EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH
What Napoleon aimed at was to fit together all the different elements that had made France, under a government that he should direct, and then to impose upon them all peace, industry, and loyalty. Considering the character and history of the elements he was working with, the degree of his success is one of the wonders of statecraft. As time went on, however, he was subjected to more and more jealousy, criticism, and intrigue. And as he saw his power questioned his grasp tightened. He even began to employ the tactics of despots,—espionage, censorships, summary punishments. The upshot of the attacks upon him and of his determination to impose his own will was that in 1804, when he was thirty-five years old, he had himself made emperor of the French. I think there is no doubt that Napoleon believed that this was the only method by which he could make the position of France in Europe impregnable; but that he was willing to play the emperor there is no doubt. The dream of a throne where he should rule—for the welfare and happiness of everybody concerned, no doubt, but rule—brilliantly and absolutely—had never left his mind since boyhood—and now it was a fact accomplished!
The spectacle that followed is almost unbelievable. Napoleon with perfect seriousness set about to train himself, his lovable, but vain and unprincipled empress, Josephine, his selfish and vulgar family, his train of rough intimates of the battlefield, to the etiquette, ceremonies, and dignity of a court. He worked with the same energy, attention to details, and with the same insistence on complete obedience as when directing a campaign. The Napoleonic court achieved real brilliance and dignity; but to those born to the purple it was always an upstart’s court. That it was far and away more moral, economic, and orderly, as well as more serviceable to France, counted for little with those of the old régime.