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THE NAPOLEON OF THE PEOPLE[1]
[Footnote 1: A story told to a group of French peasants one evening, in a barn, by Goguelat, the village postman, who had served under Napoleon in a regiment of infantry.]
Napoleon, my friends, was born, you know, in Corsica. That's a French island, but it's warmed by the sun of Italy, and everything's as hot there as if it were a furnace. It's a place, too, where the people kill one another, from father to son, generation after generation, for nothing at all; that is, for no reason in particular except that it's their way.
Well, to begin with the most wonderful part of the story, it so happened that on the very day when Napoleon was born, his mother dreamed that the world was on fire. She was a shrewd, clever woman, as well as the prettiest woman of her time; and when she had this dream, she thought she'd save her son from the dangers of life by dedicating him to God. And, indeed, that was a prophetic dream of hers! So she asked God to protect the boy, and promised that when he grew up he should reestablish God's holy religion, which had then been overthrown. That was the agreement they made; and although it seems strange, such things have happened. It's sure and certain, anyhow, that only a man who had an agreement with God could pass through the enemy's lines, and move about in showers of bullets and grape-shot, as Napoleon did. They swept us away like flies, but his head they never touched at all. I had a proof of that—I myself, in particular—at Eylau, where the Emperor went up on a little hill to see how things were going. I can remember, to this day, exactly how he looked as he took out his field-glass, watched the battle for a minute, and finally said: "It's all right! Everything is going well." Then, just as he was coming back, an ambitious chap in a plumed hat, who was always following him around, and who bothered him, they said, even at his meals, thought he'd play smart by going up on the very same hill; but he had hardly taken the Emperor's place when—batz!—away he went, plume and all!
Now follow me closely, and tell me whether what you are going to hear was natural.
Napoleon, you know, had promised that he'd keep his agreement with God to himself. That's the reason why his companions and even his particular friends—men like Duroc, Bessières, and Lannes, who were strong as bars of steel, but whom he molded to suit his purposes—all fell, like nuts from a shaken tree, while he himself was never even hurt.
But that's not the only proof that he was the child of God and was expressly created to be the father of soldiers. Did anybody ever see him a lieutenant? Or a captain? Never! He was commander-in-chief from the start. When he didn't look more than twenty-four years of age he was already an old general—ever since the taking of Toulon, where he first began to show the rest of them that they didn't know anything about the handling of cannon.
Well, soon after that, down comes this stripling to us as general-in-chief of the Army of Italy—an army that hadn't any ammunition, or bread, or shoes, or coats; a wretched army—naked as a worm. "Now, boys!" he said, "here we are, all together. I want you to get it fixed in your heads that in fifteen days more you 're going to be conquerors. You're going to have new clothes, good leggings, the best of shoes, and a warm overcoat for every man; but in order to get these things you'll have to march to Milan, where they are." So we marched. We were only thirty thousand bare-footed tramps, and we were going against eighty thousand crack German soldiers—fine, well equipped men; but Napoleon, who was only Bonaparte then, breathed a spirit of—I don't know what—into us, and on we marched, night and day. We hit the enemy at Montenotte, thrashed 'em at Rivoli, Lodi, Arcola, and Millesimo, and stuck to 'em wherever they went. A soldier soon gets to like being a conqueror; and Napoleon wheeled around those German generals, and pelted away at 'em, until they didn't know where to hide long enough to get a little rest. With fifteen hundred Frenchmen, whom he made to appear a great host (that's a way he had), he'd sometimes surround ten thousand men and gather 'em all in at a single scoop. Then we'd take their cannon, their money, their ammunition, and everything they had that was worth carrying away. As for the others, we chucked 'em into the water, walloped 'em on the mountains, snapped 'em up in the air, devoured 'em on the ground, and beat 'em everywhere. So at last our troops were in fine feather—especially as Napoleon, who had a clever wit, made friends with the inhabitants of the country by telling them that we had come to set them free; and then, of course, they gave us quarters and took the best of care of us. And it was not only the men: the women took care of us too, which showed their good judgment!
Well, it finally ended in this way: in Ventose, 1796,—which was the same time of year that our March is now,—we were penned up in one corner of the marmot country: but at the end of the first campaign, lo and behold! we were masters of Italy, just as Napoleon had predicted. And in the month of March following—that is, in two campaigns, which we fought in a single year—he brought us in sight of Vienna. It was just a clean sweep. We had eaten up three different armies in succession, and had wiped out four Austrian generals; one of them—a white-haired old chap—was burned alive at Mantua like a rat in a straw mattress. We had conquered peace, and kings were begging, on their knees, for mercy. Could a man have done all that alone? Never! He had the help of God; that's certain! He divided himself up like the five loaves of bread in the Gospel; he planned battles at night and directed them in the daytime: he was seen by the sentries going here and there at all hours, and he never ate or slept. When the soldiers saw all these wonderful things, they adopted him as their father.