Twenty Centuries of Paris

by Mabell S. C. Smith

CHAPTER XIX
PARIS OF NAPOLEON

NAPOLEON was a very young and unsophisticated Corsican when, in October, 1795, he commanded the troops that protected the Convention, in session in the Tuileries, against the Paris “sections” and the National Guard which had deserted to the royalists. He was still young, but a man rotten with ambition when, after Waterloo, he fled to Paris, and, in the Palace of the Élysée, signed his abdication of the throne of his adopted country. In the twenty years intervening he had raised himself to the highest position in the army, and he had won the confidence of an unsettled people so that they turned to him for governmental guidance, and made him consul for ten years, then consul for life and then emperor.

In the two decades he had done great harm, for, abroad, he had embroiled in war every country of Europe, and at home he had exhausted France of her young men and had left the country poorer in territory than when he was first made consul. Nevertheless, by the inevitable though sometimes inscrutable law of balance, the evil he had wrought was not without its compensating good. The countries of Europe learned as never before the meaning of the feeling of nationality and of the value of coöperation, while France—which, with her dependencies, Napoleon, at the height of his career, had spread over three-fifths of the map of western Europe—had gained self-confidence and stability and had crystallized the passionate chaos of the Revolutionary belief in the rights of man.

Aside from his military and political genius Napoleon’s character underwent a striking development as his horizon enlarged. He belonged to a good but unimportant family which dwelt in a small town. His early manner of living was of the simplest, yet he grew to a love of splendor and to a knowledge of its usefulness in impressing the populace and in buying their approbation.

Paris is connected with Napoleon throughout his whole career. He first appears when but a lad, brought to the Military School with several other boys by a priest. He lived in modest lodgings, at one time near the markets, and at another near the Place des Victoires.

In 1795 the Convention drew up a new constitution by which the government was vested in a Directory of five members. Even in its early days Napoleon wrote from Paris to his brother of the change following upon the turbulent, sordid period of the Revolution. “Luxury, pleasure and art are reviving here surprisingly,” he said. “Carriages and men of fashion are all active once more, and the prolonged eclipse of their gay career seems now like a bad dream.”

In the midst of this agreeable change to which even his natural taciturnity adapted itself he met and married Josephine, widow of the Marquis de Beauharnais who had been guillotined under the Terror. They both registered their ages incorrectly, Napoleon adding and Josephine subtracting so that the discrepancy between them, she being older, might appear less. This marriage introduced Napoleon to a class of people into whose circle he would not otherwise have penetrated on equal terms, and he learned from them many social lessons which he put to good use later. Yet Talma, the actor, when accused of having taught Napoleon how to walk and how to dress the part of emperor, denied that he could have given instruction to one whose imagination was all-sufficient to make him imperial in speech and bearing. No descendant of a royal line ever wore more superb robes than Napoleon the emperor on state occasions, and the elegance of the throne on which he sat was not less than that of his predecessors.

Bonaparte had risen slowly in the army because of his open criticism of his superiors, but by the time of his marriage he had become a general, and three days after his wedding he was despatched to Italy to meet the allied Italians and Austrians. Less than two years later the war was ended by the Peace of Campo Formio. In the two months preceding its negotiation Bonaparte had won eighteen battles, and had collected enough indemnity to pay the expenses of his own army, to send a considerable sum to the French army on the Rhine and a still greater amount to the government at home.

When it came to making gifts to Paris he had the splendid beneficence of the successful robber. Indemnities were paid in pictures as well as in money, bronzes and marbles filled his treasure trains, and the Louvre was enriched at Italy’s expense. Of the wealth of rare books, of ancient illuminated manuscripts, of priceless paintings and statuary pillaged from Italy’s libraries, monasteries, churches and galleries, even from the Vatican itself, no count has ever been made. With such treasures as Domenichino’s “Communion of Saint Jerome” and Raphael’s “Transfiguration” under its roof and with booty arriving from the northern armies as well as the southern, it is small wonder that the Louvre became the richest storehouse in the world. After Napoleon’s fall many of the works of art were returned whence they had come, but enough were left to permit the great palace to hold its reputation.

In the turmoil of the Revolution it had been impossible for any one person to please everybody. Napoleon was distrusted by a large body of the Parisians for the part that he had played in the support of the Convention in October, 1795, and these people Bonaparte set himself to conciliate. The Directory, also, was jealous of him. It meant that the victorious general must tread gently and not seem to have his head turned by the honors paid to his successes. There were festivals at the Louvre where his trophies looked down upon the brilliant scene, and at the Luxembourg, superbly decorated, upon the occasion of his formal presentation to the Directory of the treaty of Campo Formio. There were gala performances at the theaters at which the audience rose delightedly at Napoleon if he happened to be present, and the Institute elected him a life member. This honor gave him the excuse of wearing a civilian’s coat, and, although when in Italy he had dined in public like an ancient king, here he lived quietly on the street whose name was changed to “Victory Street,” by way of compliment, and showed himself but little in public, the more to pique the curiosity of the crowd which acclaimed Josephine as “Our Lady of Victories.”