It was the fact that, whereas formerly the nobles had almost always hampered the royal authority, at the present time some intermediary creation was needed by that very authority, which, in this age of liberal opinions, would naturally lean to the side of the sovereign, and retard the march of pretensions which, from being merely popular, had now become national. From this came the reëstablishment of a nobility, and the renewal of certain privileges which were always prudently distributed among distinguished members of the ancient nobility, and plebeians who had been ennobled by an act of the Imperial will.
All these things are a proof that the Emperor entertained this project of a new kind of feudality fashioned in accordance with his own ideas. But, besides the obstacles which England continually placed in his way, there was another, absolutely inherent in his own character. There would seem to have been in him two different men. The one, rather gigantic than great, but nevertheless prompt to conceive and also prompt to execute, laid from time to time some of the foundations of the plan he had formed. This man, actuated by one single idea, untouched by any secondary impression likely to interfere with his projects, had he but taken for his aim the good of mankind, would, with such abilities as he displayed, have become the one greatest man of the earth; even now he remains, through his perspicacity and his strength of will, the most extraordinary.
The other Bonaparte, forming a kind of uneasy conscience to the first, was devoured by anxiety, agitated by continual suspicion, a slave to passions which gave him no rest, distrustful, fearing every rival greatness, even that which he had himself created. If the necessity of political institutions was made plain to him, he was struck at the same moment by the rights which they must confer on individuals, and then, gradually becoming afraid of his own handiwork, he could not resist the temptation to destroy it piecemeal. He has been heard to say, after he had restored titles of nobility and given inalienable possessions[[2]] to his marshals: “I have made these people independent; but I shall know how to reach them and prevent them from being ungrateful.” When seized upon by this spirit of distrust of other men, he gave himself up to it entirely, and thought only of how to create divisions among them. He weakened family ties, and applied himself to promote individual rather than general interests. Sole center of an immense circle, he would have liked it to contain as many radii as he had subjects, that they might meet nowhere save in him. This suspicious jealousy, which incessantly pursued him, fastened like a canker on all his undertakings, and prevented him from establishing on a solid foundation any of the schemes which his prolific imagination was continually inventing.
After the campaign of Austerlitz he was so inflated with success, and with the worship which the people, half dazzled and half subjugated, paid to him, that his despotism became more than ever intensified. Every citizen felt the yoke that was laid on him heavier; heads were bowed almost perforce before his glory, but it was discovered afterward that he had taken means to prevent their being lifted again. He surrounded himself with new splendor in order to put a greater distance between himself and other men. He copied, from German customs which he had carefully observed, the whole etiquette of courts, which he made a daily slavery, and no one was exempt from minute observances which he brought to the utmost perfection.
It must be owned, however, that immediately after a campaign he was almost obliged to take measures which would silence the clamorous pretensions of his followers; and, when he had put these down, it did not occur to him that he ought to treat with greater consideration the other classes of citizens, of far less importance in his eyes. Military men, still flushed with victory, would assume a haughty position from which it was difficult to bring them down. I have kept a letter from M. de Rémusat, written from Schönbrunn, which describes very exactly the inflation of the generals, and the prudence that was required in order to live peaceably with them. “The military profession,” he writes, “gives to a man’s character a certain blunt sincerity, so that he does not try to hide the meanest passions. Our heroes, who are accustomed to open war with their enemies, acquire a habit of disguising nothing, and see a battle-field in any opposition they may meet with, of whatever kind. It is curious to hear them speak of civilians, and indeed, afterward, to hear them discuss each other—each depreciating the deeds of the others, attributing a large share of their success to luck; blackening reputations which we outsiders had thought firmly established; and, in their behavior to us, so puffed up with their newly acquired glory that one needs much tact and many sacrifices of pride, even of proper pride, to procure toleration from them.”
The Emperor noticed this somewhat belligerent attitude of the officers of his army. He cared little that it was annoying to civilians, but he would not have it reach a point which might be inconvenient to himself. Therefore, while still at Munich, he thought proper to rebuke the arrogance of his marshals, and on this occasion self-interest induced him to use the language of reason. “Recollect,” he said, “that you are to be soldiers only when with the army. The title of marshal is merely a civil distinction, which gives you the honorable rank at my Court that is your due, but it carries with it no authority. On the battle-field you are generals; at Court be merely great nobles, belonging to the State by the civil position I created for you when I bestowed on you the title which you bear.”
This warning would have produced a greater effect had the Emperor ended it with such words as these: “In camp or in Court, recollect that your first duty everywhere is to be good citizens.” He should have held similar language to all classes, to whom he was bound to be a protector as well as a master; he should have spoken the same words to all Frenchmen, and so have united them in a new equality, not adverse to distinctions won by valor. But Bonaparte, as we have seen, was always in dread of natural and generous ties, and the iron chain of despotism is the only bond he employed, because it binds each man, as it were, separately, leaving him no commerce with his fellows.
| [1] | This hotel was pulled down in the reign of Louis Philippe.—P. R. |
| [2] | Majorats. |