Italy descended from a Gascon stable-boy, to balance in the north a King of Sweden descended from a Gascon lawyer’s clerk.

But to return to our former theme. So far we have seen two of Napoleon’s favourites meet with violent deaths. There are many more instances. Bessières was a nonentity distinguished by little except his devotion to the Empire. He attracted Napoleon’s notice in 1796, and his doglike faithfulness was a sure recommendation. Bessières became the Commander of the Guard; later he was created Duke of Istria and was given immense riches. Napoleon honoured him with all the friendship of which he was capable; it seemed not unlikely that a throne would be found for him. But Bessières died in agony after receiving a mortal wound at Lützen.

Then there was Ney, the brave des braves. His personal courage was almost his only title to fame. When Napoleon attained supreme power, Ney was a divisional general of the Army of the Rhine. Under the Empire he became Marshal, Duke of Elchingen and Prince of the Moskowa. It was Ney who made Ulm possible by his victory at Elchingen; it was he whose attack beat back the Russians at Friedland; to him is due much of the credit for Borodino, while his command of the rearguard during the retreat from Moscow is beyond praise. And yet he was many times in error. At Jena and during the Eylau campaign his impetuosity was almost disastrous. He made several grave mistakes during Masséna’s campaign in Spain, 1810-1811. At Bautzen in 1813 he lost a great opportunity, and he was beaten later at Dennewitz. It was his vigour and his dauntless courage which recommended him to Napoleon, who made full use of these qualities to stimulate the hero-worship of his young troops. Ney received wealth, high command and a princely title at the Emperor’s hands. Then he helped to force the Emperor to abdicate. However, he was unstable; he betrayed his new king and went over to Napoleon during the descent from Elba. Napoleon entrusted him with the task of staving off the English during the Waterloo campaign, and he failed lamentably. He lost a great opportunity at Quatre Bras through having allowed his columns to lengthen out; he shilly-shallied all the morning of the 16th of June; he ruined the campaign by his furious countermand to d’Erlon in the afternoon; and finally at Waterloo he wasted the reserve cavalry by his unsupported attacks on the English squares. And the Bourbons shot him as soon as possible after the second Restoration.

Lannes, “the Bayard of the French Army,” whom Napoleon had called “le braves des braves” before he gave the title to Ney, met with as miserable a fate. He had begun life as a dyer’s apprentice at Lectourne, but enlisted at the opening of the Revolutionary wars, and was a colonel on Napoleon’s staff during the first campaign of Italy. His fearless acceptance of responsibility, and his magnificent dash and courage while in action were his great assets, and Napoleon favoured him more than any of the younger Marshals, except Murat. It was largely through him that Napoleon found it possible to employ the strategic weapon which he invented—the strategic advanced guard. Victories as widely divided as Marengo and Friedland were directly due to Lannes, and he was proportionately rewarded with a Marshalate, a Colonel-generalship, an enormous fortune and the title of Duke of Montebello. But he was mortally wounded at Aspern, and died of gangrene at Vienna.

There was one Marshal whom Napoleon especially favoured who did not meet with a violent death. Nevertheless his end was more terrible by far than was Bessières’ or even Lannes’. This was Marmont, who in 1796 was a young captain twenty-two years of age, but who gained Napoleon’s regard to such good effect that he was Inspector-General of Artillery at twenty-six, governor of Illyria and Duke of Ragusa at thirty-four, and Marshal in 1809, one year later. But he failed in Spain, Wellington beating him thoroughly at Salamanca. In 1814 he dealt the finishing blow to the tottering Empire by his surrender of Paris. He seemed fated to be unfortunate. Pampered by the Bourbons, he mishandled the army in Paris during Charles X.’s attempt at absolute power, and ruined both the dynasty and himself. He dragged out the remainder of his life in exile, hated and despised alike by Bonapartists, Legitimists, Orleanists and Republicans.

So much for the Marshals Napoleon liked; his favour certainly appears to have been blighting. Now for those whom he disliked.

When Napoleon finally got rid of Moreau, the man who succeeded in general estimation to the vacant and undesirable position of unofficial leader of the unofficial opposition was Jean Baptiste Jules Bernadotte. This man was one of the most despicable and successful trimmers in history. In Moreau’s Army of the Rhine he had attained the rank of general of division, but he was in no way a talented leader. Just before Napoleon’s return from Egypt he had intrigued to attain the supreme power, but over-reached himself. In Napoleon’s coup d’état of the 18th Brumaire he hunted with the hounds and ran with the hare with remarkable success, assuring the Directory on the one hand of his unfaltering support, and yet joining the group of generals who accompanied Napoleon, but characteristically not wearing uniform. In addition, he had a convenient shelter behind a woman’s petticoats, for with subtle forethought he had married Joseph Bonaparte’s sister-in-law, Désirée Clary. Désirée was a jilted sweetheart of Napoleon’s, and what with her hatred of the great man, Joseph’s support, and Napoleon’s horror of a scandal in his family (combined with a sneaking affection for her) Bernadotte made himself fairly secure all round. But he still continued to intrigue against Napoleon. During the Consulate an extraordinary conspiracy was discovered centring at Rennes, Bernadotte’s headquarters. Bernadotte himself was undoubtedly implicated, but he somehow wriggled free from suspicion. To the Republicans he posed as a Republican; the Bourbons were convinced that he was on their side; actually he was working for his own hand, while, thanks to Joseph, he obtained his Marshalate and the principality of Ponte Corvo from the Empire.

In action, various unsavourily suspicious incidents occurred in connection with him. In 1806 he took advantage of an ambiguous order to absent his corps both from Jena and Auerstädt; the results of his action might have been far-reaching. Later Benningsen and the Russian army escaped from the trap Napoleon had set for them by capturing vital orders which were on their way to the Prince of Ponte Corvo. At Wagram his corps was routed and broken up.

But when, in 1810, the Swedes were seeking a Crown Prince for their country, he was the man they selected. Apparently their choice should have been agreeable to Napoleon. Was Bernadotte not the brother-in-law of the King of Spain, a connection by marriage of the Emperor, Prince of Ponte Corvo and one of the senior Marshals? Moreover, while Governor of Hanover, he had had dealings with the Swedes and had ingratiated himself in their esteem. Napoleon was furious, but he could do nothing, and Bernadotte became Crown Prince and virtual autocrat of Sweden. It only remained for him to win the favour of Russia by turning against France, so that, at the Treaty of Abo, Norway as well was handed over to his tender mercies.

Later he even angled for the throne of France, but the French could never forgive the part he had played in defeating them at Gross Beeren, Dennewitz and Leipzig; they did not realize that with this very object in view he had almost betrayed his new allies, and had hung back and procrastinated in order to retain his French popularity.

But double-dealer, intriguer, traitor that he was, hated by Napoleon, hated by the French people, despised by the rest of Europe, he nevertheless held on to his throne, and transmitted it to his descendants. Nowadays the House of Bernadotte is not considered too ignoble to wed even with a branch of the House of Windsor.

There were other Marshals whom Napoleon disliked, mainly because of their former association with Moreau. Macdonald was the son of a supporter of the Young Pretender, and was a relative of Flora Macdonald. He failed to pass the examination for a commission under the old régime, but with the Revolution came his chance. He distinguished himself under Dumouriez and Pichegru (who subsequently turned Royalist), and then under Moreau. It was an unlucky start for him. The Directory appointed him to the command of the Army of Naples, but with this force he was beaten by Suvaroff in the four days’ battle of the Trebbia. Subsequently he performed the marvellous feat of leading an army across the Splugen in midwinter, but for all that Napoleon employed him as little as possible, keeping him on half-pay until 1809. However, Macdonald received his bâton after Wagram; mainly, it is believed, to throw a stronger light on Bernadotte’s failure. In 1813 Macdonald, Duke of Tarentum, was beaten again at the Katzbach, but by now Napoleon had some idea of his worth and retained him in command. By a delicious piece of irony, Macdonald the distrusted was the last Marshal to leave the Emperor in 1814; he was also one of the few to adhere to the Bourbons during the Hundred Days. He enjoyed great honour under the Restoration and the July Monarchy, and died comfortably in his bed at the age of seventy-five.

Another bête noire of Napoleon’s was St. Cyr. He too was one of the “Spartans of the Rhine.” In consequence Napoleon kept him out of active service as much as possible. This course of action was of doubtful utility, for St. Cyr was a man of superior talents. Not until 1812 was he made a Marshal, but wounds then kept him out of action until August, 1813, and he was made prisoner by the Allies in the autumn. The Bourbons, however, took kindly to him, and he held various high offices until his death in 1830.

Thus the five favourite Marshals of Napoleon died miserably, and the three whom he disliked would be said to have lived happily ever after by any self-respecting moral story-teller. It is a very curious fact, and one which finds a parallel elsewhere in Napoleon’s career, as we shall see in later chapters.