Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. III, No. XVII, October 1851

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

The discomfiture of the insurgent sections at Paris, and the energy, tact, and humanity which Napoleon displayed in the subsequent government of the tumultuous city, caused his name to be as familiar as a household word in all parts of the metropolis. His slight and slender figure, so feminine and graceful in its proportions; his hand, so small and white and soft that any lady might covet it; his features, so mild and youthful in their expression, and all these combined in strange alliance with energies as indomitable, and a will as imperious as were ever enshrined in mortal form, invested the young general with a mysterious and almost supernatural fascination.

Famine was rioting in the streets of Paris. All industry was at an end. The poor, unemployed, were perishing. The rich were gathering the wrecks of their estates, and flying from France. There was no law but such as was proclaimed by the thunders of Napoleon's batteries. The National Guard he immediately reorganized, and soon efficient order was established. Napoleon was incessantly occupied in visiting all parts of the city, and words of kindness and sympathy with suffering he combined with the strong and inexorable arm of military rule. More than a hundred families, says the Duchess of Abrantes, were saved from perishing by his personal exertions. He himself climbed to the garrets of penury, and penetrated the cellars of want and woe, and, with a moistened eye, gazed upon the scenes of fearful wretchedness with which Paris was filled. He caused wood and bread to be distributed to the poor, and totally regardless of ease or self-indulgence, did every thing in his power to alleviate suffering.

One day when alighting from his carriage to dine at Madame Permon's, he was addressed by a woman who held a dead infant in her arms. Grief and hunger had dried up the fountain of life in her bosom, and her unweaned child had perished of starvation. Her husband was dead, and five children were mourning for food at home. "If I can not obtain relief," said the famished mother, "I must take my remaining five children and drown myself with them." Napoleon questioned her very minutely, ascertained her place of residence, and giving her some money to meet her immediate wants, entered the house and sat down with the guests at the brilliant entertainment. He was, however, so deeply impressed with the scene of wretchedness which he had just witnessed, that he could not obliterate it from his mind, and all were struck with his absent manner and the sadness of his countenance. Immediately after dinner he took measures to ascertain the truth of the statements which the poor woman had made to him, and finding all her assertions verified, he took the family immediately under his protection. He obtained employment for the girls in needlework among his friends, and the family ever expressed the most profound gratitude for their preserver. It was by the unceasing exhibition of such traits of character that Napoleon entwined around him the hearts of the French people.

There was, at this time in Paris, a lady, who was rendered quite prominent in society, by her social attractions, her personal loveliness, and her elevated rank. She was a widow, twenty-eight years of age. Her husband, the Viscount Beauharnais, had recently perished upon the scaffold, an illustrious victim of revolutionary fury. Josephine Tascher Beauharnais, who subsequently became the world-renowned bride of Napoleon, was born on the island of Martinice in the West Indies. When almost a child she was married to the Viscount Beauharnais, who had visited the island on business and was captivated by the loveliness of the fair young Creole. Upon entering Paris she was immediately introduced to all the splendors of the court of Maria-Antoinette. The revolutionary storm soon burst upon her dwelling with merciless fury. She experienced the most afflictive reverses of friendlessness, bereavement, imprisonment, and penury. The storm had, however, passed over her, and she was left a widow, with two children, Eugene and Hortense. From the wreck of her fortune she had saved an ample competence, and was surrounded by influential and admiring friends.

Napoleon, in obedience to the orders of the Convention, to prevent the possibility of another outbreak of lawless violence, had proceeded to the disarming of the populace of Paris. In the performance of this duty the sword of M. Beauharnais was taken. A few days afterward Eugene, a very intelligent and graceful child, twelve years of age, obtained access to Napoleon, and with most engaging artlessness and depth of emotion, implored that the sword of his father might be restored to him. Napoleon had no heart to deny such a request. He sent for the sword, and speaking with kind words of commendation, presented it with his own hand to Eugene. The grateful boy burst into tears and, unable to articulate a word, pressed the sword to his bosom, bowed in silence and retired. Napoleon was much interested in this exhibition of filial love, and his thoughts were immediately directed to the mother who had formed the character of such a child. Josephine, whose whole soul was absorbed in love for her children, was so grateful, for the kindness with which the distinguished young general had treated her fatherless Eugene, that she called, in her carriage, the next day, to express to him a mother's thanks. She was dressed in deep mourning. Her peculiarly musical voice was tremulous with emotion. The fervor and the delicacy of her maternal love, and the perfect grace of manner and of language, with which she discharged her mission, excited the admiration of Napoleon. He soon called upon her. The acquaintance rapidly ripened into an unusually strong and ardent affection.

Josephine was two years older than Napoleon. But her form and features had resisted the encroachments of time, and her cheerfulness and vivacity invested her with all the charms of early youth. Barras, now one of the five Directors, who had been established in power by the guns of Napoleon, was a very ardent friend of Josephine. He warmly advocated the contemplated connection, deeming it mutually advantageous. Napoleon would greatly increase his influence by an alliance with one occupying so high a position in society and surrounded by friends so influential. And Barras clearly foresaw that the energetic young general possessed genius which would insure distinction. Josephine thus speaks, in a letter to a friend, of her feelings in view of the proposed marriage.

"I am urged to marry again. My friends counsel the measure, my aunt almost lays her injunctions to the same effect, and my children entreat my compliance. You have met General Bonaparte at my house. He it is who would supply a father's place to the orphans of Alexander Beauharnais, and a husband to his widow. I admire the general's courage, the extent of his information, for on all subjects he talks equally well, and the quickness of his judgment, which enables him to seize the thoughts of others almost before they are expressed. But I confess that I shrink from the despotism he seems desirous of exercising over all who approach him. His searching glance has something singular and inexplicable, which imposes even upon our Directors; judge if it may not intimidate a woman.

"Barras gives assurance that if I marry the general, he will secure his appointment to the command of the army of Italy. Yesterday, Bonaparte speaking of this favor, said to me, 'Think they then, that I have need of their protection to arrive at power? Egregious mistake! They will all be but too happy, one day, should I condescend to grant them mine.'

"What think you of this self-confidence? Is it not a proof of excess of vanity? A general of brigade protect the heads of government! That truly is an event highly probable! I know not how it is, but sometimes this waywardness gains upon me to such a degree, that almost I believe possible whatever this singular man may take into his head to attempt. And with his imagination, who can calculate what he will not undertake."

Though the passion with which Josephine had inspired Napoleon, was ardent and impetuous in the highest degree, it interfered not in the least with his plans of towering ambition. During the day he was vigorously employed in his professional duties and in persevering study. But each evening found him at the mansion of Josephine, where he met, and dazzled by his commanding genius and his brilliant conversational powers, the most distinguished and the most influential men of the metropolis. In these social entertainments, Josephine testified that Napoleon possessed unlimited powers of fascination, whenever he saw fit to employ them. His acquaintance and his influence was thus extended among those who would be most available in the furtherance of his plans. On the 6th of March, 1796, Napoleon and Josephine were married, Napoleon being then twenty-five years of age. It was a union of very sincere affection on both sides. It can not be doubted that next to ambition, Josephine was to Napoleon the dearest object of his admiration and homage. Marriage had then ceased to be regarded in infidel France as a religious rite. It was a mere partnership which any persons could form or dissolve at pleasure. The revolutionary tribunals had closed the churches, banished the clergy, and dethroned God. The parties, contemplating marriage, simply recorded their intention in the state register of Paris, with two or three friends to sign the record as witnesses. By this simple ceremony Napoleon was united to Josephine. But neither of the parties approved of this mercantile aspect of a transaction so sacred. They were both, in natural disposition serious, thoughtful, and prone to look to the guidance of a power higher than that of man. Surrounded by infidelity, and by that vice with which public infidelity is invariably accompanied, they both instinctively reverenced all that is grand and imposing in the revelations of Christianity.

"Man, launched into life," said Napoleon, "asks himself, whence do I come? What am I? Whither do I go? Mysterious questions which draw him toward religion; our hearts crave the support and guidance of religious faith. We believe in the existence of God because every thing around us proclaims his being. The greatest minds have cherished this conviction – Bossuet, Newton, Leibnitz. The heart craves faith as the body food; and, without doubt, we believe most frequently without exercising our reason. Faith wavers as soon as we begin to argue. But even then our hearts say, 'Perhaps I shall again believe instinctively. God grant it. For we feel that this belief in a protecting deity must be a great happiness; an immense consolation in adversity, and a powerful safeguard when tempted to immorality.

"The virtuous man never doubts of the existence of God, for if his reason does not suffice to comprehend it, the instinct of his soul adopts the belief. Every intimate feeling of the soul is in sympathy with the sentiments of religion."

These are profound thoughts and it is strange that they should have sprung up in the mind of one educated in the midst of the violence, and the clangor, and the crime of battle, and accustomed to hear from the lips of all around him, every religious sentiment ridiculed as the superstition of the most weak and credulous.

When at St. Helena, Napoleon, one evening, called for the New Testament, and read to his friends the address of Jesus to his disciples upon the mountain. He expressed himself as having been ever struck with the highest admiration in view of the purity, the sublimity, and the beauty of the morality which it contained. Napoleon seldom spoke lightly even of the corruptions of the church. But he always declared his most exalted appreciation of the religion of Jesus Christ.

When Napoleon was crowned Emperor he was privately married again by Cardinal Fesch, in accordance with the forms of the church which the Emperor had re-established. "Josephine," said Napoleon, "was truly a most lovely woman; refined, affable, and charming. She was the goddess of the toilet. All the fashions originated with her. Every thing she put on appeared elegant. She was so kind, so humane – she was the most graceful lady and the best woman in France. I never saw her act inelegantly during the whole time we lived together. She possessed a perfect knowledge of the different shades of my character, and evinced the most exquisite tact in turning this knowledge to the best account. For example, she never solicited any favor for Eugene, or thanked me for any that I conferred upon him. She never showed any additional complaisance or assiduity when he was receiving from me the greatest honors. Her grand aim was to assume that all this was my affair – that Eugene was our son, not hers. Doubtless she entertained the idea that I would adopt Eugene as my successor."

Again, he said, of Josephine, "we lived together like honest citizens in our mutual relations, and always retired together till 1805, a period in which political events obliged me to change my habits, and to add the labors of the night to those of the day. This regularity is the best guarantee for a good establishment. It ensures the respectability of the wife, the dependence of the husband, and maintains intimacy of feelings and good morals. If this is not the case, the smallest circumstances make people forget each other. A son by Josephine would have rendered me happy, and would have secured the reign of my dynasty. The French would have loved him very much better than they could love the son of Maria Louisa; and I never would have put my foot on that abyss covered with flowers, which was my ruin. Let no one after this rely upon the wisdom of human combinations. Let no one venture to pronounce, before its close, upon the happiness or misery of life. My Josephine had the instinct of the future when she became terrified at her own sterility. She knew well that a marriage is only real when there is an offspring; and in proportion as fortune smiled her anxiety increased. I was the object of her deepest attachment. If I went into my carriage at midnight for a long journey, there, to my surprise, I found her, seated before me, and awaiting my arrival. If I attempted to dissuade her from accompanying me, she had so many good and affectionate reasons to urge, that it was almost always necessary to yield. In a word she always proved to me a happy and affectionate wife, and I have preserved the tenderest recollections of her.

"Political motives induced me to divorce Josephine, whom I most tenderly loved. She, poor woman, fortunately for herself, died in time to prevent her from witnessing the last of my misfortunes. After her forcible separation from me, she avowed, in most feeling terms, her ardent desire to share with me, my exile and extolled, with many tears, both myself and my conduct to her. The English have represented me as a monster of cruelty. Is this the result of the conduct of a merciless, unfeeling tyrant? A man is known by his treatment of his wife, of his family, and of those under him."

Just before his marriage, Napoleon received the appointment, to him most gratifying, of Commander-in-chief of the army of Italy. His predecessor had been displaced in consequence of excessive intemperance. Napoleon was but twenty-five years of age when placed in this responsible post. "You are rather young," said one of the Directors, "to assume responsibilities so weighty, and to take the command over veteran generals." "In one year," Napoleon replied, "I shall be either old or dead." "We can place you in the command of men alone," said Carnot, "for the troops are destitute of every thing, and we can furnish you with no money to provide supplies." "Give me only men enough," Napoleon replied, "and I ask for nothing more. I will be answerable for the result."

A few days after Napoleon's marriage, he left his bride in Paris, and set out for Nice, the head-quarters of the army of Italy. He passed through Marseilles, that he might pay a short visit to his mother, whose love he ever cherished with the utmost tenderness, and on the 27th of March arrived at the cold and cheerless camps, where the dejected troops of France were enduring every hardship. They were surrounded by numerous foes, who had driven them from the fertile plains of Italy into the barren and dreary fastnesses of the Alps. The Austrian armies, quartered in opulent cities, or encamped upon sunny and vine-clad hill-sides, were living in the enjoyment of security and abundance, while the troops of the distracted and impoverished republic were literally freezing and starving. But here let us pause for a moment to consider the cause of the war, and the motives which animated the contending armies.

France, in the exercise of a right which few in America will question, had, in imitation of the United States, and incited by their example, renounced the monarchical form of government, and established a republic. For centuries uncounted, voluptuous kings and licentious nobles had trampled the oppressed millions into the dust. But now these millions had risen in their majesty, and driving the king from his throne and the nobles from their wide domains, had taken their own interests into their own hands. They were inexperienced and unenlightened in the science of government, and they made many and lamentable mistakes. They were terrified in view of the powerful combination of all the monarchs and nobles of Europe to overwhelm them with invading armies, and in their paroxysms of fear, when destruction seemed to be coming like an avalanche upon them, they perpetrated many deeds of atrocious cruelty. They simply claimed the right of self-government, and when assailed, fell upon their assailants with blind and merciless fury.

The kings of Europe contemplated this portentous change with inexpressible alarm. In consternation they witnessed the uprising of the masses in France, and saw one of their brother monarchs dragged from his palace and beheaded upon the guillotine. The successful establishment of the French Republic would very probably have driven every King in Europe from his throne. England was agitated through all her countries. From the mud cabins of Ireland, from the dark and miry mines, from the thronged streets of the city, and the crowded workshops all over the kingdom, there was a clamorous cry ascending for liberty and equality. The spirit of democracy, radiating from its soul in Paris, was assailing every throne in Europe. There was no alternative for these monarchs but to crush this new power, or to perish before it. There can be no monarchist whose sympathies will not beat high with the allied kings in the fearful conflict which ensued. There can be no republican who will not pray, "God speed the Eagles of France." Both parties believed that they were fighting in self-defense. The kings were attacked by principles triumphant in France, which were undermining their thrones. The French were attacked by bayonets and batteries – by combined armies invading their territories, bombarding their cities, and endeavoring by force of arms, to compel a proud nation of thirty millions of inhabitants to reinstate, at foreign dictation, the rejected Bourbons upon the throne. The allies called upon all the loyalists scattered over France to grasp their arms, to rally beneath the banner of friends coming to their rescue, and to imbrue their country in the blood of a civil war. The French, in trumpet tones, summoned the people of all lands to hail the tri-colored flag, as the harbinger of their deliverance from the servitude of ages. From every city in Europe which Napoleon approached, with his conquering armies, the loyalists fled, while the republicans welcomed him with an adulation amounting almost to religious homage. And the troops of the allies were welcomed, in every city of France which they entered, with tears of gratitude from the eyes of those who longed for the restoration of the monarchy. It was a conflict between the spirit of republicanism on the one side, and of monarchical and ecclesiastical domination upon the other.

England, with her invincible fleet, was hovering around the coasts of the republic, assailing every exposed point, landing troops upon the French territory, and arming and inspiriting the loyalists to civil war. Austria had marched an army of nearly two hundred thousand men upon the banks of the Rhine, to attack France upon the north. She had called into requisition all her Italian possessions, and in alliance with the British navy, and the armies of the king of Sardinia, and the fanatic legions of Naples and Sicily had gathered eighty thousand men upon the Alpine frontier. This host was under the command of experienced generals, and was abundantly provided with all the munitions of war. These were the invading foes whom Napoleon was to encounter in fields of blood. It was purely a war of self-defense on the part of the French people. They were contending against the bullets and the bayonets of the armies of monarchical Europe, assailing them at every point. The allied kings felt that they also were engaged in a war of self-defense – that they were struggling against principles which threatened to undermine their thrones. Strange as the declaration to some may appear, it is extremely difficult for a candid and an impartial man severely to censure either side. It is not strange, contemplating frail human nature as it is, that the monarchs of Europe, born to a kingly inheritance, should have made every exertion to retain their thrones, and to secure their kingdoms from the invasion of republican principles. It is not strange that republicanized France, having burst the chains of an intolerable despotism, should have resolved to brave all the horrors of the most desperate war rather than surrender the right of choosing its own form of government. The United States were protected from a similar onset, on the part of allied Europe, only by the wide barrier of the ocean. And had the combined armies of monarchical Europe crossed that barrier, and invaded our shores, to compel us to replace George III. upon his American throne, we should have blest the Napoleon, emerging from our midst, who, contending for the liberties of his country, had driven them back into the sea.

When Napoleon arrived at Nice he found that he had but thirty thousand men with whom to repel the eighty thousand of the allies. The government was impoverished, and had no means to pay the troops. The soldiers were dejected, emaciate, and ragged. The cavalry horses had died upon the bleak and frozen summits of the mountains, and the army was almost entirely destitute of artillery. The young commander-in-chief, immediately upon his arrival, summoned his generals before him. Many of them were veteran soldiers, and they were not a little chagrined in seeing a youth, whom they regarded almost as a beardless boy, placed over them in command. But in the very first hour in which he met them, his superiority was recognized; and he gained a complete and an unquestioned ascendency over all. Berthier, Massena, Augereau, Serrurier, and Lannes were there, men who had already attained renown, and who were capable of appreciating genius. "This is the leader," said one, as he left this first council, "who will surely guide us to fame and fortune."

The French were on the cold crests of the mountains. The allies were encamped in the warm and fertile valleys which opened into the Italian plains. The untiring energy of the youthful general, his imperial mind, his unhesitating reliance upon his own mental resources, his perfect acquaintance with the theatre of war, as the result of his previous explorations, his gravity and reserve of manners, his spotless morality, so extraordinary in the midst of all the dissipated scenes of the camp, commanded the reverence of the dissolute and licentious, though brave and talented generals who surrounded him. There was an indescribable something in his manner which immediately inspired respect and awe, and which kept all familiarity at a distance.

Decres had known Napoleon well in Paris, and had been on terms of perfect intimacy with him. He was at Toulon when he heard of Napoleon's appointment to the command of the army of Italy. "When I learned," said he, "that the new general was about to pass through the city, I immediately proposed to introduce my comrades to him, and to turn my acquaintance to the best account. I hastened to meet him full of eagerness and joy. The door of the apartment was thrown open, and I was upon the point of rushing to him with my wonted familiarity. But his attitude, his look, the tone of his voice suddenly deterred me. There was nothing haughty or offensive in his appearance or manner, but the impression he produced was sufficient to prevent me from ever again attempting to encroach upon the distance which separated us."1