However it was, Napoleon was not destined to live long, and even if his Empire had survived him, at his death one can hardly imagine Europe remaining under the thumb of any Council of Regency he might appoint, with Joseph and Jerome and the Murats all scheming and conspiring to grasp the main power. Poor silly Marie Louise could never have kept order; some Monk would have arisen to restore the Bourbons, and Napoleon II. would have received the same treatment as did Richard Cromwell. The legend of l’Aiglon would then have been very different. A Bonaparte restoration in France might be as feasible as ever was a Protectorate restoration in England. Not all Louis Napoleon’s wiles could have built up a reactionary party; not all the glamour of Austerlitz and Jena could have masked the discredit of a new dynasty being cast out by its own people instead of by a league of indignant autocrats; even Sedan was not the death-blow to Bonapartism. As it is, there will be a Third Empire in France as soon as there arises a Napoleon the Fourth.
DAVOUT
(PRINCE D’ECKMÜHL AND DUC D’AUERSTÄDT)
CHAPTER XVI
SPOTS IN THE SUN
IT was Napoleon’s fate, during his lifetime and for some time after, to have his worst mistakes overlooked, and to have various strokes of policy violently condemned as shocking errors. Everyone has heard the execution of the Duc d’Enghien spoken of as “worse than a crime—it was a blunder.” It is difficult to see why. Perhaps Fouché, to whom the remark is attributed, did not see why either. If a man should happen to think of an epigram of that brilliancy, it is hard to condemn him for using it without troubling much as to its truth. But whether launched in good faith or not, that shaft of wit sped most accurately to its mark, and proved so efficiently barbed that it has stuck ever since.
The real point was that France was at war with England at the time, and that Napoleon was so universally dreaded that any stick was considered good enough to beat him with. Consequently a storm of indignation arose, diligently fostered by those who benefited, and soon all Europe was furious that a poor dear Bourbon had been shot. If nowadays the President of the German Republic were to lay hold of a young Hohenzollern and shoot him on a charge of conspiracy, it is doubtful whether it would cause any similar stir. Europe is not fond of Hohenzollerns, and the principle of Legitimacy is so far discredited that it is not considered blasphemy to treat the descendant of an autocrat with violence.
Undoubtedly it was a crime for Napoleon to shoot the Duke, but it was hardly a blunder. It was contrary to international law for him to send the expedition to Ettenheim which arrested d’Enghien; it was contrary to statutory law to try him without allowing him to make any defence; it was contrary to moral law to shoot him for an offence of which he was not guilty. For all this Napoleon deserves the utmost possible censure—but without doubt he profited largely. Everywhere among Napoleon’s enemies arose a weeping and wailing; the English poured out indignant seas of ink (in 1914 they wrote in much the same fashion about Wilhelm of Germany’s withered arm). Alexander of Russia put his Court in mourning (only three years before he had been cognisant of the plot which brought about the murder of his own father); the King of Sweden tried to organize a crusade of revenge; but a month after d’Enghien died the Senate begged Napoleon to assume the Imperial title. It is curious, indeed, that so much notice should have been taken of one more murder by a generation which witnessed, without one quarter so much emotion, the partition of Poland, the storming of Praga, the sack of Badajoz, the shooting of Ney, and Wellington’s devastation of the Tagus Valley. The art of propaganda was at quite a high level even more than a century ago.
Once again, the execution of d’Enghien was a crime and not a mistake. By it Napoleon showed that he was no mere Monk dallying with the idea of restoring the Bourbons. He brought to his support all the most determined of the irreconcilables. He showed the monarchs of Europe that he was a man to be reckoned with. Murat, Savary, everyone implicated was cut off from all possible communication with the Bourbons. The deed cowed the Pope into submission at a vitally important moment, while the mere mention of it later was sufficient to frighten the wretched Ferdinand of Spain into abject obedience at that strange conference at Bayonne, when an idiotic father and a craven son handed the crown of Charles V. to an incompetent upstart. But Napoleon would have met with no more than he deserved had he had dealt out to him at Fontainebleau in 1814 the same tender mercy which Condé’s heir received at Vincennes ten years before—ten years almost to the day.
If Enghien’s execution were a crime but not a mistake, there are several incidents, most of them occurring about the same time, which undoubtedly indicated mistakes, even if they were not crimes. Thus Pichegru was found dead in prison. Pichegru was one of the generals of the Republic, almost worthy of ranking with Hoch and Kléber. He had conquered Holland, and was credited with the mythical exploit of capturing the frozen-in Dutch fleet with a squadron of Hussars. (The Dutch had obligingly forestalled this achievement by surrendering some time previously.) Later he had been found to be parleying with the Bourbons, and had been disgraced and exiled. Returning at the time of Cadoudal’s conspiracy, he had been arrested, imprisoned—and was found one morning dead, with a handkerchief round his neck which had been twisted tight by means of a stick. Paris gossip credited Napoleon with the guilt of his death, and darkly hinted that his confidential Mamelukes had revived the Oriental process of bowstringing. It is hard to believe that Napoleon really was guilty, for he could have secured Pichegru’s death by legal methods had he wished, while if he wanted to kill Pichegru quietly he could have adopted more subtle means. The blunder lay in his allowing the circumstances to become known; with his power he could have arranged a much more satisfactory announcement which would leave no doubt in men’s minds that Pichegru really had committed suicide. In consequence of his carelessness Napoleon was also charged with the murder, a year later, of an English naval officer, Captain Wright, who also committed suicide in prison.
A more terrible mystery surrounds the death of Villeneuve. This unfortunate man had been in command at Trafalgar; he had been wounded and taken prisoner, and had subsequently been sent back to France. As soon as he landed he found that Napoleon was furious with him as a consequence of his defeat, and he was found dead in his room at Rennes, with half a dozen knife-stabs in his body. It was announced that he had committed suicide, but there are several unpleasant facts in connection with his death which point to another conclusion. Letters from him to his wife and from his wife to him had disappeared in the post; the manner of death was strange, for the knife-thrusts were numerous and one of them was so situated that it could hardly have been self-inflicted. Perhaps Napoleon had Villeneuve killed; perhaps the crime was committed by over-zealous underlings; however it was, it was a serious error on Napoleon’s part to have allowed any room for gossip whatever. A possible motive for the crime (if it was one) lies in the fact that Napoleon was terribly anxious to keep secret the news of Trafalgar; not until the Restoration was the general French public acquainted with the fact that the French fleet had been destroyed—Napoleon had never admitted more than the loss of one or two ships.