"It is to you I destine this crown. At Madrid, you are in France. Naples is the end of the world. I desire that immediately after the receipt of this letter, you leave the regency to whom you like, the command of the troops to Marshal Jourdan, and that you start for BayYou will receive this letter on the 19th, you will start on the 20th, and you

onne.

will be here on the 1st of June."

tips of his fingers, a parvenu. He coveted and envied birth and high connexions for their own sakes, as a nouveau-riche might covet and envy them; and with all his inordinate self-esteem he had not true pride enough to feel on an equality with princes unless he could be on terms of famili arity and intermarry with them. His first approaches were made to the petty princes Joseph very much preferred" the end of of Germany, whose alliance could not augthe world;" but there was nothing for it ment his power and could only flatter a low but to obey, and he resigned himself to the vanity. He demanded the Princess Aupainful pageant prepared for him. Within gusta of Bavaria, who was engaged to the six weeks after his translation he is writing eldest son of the Elector of Baden, for Euto complain that Spain has risen against him gene, and the daughter of the Elector of to a man. "I have a nation of brave men, Würtemburg for Jerome. His first proexasperated to the last point, for my ene-posals were indignantly declined. mies. My assassination is publicly spoken after Austerlitz, the parts are changed: of." Then in answer to some vague what Napoleon solicited, he now exacts. assertion of Napoleon, No, Sire, the He speaks no longer as an ally, but as a honest men are no more for me than the master: rogues. You are mistaken: your glory will crumble away in Spain." And there it did crumble away. There it was that his troops, confronted with British troops, lost the character and consciousness of being invincible. There he first came in contact with the genuine spirit of nationality, and found in it something elastic, irrepressible, unextinguishable; something which like Milton's angels

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"Vital in every part,

Cannot, but by annihilating, die." The correspondence contains letters to each of the puppet kings, ordering them not to spare their subjects: e. g.

"To Jerome Napoleon, King of Westphalia, "Paris, 4th January, 1808. "If you begin by throwing these expenses on your treasury, you will ruin it. What will you do when the Grand Army passes through your territories? It has been quartered a year in Bavaria it has not cost the King a sou: the inhabitants have supported it: it is true, they have been a little pinched, but if the King had been obliged to pay, he would not have been able to support it a fortnight."

The dread of being dragged in triumph, of undergoing a personal humiliation if they resisted, is said to have so paralyzed the kings of the ancient world that, at the bare approach of a Roman army, they trembled and hastened to make terins. Napoleon's treatment inspired similar terrors and produced similar effects. If modern manners saved the wives and daughters of captive or conquered princes from actual outrage, the force he put upon their feelings, habits, and affections was cruel and ungenerous in the extreme. He was in all his tastes and instincts, in his inmost soul and to the very

But

"The Princess Augusta, torn from her betrothed, is married to a man who was no more consulted than herself, and who knew nothing of her but her portrait on a china cup: this bePrincess Stephanie de Beauharnais: to crown trothed himself will be forcibly united to the all, Jerome, married at Baltimore to a lady honourable and distinguished, though without titles of nobility, who has already born him a child,

will be unmarried and remarried at a blow."

We suspect that no disagreeable force was put upon the inclinations of Jerome, a low profligate, to whom Napoleon, whose habitual name for him was petit polisson, once said: Jerome, they say the majesty of kings is stamped on the brow; you may travel incognito till doomsday without being recognized."

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His own second marriage was an exaggerated mistake of the same order. It did not prevent Austria from joining the coalition. The proud House of Hapsburgh always writhed under it as a mésalliance, and spoke of him, when they dared, much as George Dandin was spoken of by the family into which he had thrust himself from the least excusable of all vanities. Bonaparte's autograph letters to sovereigns who would none of him—as to George III. and the Emperor of Austria, in 1799 was a foolish affectation of unattainable equality; for, be it remembered, these letters were not written in his representative capacity in the name of a great nation, as Cromwell would have written, but as brother to brother or friend to friend.

It is painful to think it or say it, but the truth, like murder, will out: Bonaparte was never, in the English sense of the word, a gentleman. He was wanting in the delicacy,

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generosity and refinement, in the self-con- that the first meeting between the Pope and trol, self-respect and consideration for the the Emperor should take place on the road feelings of others, implied is this complex through the forest of Fontainebleau, where, and never translated - we believe untrans- on the approach of the Papal carriage, the latable-term. He would never, like Emperor presented himself in hunting cosLouis Quatorze, have flung away his cane tume, on horseback, with a pack of dogs. to avoid the temptation of making a dishon- The carriage stopped: the road was muddy, ourable use of it. He would never, like the and the Pope shrank from placing his foot, Emperor Nicholas at Buckingham Palace, chaussé de soie blanche," on the ground; have risen and hurried to open the door for " cependant, il fallut bien qu'il en vint là." a lady-in-waiting. What could be in more Napoleon dismounted: they embraced, and execrable taste than what we now know to the imperial carriage was purposely stopped have been his calculated attack on Lord a few paces in advance, with both doors Whitworth, which was pushed to such an open. The Emperor got in by the right extent of underbred violence that a shudder door and took the place of honour, leaving ran through the circle lest he should finish by a blow? "What did you intend to do, if he had struck you? was the question put to the English ambassador on his return. Draw my sword, and run him through the body," was the reply.

the left to his guest; and this first step (adds Savary) settled the etiquette, without negotiation, for the entire duration of the visit. The puerility of the proceeding is no less remarkable than the innate vulgarity which suggested it. Deference to a priest could imply no more than deference to a woman.*

Again, in the famous interview with Prince Metternich (June 1813), a statesman who represented an emperor and had The scandalous indignities to which Pius long guided the policy of an empire, he VII. was exposed in 1809 have been lucidly stormed and ranted and flung his hat on the and forcibly detailed by M. d'Haussonville. ground to be picked up by the Prince (which The Holy Father's palace was broken open it was not), as if he was dealing with one and his person arrested at dead of night. of his menials who was bound to tolerate any He was compelled to take a succession of amount of bullying. No wonder that the long journeys whilst suffering under a paincalm, dignified bearing of the high-bred ful complaint, and at the place of detention, statesman put him out and added to his ir-Savona, finally assigned to him, he was subritability. Amongst other coarse things, jected to a sort of peine forte et dure in the he said, "I have three times restored the hope of bringing him to terms. Denial of Emperor Francis his throne; I have even fire in cold weather, with scanty supplies committed the blunder of marrying his of clean linen, were amongst the means emdaughter, hoping to attach him to me; but ployed by the successor of Charlemagne to nothing has availed to bring him over to subdue the successor of Leo;t and, conbetter sentiments." Referring to the mar-sidering that the Concordat had been framed riage a second time, he calls it a very great blunder on his part;" and M. Thiers naïvely remarks :

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to conciliate the revived religion of the mass of the people, Bonaparte's treatment of the Pope, judged merely as a piece of statecraft, was one of the very worst blunders of his reign.

The influence of the lady who took charge of Bonaparte's social education at Valence, must have been little more than ephemeral, for his matured sentiments towards women seem utterly devoid of refinement and delicacy. No man with the slightest tincture of chivalry would have publicly applied to a woman and a Queen, the language which he applied to the Queen of Prussia in his bulletins, and his bearing towards her

"This strange manner of treating, this contemptuous mode of mentioning a marriage for which moreover he appeared in no respect sorry as a private man, offended and irritated M. de Metternich, without much imposing on him, for a cold firmness would have impressed him more. The reception of the Pope in 1804, whose attendance for his coronation was rather compelled than invited, is another instance. I will say nothing (writes Gonsalvi) of the humiliations heaped on Pius VII. Such narratives are revolting to my memory and my pen." The commonest forms of politeness were not observed towards this vener-liness! able ecclesiastic, the spiritual head of the Catholic world. Politeness has been defined "the art of rendering to others what is socially their due." Savary complacently relates how it was ingeniously contrived

*M. Thiers says that the meeting at Fontainebleau was arranged with a view to the comfort of his Ho

"For the Pope, I am Charlemagne, because, like Charlemagne, I unite the crown of France to that of the Lombards, and that my empire is bordered by the East" (Napoleon to Cardinal Fesch, 1806.) Charlemagne went to Rome to be crowned by Leo In the "Bulletin to the Grand Army," of Octo

III.

when they met at Tilsit, smacked more of the barrack or guard-room than of the Court.

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claiming: You are not a soldier; you have not the soul of one like me; you have not learned to despise the lives of others and your own. ... What are two hundred thousand men to me?" Metternich saw his advantage; "Fling open the doors and windows, Sire; let all Europe hear what you say, and the cause I come here to uphold will not lose by it." Just before Napoleon had made another unconscious admission in justifying his refusal of peace: "I am a soldier, I need honour, glory; I cannot appear diminished in the middle of my people: I must continue great, glorious, admired." Then, to shade off the concentrated selfishness of his policy: "I am no longer my own master. I belong to the brave nation who hastens to shed its most generous blood at my call. I must not reply to such devotion by personal calculations, by weakness: I must preserve for them entire the grandeur they have purchased by such heroic efforts."

On the eve of the day when he was to deliver a speech in the Tribunal, Benjamin Constant came to Madame de Stäel and said, Your salon is filled with the society of your choice: it will be a desert to-morrow, if I speak. Think well of it." "Follow your conviction," was her reply. The prediction was realized to the letter; all her invited and habitual guests stayed away, and Fouché sent for her to tell her that the First Consul suspected her of having excited Benjamin Constant, and advised her to go into the country the conventional mode of ordering out of Paris. Such was the commencement of those vile persecutions against women, successively directed against Mesdames de Stäel, Recamier, d'Avaux, de Chevreuse, de Balbi, de Champcenetz, de Damas, and so many other persons, distinguished by their wit, their beauty, or their virtues." What made this sort of per- Although his calculations were purely secution so terrible, was the long reach personal, and his egotism unalloyed, it is and unrelenting grasp of the persecutor. not the less true that the brave nation had "Wherever you are," wrote Cicero to Mar- identified their glory with his, were still cellus, "remember that you are equally ready to fight on rather than surrender a within the power of the conqueror." Ma- particle of the grandeur he had purchased dame de Staël complained that Europe had at their cost. And what a cost! It was not become a great net which entangles you merely a population reduced and dwarfed at every step." The Duc d'Enghien was by conscription to an extent that has left carried off from a neutral territory, and the enduring traces in the race. The French Comte de Provence (Louis XVIII.) narrow-mind suffered from the forced and cramping ly escaped the same fate. An order to Maré- system like the body. The springs of intelchal Berthier, dated Saint Cloud, 5th lect were dammed up or poisoned. While August, 1806, begins thus: "My cousin; the imperial regime lasted, French genius I suppose you have arrested the booksellers resembled the prisoned eagle, which will of Augsburg and Nuremberg. My inten- not pair or propagate. Poetry and history tion is that they be carried before a military were made to order, and eloquence was tribunal and shot within twenty-four hours." hermetically sealed; unless, indeed, adulaIt was under this authority that Palm, a Bavarian subject, was shot.

In the course of the interview already mentioned, M. de Metternich said: "Sire, I have just passed through your regiments: your soldiers are children. You have made levies by anticipation, and summoned into the field a scarcely formed generation. When this generation is destroyed by the war now pending, will you anticipate anew? will you call out one younger still." It was then that the autocrat lost all self-command and dashed his hat upon the ground exber 27, 1506, he more than insinuates that she had intrigued with the Emperor Alexander, and acted under his influence: In the apartment occupied by the Queen at Potsdam was found the portrait of the Emperor of Russia, which he had presented to her. How unhappy are the princes who allow women to influence political affairs. The notes, the reports, the State papers, were scented, and found mixed with chiffons and other articles of the Queen's toilette."

tory addresses and bombastic bulletins in the vilest taste can be called eloquence. Its voice was heard no more after the expulsion of Benjamin Constant, Chenier, Guinguené, &c., from the Tribunat. He then pronunced it to be epuré. Say ecremé retorted Madame de Stäel. He crushed literature at a blow:

To the Citoyen Regnier (Grand Judge). "July 7, 1803.

rupting opinion by the press, I think it best for "As there appears to exist a system of corthe prefect of police to write a circular to all the booksellers to forbid them to offer any work for sale until seven days after remitting you a copy." The newspapers were only just permitted to exist on sufferance:

were (as they were sure to be) broken or nullified by events. All was delusion, nought was truth. In this respect (as M. Lanfrey observes) he would be disadvantageously lysing the motives of his own policy, attricontrasted with Frederic, who, coolly anabuted it to ambition, interest, and the desire of being talked about. Nor do the last days of the Exile of St. Helena, even in the luminous pages of M. Thiers, present anything equal to the "sublime quarter of an hour" of the dying Augustus, when he smilingly asked his friends whether he had

It subsequently appears that the reason why they were to be allowed to infuse a little venom was, that in case foreign rulers should complain of libels, he might say they played the drama of life well. Bonaparte were beyond his control. Three other journals are warned that they will appear no more "unless the proprietors provide writers and editors of morality and patriotism superior to all corruption."

"To M. Fouche.

had utterly lost (if he ever possessed) the faculty of self-examination. Nothing, he persistently maintained, that he had ever thought or done was wrong in motive or in act. If his life was to live over again, he would live (with rare exception) as he had lived it. He should appear (he boasted) before his Maker without a fear. He passed most of his time in putting the best face on the inculpated passages of his reign, in falsifying history, in draping his own figure for posterity. He was wrapt up in his fame, like the beautiful Lady Coventry in her beauty; who took to her bed when she found it going, and died with a lookingglass in her hand. Plain truth to him was like woollen to Pope's coquette:

In November, 1806, he writes from Ber-" lin to order a continuation of Millot's "Elements of French History" in a proper spirit, and directly afterwards comes a letter to Cambacères:

"If the army strives to do honour to the nation as much as possible, it must be owned that the men of letters do all they can to dishonour it. I read yesterday the bad verses sung at the opera. Why do you suffer them to sing impromptus at the opera? This is only proper at the Vaudeville. People complain that we have no literature: this is the fault of the Minister of the Interior."

This is quite in the tone of Mummius at Corinth. The fact is his head was completely turned after Austerlitz,

"Assumes the god,
Affects to nod,

And seems to shake the spheres."

The interviews at Tilsit shew to what extent the balance of his mind had been destroyed by habitual falsehood, by the absence of any fixed standard of right and wrong, and the blind confidence engendered by success. He was throughout deceiving himself instead of Alexander, who reaped all the substantial benefits of the treaty, and gave nothing in return but promises, which

For "Betty," read Las Casas or Montholon, and the parallel is complete.

In April, 1806, he wrote to Prince Eu

gene:·

"I am not in the habit of looking for my political opinion in the advice of others, and my people of Italy who know me ought not to forget I have more knowledge of affairs in my little finger than they in all their heads put together; and when at Paris, where there is more enlightenment than in Italy, people are silent and do homage to the opinion of a man who has proved that he saw farther and better than others, I am astonished that they have not the same condescension in Italy.”

Fatuity had reached its acme when he could delude himself into the belief that the servile obedience he commanded was the willing tribute to his sagacity. The effect of this over-weening self-sufficiency, combined with his astounding energy and ac

" another

tivity, was to allow no independent field of was: "I cannot be everywhere! action or development to any high order of astounding instance of fatuity. The entire talent or capacity, civil or military. Zeal, responsibility was flung upon the unhappy readiness, bravery, with intelligence enough admiral — who had gallantly done his duty to obey orders, were the sole qualifications - in terms that drove him to suicide. The in request. He demanded unscrupulous morning after the receipt of a despatch from instruments - not honest or wise advisers the Minister of Marine he was found life- and woe to the statesman who insinuated less, with six stabs from a knife in the re

to his wife ends: "What happiness that I have no child to receive my horrible inheritance and be loaded with the weight of my name. Ah, I was not born for such a lot, I have not sought it; I have been dragged into it in my own despite. Adieu, adieu.” * * *

a caution, the administrator who remon-gion of the heart. The fragment of a letter strated against an oppressive impost, the commander who revolted against cruelty, or the diplomatist who hesitated at a lie. The race of civil functionaries were stunted in their growth morally and intellectually, like the rank and file of the army physically each department of the state was depressed to a dead level of mediocrity. The eminent jurists to whom the Completion of the Code was intrusted, would have done far better without his intervention. M. Lanfrey shews that, to give him the credit of having planned or initiated this work, is altogether a mistake; and that his administrative reforms were marked neither by originality nor stability.

Military genius was never allowed fair play at any epoch of his career. The most promising generals the possible competitors for fame were treated like Massena and Moreau,

"And all thy budding honours on thy crest

Such things make the blood boil, and they abound in the annals of this crowned scoundrel (scélérat couronné) as M. Lanfrey, hurried away by just indiguation, designates him. How many broken hearts, how many desolated homes, how many blighted careers, how many ruined reputations, have gone to make this man the world's wonder! What torrents of blood and tears have been shed to float his name on the flood-tide of immortality, "Linked with one virtue and a thousand crimes."

But that one virtue was military genius, and because it brought military grandeur to the French, they were, and are, proud of him, nay, proud of the laurelled and gilded chains he rivetted on them, though the laurels have faded and the gilding is rubbed off.

An English traveller, stopping at a French hotel before the Revolution, came upon a Frenchman mercilessly horsewhipping his valet in the corridor, and, after rescuing the man, told him that he should take legal proceedings for the assault. He drew himself up and replied: “I would have you know, sir, that my master is too great a man for that. He could have a lettre-de-cachet for the asking." "Confound the fellow," exclaimed the traveller, "he was proud of having a master who could treat him like a dog.' Had not the collective nation something of the same feeling? Were they not proud of a master who could treat them like dogs, who could make them crouch at his feet when he was not hounding them on their prey? Do they not

I'll crop to make a garland for my head." Bonaparte's invariable practice was to concentrate all his best troops in the army which he commanded in person, and to send his generals on expeditions for which their resources were notoriously inadequate. If a movement or manœuvre ordered by him failed, he as invariably denied the order, or asserted that it was not executed in the proper spirit or as he intended it. Thus the disaster at Kulm was imputed to Vandamme, and the collapse at Waterloo to Ney and Grouchy. Knowing literally nothing of naval matters, foolishly imagining that the tactics for fleets and armies were the same, he compelled Villeneuve to put to sea and encounter certain destruction at Trafalgar. When the admiral - a man of proved skill and courage - pointed out the inevitable results of leaving Cadiz, his pitiless master writes, "Villeneuve is a wretch who should be ignominiously dismissed. Without combinnation, without courage, without public spirit, he would sacrifice everything occasionally cast a longing lingering look provided he could save his skin. Let my squadron set sail: let nothing stop it! it is my will that my squadron does not remain at Cadiz." It left Cadiz accordingly, and within fifteen days it was no more. His first exclamation on hearing the event

behind at the dearly-bought grandeur that has passed away? There are signs that he who runs may read. Their recently revived call for free institutions is owing far less to the love of liberty than to the loss of military prestige. Personal government,