CHAPTER LIII.
L’HOMME ROUGE—NAPOLEON’S SUPERSTITION.
This ends the caricatures for the year 1813, at the close of which Napoleon was in Paris. Wellington and Soult were fighting their prolonged duel in Spain, to the great advantage of the former. One after another did the French garrisons surrender, until, at the close of the year, Santona alone remained to the French. His troops, shut up in garrison in Germany and Prussia, were in very evil case, from hardships and sickness. St. Cyr abandoned Dresden, and all the garrison were made prisoners of war. Stettin surrendered, and the Dutch revolted; whilst at home the life-blood of the nation was being drained by a new conscription of 300,000 men, and the taxes were increased by one half.
And here, as well as at any other place, I may introduce Napoleon’s familiar spirit, ‘l’Homme Rouge.’ The belief in ‘the red man,’ in connection with the Emperor, was very widely spread; but details of his personal appearance, and the times of his visits, are rarely to be met with, and are invariably contradictory. Napoleon’s success had been so marvellous, that it is easily to be imagined it was popularly ascribed to supernatural agency.
In a small and very rare French book,[34] is an account of ‘The little red and green men, or the genius of Evil triumphing over the genius of Good. Many persons, astonished at the success of Buonaparte in all which he undertook, asked by what tutelary divinity he was protected?
‘Some said, It is Europe which is being destroyed by itself, an effect natural to every country, over-populated, and too flourishing—Was it not thus with Egypt, Greece, Judea, and Rome? Others, less philosophic, but easier given to conjecture, said, When he was in Egypt he several times absented himself from his staff.—Somebody generally came to him before he fought a battle, or undertook any enterprise.
‘He frequently repeated, God has given me the strength and the will to overcome all obstacles. There was something supernatural ... and thenceforth endless questions were asked of those who were with him in the Egyptian expedition. At length, by dint of research, a part of the truth was discovered, which is as follows:—
‘On the eve of the battle of the Pyramids, Buonaparte, at the council which was held in the morning, formally opposed the proposition to give battle. In the afternoon of that day, having gone, with some of the officers of his suite, to make a reconnaissance, and having approached one of the monuments of the pride of the Pharaohs,[35] he suddenly saw, coming out from it, a little man clothed in a long red robe, his head being adorned with a pointed cap of the same colour, after the manner of the priests of Isis, or the Chaldean sages, known under the name of Magi. He carried a little ring in his hand.
‘This mysterious man only said these words to him: “Approach, young man, and learn the high destinies to which you are called, if you wish to be prudent and wise.”
‘Immediately, Buonaparte, as if he had been drawn by a supernatural force, descended from his horse, and followed him into the interior of the pyramid, where he remained more than an hour.
‘The officers of his suite, at first, paid little attention to this rencontre, taking the red man to be one of those charlatans, with which the world abounds, to the detriment of science and real knowledge; they were even astonished that their general, to whom they accorded so much merit, lost precious time in interviewing a wretched cheat; but, when they saw Buonaparte come out, all radiant with joy, saying to them, “Friends, let us give battle; we shall conquer!” and when they saw, that in spite of the inferiority of their forces, they should gain the most complete victory, they could only think of the red man. Is he a God? Is he a Genius? That was what they asked.