Chapter VII: Book TWO: The Torrent (3)

“Yours is the first nation in history to win freedom without partisan struggles, without a revolution, and without a blow. We have given you liberty, and you will know how to keep it!... Let your minds be full of the sense of your own strength, and of the self-respect proper to the free man.... Had the Romans of old used their powers as the French are using their powers to-day, the Roman eagles would still wave above the Capitol, and the human race would have escaped being dishonoured by eighteen centuries of slavery! To consolidate your liberties, and with the sole end of bringing you happiness, I have completed a task such as hitherto has only been performed by ambition and the will-to-power.... In a few days I shall leave you.... Your happiness and the glory of your republic will always be matters very dear to my heart.”

Is this a warrior blowing a trumpet? Is it a poet, into whose mouth the ecstasy of life puts words that are to arouse popular enthusiasm? During these very days, in the company of a diplomat belonging to this very country, he is strolling to and fro in the park of Montebello. His whole nature is straining towards Paris; his companion is a good listener, and a man of ability. Napoleon, in one of those bursts of frankness which genius sometimes allows itself, delivers himself as follows:

“Do you fancy that I have won my triumphs in Italy that I may help the lawyers of the Directory ... to achieve greatness? Or can you imagine that I want to stabilise the republic? What a ridiculous notion, a republic with thirty million inhabitants! With our customs! With our failings! France will soon forget these whims. The French need glory and the gratification of their vanity, but they do not understand the elements of freedom. Look at the army! Our victories have restored the French soldier to his true self. I am the idol of the soldiers. If the Directors, for instance, were to try to withdraw my commission, they would soon see who is master of the army.

“The people needs a chief, made resplendent by fame and victory; it does not want theories and governments, the phrases and the oratory of the ideologues. Give the masses a toy! They will play with it, and allow themselves to be led—provided always that the leader is adroit enough to hide his true aims! Here in Italy, it is not necessary for me to be so circumspect.... Still, the time is not yet ripe. For the present, it is necessary to yield to the fervour of the moment, so here we shall have two or three republics after the French model.... Peace is opposed to my interests.... If peace were firmly established, and if I were no longer at the head of the army, I should have to renounce the power and position I have gained, and should have to pay homage to the lawyers in the Luxembourg. If I leave Italy, it is only that I may play the same part in France. But that fruit, likewise, is not yet ripe. Paris is divided. There is a Bourbon party, and I cannot fight on its side. In due time I shall weaken the republicans, but I shall not do so to the advantage of the old dynasty!”

Such are Bonaparte’s real plans. What he says is true: “Everything has happened as I foresaw; and I believe that I am the only person in the world who is not surprised. So will it be in the future; I shall make my way whithersoever I will.”

A stream of confessions is forcing a way for itself. The words have come down to us in the memoirs of the man who heard them; of course the speaker would have denied them, had the hearer then ventured to repeat them. But it is true that he is far from being satisfied with what he has hitherto achieved. Seated beside Bourrienne in the carriage in which he is driving away from Italy after a stay of nearly two years, he says: “A few more campaigns like this, and we shall have made a fairly great name for ourselves, a name that will go down to posterity.” When his friend interposes that Bonaparte has already secured a notable reputation, the commander laughs him to scorn:

“You flatter me, Bourrienne! If I die to-day, ten centuries hence my record will not occupy more than half a page in universal history!”

XI

The Luxembourg palace has been transformed into an amphitheatre. Weapons and colours, the latest trophies, are displayed, side by side with the gold-blazoned slogans of the revolution, on the venerable walls within which, of old, the satellite peers used to circle round their central luminary, the king of France. Paris has assembled, and all are dressed in gala attire, as if for a May Day festival—though it is chill December. The front seats are filled with pretty women, friends of the men in power, for they want to get a close view of the little commander with the leathery yellow skin, the hero of the occasion.

“He has already been a week in Paris, and not a soul has set eyes on him. Why does he modestly shun the acclamations of his people?”

“There is the signal for the entry! Look, the five Directors are coming on to the platform!”

The chorus sings the anthem of liberty, the crowd joining in the refrain. A pause. The sound of clanking sabres and clinking spurs is heard upon the perron without. People crane from the windows, look down from the roofs. He is coming! He is coming!

Napoleon wears a field uniform, for this looks less pretentious. His mien is grave and unassuming, as with firm step he strides along the gangway to the dais. He carries a roll of paper, and three adjutants follow in his train. But, as well as these, hard upon the heels of the plainly uniformed little figure with the martial gait, comes a man wearing silk stockings, and resplendent in gold lace; he walks with a limp. At this moment, a cannon shot is heard, the first shot of a salute; the sometime lieutenant of artillery is being honoured in appropriate fashion. Thunders of applause shake the building, and are echoed outside by the thousands who are waiting to greet Napoleon on his departure. Quiet once more. Talleyrand is speaking. Brilliantly, smoothly, with undercurrents of meaning which few can understand, he praises the classical simplicity of their great general, the saviour of his country, who scorns pomp, and is a servant of the things of the spirit. The minister closes with the words: “All France will be free; save only him, perhaps—that is his destiny.”

Applause, as usual; but is there one among these thousands, even among those in the inner councils, who realises the profound truth of the closing phrase? Does any one of the auditors feel the poignancy of the satire?

Napoleon quietly comes to the front. What is he going to say?

“The French nation had to fight with its kings in order to win freedom.... Religion, feudalism, monarchy, have in turn ruled Europe for two thousand years. The era of democratic constitutions has only just begun. It has been your achievement to extend the domain of the Great Nation to its natural frontiers. You have done more. The two loveliest countries of Europe, renowned for science, art, and genius, see the spirit of freedom, buoyed up by hope, rising out of the tombs of their ancestors. These are the pedestals on which two mighty nations are uplifted. I have the honour to present you the treaty of Campo Formio, ratified by Emperor Francis.... As soon as the fortunes of the French nation are established upon the best organic laws, Europe, too, will be free.”

The soldierly voice is silent. For a moment, not a sound is to be heard. Then come salvos of applause. Are they applauding the speech? It lacks the charm of the popular orations and the speeches from the tribune with which the walls of Paris are often placarded. The hearers are astonished; many of them are positively amazed. Alarm and veneration are the prevailing sentiments. The applause is not for the speech, but for the man. He has spoken on many fronts, has harangued a crowd in Corsica, but has never before addressed society folk, or politicians.

His speech was that of a statesman. At first perhaps not a soul but Talleyrand understood it. All that he had said of their own epoch, seemed false. England and America had been democracies for many, many years. France had been fighting nearly a decade for her recognition as a democracy. Now, at last, recognition had come, in this peace with Germany. There was the tangible proof of it in the parchment which betokened peace on the Continent.

But the story was not finished—such was the implied menace that sounded, with a metallic ring, from the concluding words of the statesman hidden in the soldier. The Directors understood his meaning, knew that the threat was for them. But Barras pulled himself together, delivered a fulsome speech, and then, for the first and last time embraced the little general, whose wife he would infinitely rather have held in his arms.

Josephine, where was Josephine? Why was she absent on the great occasion? No one knows with certainty how or where she spent these weeks. She did not reach Paris until a month after Napoleon. When she came, she was serene, charming, rather tired. In Paris, she promptly resumed her old life, and took up the threads of some of her old amours.

Meanwhile, another woman had entered Napoleon’s orbit. She was handsome, but was too intelligent to please him. This was Necker’s daughter, Madame de Staël. An influential woman, as well as an interesting; it was at her suggestion that Talleyrand had been appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs. She besieged Bonaparte with letters; she would fain have harnessed him to her chariot wheels, but he jibbed at the prospect. Now, when she had met him in the flesh, he parried her advances with a few civilities; but he could not prevent this talented woman from seeing further into his mind than most men had succeeded in doing. Here is her pen picture of the commander, an early impression:

“His face is thin and pale, but not unpleasing. Being short of stature, he looks better on horseback than on foot. In social life, he has rather awkward manners, though he is by no means shy. When he is on the alert, he is a little contemptuous in his bearing; whereas his natural demeanour is a trifle common. The contemptuous pose suits him better.... When he is speaking, I am enthralled by an impression of his pre-eminence, though he has none of the qualities of the men of the study and of society. If he recounts his personal experiences, he often discloses the lively imagination of an Italian.... But I always become aware of a profound irony, which nothing escapes, neither the sublime, nor the beautiful, nor even his own fame.... I have known not a few men of note, some of them savage by disposition, but the dread with which this man fills me is a thing apart. He is neither good nor bad, neither gentle nor cruel. He is unique; he can neither inspire nor feel affection; he is more and less than a man. Character, mind, speech—all have a strange stamp. This very strangeness helps him to win over the French.

“He neither hates nor loves; for him, no one exists but himself; all other people are merely ‘number so-and-so.’ A great chessplayer, for whom humanity-at-large is the adversary he hopes to checkmate. His success is quite as much due to the qualities he lacks as to the qualities he possesses.... Where his own interest is involved, he pursues it as the just man seeks virtue; if his aim were good, his perseverance would be exemplary.... He despises the nation whose applause he seeks; there is not a spark of fervour intermingled with his craving to astound mankind.... I have never been able to breathe freely in his presence.”

If we discount in these sentences all that may reasonably be regarded as due to the mortified vanity of a notable and much admired woman, enough will still remain to be worthy of careful study. Each moment she tries to pierce his armour, only in the next breath to acknowledge herself his prisoner. She moves in a Rousseauist world of abstract virtue and goodness, with which a dictator can have nothing to do, and she therefore cannot regard Bonaparte with enthusiasm; but nevertheless she foresees his aim, which was not publicly disclosed till near the end of his career, and hers is the credit of having been the first to recognise his genius.

“Picture to yourself a little man,” writes a German at this date in one of his letters home. “No taller than Frederick the Great; very regularly and slenderly built; lean, but sturdy; a large head; high forehead; dark-grey eyes; thick, dark-brown hair; Grecian nose, so long that it almost hangs down over the mouth; his mouth is full of humaneness and grace; the firm chin is rather prominent. His movements are brisk, but he has a fine and dignified bearing. You may see him run down a long staircase in five or six strides, and yet, as he finishes the last stride, he stands before you as graceful as ever. Unless he is fixing his gaze upon some object he particularly wishes to examine, he is generally looking upwards. It was always a delight to me to contemplate his beautiful, deep, sensitive eyes, at once severe and kindly, like those of our own Frederick.”

XII

On the way to Paris, Napoleon had had to spend a few days in Rastatt, to discuss with the imperial envoys certain details connected with the carrying out of the peace treaty and the evacuation of Mainz. Here, expected with mingled curiosity and scepticism, he had assumed royal airs. He had alternately scolded and made much of the envoys, as best suited his plans at the moment, giving one of these Austrian counts a watch and the other a jewelled hat-buckle. “The two poor envoys were amazed that I had so much money to spend, for they were as poor as church mice.”

This oriental lavishness in present-giving, the outcome of kindliness quite as much as of arrogance, will be a persistent characteristic. He will become known as a caliph who loves to shower gifts, displaying a mingled disdain and generosity which throw a searching light upon his own spiritual make-up. But if he has to acknowledge some genuine service, then this same man (who from underlings exposed to danger demands scrupulous exactitude in the fulfilment of duty) will express his thanks in the most courtly fashion, as if he were one of Arthur’s knights, and the world a jousting-place. The warrior who has captured so many of the enemy colours is given one of the flags from Arcola, as a keepsake. He passes it on to General Lannes, writing:

“At Arcola, there was a moment when the fortune of the day was so uncertain that nothing but the utmost bravery on the part of the leaders could have saved the situation. Thereupon, bleeding from three terrible wounds, you left the field hospital, resolved to conquer or die. Again and again I saw you in the foremost ranks of the brave. You were the first ... to cross the Adda. Yours must be the honour of owning and guarding this glorious flag.”

He knows exactly how his words will affect the people of Paris. If he makes a public display of such expressions of approval, he is just as sedulous to draw near to the footlights when he has to censure or to condemn. That is one of the tricks of his trade.

Now, he is careful to behave in such a way that all Paris, every one of his opponents, the whole press, shall exclaim: “The modesty of true greatness!” Twice more, during these days, he makes ceremonial appearances, one of them being at a festival held in his honour by Talleyrand. He had hastened to pay his respects to the Minister for Foreign Affairs on the day after his return to Paris. Neither of them had as yet disclosed his ultimate plans, but Bonaparte, in his dealings with this scion of the old nobility, had not forgotten to speak of his own exalted antecedents. “You are the nephew of the archbishop of Rheims,” he had said in the first half hour. “One of my uncles, who helped in my education, is an archdeacon—in Corsica, you know, that means much the same as being a bishop in France.” In this way Napoleon implied that he was no parvenu whom a man of ancient lineage was, in his heart, entitled to despise. From the first, he looked upon Talleyrand as a possible antagonist.

He has bought the little house in which Josephine used to live. Here he leads a retired life, with his wife, who has at length arrived in Paris. His circle is small, consisting of his brothers and a few friends who come and go. He often wears mufti, drives out alone, avoids parties, is easy of access. When he is cheered at the theatre, he draws back into the recesses of his box. This is the man who, a little while ago at Montebello, was keeping up a princely state. “If I am seen three or four times at the theatre, people will cease to notice me,” he says to an intimate. “You expect me to be pleased by such public demonstrations? There would be quite as big a crowd to see me guillotined!”

He invites men of learning to his house; attends most of the sittings of the Institute, and is willing to read a paper there now and again; discusses mathematics after dinner with Laplace, and shows the astronomer new Italian methods of calculating orbits; argues with Chénier about poetry, and even metaphysics (if he can’t help himself!).

But he silently follows, all this time, every move made by the Directors, whose power is continually on the wane. Knowing them to be his secret enemies, he keeps out of their path, and has them watched by his brothers. He gathers information as to the relative strength of the various parties, and ponders his own course. “Paris has no memory. A new reputation drives out an old one; and if I linger here inactive, I shall be lost. I must not stay here.” Often he walks to and fro in the garden, arms locked behind, thinking.

“Too soon. Better wait until they have made a complete mess of things. Become their colleague, a member of the Directory, just when the pillars are crackling? A good thing that I am not yet forty, as the law demands. Meanwhile, I must capture the fancy of the crowd! How? There is peace throughout the Continent. Hardly a rival left to dread. Hoche, the most dangerous of them, is dead, thanks be! One of Josephine’s lovers; a handsome fellow, certainly. His passing troubled her little; she is inconstant by nature. Carnot thrust aside, Moreau defeated. Augereau, in command of the Army of the Rhine, is jealous of me; I must put a spoke in his wheel. The Corsican stalwarts have little influence now; but that woman who came to warn me against the risk of poisoning was stabbed next day; there are conspiracies. Too soon. I must leave Paris once more.

“Get to work against England? That would be the best plan, if only these idiots had not allowed the navy to get into so wretched a condition! I’ve been worrying them about the matter ever since the siege of Toulon. During the naval war of the last five years, we’ve lost half a dozen sea-fights. What about invasion? If only that were possible! Any one who could defeat England would be master of the world. Sail along the coast, study the possibilities, and then, if there seems no chance of a successful landing on the other side of the Channel, back to the Mediterranean! Only there, in the East, can I throw off all restraint, and keep France a-quiver with curiosity and excitement. Egypt’s the place, in the footsteps of Alexander; and there we can strike England a shrewd blow!”

After long preparations, the general visits Dunkirk and the Flemish coast. He asks questions wherever he goes, not forgetting to cross-examine fishermen and smugglers. Returning unexpectedly, he gives Josephine a fright, but it escapes his notice that she hastens to pen a few lines to the secretary of an old flame. In his campaigns, hundreds of spies have brought him secret missives; what would he say if he could read this one? “Bonaparte has come back this evening. Please tell Barras how sorry I am that I cannot come to supper after all. Say that he is not to forget me. You know better than any one what my position is.—La Pagerie Bonaparte.”

Thus undermined is the marriage in which he still puts his trust. Thus equivocal is the position of Barras, the impotent Director, who hates and mistrusts the mighty commander of the forces. Thus nonchalant is Josephine, as with carefree heart she makes her way through society, passing her time in women’s boudoirs and men’s bedrooms—and, among the men, she has to put up with Bonaparte, although when she signs her married name she prefixes to it her maiden name, as though she were still mistress of her own destinies and free to choose her lover.

No doubt Barras is cursing Bonaparte this evening, but next day the general writes to him and the other Directors a long report, which begins as follows: “Even with our best efforts, it will take us several years to get the upper hand at sea. The invasion of England would be a desperate venture; it will only be possible if we take the islanders by surprise.... We shall need long nights, so it must be in winter. Consequently we cannot make the attempt till next year. Before then, it is likely enough that hindrances will have arisen on the Continent. Perhaps the great moment has been lost for ever.”

After this amazingly perspicacious renunciation of his scheme for the invasion of England, he goes on to formulate a yet more amazing plan for achieving the same end by other means. Substantially, he proposes eight naval campaigns, ranging from Spain to Holland, all the political conditions and consequences being carefully considered. If, however, ships and money are not forthcoming, the next best expedient will be to attack English commerce, beginning in Egypt, whence Bonaparte could get back to direct further operations against England.

Enough for the Directors to hear the word Egypt, and they are ready to agree to this last plan. He shall have the command there, and all the help they can give. So dangerous a man as this—the farther away he is, the better! Best of all would be, to make an end of him!

The Egyptian plan is not new; it has been mooted at intervals for years. Talleyrand had brought it forward in connection with Bonaparte’s letter, though his comment had been: “The leader of this campaign would not need to be a man of exceptional military talent.” Was this remark prompted by a wish to keep Bonaparte in France, or was it nothing more than a spiteful innuendo? However that may be, the talented commander, when he read the words at a much later date, wrote in the margin: “Crazy!” But we anticipate. He drafted the terms of his own nomination as chief of the Army in the East: plenipotentiary powers; a commission to take Malta and Egypt, to drive the English from the Red Sea, to cut a canal through the Isthmus of Suez in order that France may be secure in the possession of the Red Sea.

With feverish energy he now devotes himself to preparations for the new undertaking. He has long been familiar with all the essentials of the problem. The Mediterranean is his home. In childhood, he was wont to contemplate the Moor’s head on the scutcheon of Corsica; sailing ships from Africa often visited the island; not long ago, he had deprived Genoa and Venice of their fleets; he was already in touch with Tunisians and Greeks, with Albanians and Bosnians. Over all these machinations brooded the spirit of Alexander, who had chosen Egypt as the centre of his world empire.

For the first time, during these weeks of waiting, do the elements of Bonaparte’s nature become formally compacted within him. What has been no more than a scheme of the unbridled imagination, the plan of one who aspires to resemble the most splendid exemplars of the ancient world, is now dissected, pondered, weighed in the calculating brain; it is refashioned, reconsidered; by degrees it is adapted to the actual possibilities of the situation. When preparing his Egyptian campaign, Bonaparte attempts, in the grand style, to unite the calculator with the dreamer, while it escapes his notice that there is an incalculable residue. His imagination, nourished upon dreams of the heroic age, blinds him to the fact that we are no longer living in the days of classical antiquity, that caliph and conqueror can no longer command millions of unthinking slaves, that even in distant Africa the peoples are awakening. Bonaparte is making ready for a titanic and insoluble conflict; and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more defiantly will he continue his vain attempts to solve it.

This man of genius, born two thousand years too late, is already spinning the threads of his own doom. With the hand of a demigod, he is sketching the outlines of his own fate.

XIII

“I am going to the East,” he writes to his brother, “with all the means to ensure success. Should France need me, ... should war break out and take an unfavourable turn, I shall come home, and public opinion will be more solidly on my side than it is now. But if the fortune of war should favour the republic, if another commander like myself should appear upon the scene, I shall, perhaps, be staying in the East, do the world more service than he can.” When Bourrienne asks how long they are to be away, Bonaparte answers: “Six months or six years.”

At the last moment, fate wants to give him another warning. In Rastatt, Austria refuses to cede the left bank of the Rhine; in Vienna, Bernadotte, who is French envoy there, is so provocative that a new war already seems imminent. Would it not be better to stay in Europe? But the Directors speed the departure, saying that matters have now gone too far to withdraw. In May, exactly two years after Napoleon’s entry into Milan, four hundred ships set sail from Toulon. Josephine waves farewell to her husband, and (doubtless with more concern) to Eugene. Not until the whole mighty apparatus has been set in motion at the master’s nod, does he disclose to his subordinates the goal of the voyage. All are on deck, watching the gradual disappearance of the European coast; but Napoleon, on the “Orient,” standing beside the mainmast among the eight-pounders, is not, like the others, looking back at Europe. His gaze is directed towards the south-east.

At the same hour, Nelson and three other British admirals, standing on the decks of their ships, are searching the seas with telescopes for a sign of the hated enemy, who is, it is supposed, about to sail for Sicily. Where is he to be found? Yesterday, Nelson’s fleet was scattered by a storm. Days pass before the ships can get together again, and the very storm which had detained Bonaparte for twenty-four hours in Toulon, saves the French. They reach Malta before the English fleet, and seize the important island by a coup de main. By the time the cat arrives, the mouse is gone. Under all sail, Nelson presses on to Egypt, but finds no one there, for he has outstripped the enemy. He tries the Syrian coast. Nothing! Back to Sicily. No one! “The Devil has the devil’s own luck,” says Nelson, cursing himself and the foe.

The French fleet is four weeks on the voyage, and Napoleon, who is a bad sailor, spends most of the time in bed. Is not this symbolic? Will the seasick general ever win to the command of the sea? He is restless lying down, and, to pass the weary hours, he makes Bourrienne read aloud to him.

For on board this fleet there are not only two thousand guns. A whole university is sailing to the East. Astronomers, geometricians, mineralogists, chemists, antiquarians, bridge-builders, road engineers, orientalists, political economists, painters, poets—one hundred and seventy-five learned civilians, with hundreds of boxes full of apparatus and books. Everything in this land of ancient story is to be meticulously studied. For France, Bonaparte is to win a colony, and for himself an African reputation. The soldiers have bluntly nicknamed these learned passengers, collectively, “the donkeys.” But Bonaparte prizes them, and his wrath breaks loose on any of his officers who grumble at the presence of so many “idlers.” He has chosen his experts with the utmost care, and has thought out every detail of what they are to do. He has brought a font of Arabic type, extracted with great difficulty from the State printing house. He has taken especial pains in the choice of books for the library with which the flagship is freighted for the voyage to Egypt. Novels are good for officers; and when he finds them reading novels, he laughs good humouredly. For himself, he has only _Werther_ and _Ossian_, works of passion, his inseparable companions. On this journey, however, he seldom reads them.

What does Bourrienne read aloud to the chief? Travels in Egypt, which have been collected from various quarters, from Rome and elsewhere; Plutarch; Homer; Arrian’s account of Alexander’s campaigns; the Koran, which, logically enough, is housed among the political works, beside the Bible and Montesquieu.

After dinner, he is fond of holding sessions of “the Institute.” He uses the name jestingly, and yet in the discussions he takes it seriously enough. He propounds a subject for debate, and nominates the champions. Mathematics and religion are his favourite topics on these occasions, for he has always been both calculator and dreamer. There sits the famous Monge, a man with a crooked nose, a receding forehead, and a massive chin; Napoleon has admired him for years, and thinks more of him than of any of the others. Beside Monge is Desaix, whom Bonaparte has just summoned from the Army of the Rhine; he has a thick nose and thick lips, a somewhat negroid but kindly face, and the strategist rivals the mathematician in the shrewdness of his eyes. Look at Kléber, a man of fearless countenance, full of courage and resolution; beside him, Laplace, who peers earnestly at the company from beneath his eye-shade; next is Berthollet, with a head like a ram. Kléber runs atilt at geometry; but when one of the professors wishes to take up the cudgels on behalf of the things of the spirit, Bonaparte signs to him not to waste breath, and points with a smile to Berthier, who has fallen asleep in the corner over the _Sorrows of Werther_.

The weather is getting much warmer. Napoleon, wishing to breathe the night air, lies on deck till a late hour. His intimates are sitting round him in a circle, and discussion turns on the planets, on the question whether they are inhabited. Pros and cons are voiced by the disputants. This leads to the problem of the creation. The sons of the revolution, disciples of Voltaire, be they generals or be they professors, are agreed upon one point, that the universe and its origin are rationally explicable in terms of natural science, without reference to the idea of God. Napoleon lies there, listening in silence. Then, pointing to the stars, he interjects:

“You may say what you like, but who made all those?”

XIV

Bonaparte rides slowly across the desert sands to look upon the face of the Sphinx. The eyes of stone and the eyes of steel meet. Like the Sphinx, he knows how to be silent, but we can guess his thoughts.

“Alexander stood here. Cæsar stood here. They lived two thousand years after this image was sculptured, as I live two thousand years after them. Immeasurable empires, consecrated to the sun, extended around the Nile. Millions obeyed the will of one. What the ruler dreamed, was fashioned by his slaves with their myriad hands. Everything was possible to him. The king was the son of the gods. All obeyed him as the descendant of the original conqueror. Because that first conqueror named himself king, and son of the gods, all believed him. Here, in the East, it is possible to say to human beings, ‘I am your god,’ and all believe. Europe is a mole-hill.”

Soon, not many miles away, Napoleon makes ready for battle. Eight thousand Mamelukes, the best cavalry in the world, are ready to crush the invader. He rides up and down in front of his troops, points to the pyramids in the distance, and exclaims: “Soldiers, forty centuries are looking down on you.” The Mamelukes charge the French, but are driven back by artillery fire; their camp is soon in Bonaparte’s hands; they flee to the Nile, crossing the river in boats and by swimming; since it is notorious that they always have gold with them, the fight continues for hours on the bank and in the water until the victors have secured some of the treasure.

In Cairo, he knows how to win the support of the pashas and the sheiks. He gives out that he loves and venerates the Turks and the sultan. He is only attacking the Mamelukes, who are their enemies likewise. Periphrases, bowings and scrapings, elaborate metaphors—these come natural to him, the man of the Mediterranean who is half an oriental. They are devices for lying even more circumstantially than do the diplomats of Europe with their speedier and directer methods. Here he is following the oriental custom. While still on board the “Orient,” he had dictated to his interpreter a letter to the pasha of Egypt. It began as follows:

“Thou who shouldst be supreme over all the beys, but hast, as I know, neither power nor prestige in Cairo, thou wilt welcome my coming. Assuredly thou knowest that I have it not in mind to do anything against the Koran or against the sultan. Come, therefore, to my help, and join with me in cursing the godless race of beys!”

To approximate his own creed to the faith of Allah, he begins, like a conjuror, to juggle with the Trinity. First of all he explains that he has conquered the pope and the Maltese, and that for him the Koran is the word of God just as much as the Bible. But, at a later date, when the forces sent to dislodge his own are being disembarked, he argues as follows: “Allah is Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet. To the divan of Cairo, chosen from among the ablest, most learned, and most enlightened of men! The blessing of the Prophet be upon you!” He goes on to say that he has allowed these men to be landed in order that he may kill them all at one blow, “which will be a glorious sight for Cairo.” There were Russians on board the invader’s ships. “The Russians hate all who, like you and myself, believe in one God, for, in their own legends, they speak of three gods. They will learn, soon enough, that there is but one God, the father of victory, who graciously fights on the side of the good.”

Out of this potpourri of the religious, which ends on a more pagan note than he seems to be aware, he subsequently extracts unchristian France as a political instrument, saying that the religion of France is especially akin to Mohammedanism. He is continually appealing to the Koran as the basis of his thought. The holy book which he has included in the political section of his travelling library, shall be made to do him good service. When he dismisses a dangerous cadi in Cairo, he finds a justification for his action in the Koran: “All that is good comes from God; he gives us victory.... Whatever I undertake must succeed. All those whom I call my friends, thrive. But any one who helps my enemies, perishes.”

If he had but had the luck to have been born here in Egypt four thousand years ago, he would have gained the victory by the power of suggestion alone. But nowadays even these brown fellows are sceptical! He despises them, while showering them with superlatives; but, at the same time, he threatens to punish with the utmost rigour any of his soldiers who injure a native. The first order of the day to the Army in the East runs: “The peoples with whom we are now in contact do not treat their women as we treat ours. Nevertheless, any one who harms a woman is looked upon as a monster here as in Europe. Looting enriches very few, dishonours all, destroys the sources of aid, and makes us hated by those with whom it is to our interest that we should be friends.” No one is to enter a mosque, and groups must not even assemble round the doors. By cajolery and threats, by tolerance and intrigue, by Allah and the sword, by all the methods of the oriental, Bonaparte secures an authoritative position within a few weeks.

At length he can regard himself as master in the East. Is he any the happier for that?

Junot has received a letter about Josephine. If only this letter, like hundreds more, had been intercepted by the English! Then, at least, Napoleon could still have enjoyed the bliss of ignorance! For Junot feels it his duty to tell his commander and old friend all about the matter. It concerns Hippolyte Charles, as well as Josephine. Napoleon had cashiered the young man. Josephine had found him a job with an army contractor, and had lost sight of him for a time. But she has met him again, has come across him at a fashionable dancing school. Her old passion has revived. He has such graceful hips! He makes such elegant sallies! Now he has the added charm of wealth. Meanwhile, Josephine has bought a fine estate near Paris (though it is not yet paid for); the young dandy is living with her at Malmaison as master of the house....

Bonaparte walks up and down as he talks things over with Junot. He grows paler and paler; his face twitches; twice or thrice he strikes his forehead despairingly with his fist. Suddenly, turning upon Bourrienne, who is sitting in front of the tent, he says: “You are not a true friend! These women! Josephine! You ought to have told me. Junot, he is really my friend. Josephine—and I am more than two thousand miles away! How can she betray me like this? Damn these puppies and coxcombs! I’ll make short work of the lot of them. I will divorce her. Yes, a public, sensational divorce! I will write instantly. I know everything. If she is guilty, farewell! I will not be a mock for the flâneurs on the boulevards.”

Bourrienne tries to pacify him; tells him that fame is more important than family happiness. “Fame! What is that worth? I would give everything in the world, so much do I love her, if only Junot’s news were false.”

But the English may intercept and publish anything he writes, so in his letter to his brother Joseph he can do no more than hint at this private calamity. The missive has a peculiar charm, which is perhaps given to it by the writer’s enforced restraint, by the need for using veiled expressions. Tædium vitæ of genius at its climax. This private letter is penned the day after a victorious and virile despatch:

“No other country in the world is so rich as Egypt in maize, rice, vegetables, and meat. Barbarism reaches its highest level here. There is no money, not even for paying the troops. In two months I can be back in France. Look after my interests, I beseech you; I have a great deal of trouble at home; the veil has been torn off once for all—I have no one left in the world but you. Your affection is precious to me. Only one thing could increase my bitterness—if I were to lose you, if you also were to play the traitor. How terrible that all my affections should be concentrated upon one personality. You understand me? Make arrangements that as soon as I return home I shall have at my disposal a country house near Paris or in Burgundy, a place where I can spend the winter in absolute seclusion. Mankind has become loathsome to me. I need rest and solitude. Greatness bores me to death. The fount of feeling is dried up. At twenty-nine years of age, I find that fame is vanity. I’ve got to the end of everything. Only one resource is left to me, to become an absolute egoist. I shall keep my house in Paris, and not hand it over to any one! I have nothing more than what I brought into the world with me. I have never been unjust to you, that you must admit, though I have often wanted to be. You will understand. Kiss your wife for me, and Jerome. Bonaparte.”

This cynicism and misanthropy, the desire for vengeance and the demand for satisfaction, have at length, and for the first time, become merged in a symphony of melancholy. The melancholy note had been sounded twelve years before in his diary, but since then it has been silent. A heart that desired to give itself wholly, in which trust had been ever renewed despite many disillusionments, now seems to have been pierced through and through. Victory, glory, to be a second Alexander—all dust and ashes. If a man is deceived where he least deserves it, and where he has trusted with all the ardency of youth, what is greatness to him? He begins his letter with rice and vegetables, and ends with solitude and utter disheartenment. What is left for him in the world besides his brother? “I have got to the end of everything.”

XV

A blow quickened him back to life.

Returning from a ride in the desert, he entered Marmont’s tent to find that all his associates were greatly perturbed. What had happened? The French fleet had been destroyed. The day before, there had been a sea-fight in Aboukir Bay, and only four ships had escaped. All the rest had been sunk or captured by Nelson.

The officers stood in gloomy silence. The grenadier on sentry duty in front of the tent understood, every one understood, the meaning of this reverse. Napoleon’s face paled, but he recovered his composure instantly, realising that it was his business to restore the morale of the others. After a brief pause, he was ready with encouraging words: “So we are cut off in Egypt. Good. We must keep our heads above the stormy waters; the sea will soon be smooth once more.—Perhaps we are predestined to change the face of the East. Here we must remain, or achieve a grandeur like that of the ancients!”

A terrible reverse! What will Paris say? He is not admiral of the fleet, and was not present at the battle of the Nile, but the disaster will certainly affect his prestige. How are we to get home again? On Turkish ships? But will the sultan remain neutral any longer? He has been wavering between Russia and France, and will be likely, now, to turn against the French. England, too. The fleet annihilated; thirteen battleships gone. How many years will it be before we can again face England on the high seas? A decade, perhaps. Allah is Allah, but behind what cloud was my star hidden?

No, not my star! For, when he reports the defeat, he conceals nothing, but is careful to explain in his official despatches that fortune had delayed Nelson’s return until the French had been able to secure their footing in Egypt.

Weeks of uncertainty. This is a new phase in Bonaparte’s life. He must remain inactive, while he waits for news that will throw light upon the state of affairs in Europe. If England keeps good watch, perhaps no letter will be able to cross the seas. For the first time in his career, he begins to wonder how he can kill time. The administration of a whole army, the suppression of disturbances, the rehabilitation of crumbling fortresses—these are no more than variants of idleness. The hours hang heavily, and he becomes more nervous, more fanciful than of yore. Bourrienne tries to tranquillise the commander’s mind, saying: “Let us wait till we hear what the Directory proposes to do!”

“The Directory? A dung-heap! The Directors hate me, and will leave me here to rot!”

If he could only ride! But it is too hot, at any rate to ride in uniform, and an attempt to wear Arab clothing has been abandoned. Sometimes he goes for a ride, in spite of the heat. When, on his return, he finds that no despatches have come, he grows meditative:

“Do you know what I have been thinking, Bourrienne?—If I ever see France again, my greatest ambition will be to conduct a campaign on the Bavarian lowland. There I could win a great battle, and take vengeance for Blenheim. Then I should retire to my country seat, and lead a quiet life, perfectly contented.” The fire still glows; the kettle goes on simmering! In the plain of the Po, his restless spirit was yearning for the East; having made his way to Egypt, he craves for Bavaria; and always he thinks in terms of battles.

Now, when his future is so uncertain, when he is perhaps cut off from all chance of returning home, and when there is no longer a strong tie of personal affection to bind him to distant Europe, he opens negotiations with the shah of Persia and Tippoo Sahib, England’s enemies: asking the former for a right of way to India; and offering the latter an alliance, and deliverance from “The iron yoke of England.” The prospect of following in Alexander’s footsteps looms nearer. But when he comes to practical calculations he begins to doubt the possibility: “Only if fifteen thousand men can be left here, and I have another thirty thousand at my disposal, shall I be able to venture a march on India.”

Although all remains in the realm of fancy, such imaginative excursions fill Bonaparte’s happiest hours; he luxuriates in these vast plans. Four years later, he declares: “In Egypt alone did I feel free from the trammels of civilisation; and there I seemed to have the means of realising all my dreams. I pictured myself on the road to Asia, the founder of a new religion, mounted on an elephant, wearing a turban, and holding a new Koran which contained my own message. My plan was to weld the experiences of two worlds, to force history into my service, to attack the English power in India, and, through my conquests there, to reopen communications with Europe.”

Are these the visions of a poet? Or is it that the conqueror and the poet are close kin? In Egypt, he has a romantic name for himself, “Sultan El Kebir”—he is, in truth, always the sultan, more or less. El Kebir is his third name, as visionary as the whole campaign.

His lively imagination, his spleen on account of his wife’s infidelity—these combine with the influences of climate and lack of occupation to drive him into an amourette. A pretty young woman, the wife of a lieutenant, had sailed with the army from Toulon, in male attire. She was the illegitimate daughter of a cook, had herself been a dressmaker before marriage, was piquant, blonde, violet-eyed. He takes her to himself, and sends her husband back to France on official service. She soon learns to play Cleopatra’s part boldly and charmingly; graces the head of his table; drives out with him. But Eugene, her rival’s son, is adjutant, and his duty is to follow the carriage on horseback. This conjuncture is disagreeable to all parties, and so the young man is given furlough.

Eugene knows more than he cares to know about the scandal attaching to his mother’s name; Bonaparte has himself enlightened the youth. What a painful situation! His mother, not far on in the thirties, is a coquette, and makes his step-father (the hero of the nation!) ridiculous in all men’s eyes by her open and shameless intrigue with a young coxcomb who is but little older than her son. Eugene himself has to look on while Napoleon, commander-in-chief of the army and pasha of the new French colony, flaunts his mistress before the public gaze. The little dressmaker, who would probably find the handsome adjutant more to her taste than his step-father, laughs gaily, showing her white teeth. Anyhow, she has cut out the Creole countess, and she glories in the new spirit of equality. Napoleon Bonaparte is the central figure of the composition. All he asks of the young woman is that she shall give him a child.

An heir, that is what he has been wanting for years! If she will but provide one, he will marry her, for divorces can be arranged. One of his ruling passions is the desire to found a family. The mother would be of working-class origin? So are most of his generals! What matter, so long as the child is legitimate, and of the blood of Bonaparte? He believes in the equality of all who play an active part in the world; but he believes no less strongly in legitimacy. The hereditary succession of kingship is over and done with. The hereditary succession of efficiency is the new doctrine. Such is the fallacy by which his mind is enslaved.

After a while, he says savagely to one of his confidants: “The silly fool of a woman does not even know how to make children!” The gibe is retailed to her, and she exclaims mockingly: “It’s not my fault, you know!” Bonaparte hears of the rejoinder, and his face is shadowed. He has no proof to the contrary, nothing but the inner consciousness of a productivity such as no mortal has ever had before.

His spirit embraces the whole world in its grasp. But if nature has denied him the capacity for reproduction, the foundation of all activity has been shattered. His self-confidence would collapse.

XVI

In the Institute, the commander-in-chief sits as an equal among equals. He never tries, in argument there, to gain a victory by rank instead of reason. Yet many of the questions that are discussed relate to army matters of immediate practical importance, such as the filtering of Nile water, the erection of windmills, the search for ingredients needed to make gunpowder. On one occasion, Napoleon grew heated. Berthollet said quietly: “You are wrong, my friend, for you have lost your temper.” A naval surgeon supported Berthollet. “You men of science are as thick as thieves,” exclaimed Bonaparte. “Chemistry plays the cook for medicine, and plays the assassin for science!” The surgeon’s answer came pat: “But how, Citizen-General, would you define the conqueror’s art?” Within the republic of learning, this equality pleased the dictator, whom elsewhere hardly any one now ventured to contradict.

For weeks in succession, the orders of the day ended with the words: “No news from France.” Everything was at a standstill; widespread uncertainty prevailed. Amid the general inertia, the travelling university was an exception; the savants were hard at work, studying, advising, ever ready to help in the second line. As far as they were concerned, this time of waiting was a great opportunity for research. A thorough investigation of the country and its resources was in progress: the fishes of the Nile and the minerals of the Red Sea, the flora of the Delta and the constituents of the desert sand—all were now for the first time being elaborately scrutinised. The exploitation of the natron lakes and the Nile mud was under consideration. The physicians of the expedition were enquiring into the causes of oriental plague; and of trachoma, the terrible form of ophthalmia which is so frequent a cause of blindness in Egypt. A dictionary and a grammar were printed; some of the buried temples of Upper Egypt were disinterred; the Wells of Moses were discovered. One day, an engineer officer came back from Rosetta bringing with him a granite slab on which there was a polyglot inscription, chiselled in Greek and in two variants of the ancient Egyptian picture-writing. The riddle of the hieroglyphs had been unriddled.