REMINISCENCES OF NAPOLEON[23]
The professor was dancing about the platform with the agility of an elephant and working himself into a passion for a set tirade against the Emperor Napoleon, when those accurst feet of mine—no, poor feet, I can not blame you for drumming then, nay, I could not have blamed you had your dumb instinct thus outraged exprest itself in a yet more forcible fashion. How can I, a pupil of Le Grand, hear the Emperor abused? The Emperor! the great Emperor!
When I think of the great Emperor, in my mind's eye it is summer again, all gold and green. A long avenue of lime-trees in blossom rises up before me; on the leafy branches sit nightingales singing; the waterfall ripples; in the borders are flowers dreamily waving their fair heads.
Between me and the flowers there was a strange communion; the painted tulips bowed to me with the pride that apes humility, the sickly lilies nodded to me with tender sensibility, the roses with wine-flushed cheeks laughed a welcome from afar, the night-stocks sighed—with myrtles and laurels I was not then acquainted, for they had no bright blossoms to attract me, but with mignonette (we have since quarreled) I was then on the most intimate terms. I am speaking of the palace gardens at Düsseldorf, where I used to lie on the grass reverently listening to Monsieur Le Grand as he told me of the great Emperor's heroism, and beat the marches to which those heroic exploits were performed, so that my eyes and ears drank in the very life of it all. I saw the march across the Simplon—the Emperor in front and the brave grenadiers climbing up behind, while the startled eagles screamed and the glaciers thundered in the distance; I saw the Emperor clasping the standard on the bridge of Lodi; I saw the Emperor in his gray cloak at Marengo; I saw the Emperor on horseback at the battle of the Pyramids—nothing but smoke and Mamelukes—I saw the Emperor at Austerlitz—twing! how the bullets whizzed over the smooth ice—I saw, I heard the battle of Jena—dum, dum, dum—I saw, I heard the battle of Eilau, of Wagram—no, I could hardly stand it! Monsieur Le Grand drummed till my own eardrum was nearly cracked.
But what were my feelings when I saw him at last with my own eyes—O beatific vision!—himself, the Emperor.
It was in the alley of the same palace gardens at Düsseldorf. As I shouldered my way through the gaping crowd I thought of the deeds and battles which Monsieur Le Grand had portrayed to me with his drum; my heart beat the grand march—and yet I thought at the same time of the police regulations which ordered that no one should ride through the alley under a penalty of five thalers. And the Emperor with his retinue rode right through the alley! The shuddering trees bowed down to him as he passed; the sunbeams peeped timidly through the green foliage, and in the blue heavens above there sailed in sight a golden star. He wore his plain green uniform, and his small world-famous cap. He rode a white palfrey, which stept with such calm pride, such assurance and dignity—had I been the Crown Prince of Prussia, I should still have envied that pony. Carelessly, with a loose seat, the Emperor held up the reins in one hand, and with the other patted good-temperedly his horse's neck. It was a sunlit marble hand, a mighty hand, one of those two hands that had tamed the hydra of anarchy, and quelled the feud of nations; and now it patted good-temperedly his horse's neck. His face, too, was of the same hue that we see in marble busts of Greeks and Romans; the features wore the same expression of calm dignity that the ancients have, and on it was written, "Thou shalt have none other gods but me." A smile that warmed and calmed every heart played about his lips, and yet we know that those lips had only to whistle and—"la Prusse n'existait plus"; those lips had only to whistle, and clericalism died like an echo; those lips had only to whistle to set dancing the Holy Roman Empire. And now those lips smiled, and his eye smiled—an eye clear as heaven, an eye that read men's hearts, an eye that at a glance embraced all earthly things, while we mortals see them only one by one, and only the painted shadows. The brow was not so clear; it was haunted by the ghosts of coming battles, and at times a frown passed across it; these frowns were the creative thoughts, seven-league-boot thoughts, with which the Emperor's mind strode invisible over the world—and I fancy each of these thoughts would have furnished a German writer with materials to employ his whole life.
The Emperor rode calmly down the alley; no policeman stopt his way; behind him, on snorting chargers, bedizened with gold and jewels, rode his retinue; the drums beat, the trumpets blared; at my side mad Aloysius spun round and round, and clattered out the names of his generals; close by drunken Gumpertz bellowed, and the people shouted with a thousand voices, "Long live the Emperor!"
The Emperor is dead. On a desolate island in the Atlantic is his lonely grave, and he for whom the earth was all too narrow rests peacefully beneath the hillock where five weeping willows droop their green tresses in agonized despair, and a tender-hearted rivulet ripples by with melancholy plaint. There is no inscription on the tombstone, but Clio has graven thereon, in invisible letters, her just sentence that will echo through the centuries like spirit voices.
Britannia! thou art queen of the ocean, but all great Neptune's ocean can not wash from thee the stain that the dead Emperor bequeathed thee on his deathbed. Not that windbag Sir Hudson, but thou thyself wast the Sicilian sbirro whom the allied sovereigns suborned to avenge in secret on the man of the people what the people had once done openly to one of thy sovereigns. And he was thy guest, and had seated himself at thy hearth.