“There he is with his watch in one hand, while the other moves constantly from his pocket, where his snuffbox, or rather his snuff, lies. An aide-de-camp arrives; tells of a movement; answers shortly, some questions rapidly, perhaps impatiently, put; is despatched with the order that is to solve the difficulty of some general of division. Another is ordered to attend, and sent off with directions to make some distant corps support an operation. The watch is again consulted; more impatient symptoms; the name of one aide-de-camp is constantly pronounced; question after question is put whether any one is coming from a certain quarter; an event is expected; it ought to have happened; at length the wished-for messenger arrives. ‘Well! what has been done yonder?’—‘The height is gained; the Marshal is there.’—‘Let him stand firm—not to move a step.’ Another aide-de-camp is ordered to bring up the guard.
“‘Let the Marshal march upon the steeple, defiling by his left—and all on his right are his prisoners.’ Now the watch is consulted and the snuff is taken no more; the great captain indulges in pleasantry; nor doubts any more of the certainty and of the extent of his victory than if he had already seen its details in the bulletin.”
Cruelty and kindness, selfishness and generosity, loyalty and treachery, honesty and perfidy, are almost unmeaning terms if applied without qualification to Napoleon. Where his plans were not involved, he frequently manifested the human virtues in their highest form; where those plans were involved, he practised all the vices without scruple or pity. Naturally he was humane, charitable, kind, indulgent, sympathetic, generous; if policy required it, he became as hard as steel. He left no debt of gratitude unpaid; ignored none of the claims, however slight, of kindred and old association. See how he behaves toward Madame Permon, how tolerant he is of that intolerable woman, how he forgets her snubs, how he forgives her a public insult, how he follows her with respectful consideration all the days of her life—and why? She had been kind to him when he was a poor boy, had nursed his father on the death-bed. “It is a devil of a temper, but a noble heart;” and the noble heart makes him forget the devil of a temper.
He gave place and pension to early sweetheart, to boyhood friends, to schoolmates, to teachers. The son and daughter of General Marbeuf found him delighted to serve them in remembrance of their father. The widow of the Duke of Orleans who had chanced to be the giver of a prize to him at Brienne, and who had forgotten all about it, was happily surprised to find that he had remembered. He restored her confiscated pension, and gave a relative of hers a place in the Senate. To the daughter of Madame de Brienne he proved himself a vigilant guardian. So the record runs throughout his life, and his last will is little more than a monument of gratitude to those who had at any time done him a service.
He was not free from superstition. What people called “omens” made an impression upon him. He sometimes made the sign of the cross, as though to ward off impending evil. When in Italy the glass over Josephine’s portrait was broken, Marmont says that he turned frightfully pale, and exclaimed that his wife was either dead or unfaithful.
He was a man of insatiable curiosity. He wished to know everything, and to have a hand in everything. His police infested every nook and corner, and over his police he set spies, and over the spies he set the informer. Thus he had two or three systems going at the same time. He not only sought to know all about public affairs, but private matters also. He delighted in gossip and scandal, hugely enjoying his ability to twit some man or some woman with an amour which he had discovered. Theatre talk, street talk, drawing-room talk, were reported to him regularly. Copying the Bourbon example, he opened private letters to ascertain what correspondents were saying to each other. He allowed no freedom of the press, and no real freedom of speech. Journals which showed the least independence he suppressed. Authors, actors, orators, who ventured upon forbidden ground, felt the curb at once.
Lavish as he was in expenditures, there was method and economy throughout. He was good at a bargain, exacted the worth of his money, would tolerate no imposition or overcharge. His imperial displays were more magnificent than those of the Grand Monarch, but they cost him less than one-tenth as much.
It is not possible to dogmatize about a man like Napoleon, saying positively just what he was. A more contradictory mortal never lived.
The man who massacred the prisoners at Jaffa was the same who perhaps lost his crown because he would not consent to excite civil war in Russia or in France. He who had just sent tens of thousands to death at Borodino, angrily reproved a careless member of his staff for allowing the hoof of his horse to strike one of the wounded, causing a cry of pain.
“It was only a Russian,” said the negligent rider.