Napoleon's Letters To Josephine Part 75

No. 3.

_Prince of the Asturias._--The Emperor had received him at the chateau of Marrac, paid him all the honours due to royalty, while evading the word "Majesty," and insisting the same day on his giving up all claim to the Crown of Spain. Constant says he was heavy of gait, and rarely spoke.

_The Queen._--A woman of violent pa.s.sions. The Prince of the Asturias had designs on his mother's life, while the Queen openly begged Napoleon to put the Prince to death. On May 9th Napoleon writes Talleyrand to prepare to take charge of Ferdinand at Valencay, adding that if the latter were "to become attached to some pretty woman, whom we are sure of, it would be no disadvantage." A new experience for a Montmorency to become the keeper of a Bourbon, rather than his Constable. Pasquier, with his usual Malvolian decorum, gives fuller details. Napoleon, he says, "enumerates with care (to Talleyrand) all the precautions that are to be taken to prevent his escape, and even goes so far as to busy himself with the distractions which may be permitted him. And, be it noted, the princ.i.p.al one thrown in his way was given him by a young person who lived at the time under M. De Talleyrand's roof. This liaison, of which Ferdinand soon became distrustful, did not last as long as it was desired to."

No. 4.

_A son has been born._--By a plebiscite of the year XII. (1804-5), the children of Louis and Hortense were to be the heirs of Napoleon, and in conformity with this the child born on April 20th at 17 Rue Lafitte (now the residence of the Turkish Amba.s.sador), was inscribed on the register of the Civil List destined for princes of the blood. His two elder brothers had not been so honoured, but in due course the King of Rome was entered thereon. Had Louis accepted the Crown of Spain which Napoleon had in vain offered to him, and of which Hortense would have made an ideal Queen, the chances are that Napoleon would never have divorced Josephine. St. Amand shows at length that the future Napoleon III. is truly the child of Louis, and neither of Admiral Verhuell nor of the Duke Decazes. Louis and Hortense in the present case are sufficiently agreed to insist that the father's name be preserved by the child, who is called Charles Louis Napoleon, and not Charles Napoleon, which was the Emperor's first choice. In either case the name of the croup-stricken firstborn had been preserved. On April 23rd Josephine had already two letters from Cambaceres respecting mother and child, and on this day the Empress writes her daughter: "I know that Napoleon is consoled for not having a sister."

_Arrive on the 27th._--Josephine, always wishful to humour her husband's love of punctuality, duly arrived on the day fixed, and took up her abode with her husband in the chateau of Marrac. Ferdinand wrote to his uncle in Madrid to beware of the cursed Frenchmen, telling him also that Josephine had been badly received at Bayonne.

The letter was intercepted, and Napoleon wrote Murat that the writer was a liar, a fool, and a hypocrite. The Emperor, in fact, never trusted the Prince henceforward. Bausset, who translated the letter, tells how the Emperor could scarcely believe that the Prince would use so strong an adjective, but was convinced on seeing the word _maldittos_, which he remarked was almost the Italian--_maledetto_.

SERIES J

Leaving St. Cloud September 22nd, Napoleon is at Metz on the 23rd, at Kaiserlautern on the 24th, where he sends a message to the Empress in a letter to Cambaceres, and on the 27th is at Erfurt. On the 28th the Emperors of France and Russia sign a Convention of Alliance. Napoleon leaves Erfurt October 14th (the anniversary of Jena), travels incognito, and arrives St. Cloud October 18th.

No. 1.

_I have rather a cold._--Napoleon had insisted on going to explore a new road he had ordered between Metz and Mayence, and which no one had ventured to say was not complete. The road was so bad that the carriage of the _maitre des requetes_, who had been summoned to account for the faulty work, was precipitated a hundred feet down a ravine near Kaiserlautern.

_I am pleased with the Emperor and every one here._--Which included what he had promised Talma for his audience--a _parterre_ of kings.

Besides the two Emperors, the King of Prussia was represented by his brother Prince William, Austria by General Vincent, and there were also the Kings of Saxony, Bavaria, Wurtemberg, Westphalia, and Naples, the Prince Primate, the Princes of Anhalt, Coburg, Saxe-Weimar, Darmstadt, Baden, and Na.s.sau. Talleyrand, Champagny, Maret, Duroc, Berthier, and Caulaincourt, with Generals Oudinot, Soult, and Lauriston accompanied Napoleon. Literature was represented by Goethe, Wieland, Muller; and feminine attractions by the d.u.c.h.ess of Saxe-Weimar and the wily Princess of Tour and Taxis, sister of the Queen of Prussia. Pasquier and others have proved that at Erfurt Talleyrand did far more harm than good to his master's cause, and in fact intended to do so. On his arrival he spent his first evening with the Princess of Tour and Taxis, in order to meet the Emperor Alexander, and said: "Sire ... It is for you to save Europe, and the only way of attaining this object is by resisting Napoleon. The French people are civilised, their Emperor is not: the sovereign of Russia is civilised, his people are not. It is therefore for the sovereign of Russia to be the ally of the French people,"--of whom Talleyrand declared himself to be the representative. By squaring Alexander this transcendental (unfrocked) Vicar of Bray, "with an oar in every boat,"

is once more hedging, or, to use his own phrase, guaranteeing the future, and at the same time securing the daughter of the d.u.c.h.ess of Courland for his nephew, Edmond de Perigord. "The Arch-apostate"

carried his treason so far as to advise Alexander of Napoleon's ulterior views, and thus enabled the former to forestall them--no easy matter in conversations with Napoleon "lasting whole days" (see Letter No. 3, this Series). Talleyrand had also a grievance. He had been replaced as Foreign Minister by Champagny. He had accepted the surrender of his portfolio gladly, as now, becoming Vice-Grand Elector, he ranked with Cambaceres and Maret. But when he found that Napoleon, who liked to have credit for his own diplomacy, seldom consulted him, or allowed Champagny to do so, jealousy and ill-will naturally resulted.

No. 2.

_Shooting over the battlefield of Jena._--The presence of the Emperor Alexander on this occasion was considered a great affront to his recent ally, the King of Prussia, and is severely commented on by Von Moltke in one of his Essays. In fairness to Alexander, we must remember that their host, the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, had married his sister. Von Moltke, by the way, speaks of _hares_ forming the sport in question, but Savary of a second battle of Jena fought against the _partridges_. The fact seems to be that all kinds of game, including stags and deer, were driven by the beaters to the royal sportsmen in their huts, and the Emperor Alexander, albeit short-sighted, succeeded in killing a stag, at eight feet distance, _at the first shot_.

_The Weimar ball._--This followed the Jena shoot, and the dancing lasted all night. The Russian courtiers were scandalised at their Emperor dancing, but while he was present the dancing was conventional enough, consisting of promenading two and two to the strains of a Polish march. "Imperial Waltz, imported from the Rhine," was already the rage in Germany, and Napoleon, in order to be more worthy of his Austrian princess, tried next year to master this new science of tactics, but after a trial with the Princess Stephanie, the lady declared that her pupil should always give lessons, and never receive them. He was rather more successful at billiards, pursued under the same praiseworthy incentive.

_A few trifling ailments._--Mainly a fearful nightmare; a new experience, in which he imagines his vitals torn out by a bear.

"Significant of much!" As when also the Russian Emperor finds himself without a sword and accepts that of Napoleon as a gift: and when, on the last night, the latter orders his comedians to play "Bajazet,"--little thinking the appointed Tamerlane was by his side.

No. 3.

_I am pleased with Alexander._--For the time being Josephine had most reason to be pleased with Alexander, who failed to secure his sister's hand for Napoleon.

_He ought to be with me._--He might have been, had not Napoleon purposely evaded the Eastern Question. On this subject Savary writes (vol. ii. 297):--"Since Tilsit, Napoleon had sounded the personal views of his amba.s.sador at Constantinople, General Sebastiani, as to this proposition of the Emperor of Russia (_i.e._ the part.i.tion of Turkey). This amba.s.sador was utterly opposed to this project, and in a long report that he sent to the Emperor on his return from Constantinople, he demonstrated to him that it was absolutely necessary for France never to consent to the dismemberment of the Turkish Empire; the Emperor Napoleon adopted his views." And these Talleyrand knew. The whirligig of time brings about its revenges, and in less than fifty years Lord Palmerston had to seek an alliance with France and the house of Napoleon in order to maintain the fixed policy that sent Napoleon I. to Moscow and to St. Helena. "Alexander, with justice," says Alison, "looked upon Constantinople as the back-door of his empire, and was earnest that its key should be placed in his hands." "Alexander," Napoleon told O'Meara, "wanted to get Constantinople, which I would not allow, as it would have destroyed the equilibrium of power in Europe. I reflected that France would gain Egypt, Syria, and the islands, which would have been nothing in comparison with what Russia would have obtained. I considered that the barbarians of the north were already too powerful, and probably in the course of time would overwhelm all Europe, as I now think they will. Austria already trembles: Russia and Prussia united, Austria falls, and England cannot prevent it."

_Erfurt_ is the meridian of Napoleon's first thirteen years (1796-1808)--each more glorious; henceforward (1809-1821) ever faster he "rolls, darkling, down the torrent of his fate."

SERIES K

No. 5.

Written from Aranda.

No. 6.

Written from the Imperial Camp outside Madrid. Neither Napoleon[67]

nor Joseph entered the capital, but King Joseph took up his abode at the Prado, the castle of the Kings of Spain, two miles away; while the Emperor was generally at Chamartin, some five miles distant. He had arrived on the heights surrounding Madrid on his Coronation Day (December 2nd), and does not fail to remind his soldiers and his people of this auspicious coincidence. The bulletin concludes with a tirade against England, whose conduct is "shameful," but her troops "well disciplined and superb." It declares that Spain has been treated by them as they have treated Holland, Sardinia, Austria, Russia, and Sweden. "They foment war everywhere; they distribute weapons like poison; but they shed their blood only for their direct and personal interests."

_Parisian weather of the last fortnight in May._--In his bulletin of the 13th, he says: "Never has such a month of December been known in this country; one would think it the beginning of spring." But ten days later all was changed, and the storm of Guadarrama undoubtedly saved Moore and the English army. "Was it then decreed," groans Thiers, "that we, who were always successful against combined Europe, should on no single occasion prevail against those implacable foes?"

No. 8.

Other letters of this date are headed Madrid.

_Kourakin._--Alexander Kourakin was the new Russian Amba.s.sador at Paris, removed thence from Vienna to please Napoleon, and to replace Tolstoi, who, according to Savary, was always quarrelling with French officers on military points, but who could hardly be so narrow-minded a novice on these points as his namesake of to-day. This matter had been arranged at Erfurt.

No. 9.

_The English appear to have received reinforcements._--Imagine a Transvaal with a population of ten millions, and one has a fair idea of the French difficulties in Spain, even without Portugal. The Spaniards could not fight a scientific battle like Jena or Friedland, but they were incomparable at guerilla warfare. The Memoirs of Barons Marbot and Lejeune have well demonstrated this. The latter, an accomplished linguist, sent to locate Moore's army, found that to pa.s.s as an Englishman the magic words "d.a.m.n it," won him complete success.

No. 10.

_Benavente._--Here they found 600 horses, which had been hamstrung by the English.

_The English flee panic-stricken._--The next day Napoleon writes Fouche to have songs written, and caricatures made of them, which are also to be translated into German and Italian, and circulated in Germany and Italy.

_The weather is very bad._--Including 18 degrees of frost. Savary says they had never felt the cold so severe in Poland--and that they ran a risk of being buried in the snow. The Emperor had to march on foot and was very much tired. "On these occasions," adds Savary, "the Emperor was not selfish, as people would have us believe ... he shared his supper[68] and his fire with all who accompanied him: he went so far as to make those eat whom he saw in need of it." Napier gives other details: "Napoleon, on December 22nd, has 50,000 men at the foot of the Guadarrama. A deep snow choked the pa.s.ses of the Sierra, and after twelve hours' toil the advanced guards were still on the wrong side: the general commanding reported the road impracticable, but Napoleon, dismounting, placed himself at the head of the column, and amidst storms of hail and driving snow, led his soldiers over the mountain."

At the pa.s.sage of the Esla Moore escapes Napoleon by twelve hours.

Marbot, as usual, gives picturesque details. Officers and men marched with locked arms, the Emperor between Lannes and Duroc. Half-way up, the marshals and generals, who wore jack-boots, could go no further.

Napoleon, however, got hoisted on to a gun, and bestrode it: the marshals and generals did the same, and in this grotesque order they reached, after four hours' toil, the convent at the summit.

_Lefebvre._--As they neared Benavente the slush became frightful, and the artillery could not keep pace. General Lefebvre-Desnouette went forward, with the horse regiment of the Guard, forded the Esla with four squadrons, was outnumbered by the English (3000 to 300), but he and sixty (Lejeune, who escaped, says a hundred) of his cha.s.seurs were captured. He was brought in great triumph to Sir John Moore. "That general," says Thiers, "possessed the courtesy characteristic of all great nations; he received with the greatest respect the brilliant general who commanded Napoleon's light cavalry, seated him at his table, and presented him with a magnificent Indian sabre."

No. 11.

Probably written from Astorga, where he arrived on January 1st, having brought 50,000 men two hundred miles in ten days.