Вальтер Скотт
Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume III
Junot, in like manner; who, upon his return from Portugal, gave general scandal by the display of diamonds, and other wealth, which he had acquired in that oppressed country, received from Buonaparte a friendly hint to be more cautious in such exhibitions. But his acknowledged rapacity was never thought of as a reason disqualifying him for being presently afterwards sent to the government of Illyria.
We are informed, in another of the Emperor's communications, that his Council of State was of admirable use to him in the severe inquisition which he was desirous of making into the public accounts. The proceedings of this Star Chamber, and the fear of being transmitted to the cognition of the Grand Judge, usually brought the culprits to composition; and when they had disgorged one, two, or three millions, the government was enriched, or, according to Buonaparte's ideas, the laws were satisfied.322 The truth seems to be, that Buonaparte, though he contemned wealth in his own person, was aware that avarice, which, after all, is but a secondary and sordid species of ambition, is the most powerful motive to mean and vulgar minds; and he willingly advanced gold to those who chose to prey upon it, so long as their efforts facilitated his possessing and retaining the unlimited authority to which he had reached. In a country where distress and disaster of every kind, public and private, had enabled many to raise large fortunes by brokerage and agiotage, a monied interest of a peculiar character was soon formed, whose hopes were of course rested on the wonderful ruler, by whose gigantic ambition new schemes of speculation were opened in constant succession, and whose unrivalled talents seemed to have found the art of crowning the most difficult undertakings with success.
It might be thought that the manufacturing interest must have perished in France, from the same reasons which so strongly and unfavourably afflicted the commerce of that country. In ceasing to import, there must indeed have been a corresponding diminution of the demand for goods to be exported, whether these were the growth of the soil, or the productions of French labour. Accordingly, this result had, in a great degree, taken place, and there was a decrease to a large amount in those goods which the French were accustomed to export in exchange for the various commodities supplied to them by British trade. But, though the real and legitimate stimulus to manufactures had thus ceased, Napoleon had substituted an artificial one, which had, to a certain extent, supplied the place of the natural trade. We must remark, that Napoleon, practically and personally frugal, was totally a stranger to the science of Political Economy. He never received or acted upon the idea, that a liberal system of commerce operates most widely in diffusing the productions which are usually the subjects of exchange, and in affording to every country the greatest share of the bounties of nature, or the produce of industry at the easiest rates. On the contrary, he had proceeded to act against the commerce of England, as, in a military capacity, he would have done in regard to the water which supplied a besieged city. He strove to cut it off, and altogether to destroy it, and to supply the absence of its productions, by such substitutes as France could furnish.323 Hence, the factitious encouragement given to the French manufactures, not by the natural demand of the country, but by the bounties and prohibitions by which they were guarded. Hence, the desperate efforts made to produce a species of sugar from various substances, especially from the beet-root. To this unnatural and unthrifty experiment, Buonaparte used to attach so much consequence, that a piece of the new composition, which, with much time and trouble, had been made to approximate the quality of ordinary loaf-sugar, was preserved in a glass-case over the Imperial mantel-piece; and a pound or two of beet-sugar, highly-refined, was sent to foreign courts, to illustrate the means by which Napoleon consoled his subjects for the evils incumbent on the continental system. No way of flattering or gratifying the Emperor was so certain, as to appear eager in supporting these views; and it is said that one of his generals, when tottering in the Imperial good graces, regained the favour of his master, by planting the whole of a considerable estate with beet-root. In these, and on similar occasions, Napoleon, in his eager desire to produce the commodity desiderated, became regardless of those considerations which a manufacturer first ascertains when about to commence his operations, namely, the expense at which the article can be produced, the price at which it can be disposed of, and its fitness for the market which it is intended to supply. The various encouragements given to the cotton manufacturers, and others, in France, by which it was designed to supply the want of British goods, proceeded upon a system equally illiberal and impolitic. Still, however, the expensive bounties, and forced sales, which the influence of government afforded, enabled these manufacturers to proceed, and furnished employment to a certain number of men, who were naturally grateful for the protection which they received from the Emperor. In the same manner, although no artificial jet-d'eau, upon the grandest scale of expense, can so much refresh the face of nature, as the gentle and general influence of a natural shower, the former will nevertheless have the effect of feeding and nourishing such vegetable productions as are within the reach of its limited influence. It was thus, that the efforts of Napoleon at encouraging arts and manufactures, though proceeding on mistaken principles, produced, in the first instance, results apparently beneficial.324
PUBLIC WORKS.
We have already had occasion to observe the immense public works which were undertaken at the expense of Buonaparte's government. Temples, bridges, and aqueducts, are, indeed, the coin with which arbitrary princes, in all ages, have endeavoured to compensate for the liberty of which the people are deprived. Such monuments are popular with the citizens, because the enjoyment of them is common to all, and the monarch is partial to a style of expenditure promising more plausibly than any other, to extend the memory of his present greatness far into the bosom of futurity. Buonaparte was not, and could not be insensible to either of these motives. His mind was too much enlarged to seek enjoyment in any of the ordinary objects of exclusive gratification; and undoubtedly, he who had done so much to distinguish himself during his life above ordinary mortals, must have naturally desired that his public works should preserve his fame to future ages. Accordingly, he undertook and executed some of the most splendid labours of modern times. The road over the Simplon, and the basins at Antwerp, may be always appealed to as gigantic specimens of his public spirit.
On the other hand, as we have before hinted, Napoleon sometimes aimed at producing immediate effect, by proposals and plans hastily adopted, as hastily decreed, and given in full form to the government journal; but which were either abandoned immediately after having been commenced, or perhaps, never advanced farther than the plan announced in the Moniteur. Buonaparte's habits of activity, his powers of deciding with a single glance upon most points of either military or civil engineering, were liberally drawn upon to strike his subjects with wonder and admiration. During the few peaceful intervals of his reign, his impatience of inaction found amusement in traversing, with great rapidity, and often on the shortest notice, the various departments in France. Travelling with incredible celerity, though usually accompanied by the Empress Josephine, he had no sooner visited any town of consequence, than he threw himself on horseback, and, followed only by his aide-de-camp and his Mameluke Rustan, who with difficulty kept him in view, he took a flying survey of the place, its capacities of improvement, or the inconveniences which attached to it. With this local knowledge, thus rapidly acquired, he gave audience to the municipal authorities, and overwhelmed them very often with liberal and long details concerning the place round which he had galloped for the first time, but in which they had spent their days. Amazement at the extent and facility of the Emperor's powers of observation, was thus universally excited, and his hints were recorded in the Moniteur, for the admiration of France. Some public work, solicited by the municipality, or suggested by the enlightened benevolence of the Emperor himself, was then projected, but which, in many, if not most cases, remained unexecuted; the imperial funds not being in all circumstances adequate to the splendour of Napoleon's undertakings, or, which was the more frequent case, some new absorbing war, or project of ambition, occasioning every other object of expenditure to be postponed.
Even if some of Buonaparte's most magnificent works of public splendour had been completed, there is room to doubt whether they would have been attended with real advantage to his power, bearing the least proportion to the influence which their grandeur necessarily produces upon the imagination. We look with admiration, and indeed with astonishment, on the splendid dock-yards of the Scheldt; but, had they been accomplished, what availed the building of first-rates, which France could hardly find sailors to man; which being manned, dared not venture out of the river; or, hazarding themselves upon the ocean, were sure to become the prizes of the first British men-of-war with whom they chanced to encounter? Almost all this profuse expense went to the mere purposes of vain glory; for more mischief would have been done to British commerce, which Buonaparte knew well was the assailable point, by six privateers from Dunkirk, than by all the ships of the line which he could build at the new and most expensive dock-yard of Antwerp, with Brest and Toulon to boot.
In such cases as these, Napoleon did, in a most efficient manner, that which he ridiculed the Directory for being unable to do – he wrought on the imagination of the French nation, which indeed had been already so dazzled by the extraordinary things he had accomplished, that, had he promised them still greater prodigies than were implied in the magnificent works which he directed to be founded, they might still have been justified in expecting the performance of his predictions. And it must be admitted, looking around the city of Paris, and travelling through the provinces of France, that Buonaparte has, in the works of peaceful grandeur, left a stamp of magnificence, not unworthy of the soaring and at the same time profound spirit, which accomplished so many wonders in warfare.
PERSONAL AND FAMILY LIFE.
The personal and family life of Napoleon was skilfully adapted to his pre-eminent station. If he had foibles connected with pleasure and passion, they were so carefully veiled to remain unknown to the world – at least, they were not manifested by any of those weaknesses which might serve to lower the Emperor to the stamp of common men. His conduct towards the Empress Josephine was regular and exemplary. From their accession to grandeur till the fatal divorce, as Napoleon once termed it, they shared the privacy of the same apartment, and for many years partook the same bed. Josephine is said, indeed, to have given her husband, upon whom she had many claims, some annoyance by her jealousy, to which he patiently submitted, and escaped the reproach thrown on so many heroes and men of genius, that, proof to every thing else, they are not so against the allurements of female seduction. What amours he had were of a passing character. No woman, excepting Josephine and her successor, who exercised their lawful and rightful influence, was ever known to possess any power over him.325
The dignity of his throne was splendidly and magnificently maintained, but the expense was still limited by that love of order which arose out of Buonaparte's powers of arithmetical calculation, habitually and constantly employed, and the trusting to which, contributed, it may be, to that external regularity and decorum which he always supported. In speaking of his own peculiar taste, Buonaparte said that his favourite work was a book of logarithms, and his choicest amusement was working out the problems. The individual to whom the Emperor made this singular avowal mentioned it with surprise to an officer near his person, who assured him, that not only did Napoleon amuse himself with arithmetical ciphers, and the theory of computation, but that he frequently brought it to bear on his domestic expenses, and diverted himself with comparing the price at which particular articles were charged to him, with the rate which they ought to have cost at the fair market price, but which, for reasons unnecessary to state, was in general greatly exceeded. Las Cases mentions his detecting such an overcharge in the gold fringe which adorned one of his state apartments. A still more curious anecdote respects a watch, which the most eminent artist of Paris had orders to finish with his utmost skill, in a style which might become a gift from the Emperor of France to his brother the King of Spain. Before the watch was out of the artist's hands, Napoleon received news of the battle of Vittoria. "All is now over with Joseph," were almost his first words after receiving the intelligence. "Send to countermand the order for the watch."326
Properly considered, this anecdote indicates no indifference as to his brother's fate, nor anxiety about saving a petty sum; it was the rigid calculation of a professed accountant, whose habits of accuracy induce him to bring every loss to a distinct balance, however trivial the off-set may be. But although the Emperor's economy descended to minute trifles, we are not to suppose that among such was its natural sphere. On the contrary, in the first year of the Consulate, he discovered and rectified an error in the statement of the revenue, to the amount of no less than two millions of francs, to the prejudice of the state. In another instance, with the skill which only a natural taste for calculation brought to excellence by constant practice could have attained, he discovered an enormous overcharge of more than sixty thousand francs in the pay-accounts of the garrison of Paris. Two such discoveries, by the head-magistrate, must have gone far to secure regularity in the departments in which they were made, in future.
Attending to this remarkable peculiarity throws much light on the character of Buonaparte. It was by dint of his rapid and powerful combinations that he succeeded as a general; and the same laws of calculation can be traced through much of his public and private life.
The palace charges, and ordinary expenses of the Emperor, were completely and accurately regulated by his Imperial Majesty's own calculation. He boasted to have so simplified the expenditure of the ancient kings of France, that his hunting establishment, though maintained in the utmost splendour, cost a considerable sum less than that of the Bourbons. But it must be recollected, first, that Napoleon was free from the obligation which subjected the Bourbons to the extravagant expenses which attended the high appointments of their household; secondly, that under the Imperial government, the whole establishment of falconry was abolished; a sport which is, in the opinion of many, more strikingly picturesque and interesting than any other variety of the chase, and which, as it infers a royal expense, belongs properly to sovereign princes.
THE IMPERIAL COURT.
The Imperial court was distinguished not only by a severe etiquette, but the grandees, by whom its principal duties were discharged, were given to understand, that the utmost magnificence of dress and equipage was required from them upon public occasions. It was, indeed, a subject of complaint amongst the servants of the Crown, that though Buonaparte was in many respects attentive to their interests, gave them opportunities of acquiring wealth, invested them with large dotations and endowments, and frequently assisted them with an influence not easily withstood in the accomplishment of advantageous marriages; yet still the great expenditure at which they were required to support their appearance at the Imperial court, prevented their realizing any fortune which could provide effectually for their family. This expense Buonaparte loved to represent, as a tax which he made his courtiers pay to support the manufactures of France; but it was extended so far as to show plainly, that, determined as he was to establish his nobility on such a scale as to grace his court, it was far from being his purpose to permit them to assume any real power, or to form an existing and influential barrier between the crown and the people. The same inference is to be drawn from the law of France concerning succession in landed property, which is in ordinary cases equally divided amongst the children of the deceased; a circumstance which must effectually prevent the rise of great hereditary influence. And although, for the support of dignities granted by the Crown, and in some other cases; an entail of a portion of the favoured person's estate, called a Majorat, is permitted to follow the title, yet the proportion is so small as to give no considerable weight to those upon whom it devolves.
The composition of Buonaparte's court was singular. Amid his military dukes and mareschals were mingled many descendants of the old noblesse, who had been struck out of the lists of emigration. On these Buonaparte spread the cruel reproach, "I offered them rank in my army – they declined the service; – I opened my antechambers to them – they rushed in and filled them." In this the Emperor did not do justice to the ancient noblesse of France. A great many resumed their natural situation in the military ranks of their country, and a still greater number declined, in any capacity, to bend the knee to him, whom they could only consider as a successful usurper.
The ceremonial of the Tuileries was upon the most splendid scale, the public festivals were held with the utmost magnificence, and the etiquette was of the most strict and indefeasible character. To all this Buonaparte himself attached consequence, as ceremonies characterising the spirit and dignity of his government; and he had drilled even his own mind into a veneration for all those outward forms connected with royalty, as accurately as if they had been during his whole life the special subject of his attention. There is a curious example given by Monsieur Las Cases. Buonaparte, in good-humoured trifling, had given his follower the titles of your highness, your lordship, and so forth, amidst which it occurred to him, in a fit of abstraction, to use the phrase, "Your Majesty." The instant that the word, sacred to his own ears, had escaped him, the humour of frolic was ended, and he resumed a serious tone, with the air of one who feels that he has let his pleasantry trespass upon an unbecoming and almost hallowed subject.
There were many of Buonaparte's friends and followers, bred, like himself, under the influence of the Revolution, who doubted the policy of his entering into such a strain of imitation of the ancient courts of Europe, and of his appearing anxious to emulate them in the only points in which he must necessarily fail, antiquity and long observance giving to ancient usages an effect upon the imagination, which could not possibly attach to the same ceremonial introduced into a court of yesterday. These would willingly have seen the dignity of their master's court rested upon its real and pre-eminent importance, and would have desired, that though republican principles were abandoned, something of the severe and manly simplicity of Republican manners should have continued to characterise a throne whose site rested upon the Revolution. The courtiers who held such opinions were at liberty to draw consolation from the personal appearance and habits of Napoleon. Amid the gleam of embroidery, of orders, decorations, and all that the etiquette of a court demands to render ceremonial at once accurate and splendid, the person of the Emperor was to be distinguished by his extreme simplicity of dress and deportment. A plain uniform, with a hat having no other ornament than a small three-coloured cockade, was the dress of him who bestowed all these gorgeous decorations, and in honour of whom these costly robes of ceremonial had been exhibited. Perhaps Napoleon might be of opinion, that a person under the common size, and in his latter days somewhat corpulent, was unfit for the display of rich dresses; or it is more likely he desired to intimate, that although he exacted from others the strict observance of etiquette, he held that the Imperial dignity placed him above any reciprocal obligation towards them.
Perhaps, also, in limiting his personal expenses, and avoiding that of a splendid royal wardrobe, Buonaparte might indulge that love of calculation and order, which we have noticed as a leading point of his character. But his utmost efforts could not carry a similar spirit of economy among the female part of his Imperial family; and it may be a consolation to persons of less consequence to know, that in this respect the Emperor of half the world was nearly as powerless as they may feel themselves to be. Josephine, with all her amiable qualities, was profuse, after the general custom of Creoles, and Pauline de Borghese was no less so. The efforts of Napoleon to limit their expenses, sometimes gave rise to singular scenes. Upon one occasion, the Emperor found in company of Josephine a certain milliner of high reputation and equal expense, with whom he had discharged his wife to have any dealings. Incensed at this breach of his orders, he directed the marchande des modes to be conducted to the Bicètre; but the number of carriages which brought the wives of his principal courtiers to consult her in captivity, convinced him that the popularity of the milliner was too powerful even for his Imperial authority; so he wisely dropped a contention which must have appeared ludicrous to the public, and the artist was set at liberty, to charm and pillage the gay world of Paris at her own pleasure.327
On another occasion, the irregularity of Josephine in the article of expense, led to an incident which reminds us of an anecdote in the history of some Oriental Sultan. A creditor of the Empress, become desperate from delay, stopped the Imperial calèche, in which the Emperor was leaving St. Cloud, with Josephine by his side, and presented his account, with a request of payment. Buonaparte did as Saladin would have done in similar circumstances – he forgave the man's boldness in consideration of the justice of his claim, and caused the debt to be immediately settled. In fact, while blaming the expense and irregularity which occasioned such demands, his sense of justice, and his family affection, equally inclined him to satisfy the creditor.
The same love of order, as a ruling principle of his government, must have rendered Buonaparte a severe censor of all public breaches of the decencies of society. Public morals are in themselves the accomplishment and fulfilment of all laws; they alone constitute a national code. Accordingly, the manners of the Imperial court were under such regulation as to escape public scandal, if they were not beyond secret suspicion.328 In the same manner, gambling, the natural and favourite vice of a court, was not practised in that of Buonaparte, who discountenanced high play by every means in his power. But he suffered it to be licensed to an immense and frightful extent, by the minister of police; nor can we give him the least credit when he affirms, that the gambling-houses which paid such immense rents to Fouché, existed without his knowledge. Napoleon's own assertion cannot make us believe that he was ignorant of the principal source of revenue which supported his police. He compounded, on this as on other occasions, with a good-will, in consideration of the personal advantage which he derived from it.
In the public amusements of a more general kind, Buonaparte took a deep interest. He often attended the theatre, though commonly in private, and without eclat. His own taste, as well as political circumstances, led him to encourage the amusements of the stage; and the celebrated Talma, whose decided talents placed him at the head of the French performers, received, as well in personal notice from the Emperor, as through the more substantial medium of a pension, an assurance, that the kindness which he had shown in early youth to the little Corsican student had not been forgotten. The strictest care was taken that nothing should be admitted on the stage which could awaken feelings or recollections unfavourable to the Imperial Government. When the acute wit of the Parisian audience seized on some expression or incident which had any analogy to public affairs, the greatest pains were taken, not only to prevent the circumstance from recurring, but even to hinder it from getting into general circulation. This secrecy respecting what occurred in public, could not be attained in a free country, but was easily accomplished in one where the public papers, the general organs of intelligence, were under the strict and unremitted vigilance of the government.
There were periods when Buonaparte, in order to gain the approbation and sympathy of those who claim the exclusive title of lovers of liberty, was not unwilling to be thought the friend of liberal opinions, and was heard to express himself in favour of the liberty of the press, and other checks upon the executive authority. To reconcile his opinions (or rather what he threw out as his opinions) with a practice diametrically opposite, was no easy matter, yet he sometimes attempted it. On observing one or two persons, who had been his silent and surprised auditors on such an occasion, unable to suppress some appearance of incredulity, he immediately entered upon his defence. "I am," he said, "at bottom, and naturally, for a fixed and limited government. You seem not to believe me, perhaps because you conceive my opinions and practice are at variance. But you do not consider the necessity arising out of persons and circumstances. Were I to relax the reins for an instant, you would see a general confusion. Neither you nor I, probably, would spend another night in the Tuileries."
Such declarations have often been found in the mouths of those, who have seized upon an unlawful degree of authority over their species. Cromwell was forced to dissolve the Parliament, though he besought the Lord rather to slay him. State necessity is the usual plea of tyrants, by which they seek to impose on themselves and others; and, by resorting to such an apology, they pay that tribute to truth in their language, to which their practice is in the most decided opposition. But if there are any to whom such an excuse may appear valid, what can be, or must be, their sentiments of the French Revolution, which, instead of leading to national liberty, equality, and general happiness, brought the country into such a condition, that a victorious soldier was obliged, contrary to the conviction of his own conscience, to assume the despotic power, and subject the whole empire to the same arbitrary rules which directed the followers of his camp?
The press, at no time, and in no civilized country, was ever so completely enchained and fettered as at this period it was in France. The public journals were prohibited from inserting any article of public news which had not first appeared in the Moniteur, the organ of Government; and this, on all momentous occasions, was personally examined by Buonaparte himself. Nor were the inferior papers permitted to publish a word, whether in the way of explanation, criticism, or otherwise, which did not accurately correspond with the tone observed in the leading journal. They might, with the best graces of their eloquence, enhance the praise, or deepen the censure, which characterised the leading paragraph; but seizure of their paper, confiscation, imprisonment, and sometimes exile, were the unfailing reward of any attempt to correct what was erroneous in point of fact, or sophistical in point of reasoning. The Moniteur, therefore, was the sole guide of public opinion; and by his constant attention to its contents, it is plain that Napoleon relied as much on its influence to direct the general mind of the people of France, as he did upon the power of his arms, military reputation, and extensive resources, to overawe the other nations of Europe.