The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise

by Imbert de Saint-Amand

At Düsseldorf, Napoleon, in accordance with his usual custom, received all the authorities, civil and military, as well as representatives of all sects. Among these last was an old white-bearded rabbi a hundred years old, who was so anxious to see the Emperor that he had himself carried to the reception. He entered, supported on one side by the parish priest, on the other, by the Protestant clergyman. This union of the three creeds in homage to their sovereign did not displease the Emperor, strange as it was. Count Beugnot's Memoirs must be consulted for a full account of the activity, the interest in details, the minuteness of the administrative investigations which, at Düsseldorf as everywhere else, characterized Napoleon in these laborious journeys, on which, under pretext of seeking distraction, he kept himself in almost as active movement as if he were at war. The Count who once played whist at Düsseldorf with Marie Louise for his partner, against the Duchess of Montebello and the Prince of Neufchâtel, says in speaking of the occasion: "As often happens, the game was carelessly played; all watched the cards only with their eyes, and gave their attention to what was going forward about the table, to which the Emperor came every few minutes to say a few pleasant words to the Empress or to joke with the Prince of Neufchâtel and me. I was too busy, both during the dinner and while we were playing, to make any study of the Empress's tastes or to form from them a judgment about her character. The journey had been long; she seemed tired and out of sorts. She answered the Emperor only in monosyllables, and the other by a somewhat monotonous nod of the head. I may be mistaken, but I am inclined to believe that Her Majesty is not free from the awe which her August husband inspires in all who approach him."

After resting for two days at Düsseldorf, Napoleon and Marie Louise went on to Cologne, when they visited the Chapel of the Eleven Thousand Virgins, and a grand Te Deum was sung in the famous Cathedral, They returned by Liège, Givet, Mézières, and Compiègne, reaching Saint Cloud after an absence of nearly three months,—the longest visit that the Emperor had made in the provinces of either the old or the new France. Everywhere he had met with the expression of two distinct but somewhat different sentiments: for the Empress, an affectionate respect; for himself, the sort of violent sensation that a man who is a living wonder always produces. XXIV.

NAPOLEON AT THE HEIGHT OF HIS POWER.

At the beginning of 1812 Napoleon had reached the height of his power. Before we watch his decline, it may be well to consider him at the summit of his fortune, in the fulness of his force, might, and glory. In his career there were two distinctly marked periods,—the democratic and the aristocratic. In the early days of the Empire the first one had not yet come to an end. The coins of that time still bore the stamp, "French Republic. Napoleon Emperor." He himself resembled Caesar rather than Charlemagne: he granted no hereditary titles, and associated with but few of the émigrés; he was still, in many ways, a man of the Revolution. In 1812, on the other hand, he had given his authority a sort of feudal character, and revived many points of resemblance with the Carlovingian epoch. Charlemagne had become his model, his ideal. The saviour of the Convention, the friend of the young Robespierre, was busily introducing much of the imperial and military splendor of the Middle Ages. The continental sovereigns treated him with so much consideration that he regarded himself as their superior rather than as an equal. He called them his brothers; but he thought that he was more than a brother—something like the head of a family of kings. The Kings of Bavaria, of Würtemberg, of Saxony, of Spain, of Naples, of Westphalia, who all owed their crowns to him, were indeed his subordinates. As the Princes of the Confederation of the Rhine, the vassals of their protector, they despatched their contingents to him with as much zeal and punctuality as if they had been plain prefects of the Empire.

The émigrés crowded the drawing-rooms of the Tuileries. One might have thought one's self at Coblenz. Those men who belonged to the old régime were especially appreciated. The one of his aides-de-camp who most pleased the Emperor was perhaps the Count of Narbonne, knight of honor of one of the daughters of Louis XV., Minister of War under Louis XVI. The most rigid, the most precise etiquette prevailed in the Imperial residences. The high dignitaries and marshals concealed their plebeian names under pompous titles of princes and dukes. Madame de Mailly, the widow of a marshal of the royal period, had been admitted to the rank and privileges of the wives of the grand officers of the crown, and had figured as a marshal's widow, at the reception of January 1, 1811. The court of Versailles appeared to have revived.

Napoleon preferred to derive his power from divine right than from the will of the nation. "He was much struck," Metternich says in his Memoirs, "by the idea of ascribing the origin of supreme power to divine choice. One day at Compiègne, soon after his marriage, he said to me, 'I notice that when the Empress writes to her father, she addresses him as His Holy Imperial Highness. Is that your usual way?' I told him he was so addressed from the tradition of the old Germanic Empire, and because he also wore the apostolic crown of Hungary. Napoleon then said with some solemnity, 'It is a noble and excellent custom. Power derives from God, and that is the only way it can be secure from human assault. Some time or other I shall adopt the same title.'"

At about the same time, in conversation with M. Molé about the houses building in Paris, on being asked when he intended to give his attention to the Church of the Madeleine, the Emperor said, "Well, what is expected of me?" M. Molé told him that he had heard that it was intended for a Temple of Glory. "That's what people think, I know," said Napoleon; "but I mean it for a memorial in expiation of the murder of Louis XVI." He said to Metternich: "When I was young I favored the Revolution out of ignorance and ambition. When I came to the age of reason I followed its counsels and my own instinct, and crushed the Revolution." At another time he said: "The French throne was empty. Louis XVI. had not been able to hold it. If I had been in his place, in spite of the immense progress it had made in men's minds during the previous reigns, the Revolution would not have triumphed. When the King fell, the Republic took its place; and I set that aside. The former throne was buried under the ruins; I had to make a new one."

According to Prince Metternich, "One of Napoleon's keenest and most persistent regrets was that he could not appeal to the principle of legitimacy as the foundation of his power. Few men have felt like him the fragility and precariousness of authority without this basis, and its vulnerability to attacks." One day, in speaking to the Austrian statesman about the letter he wrote when First Consul to Louis XVIII., he said: "His answer was dignified and rich in impressive traditions. In Legitimists there is something which lies outside of their intelligence. If he had consulted his intellect alone, he would have come to terms with me, and I should have treated him most generously."

The Emperor had come to regard himself as the glorious personification of divine right, and as the defender of all the monarchies. In his eyes the King of Prussia was only a revolutionary monarch. If we may believe Chateaubriand, "Frederick William's great crime, according to Bonaparte the Republican, was this, that he abandoned the cause of the kings. The negotiations of the Berlin court with the Directory indicated, Bonaparte used to say, a timid, selfish, undignified policy, which sacrificed his own position and the general monarchical interests to petty advantages. When he used to look at the new Prussia on the map he would say, 'Is it possible that I have left that man so much territory?'"

The philosophers aroused as much horror in Napoleon as the Jacobins. In his eyes strong minds were weak minds; and though he persecuted the Pope, he denounced with equal severity attacks on the throne and attacks on the Church. He especially detested the Voltairian irony, regarding it as both blasphemous and treasonable. To quote once more from Prince Metternich: "He had a profound contempt for the false philosophy as well as for the false philanthropy of the eighteenth century. Of all the founders of the doctrine it was Voltaire who was his pet aversion, and he carried his hate so far as to attack on every occasion his general literary reputation."