Napoleon: A Sketch of His Life, Character, Struggles, and Achievements

by Thomas E. Watson

Napoleon had become a thorough man of the world. Hard experience had driven away sentimental illusions. The visionary of the Corsican sea-lulled grotto, the patriotic dreamer of the Brienne garden-harbor, had died some time ago. The man who now commanded the Army of the Interior was different altogether. Reading, experience, observation, the stern teachings of necessity, had taught him to believe that the Italian proverb was true, “One must not be too good, if one would succeed.” He believed now that rigid principles were like a plank strapped across the breast: not troublesome when the path led through the open, but extremely detrimental to speed in going through a wood. He had studied the lives of great men,—Alexander, Cæsar, Richelieu, Frederick, Cromwell,—and the study had not tended to his elevation in matters of method. He had studied the politics of the world, the records of national aggrandizement, the inner secrets of government, and his conceptions of public honor had not been made more lofty. He had come to believe that interest governed all men; that no such things as disinterested patriotism, truth, honor, and virtue existed on earth. He believed that life was a fight, a scramble, an unscrupulous rush for place, power, riches; and that the strongest, fleetest, most artful would win—especially if they would take all the short cuts. Idealogists he despised.

Cold, calculating, disillusioned, he took the world as he found it. New men and women he could not create, nor could he create other conditions, moral, social, political, or material. He must recognize facts, must deal with actualities. If bad men alone could give him what he wanted, he must court the bad men. If bad men only could do the work he wanted done, he must use the bad men. Barras, Fréron, Tallien, being in power, he would get all he could out of them, just as he had exhausted the friendship of Robespierre and Salicetti, and just as he afterward used Fouché and Talleyrand.

Nor was he more scrupulous in his relations with women. He must have known the character of Madame Tallien, mistress and then wife of the man of July, and now mistress of Barras; but nevertheless he sought her acquaintance, and cultivated her friendship. Knowing the character of Madame Tallien, he must have felt that her bosom friend, Madame Beauharnais, could not be wholly pure. He saw them together night and day, he witnessed their influence with Barras; it is impossible that he did not hear some of the talk which coupled their names with that of the libertine Director. He must have heard of the early life of this creole widow, whose husband, the Viscount Beauharnais, had separated from her, accusing her of scandalous immorality. He must have heard that after her husband had been guillotined, and she herself released from prison by the overthrow of Robespierre, she had begun a life of fashionable dissipation. He must have heard the talk which coupled her name with that of such women as Madame Tallien, Madame Hamelin, and a dozen other Aspasias of like kind. The names of her lovers were bruited about like those of Madame Tallien, one of these lovers having been General Hoche. Now that she, a widow just out of prison, having no visible income or property, and whose children had been apprenticed at manual labor, sported a magnificent establishment, wore most expensive toilets, led the life of the gayest of women,—the favorite of those who had recently beheaded her husband,—the world classed her with those with whom she was most intimate, and thought her morals could not be purer than those of her associates. Justly or unjustly, she was regarded as one of the lights of the harem of Barras; and people were beginning to hint that she and her extravagance had become a burden of which the Director would gladly be rid.

Napoleon had never come under the spell of such society as that which he had now entered. That fleeting glimpse of polite society which he had caught at Valence bore no comparison to this. In his limited experience he had not met such women as Madame Tallien and Josephine. He moved in a new sphere. Around him was the brilliance of a court. In apartments adorned with every ornament and luxury, night was turned into day; and with music, the dance, the song, the feast, men and women gave themselves to pleasure. He, the unsocial man of books and camps, was not fitted to shine in this social circle. He was uncouth, spoke the language with an unpleasant accent, had no graces of manner or speech, had nothing imposing in figure or bearing, and he felt almost abashed in the high presence of these elegant nullities of the drawing-room.

Shy, ill at ease, he was not much noticed and not much liked by the ladies of the directorial court, with one exception—Josephine. Either because of the alleged return of the sword, and the good impression then made, or because of her natural tact and kindness of heart, Madame Beauharnais paid the uncouth soldier those little attentions which attract, and those skilful compliments which flatter, and almost before he was aware of it Napoleon was fascinated. Here was a woman to take a man off his feet, to inflame him with passion. She was no longer young, but she was in the glorious Indian summer of her charms. Her perfect form was trained in movements of grace. Her musical voice knew its own melody, and made the most of it. Her large, dark eyes with long lashes were soft and dreamy. Her mouth was sweet and sensuous. Her chestnut hair was elegantly disordered, her shoulders and bust hid behind no covering, and of her little feet and shapely ankles just enough was seen to please the eye and stimulate the imagination.

As to her costume and her general toilet, it was all that studied art and cultivated taste could do for generous nature. Madame Tallien was more beautiful and more queenly than Josephine, many others excelled her in wit, accomplishments, and mere good looks; but it may be doubted whether any lady of that court, or other courts, ever excelled the gentle Josephine in the grace, the tact, the charm, which unites in the make-up of a fascinating society woman.

Add to this that she was sensual, elegantly voluptuous, finished in the subtle mysteries of coquetry, fully alive to the power which the physically tempting woman exerts over the passions of men, and it can be better understood how this languishing but artful widow of thirty-three intoxicated Napoleon Bonaparte, the raw provincial of twenty-seven.

That he was madly infatuated, there can be no doubt. He loved her, and he never wholly ceased to love her. Never before, never afterward, did he meet a woman who inspired him with a feeling at all like that he felt for her. If he did not know at that time what she had been, he knew after the marriage what she continued to be, and he made a desperate effort to break the spell. He could not completely do so. She might betray his confidence, laugh at his love-letters, neglect his appeals, squander his money, sell his secrets, tell him all sorts of falsehoods, underrate his value, misconceive his character, and befoul his honor with shameless sin; but against her repentance and her childlike prayers for pardon, the iron of his nature became as wax. Before those quivering lips, before those tear-filled eyes, before that tenderly sweet voice, all broken with grief, he could rarely stand. “I will divorce her!” he said fiercely to his brothers, when they put before him proofs of her guilt, after the Egyptian campaign. But through the locked door came the sobs of the stricken wife, came her plaintive pleadings. “Mon ami!” she called softly, called hour after hour, piteously knocking at the door. It was too much; the cold resolution melted; the soldier was once more the lover, and the door flew open. When the brothers came next day to talk further about the divorce, they found little Josephine, happy as a bird, sitting on Napoleon’s knee, and nestling in his arms.

“Listen, Bourrienne!” exclaimed Napoleon, joyously, on his return to Paris from Marengo, “listen to the shouts of the people! It is sweet to my ears, this praise of the French—as sweet as the voice of Josephine!”

Even when cold policy demanded the divorce, it was he who wept the most. “Josephine! my noble Josephine! The few moments of happiness I have ever enjoyed, I owe to you!”