A Great Man's Last Leap—Napoleon going on Board the English Frigate, assisted by the Faithful Bertrand. (Paris, 1815.)
Even he did not care for caricature when he was right. If it can be said that Napoleon Bonaparte conferred upon France one lasting good, it was beet-root sugar; but the satire aimed at that useful article does not appear to have offended him. In a newspaper of June, 1812, we read: "A caricature has been executed at Paris, in which the emperor and the King of Rome are the most prominent characters. The emperor is represented as sitting at the table in the nursery with a cup of coffee before him, into which he is squeezing beet-root. Near to him is seated the young King of Rome, voraciously sucking the beet-root. The nurse, who is steadfastly observing him, is made to say, 'Suck, dear, suck; your father says it is sugar.'" He did not care, probably, for that. It would have been far otherwise if a draughtsman had touched upon his mad invasion of Russia.
It was not until his power was gone that French satirists tried their pencils upon him, and then with no great success. With the downfall of Napoleon was involved the prostration of France. Humiliation followed humiliation. The spirit of Frenchmen was broken, and their resources were exhausted. In the presence of such events as the Russian catastrophe, the march of the allies upon Paris, Napoleon's banishment to Elba, the Hundred Days, Waterloo, the encampment of foreign armies in the public places of Paris, the flight of the emperor, and his final exile, the satirist was superseded, and burlesque itself was outdone by reality. When at last Paris was restored to herself, and peace again gave play to the human mind, Napoleon was covered with the majesty of what seemed a sublime misfortune. That peerless histrionic genius took the precaution in critical moments to let the world know what character he was enacting, and accordingly, when he stepped on board the English man-of-war, he announced himself to mankind as Themistocles magnanimously seeking an asylum at the hands of the most powerful of his enemies.
The good ruler is he who leaves to his successor, if not an easy task, yet one not too difficult for respectable talents. Napoleon solved none of the menacing problems. He threw no light upon the difficulties with which the modern world finds itself face to face. Every year that he reigned he only heaped up perplexity for his successors, until the mountain mass transcended all human ability, and entailed upon Frenchmen that tumultuous apprenticeship in self-government which is yet far from ending.
Talleyrand.
The first effort of the caricaturists in Paris after the Restoration was simply to place the figure of a weather-cock after the names of public men who had shown particular alacrity in changing their politics with the changing dynasties. This was soon improved upon by putting weather-cocks enough to denote the precise number of times a personage had veered. Thus Talleyrand, who from being a bishop and a nobleman had become a republican, then a minister under Napoleon, and at last a supporter and servant of the Restoration, besides exhibiting various minor changes, was complimented with as many weather-cocks as the fancy of each writer suggested.
Six appears to have been the favorite number. We find in a previous picture that he is represented as the man with six heads. The public men signalized by this simple device were said to belong to the Order of the Weather-cock; and it was the interest of the reactionists, who urged on the trial and execution of Ney and his comrades, to cover them with odium. To this day much of that odium clings to the name of Talleyrand. A man who keeps a cool head in the midst of madmen is indeed a most offensive person, and Talleyrand committed this enormity more than once in his life. So far as we can yet discern, the only "treason" he ever practiced toward the governments with which he was connected consisted in giving them better advice than they were capable of acting upon. The few words which he uttered on leaving the council-chamber, after vainly advising Marie Louise to remain in her husband's abode and maintain the moral dignity of his administration, show how well he understood the collapse of the "empire" and its cause: "It is difficult to comprehend such weakness in such a man as the emperor. What a fall is his! To give his name to a series of adventures, instead of bestowing it upon his century! When I think of that, I can not help groaning." Then he added the words which gave him his high place in the Order of the Weather-cock: "But now what part to take? It does not suit every body to let himself be overwhelmed in the ruins of this edifice." Particularly it did not suit M. de Talleyrand, and he was not overwhelmed, accordingly. Considering the manner in which France was governed during his career, he might well say, "I have not betrayed governments: governments have betrayed me."
It is mentioned by M. Champfleury as a thing unprecedented that this weather-cock device did not wholly lose its power to amuse the Parisians for two years. The portly person and ancient court of the king, Louis XVIII., called forth many caricatures at a later period. This king was as good-natured, as well-intentioned, as honorable a Bourbon as could have been found in either hemisphere. It was not he who enriched all languages by the gift of his family name. It was not his obstinate adherence to ancient folly which caused it to be said that the Bourbons had forgotten nothing and learned nothing. Born as long before his accession as 1755, he was an accomplished and popular prince of mature age during the American Revolution and the intellectual ferment which followed it in France. A respectable scholar (for a prince), well versed in literature (for a prince), a good judge of art (for a prince), of liberal politics (for a prince), and not so hopelessly ignorant of state affairs as kings and princes usually were, he watched the progress of the Revolution with some intelligence and, at first, with some sympathy. Both then and in 1815 he appears to have been intelligently willing to accept a constitution that should have left his family on the throne by right divine.