Читать книгу A Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, with a Sketch of Josephine, Empress of the French - Ida M. Tarbell - Страница 12

“ITALIE.”

From a lithograph by Raffet.

His fertility in stratagem, his rapidity of action, his audacity in attack, bewildered and demoralized the enemy, but it raised the enthusiasm of his imaginative Southern troops to the highest pitch.

He insisted in this campaign on one other rule: “Unity of command is necessary to assure success.” After his defeat of the Piedmontese, the Directory ordered him, May 7, 1796, to divide his command with Kellermann. Napoleon answered:

“I believe it most impolitic to divide the army of Italy in two parts. It is quite as much against the interests of the republic to place two different generals over it....

“A single general is not only necessary, but also it is essential that nothing trouble him in his march and operations. I have conducted this campaign without consulting any one. I should have done nothing of value if I had been obliged to reconcile my plans with those of another. I have gained advantage over superior forces and when stripped of everything myself, because persuaded that your confidence was in me. My action has been as prompt as my thought.

“If you impose hindrances of all sorts upon me, if I must refer every step to government commissioners, if they have the right to change my movements, of taking from me or of sending me troops, expect no more of any value. If you enfeeble your means by dividing your forces, if you break the unity of military thought in Italy, I tell you sorrowfully you will lose the happiest opportunity of imposing laws on Italy.

“In the condition of the affairs of the republic in Italy, it is indispensable that you have a general that has your entire confidence. If it is not I, I am sorry for it, but I shall redouble my zeal to merit your esteem in the post you confide to me. Each one has his own way of carrying on war. General Kellermann has more experience and will do it better than I, but both together will do it very badly.

“I can only render the services essential to the country when invested entirely and absolutely with your confidence.”

He remained in charge, and throughout the rest of the campaign continued to act more and more independently of the Directory, even dictating terms of peace to please himself.

It was in this Italian campaign that the almost superstitious adoration which Napoleon’s soldiers and most of his generals felt for him began. Brilliant generalship was not the only reason for this. It was due largely to his personal courage, which they had discovered at Lodi. A charge had been ordered across a wooden bridge swept by thirty pieces of cannon, and beyond was the Austrian army. The men hesitated. Napoleon sprang to their head and led them into the thickest of the fire. From that day he was known among them as the “Little Corporal.” He had won them by the quality which appeals most deeply to a soldier in the ranks—contempt of death. Such was their devotion to him that they gladly exposed their lives if they saw him in danger. There were several such cases in the battle of Arcola. The first day, when Bonaparte was exposing himself in an advance, his aide-de-camp, Colonel Muiron, saw that he was in imminent danger. Throwing himself before Bonaparte, the colonel covered him with his body, receiving a wound which was destined for the general. The brave fellow’s blood spurted into Bonaparte’s face. He literally gave his life to save his commander’s. The same day, in a final effort to take Arcola, Bonaparte seized a flag, rushed on the bridge, and planted it there. His column reached the middle of the bridge, but there it was broken by the enemy’s flanking fire. The grenadiers at the head, finding themselves deserted by the rear, were compelled to retreat; but, critical as their position was, they refused to abandon their general. They seized him by his arms, by his clothes, and dragged him with them through shot and smoke. When one fell out wounded, another pressed to his place. Precipitated into the morass, Bonaparte sank. The enemy were surrounding him when the grenadiers perceived his danger. A cry was raised, “Forward, soldiers, to save the General!” and immediately they fell upon the Austrians with such fury that they drove them off, dragged out their hero, and bore him to a safe place.

His addresses never failed to stir them to action and enthusiasm. They were oratorical, prophetic, and abounded in phrases which the soldiers never forgot. Such was his address at Milan:

“Soldiers! you have precipitated yourselves like a torrent from the summit of the Apennines; you have driven back and dispersed all that opposed your march. Piedmont, liberated from Austrian tyranny, has yielded to her natural sentiments of peace and amity towards France. Milan is yours, and the Republican flag floats throughout Lombardy, while the Dukes of Modena and Parma owe their political existence solely to your generosity. The army which so haughtily menaced you, finds no barrier to secure it from your courage. The Po, the Ticino, and the Adda have been unable to arrest your courage for a single day. Those boasted ramparts of Italy proved insufficient. You have surmounted them as rapidly as you cleared the Apennines. So much success has diffused joy through the bosom of your country. Yes, soldiers, you have done well; but is there nothing more for you to accomplish? Shall it be said of us that we knew how to conquer, but knew not how to profit by victory? Shall posterity reproach us with having found a Capua in Lombardy? But I see you rush to arms; unmanly repose wearies you, and the days lost to glory are lost to happiness.

“Let us set forward. We have still forced marches to perform, enemies to conquer, laurels to gather, and injuries to avenge. Let those tremble who have whetted the poniards of civil war in France; who have, like dastards, assassinated our ministers, and burned our ships in Toulon. The hour of vengeance is arrived, but let the people be tranquil. We are the friends of all nations, particularly the descendants of the Brutuses, the Scipios, and those illustrious persons we have chosen for our models. To restore the Capitol, replace with honor the statues of the heroes who rendered it renowned, and rouse the Roman people, become torpid by so many ages of slavery—shall, will, be the fruit of your victories. You will then return to your homes, and your fellow-citizens when pointing to you will say, ‘He was of the army of Italy.’”

Such was his address in March, before the final campaign against the Austrians:

BONAPARTE.

Engraved by Bartolozzi, R.A., an Italian engraver, resident of England, after the portrait of Appiani.

“You have been victorious in fourteen pitched battles and sixty-six combats; you have taken one hundred thousand prisoners, five hundred pieces of large cannon and two thousand pieces of smaller, four equipages for bridge pontoons. The country has nourished you, paid you during your campaign, and you have beside that sent thirty millions from the public treasury to Paris. You have enriched the Museum of Paris with three hundred chefs-d’oeuvre of ancient and modern Italy, which it has taken thirty ages to produce. You have conquered the most beautiful country of Europe. The French colors float for the first time upon the borders of the Adriatic. The kings of Sardinia and Naples, the Pope, the Duke of Parma have become allies. You have chased the English from Leghorn, Genoa, and Corsica. You have yet to march against the Emperor of Austria.”

His approval was their greatest joy. Let him speak a word of praise to a regiment, and they embroidered it on their banners. “I was at ease, the Thirty-second was there,” was on the flag of that regiment. Over the Fifty-seventh floated a name Napoleon had called them by, “The terrible Fifty-seventh.”

His displeasure was a greater spur than his approval. He said to a corps which had retreated in disorder: “Soldiers, you have displeased me. You have shown neither courage nor constancy, but have yielded positions where a handful of men might have defied an army. You are no longer French soldiers. Let it be written on their colors, ‘They no longer form part of the Army of Italy.’” A veteran pleaded that they be placed in the van, and during the rest of the campaign no regiment was more distinguished.

The effect of his genius was as great on his generals as on his troops. They were dazzled by his stratagems and manœuvres, inspired by his imagination. “There was so much of the future in him,” is Marmont’s expressive explanation. They could believe anything of him. A remarkable set of men they were to have as followers and friends—Augereau, Masséna, Berthier, Marmont, Junot.

The people and the government in Paris had begun to believe in him, as did the Army of Italy. He not only sent flags and reports of victory; he sent money and works of art. Impoverished as the Directory was, the sums which came from Italy were a reason for not interfering with the high hand the young general carried in his campaigns and treaties.

Never before had France received such letters from a general. Now he announces that he has sent “twenty first masters, from Correggio to Michael Angelo;” now, “a dozen millions of money;” now, two or three millions in jewels and diamonds to be sold in Paris. In return he asks only for men and officers “who have fire and a firm resolution not to make learned retreats.”

The entry into Paris of the first art acquisitions made a profound impression on the people:

“The procession of enormous cars, drawn by richly caparisoned horses, was divided into four sections. First came trunks filled with books, manuscripts, ... including the antiques of Josephus, on papyrus, with works in the handwriting of Galileo.... Then followed collections of mineral products.... For the occasion were added wagons laden with iron cages containing lions, tigers, panthers, over which waved enormous palm branches and all kinds of exotic shrubs. Afterwards rolled along chariots bearing pictures carefully packed, but with the names of the most important inscribed in large letters on the outside, as, The Transfiguration, by Raphael; The Christ, by Titian. The number was great, the value greater. When these trophies had passed, amid the applause of an excited crowd, a heavy rumbling announced the approach of massive carts bearing statues and marble groups: the Apollo Belvidere; the Nine Muses; the Laocoön.... The Venus de Medici was eventually added, decked with bouquets, crowns of flowers, flags taken from the enemy, and French, Italian, and Greek inscriptions. Detachments of cavalry and infantry, colors flying, drums beating, music playing, marched at intervals; the members of the newly established Institute fell into line; artists and savants; and the singers of the theatres made the air ring with national hymns. This procession marched through all Paris, and at the Champ de Mars defiled before the five members of the Directory, surrounded by their subordinate officers.”

The practice of sending home works of art, begun in the Italian campaign, Napoleon continued throughout his military career, and the art of France owes much to the education thus given the artists of the first part of this century. His agents ransacked Italy, Spain, Germany, and Flanders for chefs-d’oeuvre. When entering a country one of the first things he did was to collect information about its chief art objects, in order to demand them in case of victory, for it was by treaty that they were usually obtained. Among the works of art which Napoleon sent to Paris were twenty-five Raphaels, twenty-three Titians, fifty-three Rubenses, thirty-three Van Dykes, thirty-one Rembrandts.

In Italy rose Napoleon’s “star,” that mysterious guide which he followed from Lodi to Waterloo. Here was born that faith in him and his future, that belief that he “marched under the protection of the goddess of fortune and of war,” that confidence that he was endowed with a “good genius.”

He called Lodi the birthplace of his faith. “Vendémiaire and even Montenotte did not make me believe myself a superior man. It was only after Lodi that it came into my head that I could become a decisive actor on our political field. Then was born the first spark of high ambition.”

Trained in a religion full of mysticism, taught to believe in signs, guided by a “star,” there is a tinge of superstition throughout his active, practical, hardworking life. Marmont tells that one day while in Italy the glass over the portrait of his wife, which he always wore, was broken.

“He turned frightfully pale, and the impression upon him was most sorrowful. ‘Marmont,’ he said, ‘my wife is very ill or she is unfaithful.’” There are many similar anecdotes to show his dependence upon and confidence in omens.

In a campaign of such achievements as that in Italy there seems to be no time for love, and yet love was never more imperative, more absorbing, in Napoleon’s life than during this period.

“NAPOLEONE BUONAPARTE.”

“Engraved by Henry Richter from the celebrated bust by Ceracchi, lately brought from Paris and now in his possession. Published June 1, 1801, by H. Richter, No. 26 Newman Street, Oxford Street.” This bust was made in the Italian campaign by Ceracchi, a Corsican working in Rome. Ceracchi left Rome in 1799 to escape punishment for taking part in an insurrection in the city, and went to Paris, where he hoped to receive aid from the First Consul. He made the busts of several generals—Berthier, Masséna, and Bernadotte—but as orders did not multiply, and Napoleon did nothing for him, he became incensed against him, and took part in a plot to assassinate the First Consul at the opera, the 18th Brumaire, 1801. Arrested on his way to the loge in the opera, he was executed soon after.

“Oh, my adorable wife,” he wrote Josephine in April, “I do not know what fate awaits me, but if it keeps me longer from you, I shall not be able to endure it; my courage will not hold out to that point. There was a time when I was proud of my courage; and when I thought of the harm that men might do me, of the lot that my destiny might reserve for me, I looked at the most terrible misfortunes without a quiver, with no surprise. But now, the thought that my Josephine may be in trouble, that she may be ill, and, above all, the cruel, fatal thought that she may love me less, inflicts torture in my soul, stops the beating of my heart, makes me sad and dejected, robs me of even the courage of fury and despair. I often used to say, ‘Man can do no harm to one who is willing to die;’ but now, to die without being loved by you, to die without this certainty, is the torture of hell; it is the vivid and crushing image of total annihilation. It seems to me as if I were choking. My only companion, you who have been chosen by fate to make with me the painful journey of life, the day when I shall no longer possess your heart will be that when for me the world shall have lost all warmth and all its vegetation.... I will stop, my sweet pet; my soul is sad. I am very tired, my mind is worn out, I am sick of men. I have good reason for hating them. They separate me from my love.”

Josephine was indifferent to this strong passion. “How queer Bonaparte is!” she said coldly at the evidences of his affection which he poured upon her; and when, after a few weeks separation, he began to implore her to join him she hesitated, made excuses, tried in every possible way to evade his wish. It was not strange that a woman of her indolent nature, loving flattery, having no passion but for amusement, reckless expenditure, and her own ease, should prefer life in Paris. There she shared with Madame Tallien the adoration which the Parisian world is always bestowing on some fair woman. At opera and ball she was the centre of attraction; even in the street the people knew her. Notre Dame des Victoires was the name they gave her.

In desperation at her indifference, Napoleon finally wrote her, in June, from Tortona:

“My life is a perpetual nightmare. A black presentiment makes breathing difficult. I am no longer alive; I have lost more than life, more than happiness, more than peace; I am almost without hope. I am sending you a courier. He will stay only four hours in Paris, and then will bring me your answer. Write to me ten pages; that is the only thing that can console me in the least. You are ill; you love me; I have distressed you; you are with child; and I do not see you.... I have treated you so ill that I do not know how to set myself right in your eyes. I have been blaming you for staying in Paris, and you have been ill there. Forgive me, my dear; the love with which you have filled me has robbed me of my reason, and I shall never recover it. It is a malady from which there is no recovery. My forebodings are so gloomy that all I ask is to see you, to hold you in my arms for two hours, and that we may die together. Who is taking care of you? I suppose that you have sent for Hortense; I love the dear child a thousand times better since I think that she may console you a little. As for me, I am without consolation, rest, and hope until I see again the messenger whom I am sending to you, and until you explain to me in a long letter just what is the matter with you, and how serious it is. If there were any danger, I warn you that I should start at once for Paris.... You! you!—and the rest of the world will not exist for me any more than if it had been annihilated. I care for honor because you care for it; for victory, because it brings you pleasure; otherwise, I should abandon everything to throw myself at your feet.”

After this letter Josephine consented to go to Italy, but she left Paris weeping as if going to her execution. Once at Milan, where she held almost a court, she recovered her gaiety, and the two were very happy for a time. But it did not last. Napoleon, obliged to be on the march, would implore Josephine to come to him here and there, and once she narrowly escaped with her life when trying to get away from the army.

Wherever she was installed she had a circle of adorers about her, and as a result she neglected writing to her husband. Reproaches and entreaties filled his letters. He begged her for only a line, and he implored her that she be less cold.

“Your letters are as cold as fifty years of age; one would think they had been written after we had been married fifteen years. They are full of the friendliness and feelings of life’s winter,... What more can you do to distress me? Stop loving me? That you have already done. Hate me? Well, I wish you would; everything degrades me except hatred; but indifference, with a calm pulse, fixed eyes, monotonous walk!... A thousand kisses, tender, like my heart.”

It was not merely indolence and indifference that caused Josephine’s neglect. It was coquetry frequently, and Napoleon, informed by his couriers as to whom she received at Milan or Genoa, and of the pleasures she enjoyed, was jealous with all the force of his nature. More than one young officer who dared pay homage to Josephine in this campaign was banished “by order of the commander-in-chief.” Reaching Milan once, unexpectedly, he found her gone. His disappointment was bitter.

“I reached Milan, rushed to your rooms, having thrown up everything to see you, to press you to my heart—you were not there; you are traveling about from one town to another, amusing yourself with balls.... My unhappiness is inconceivable.... Don’t put yourself out; pursue your pleasure; happiness is made for you.”

It was between such extremes of triumphant love and black despair that Napoleon lived throughout the Italian campaign.

BONAPARTE AT MALMAISON.

The title on the engraving reads: “Bonaparte, dédié à Madame Bonaparte.” Engraved in 1803 by Godefroy, after Isabey.