Napoleon (O'Connor 1896)/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV.
AS NAPOLEON APPEARED TO A RELATIVE.[1]
lavalette
The next estimate I shall give is that of Lavalette.
Count Lavalette is the hero of one of the most romantic stories in history. Few particulars are given of that episode in his Memoirs which, nevertheless, have an interest far beyond their merely personal character. Lavalette was a brave soldier, a successful Minister, and intimate servant of Napoleon. But the great interest of this book to me is the picture it gives of the point of view of the average man during the strange events that made up the passionate drama of France from the beginning of the Revolution to the end of the Empire. I don't know how this book would strike a Frenchman; but to me it reads as an extremely fair one. Events are set forth, it is true, without much glow or inspiration; but on the other hand, the moderation and simplicity of its tone enable one to see events in their true light, and to understand the feelings which took hold of the minds of most Frenchmen, and made them pass without much difficulty or much remonstrance from one sort of government to another governments so diverse as the old French Monarchy, the wild Revolution, and then the iron despotism of Napoleon.
I.
ABOUT THE BASTILLE.
Lavalette was the son of a respectable Paris tradesman. He received a good education, was intended for the Church, and had got as far as holy orders and a small position, when the Revolution broke out and upset him, as everything else. He was soon a member of the National Guard, and was present at many of the stirring and terrible scenes which opened the Revolution. As will be gathered from what I have already said, he is a cool, unimpassioned observer, had military instinct from his whole temperament; and any description, therefore, which he gives of the doings of the mob in that strange period, is free from any enthusiasm, and rather censorious than otherwise. Thus, when he describes what he saw at the taking of the Bastille, you can clearly perceive that if he had been in command and such a monarch as Napoleon had been on the throne, the history of that event and of the whole world would have been very different. He confirms the impression, which has been got by every close student of the French Revolution, that the old Bastille was formidable and hateful rather for what it represented than what it was:
"Situated without the precincts of the city, beyond the Porte Saint-Antoine, it was evidently never intended as a check upon the metropolis. It was said the King meant to keep his treasure there, but the interior distribution clearly evinced that it was destined to serve as a State prison. This pretended fortress consisted of five towers, about one hundred and twenty feet high, joined together by strong high walls and surrounded by broad deep ditches. Its entrance was protected by drawbridges, and on July 14th it was commanded by a governor, and defended by about sixty Swiss veterans; a few old guns, of small size, were placed on the terraces of the towers. There was nothing very formidable in its appearance; but something like a superstitious terror pervaded the minds of the people, and most marvellous stories were told respecting the Bastille. For many ages the most noble victims of despotism groaned within its mysterious walls. Some prisoners, who had been fortunate enough to escape from it, had published most terrifying accounts. Those formidable towers, those vigilant sentinels, who suffered no one, even by stealth, to cast a look towards them; those numerous, ferocious-looking guards, frightful by their appearance, and more frightful still by their deep silence—all united to excite terror and anxious curiosity. Nevertheless, the State prison was not dangerous for the people; it was designed for persons of high birth, or for literary people who ventured to displease the Ministry. But to the wish of satisfying curiosity, was added a noble feeling of pity for the numerous victims supposed to be shut up in the fortress, and the whole population of Paris resolved to make themselves master of the Bastille."
II.
THE HANGING OF FOULON.
Lavalette saw the hanging of poor old Foulon. He evidently does not believe that Foulon ever used the phrase which had been attributed to him: "Why don't the people eat grass?" or, as Lavalette gives it, "Hay was good enough to feed the Paris rabble." Anyhow, the sight of his execution produced a great effect upon Lavalette, and shaped his after career as it did that of so many others.
"I crossed the Place de la Grève to the Comédie Française; it rained, and there was no tumult anywhere but facing the Hôtel de Ville. I was standing on the parapet when I saw raised above the crowd the figure of an old man with gray hair; it was the unfortunate Foulon being hanged at the lamp-post. I returned home to study my beloved Montesquieu; and from that moment I began to hate a revolution in which people were murdered without being heard in their defence."
There is something thrilling in this plain, blunt, terse narrative of that awful day. Familiar as the scene is to us all, these few lines seem to me singularly effective—above all things, by bringing out the fact, which is to be found in more than one scene in the Revolution, that this epoch-making tragedy passed through so narrow an area of disturbance. "There was no tumult anywhere but facing the Hôtel de Ville." By-and-by we shall see other and even more remarkable instances of this peculiar phenomenon of the Revolution. Lavalette, as a National Guard, was also present at the great march of the women to Versailles. His account of that day would gladden the heart of Taine. The Mœnads who headed the procession were "inebriated women, the refuse of humankind." Lavalette's company would have little to do with these creatures; and he was strongly of opinion that the whole manifestation could have been put down if the King had shown some firmness.
III.
"TO PARIS."
And finally Lavalette accompanied the monarch in that journey back to Paris, which Carlyle and so many other writers have told us all about. Lavalette's narrative is excellent reading, though coloured by the Imperialist soldier's prejudices.
"The mob crowded in the marble court, and wandering on the outside of the palace, began to express again their designs with frightful howlings. 'To Paris! To Paris!' were the cries. Their prey was promised them, and then fresh cries ordered the unfortunate family to appear on the balcony. The Queen showed herself, accompanied by her children; she was forced by threats to send them away. I mixed in the crowd, and beheld for the first time that unfortunate Princess. She was dressed in white; her head was bare, and adorned with beautiful fair locks. Motionless, and in a modest and noble attitude, she appeared to me like a victim on the block. The enraged populace were not moved at the sight of woe in all its majesty. Imprecations increased, and the unfortunate Princess could not even find a support in the King, for his presence did but augment the fury of the multitude. At last preparations for departure did more towards appeasing them than promises could have done, and by twelve o'clock the frightful procession set off. I hope such a scene will never be witnessed again. I have often asked myself how the metropolis of a nation so celebrated for urbanity and elegance of manners, how the brilliant city of Paris could contain the savage hordes I that day beheld, and who so long reigned over it! In walking through the streets of Paris, it seems to me, the features even of the lowest and most miserable class of people do not present to the eye anything like ferociousness, or the meanest passions in all their hideous energy. Can those passions alter the features so as to deprive them of all likeness to humanity? or does the terror inspired by the sight of a guilty wretch give him the semblance of a wild beast? These madmen, dancing in the mire and covered with mud, surrounded the King's coach. The groups that marched foremost carried on long pikes the bloody and dishevelled heads of the Life Guards butchered in the morning. Surely Satan himself first invented the placing of a human head at the end of a lance. The disfigured and pale features, the gory locks, the half-open mouth, the closed eyes, images of death, added to the gestures and salutations the executioners made them perform, in horrible mockery of life, presented the most frightful spectacle rage could have imagined. A troop of women, ugly as crime itself, swarming like insects, and wearing grenadiers' hairy caps, went continually to and fro, howling barbarous songs, embracing and insulting the Life Guards."
This is certainly an appalling picture.
IV.
PARIS DURING THE MASSACRE.
Lavalette also saw some of the September massacres. He had succeeded—and with no great difficulty—in releasing a lady from the prison at the Hôtel de la Force; and then had tried to muster a body of National Guards to prevent the massacre of the rest. His efforts proved vain. His narrative brings out clearly the fact of this, as of other scenes, that a small, resolute, and violent minority are more potent than the mass of the overwhelming majority which opposes them. Lavalette went to "some of the National Guards, whom we looked upon as the most steady," but "notwithstanding my most pressing entreaties I could make no impression upon them." All he could do under the circumstances was to go to the prison of La Force and see what he could do himself. His description of the scene is very remarkable in more respects than one:
"Before the wicket that leads to the Rue de Ballets, I found about fifty men at most. These were the butchers; the rest had been drawn there by curiosity, and were perhaps more execrable than the executioners; for though they dared neither go away nor take part in the horrid deed, still they applauded. I looked forward, and at sight of a heap of bodies still palpitating with life, I uttered a cry of horror. Two men turned round, and, taking me abruptly by the collar, dragged me violently to the street, where they reproached me with imprudence, and then, running away, left me alone in the dark. The horrible spectacle I had witnessed deprived me of all courage; I went home overwhelmed with shame and despair for humanity so execrably injured, and the French character so deplorably disgraced."
I call this remarkable, because the number of the persons who took part in the massacre is put down at as low a figure as fifty; all the rest are spectators. But what follows is still stranger—confirming the statement which students of the Revolution have often heard—that Paris, outside a very restricted area, practically remained pretty much the same during the very worst times of the Revolution:
"The particulars of the massacre having all been recorded in the memoirs of the time, I need not repeat them here. I was, moreover, no spectator of them. They lasted three days, and—I blush while I write it—at half a mile from the different prisons nobody would have imagined that their countrymen were at that moment butchered by hundreds. The shops were open, pleasure was going on in all its animation, and sloth rejoiced in its vacuity. All the vanities and seductions of luxury, voluptuousness, and dissipation, peaceably swayed their sceptre. They feigned an ignorance of cruelties which they had not the courage to oppose."
V.
HOW A VILLAGE WAS AFFECTED BY THE OVERTURN.
It will have been seen that Lavalette's sympathies were frankly Royalist in the early days of the Revolution, but when the foreign invasion enrolled every young Frenchman of spirit in the army, Lavalette was carried away like the rest, and determined to go to the front. His opinions, however, made even this rather difficult, and he was obliged to seek a volunteer corps. Two other friends, also of suspect opinions, adopted the same tactics; and here is one of the many adventures which befell them on the way—it is an extraordinary and vivid description of the kind of things which the great upheaval had made possible:
"We set off . . . for Autun, and we arrived next day at a village, not far from Vermanton, situated amidst woods, and the inhabitants of which got their livelihood by making wooden shoes. Two days before, a bishop and two of his grand-vicars, who were escaping in a post-coach, had been arrested by them. The coach was searched, and some hundred louis-d'or having been found in it, the peasants thought the best way to gain the property would be to kill the real owners. Their new profession being more lucrative than their former one, they resolved to continue it, and in consequence set themselves on the look-out for all travellers. Our sailors' dresses were not very promising, but we carried our heads high—our manners seemed haughty, and so a little hunchbacked man, an attorney of the village, guessed we might perhaps help to enrich them. The inhabitants being resolved not to make any more wooden shoes, applauded the hunchback's advice. We were brought to the municipality, where the mob followed us. The attorney placed himself on a large table, and began reading with emphasis in a loud voice all our passports—Louis Amédée Auguste d'Aubonne, André Louis Leclerc de la Ronde, Marie Chamans de la Valette. Here the rascal added the de, that was not in my passport. On hearing these aristocratic names a murmur began; all the eyes turned towards us were hostile, and the hunchback cried out that our knapsacks ought to be examined. The harvest would have been rich. I was the poorest of the set, and I had five-and-twenty louis in gold. We looked upon ourselves as lost, when D'Aubonne, whose stature was tall, jumped on the table and began to harangue the assembly. He was clever at making verses, and knew besides at his fingers' ends the whole slang dictionary. He began with a volley of abuse and imprecations that surprised the audience; but he soon raised his style, and repeated the words 'country,' 'liberty,' 'sovereignty of the people,' with so much vehemence and such a thundering voice, that the effect was prodigious. He was interrupted by unanimous applause. The giddy-headed young man did not stop there. He imperiously ordered Leclerc de la Ronde to get upon the table. La Ronde was the cleverest mimic I ever saw. He was thirty-five years old, of a grotesque shape, and as dark as a Moor. His eyes were sunk in his head and covered with thick black eyebrows, and his nose and chin immeasurably long. D'Aubonne said to the assembly: 'You'll soon be able to judge whether we are or are not Republicans from Paris.' And turning to his companion he said to him: 'Answer to the Republican catechism: What is God? What are the people? What is a King?' The other, with a contrite air, a nasal voice, and winding himself about like a harlequin, answered: 'God is nature; the people are the poor; a king is a lion, a tiger, an elephant, who tears to pieces, devours, and crushes the poor people to death.' It was not possible to resist this. Astonishment, shouts, enthusiasm, were carried to the highest pitch. The orators were embraced—hugged—carried in triumph. The honour of lodging us grew a subject of dispute. We were forced to drink, and we were soon as much at a loss how to get away from these brutal wretches, now our friends, as we had been to escape out of their hands while they were our enemies. Luckily, D'Aubonne again found means to draw us out of this scrape. He gravely observed that we had no time to stop, and that our country claimed the tribute of our courage. They let us go at last."
VI.
A FIRST VIEW OF NAPOLEON.
I make a big skip in the life of Lavalette, and bring him to the time when he made the acquaintance of Napoleon, with whom he was destined afterwards to be so closely associated. He was introduced to Napoleon when the young General was winning those victories in Italy that first created his fame, and he was immediately appointed an aide-de-camp. This is his account of his first interview with Napoleon:
"I went to the General-in-Chief, who lodged in the Palazzo Serbelloni. He was giving audience. His saloon was filled with military men of all ranks, and high civil officers. His air was affable, but his look so firm and fixed that I turned pale when he addressed himself to me. I faltered out my name, and afterwards my thanks, to which he listened in silence, his eyes fastening on me with an expression of severity that quite disconcerted me. At last, he said, 'Come back at six o'clock, and put on the sash.' That sash, which distinguishes the aides-de-camp of the General-in-Chief, was of white and red silk, and was worn around the left arm."
VII.
NAPOLEON AND JOSEPHINE.
This was at Milan; and it was at the moment when Napoleon, still in the early flush of his passion for Josephine, had succeeded in getting her to leave her beloved Paris and follow him to the army. Lavalette describes a curious and characteristic scene:
"The General-in-Chief was at that time just married. Madame Bonaparte was a charming woman; and all the anxiety of the command—all the trouble of the government of Italy—could not prevent her husband from giving himself wholly up to the happiness he enjoyed at home. It was during that short residence at Milan that the young painter Gros, afterwards so celebrated, painted the picture of the General. He represented him on the Bridge of Lodi, at the moment when, with the colours in his hand, he rushed forward to induce the troops to follow him. The painter could never obtain a long sitting. Madame Bonaparte used to take her husband upon her lap after breakfast, and hold him fast for a few minutes. I was present at three of these sittings. The age of the newly-married couple, and the painter's enthusiasm for the hero, were sufficient excuses for such familiarity."
Lavalette was united to Napoleon by family ties, for he married a Beauharnais—a relative of the Empress—and Napoleon seems to have had great confidence in him. There is not quite as much about Napoleon as one might have expected from such intimacy, and the glimpses of the great General are few and far between.
VIII.
LABOURS AND FATIGUES.
Napoleon sent for Lavalette one evening, after his return to Paris from the disastrous expedition to Russia, and here is what took place:
"On my arrival he commanded me to come every evening into the bath-room next to his bed-chamber. He then had me called in to him, while he warmed himself undressed before the fire. We talked familiarly together for an hour before he went to bed. The first evening I found him so cast down, so overwhelmed, that I was frightened. I went to see his secretary, who was my friend. I communicated to him my fears that his mind, formerly so strong, had begun to sink. 'You need not fear,' he replied; 'he has lost nothing of his energy; but in the evening you see him quite bent down with fatigue. He goes to bed at eleven o'clock, but he is up at three o'clock in the morning, and till night every moment is devoted to business. It is time to put an end to this, for he must sink under it.' The principal subject of our conversation was the situation of France. I used to tell him, with a degree of frankness the truth of which alone could make him pardon its rudeness, that France was fatigued to an excess that it was quite impossible to bear much longer the burthen with which she was loaded, and that she would undoubtedly throw off the yoke, and according to custom, seek an alleviation to her sufferings in novelty, her favourite divinity. I said in particular a great deal of the Bourbons, who, I observed, would finally inherit his royal spoil if ever fortune laid him low. The mention of the Bourbons made him thoughtful, and he threw himself on his bed without uttering a word; but after a few minutes, having approached to know whether I might retire, I saw that he had fallen into a profound sleep."
IX.
THE RETURN FROM ELBA.
I pass on to Lavalette's description of the return of Napoleon from Elba. He was in the Tuileries on the night when Napoleon made his re-entry, and his description is very vivid of that remarkable scene:
"Five or six hundred officers on half-pay were walking in the extensive courtyard, wishing each other joy at the return of Napoleon. In the apartments the two sisters-in-law of the Emperor, the Queens of Spain and Holland, were waiting for him, deeply affected. Soon after, the ladies of the household and those of the Empress came to join them. The fleurs-de-lis had everywhere superseded the bees. However, on examining the large carpet spread over the floor of the audience-chamber where they sat, one of the ladies perceived that a flower was loose: she took it off, and the bee soon reappeared. Immediately all the ladies set to work, and in less than half an hour, to the great mirth of the company, the carpet again became Imperial. In the meanwhile time passed on; Paris was calm. Those persons who lived far from the Tuileries did not come near it; everybody remained at home; and indifference seemed to pervade the minds of all. But it was not the same in the country. Officers who arrived at Fontainebleau, preceding the Emperor, told us it was extremely difficult to advance on the road. Deep columns of peasants lined it on both sides, or rather made themselves master of it. Their enthusiasm had risen to the highest pitch. It was impossible to say at what hour he would arrive. Indeed, it was desirable that he should not be recognised, for, in the midst of the delirium and confusion, the arm of a murderer might have reached him. He therefore resolved to travel with the Duc de Vicence in a common cabriolet, which, at nine o'clock in the evening, stopped before the first entrance near the iron gate of the quay of the Louvre. Scarcely had he alighted when the shout of 'Long live the Emperor!' was heard; a shout so loud that it seemed capable of splitting the arched roofs. It came from the officers on half-pay, pressed, almost stifled in the vestibule, and who filled the staircase up to the top. The Emperor was dressed in his famous gray frock-coat. I went up to him, and the Duc de Vicence cried to me, 'For God's sake place yourself before him, that he may get on!' He then began to walk upstairs. I went before, walking backwards, at the distance of one pace, looking at him, deeply affected, my eyes bathed with tears, and repeating, in the excess of my joy, 'What! It is you! It is you! It is you, at last!' As for him, he walked up slowly with his eyes half closed, his hands extended before him, like a blind man, and expressing his joy only by a smile. When he arrived on the landing-place of the first floor, the ladies wished to come to meet him; but a crowd of officers from the higher floor leaped before them, and they would have been crushed to death if they had shown less agility. At last the Emperor succeeded in entering his apartments; the doors were shut, not without difficulty, and the crowd dispersed, satisfied at having seen him. Towards eleven o'clock in the evening, I received an order to go to the Tuileries; I found in the saloon the old Ministers, and in the midst of them the Emperor, talking about the affairs of government with as much ease as if we had gone ten years back. He had just come out of his bath, and had put on his undress regimentals. The subject of the conversation, and the manner in which it was carried on, the presence of the persons who had so long been employed under him, contributed to efface completely from my memory the family of the Bourbons and their reign of nearly a year."
X.
A CHANGED FRANCE.
But Napoleon found a different France from that over which he had ruled so long:
"The eleven months of the King's reign had thrown us back to 1792, and the Emperor soon perceived it; for he no longer found the submission, the deep respect, and the Imperial etiquette he was accustomed to. He used to send for me two or three times a day, to talk with me for hours together. It happened sometimes that the conversation languished. One day, after we had walked up and down the room in silence, tired of that fancy, and my business pressing me, I made my obeisance and was going to retire. 'How!' said he, surprised, but with a smile; 'do you then leave me so?' I should certainly not have done so a year before; but I had forgotten my old pace, and I felt that it would be impossible to get into it again. In one of those conversations, the subject of which was the spirit of Liberty that showed itself on all sides with so much energy, he said to me, in a tone of interrogation, 'All this will last two or three years?' 'That your Majesty must not believe. It will last for ever.' He was soon convinced of the fact himself, and he more than once acknowledged it. I have even no doubt that if he had vanquished the enemy and restored peace, his power would have been exposed to great danger by civil broils. The Allies made a great mistake in not letting him alone. I do not know what concessions he would have made, but I am well acquainted with all those the nation would have demanded, and I sincerely think he would have been disgusted with reigning, when he must have found himself a constitutional king after the manner of the patriots. Nevertheless, he submitted admirably well to his situation—at least in appearance. At no period of his life had I seen him enjoy more unruffled tranquillity."
XI.
WATERLOO.
There are some other scenes which I shall pass by until I reach the departure for Waterloo, and the awful moment when Napoleon returned from his last and disastrous battle. The scenes are described tersely, but the fearsome hope of the first, and the awful despair of the second, come out from the cold language with a strange lucidity and impressiveness. Here is what happened in the Champ de Mars:
"After the celebration of mass, to which, by-the-bye, everybody turned their backs, the Emperor went down and took his place on an amphitheatre in the middle of the Champ de Mars, from whence he was to distribute the eagles to all the cohorts of the departments. This was a beautiful scene, for it was a national one. The situation, besides, was true. The Emperor took care to address a word to each of the corps that received these colours, and that word was flattering and full of enthusiasm. To the department of the Vosges, he said: 'You are my old companions.' To those of the Rhine: 'You have been the first, the most courageous, and the most unfortunate in our disasters.' To the departments of the Rhone: 'I have been bred amongst you.' To others: 'Your bands were at Rivoli, at Arcola, at Marengo, at Tilsit, at Austerlitz, at the Pyramids.' These magic names filled with deep emotion the hearts of those old warriors, the venerable wrecks of so many victories . . . . A few days afterwards the Emperor set off. I left him at midnight. He suffered a great deal from a pain in his breast. He stepped, however, into his coach with a cheerfulness that seemed to show he was conscious of victory."
And now for the second scene:
"At last I learned the fatal news of the battle of Waterloo, and the next morning the Emperor arrived. I flew to the Elysée to see him; he ordered me to his closet, and as soon as he saw me he came to meet me with a frightful epileptic laugh. 'Oh! my God!' he said, raising his eyes to heaven, and walking two or three times up and down the room. This appearance of despair was, however, very short. He soon recovered his coolness, and asked me what was going forward at the Chamber of Representatives. I could not attempt to hide that exasperation was there carried to a high degree, and that the majority seemed determined to require his abdication or to pronounce it themselves if he did not send it in willingly. 'How is that?' he said. 'If proper measures are not taken, the enemy will be before the gates in eight days. Alas!' he added, 'I have accustomed them to such victories, that they know not how to bear one day's misfortune. What will become of poor France? I have done all I could for her.' Then he heaved a deep sigh."
Lavalette saw Napoleon at Malmaison, but there is little of interest in what he says—except that he confirms the testimony of other witnesses as to the completeness of Napoleon's collapse after the crushing defeat of Waterloo.
- ↑ "Memoirs of Count Lavalette, adjutant and private secretary to Napoleon, and Postmaster-General under the Empire." (London : Gibbings.)