CATILINE’S CONSPIRACY.—THE GRACCHI.—HISTORIANS.—SLEEP DURING A BATTLE.—CÆSAR AND HIS COMMENTARIES OF DIFFERENT MILITARY SYSTEMS.
21st—22nd. The Emperor rode out very early: we made the tour of our limits in several directions. It is during these rides that the Emperor now takes his lessons in English. I walk by his side; he speaks a few sentences in English, which I translate, word by word, as he pronounces them; by which method he perceives when he is understood, or is enabled to correct his mistakes. When he has finished a sentence, I repeat it to him in English, so that he may understand it well himself: this helps to form his ear.
The Emperor was reading to-day, in the Roman History, of Catiline’s conspiracy; he could not comprehend it in the way in which it is described. “However great a villain Catiline might be,” observed he, “he must have had some object in view: it could not be that of governing in Rome, since he is accused of having intended to set fire to the four quarters of the city.” The Emperor conceived it to be much more probable that it was some new faction similar to those of Marius and Sylla, which having failed, all the accusations calculated to excite the horror of patriots, were, as usual in such cases, heaped on the head of its leader. It was then observed to the Emperor that the same thing would infallibly have happened to himself, had he been overpowered in Vendemiaire, Fructidor, or Brumaire, before he had illumined with such radiant brilliancy an horizon cleared of clouds.
The Gracchi gave rise to doubts and suspicions of a very different sort in his mind, which, he said, became almost certainties to those who had been engaged in the politics of our times. “History,” said he, "presents these Gracchi, in the aggregate, as seditious people, revolutionists, criminals; and, nevertheless, allows it to appear, in detail, that they had virtues; that they were gentle, disinterested, moral men; and, besides, they were the sons of the illustrious Cornelia, which, to great minds, ought to be a strong primary presumption in their favour. How then can such a contrast be accounted for? It is thus: the Gracchi generously devoted themselves in behalf of the rights of the oppressed people, against a tyrannical senate; and their great talents and noble character endangered a ferocious aristocracy, which triumphed, murdered, and calumniated them. The historians of a party have transmitted their characters in the same spirit. Under the Emperors it was necessary to continue in the same manner; the bare mention of the rights of the people, under a despotic master, was a blasphemy, a downright crime. Afterwards, the case was the same under the feudal system, which was so fruitful in petty despots. Such, no doubt, is the fatality which has attended the memory of the Gracchi. Throughout succeeding ages their virtues have never ceased to be considered crimes; but at this day, when, possessed of better information, we have thought it expedient to reason, the Gracchi may and ought to find favour in our eyes.
“In that terrible struggle between the aristocracy and democracy, which has been renewed in our times—in that exasperation of ancient landed property against modern industry, which still ferments throughout Europe, there is no doubt that if the aristocracy should triumph by force, it would point out many Gracchi in all directions, and treat them as mercifully as its predecessors did the Gracchi of Rome.”
The Emperor added that it was, moreover, easy to see that there was a hiatus in the ancient authors at this period of history; that all which the moderns now presented to us on this subject was mere gleaning. He then reverted to the charges already made against honest Rollin and his pupil Crevier: they were both devoid of talent, system, or colouring. It was to be allowed that the ancients were far superior to us in this point; and that because, amongst them, statesmen were literary men, and men of letters statesmen; they combined professions, whilst we divide them in an absolute manner. This famous division of labour, which in our times produces such a perfection in mechanical arts, is quite fatal to excellence in mental productions: every work of genius is superior in proportion to the universality of the mind whence it emanates. We owe to the Emperor the attempt to establish this principle by frequently employing on various objects men wholly unconnected with each other;—it was his system. He once appointed, of his own accord, one of his chamberlains to go into Illyria to liquidate the Austrian debt: this was a matter of importance, and extremely complicated. The chamberlain, who had previously been a total stranger to public business, was alarmed; and the minister, who had been deprived of this appointment, being dissatisfied with it, ventured to represent to the Emperor that, his nomination having fallen on a man entirely new to such matters, it might be feared that he would not acquit himself satisfactorily. “I have a lucky hand, sir,” was his answer: “those on whom I lay it are fit for every thing.”
The Emperor, proceeding in his criticism, also censured severely what he called historical fooleries, ridiculously exalted by translators and commentators. “Such things prove, in the first place,” said he, “that the historians formed erroneous judgments of men and circumstances. They are wrong, for instance,” said Napoleon, “when they applaud so highly the continence of Scipio, and fall into ecstasies at the calmness of Alexander, Cæsar, and others, for having been able to sleep on the eve of a battle. It could only be a monk, debarred from women, whose face brightens up at the very name—who neighs behind his bars at their approach, who could give Scipio much credit for forbearing to violate the female whom chance threw into his power, while he had so many others entirely at his disposal. A famished man might as well praise the hero for having quietly passed by a table covered with victuals, without greedily snatching at them.” As to sleeping just before a battle, there was not, he assured us, one of our soldiers or generals who had not twenty times performed that miracle; their heroism was chiefly produced by the fatigue of the day before.
Here the Grand Marshal added that he could safely say he had seen Napoleon sleep, not only on the eve of an engagement, but even during the battle. “I was obliged to do so,” said Napoleon, “when I fought battles that lasted three days; Nature was also to have her due: I took advantage of the smallest intervals, and slept where and when I could.” He slept on the field of battle at Wagram, and at Bautzen, even during the action, and completely within the range of the enemy’s balls. On this subject, he said that, independently of the necessity of obeying nature, these slumbers afforded a general, commanding a very large army, the important advantage of enabling him to await, calmly, the reports and combinations of all his divisions, instead of, perhaps, being hurried away by the only event which he himself could witness.
The Emperor farther said that he found in Rollin, and even Cæsar, circumstances of the Gallic war which he could not understand. He could not by any means comprehend the invasion of the Helvetii; the road they took; the object ascribed to them; the time they spent in crossing the Saone; the diligence of Cæsar, who found time to go into Italy, as far as Aquileia, in quest of reinforcements, and who overtook the invaders before they had passed the Saone, &c.; that it was equally difficult to comprehend what was meant by establishing winter-quarters that extended from Treves to Vannes. And as we expressed our surprise at the immense works which the generals got performed by their soldiers, the ditches, walls, great towers, galleries, &c., the Emperor observed that in those times all efforts were directed to construction on the spot, whereas in ours they were employed in conveyance. He also thought the ancient soldiers laboured, in fact, more than ours. He had thoughts of dictating something on that subject. “Ancient history, however,” said he, “embraces a long period, and the system of war often changed. In our days it was no longer that of the times of Turenne and Vauban: field-works were growing useless; even the system of our fortresses had become problematical or inefficient; the enormous quantity of bombs and howitzers changed every thing. It was no longer against the horizontal attack that defence was requisite, but also against the curve and the reflected lines. None of the ancient fortresses were henceforth safe; they ceased to be tenable; no country was rich enough to maintain them. The revenue of France would be insufficient for her lines in Flanders, for the exterior fortifications were now not above a fourth or fifth of the necessary expense. Casements, magazines, places of shelter secure from the effects of bombs, were now indispensably requisite, and these were too expensive.” The Emperor complained particularly of the weakness of modern masonry: the engineer department is radically defective in this point; it had cost him immense sums, wholly thrown away.
Struck with these novel truths, the Emperor had invented a system altogether at variance with the axioms hitherto established; it was to have metal of an extraordinary calibre, to advance beyond the principal line towards the enemy; and to have that principal line itself, on the contrary, defended by a great quantity of small moveable artillery: hence the enemy would be stopped short in his sudden advance; he would have only weak pieces to attack powerful ones with; he would be commanded by this superior calibre, round which the resources of the fortress, the small pieces, would form in groups, or even advance to a distance, as skirmishers, and might follow all the movements of the enemy by means of their lightness and mobility. The enemy would then stand in need of battering-cannon; he would be obliged to open trenches: time would be gained, and the true object of fortification accomplished. The Emperor employed this method with great success, and to the great astonishment of the engineers, in the defence of Vienna, and in that of Dresden; he intended to use it in that of Paris, which city could not, he thought, be defended by any other means; but of the success of this method he had no doubt.