BOOKS.
NAPOLEON I.* Ds. AUGUST FOURNIER'S biography was first published in 1885, and was immediately acknowledged to be a most valuable contribution to Napoleonic literature. It found admirers on both sides of the Channel, and was translated into French. A reissue was soon called for, but it was not till 1904 that the edition appeared from which Miss Adams has now made her English version. The author explains in his preface that he refrained from complying earlier with the frequent requests he received for a reissue of his book because every year fresh light was being cast on the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods owing to the labours of distinguished historians, and the researches which were taking place in the archives of France, Germany, Britain, and elsewhere.
As an historian Dr. Fournier possesses many qualifications. He is a diligent collector of material and a wise and dis- criminating judge. He writes a clear and simple style, and marshals his facts together in orderly sequence. He is no partisan. The glamour and the splendour of Napoleon's Empire do not blind his vision, which is never petty and restricted. He is never tempted to hysterical condemnation of the many obvious surface faults. He writes dispassion- ately, and his manner is sometimes cold and aloof, but the general effect on the reader is an astonishing clarity of vision of the far-reaching effects of Napoleon's life and work. The author has striven, as he himself confesses, to avoid political bias on the one band and the moralizing of a mere caviller on the other, and to present a not unfaithful picture of the character and work of one who, more than any other man, has influenced the destinies of the world. The result is a book which is a very real pleasure to read and invaluable for reference.
The subject is not one which we can deal with in any detail, but we propose to notice one or two of the views which the author brings before us.
One of the difficulties in the way of dispassionate criticism is the nearness of the Napoleonic legend. The works of the exiles in St. Helena, which were rapidly spread abroad throughout France, produced an extraordinary effect. All the bloodshed was forgotten, and only the figure of the great war lord and liberator was remembered. "It was I," said the Emperor in 1816, " who closed the crater of anarchy and brought order out of chaos. I purified the Revolution from her excesses. I ennobled the peoples and strengthened the kings, I stimulated ambition everywhere, rewarded every service, and greatly extended the boundaries of fame." And it was this character which was ascribed to him for many years after his decease. But with the fall of the second Empire a change of opinion became evident. Lanfrey's damaging critique, published in 1867, tore away the legends and the fictions which shrouded the character of the Emperor. The pendulum swung far back, and France, once more a republic, turned an eager ear to historians of the great Revo- lution. The legend of St. Helena was replaced by the legend of the Revolution. It is necessary for the present-day historian, as Dr. Fournier clearly sees, to discard both of these and to base his understanding of Napoleon's historical significance on a more just estimate of the first Republic. "It must," says the author, " be borne in mind that he was both the product and the consummation of the Revolution, and that he was following in its wake even when he was boldly aspiring to grasp the Crown of France." To say this, however, is not to say that Napoleon approved of the Revolution. In his heart he detested it. " Though a child of the Revolution," says Lord Rosebery, " he was a child whose one idea was parricide." He feared and hated the power of the mob, and his action in the
* Napoleon I.: a Biography. By August Fournier. Translated by Annie Elizabeth Adams, with an Introduction by H. A. L. Fisher, M.A. 2 Vols. London: Longman and Co. [21s. net.]—Napolson and His Coronation. By Frederic Masson. Translated by Frederic Cobb. London: T. Fisher Unwin. fL2s. 6d. net.)
Vendemiaire outbreak was a lifelong regret to him. None the less he was held in thrall by the Revolution theories and ideas. When the Consulate was established two of its fundamental principles were maintained. Napoleon saw what the Bourbons were far too blind to see, that Frenchmen valued equality far more highly than political liberty. " There is scarcely any- thing you take seriously except equality," he said to Madame de Remusat. "Liberty is a mere pretext, equality is your hobby." And he himself had learned its value, for it opened up a path for his lofty ambition. The second principle retained was conquest. It is erroneous to assume that France's striving after universal power was entirely due to Napoleon's personal ambition. The revolutionary leaders in France had already—in 1792—begun their policy of universal dominion. And though Napoleon differed fundamentally from the doctrinaire Girondins and also the Directory, in that he founded his ambitious schemes on the firm ground of his- torical fact, and shaped them according to a policy with a clearly defined aim, it was nevertheless his inability to shake off the thrall of conquest bequeathed by the Revolution that ultimately proved his ruin. In after days in St. Helena he remarked, " I might steer as I liked, the waves were stronger than my hand. I never was really so much my own master ; I was always controlled by circumstances." After the death of the Due D'Engbien it was to the Revolution that Napoleon was forced to appeal to justify his action. " I am the head of the State. I am the French Revolution, and I shall main- tain it."
Napoleon was an enigma to his contemporaries. Idealism curbed and governed by an intellect clear and calculating, fantastic reveries subjected to the calm and methodical scrutiny of his reason—these are the discordant elements which Napoleon's character shows. Goethe's
Werther " he is said to have read five times, and he steeped himself, when young, in the sentimental writings of Rousseau. Such reading left its mark. In 1796, at Valence, he wrote : " My life is a burden to me, for it holds out no prospect of pleasure, and everything seems to turn into a cause of sorrow because those among whom I live—and shall probably always live—are utterly unlike myself, as unlike as sunlight to moon- light." Success did not make him any more cheerful. During the days of the Consulate Madame de Remusat relates that when he left the Council Chamber and came to his wife's salon of an evening he sometimes had the candles shaded with white gauze, enjoined all to keep silence, and amused himself by telling ghost stories or listening to them. At other times he had slow music, performed by Italian singers to the grail- a of softly played instruments. He would then fall into a reverie, during which no one dared to move. Though the matchless precision with which he measured his forces against the rest of the world raised him to the glory of a great emperor, and made him an object of veneration, this sombre strain in his nature rendered him ever more cynical and dis- contented. " The nations are much too enlightened now," he said to Decres on the day of his crowning, " and there is nothing great left to do."
We propose to conclude our notice of Dr. Fournier's able work by giving our readers an extract dealing finely with Napoleon's significance in history.
"For Goethe Napoleon's greatness was beyond doubt. He accurately divined his significance in history, all he bad achieved unconsciously in the service of the ideal. Napoleon,' he says in one place, without being conscious of it lived entirely for his imagination. He utterly denies the ideal, refuses it any reality, and all the while he is zealous:y endeavouring to translate it into facts.' The great poet ignored the Emperor's waste of energy in contemptible occupations and the vulgarity of his selfish aims. Others might talk of the horrors of war and the bitterness of oppres- sion; he looked beyond that to the ultimate goal, the unifica- tion of the peoples of Europe by means of a higher civilization. From this standpoint Goethe was right in counting Napoleon among the great men of history. For all of them were great because they acted under the spell of great ideas which were their personal aims. Alexander the Macedonian went forth from the narrow confines of his little state to conquer the world, and by matchless deeds engraved his name on the memory of the ages. But what impelled him on his course was simply the expansive energy of Hellenic culture, in the service of which he undertook his expedition to the East. Charlemagne truly conquered his wide empire by his sword; yet he was but the chosen vessel appointed to carry the moral ideas of Christianity to the young nations of the North. And when we find Napoleon pursuing a similar course, intent on placing his own person too high and in subduing the whole world to his will, let us remember that this will, to a great extent, was not his own, but was merely the instrument of that civilization of humanity at which the intellectual forces had been labouring for centuries before it became the common heritage of the world. Through rivers of blood it is true. But the laws of the world are written in blood, whether the individual sheds his on a cross or the millions bear witness in death. Wherever Napoleon conquered it proved the introduction to a higher social order, whether on the Manzanares or on the Tiber; on the Rhine or on the Elbe; in Naples or in Poland; in Prussia or in Austria_" Napoleon and His Coronation, by Frederic Masson, is an interesting study. M. Masson is one of the most distinguished of French historians, and he is a specialist in the Napoleonic period. The book contains a great deal of most interest- ing information and is admirably illustrated. The author deals in an attractive manner with Napoleon's reasons for desiring to be crowned by the Pope. It was a democratic right which had raised him to the throne, and in place of this the Emperor attempted to substitute a sort of divine right. The costly and elaborate ceremonial was not the outcome merely of his love of display. It was symbolic. Why did he want to repeat the consecration and the corona- tion in the case of his son ? Because, M. Masson thinks, he was strongly confident that a religious consecration would lend a weightier dignity to a sovereign invested by the popular choice ; that only by this could he become a true sovereign and endued with an indelible character such as all the other sovereigns would be bound to respect. He fondly hoped that the consecration would wipe out the taint of the Revo- lution from which he sprang, and of which he was the pro- duct. France was to renew her dynasty; the Napoleons were to succeed the Capetians. It was an illusion. It proved the starting-point of a misunderstanding between Emperor and people, and resulted in the triumph of the Ultramontane doc- trines in France. Then there is the consecration and coronation of Josephine. There was not even an historical excuse for this. It was a mere whim on Napoleon's part, for he was well aware that the coronation of queens had been discontinued for two centuries. And in his treatment of the Pope there is the same inconsistency. On every occasion Napoleon, the host, took precedence of his guest. He gave him entertainments which the slightest sense of decorum would have forbidden, and he did not scruple to show that he was bored and wearied with his guest's stay. "Never," says M. Masson, "had he a sense of what he owed the Pope as Emperor, nor when he had received the consecra- tion from him of what he owed as a believer ; and yet the consecration was valid only if he were a Catholic." And the astonishing thing is that Napoleon expected much from the Pope he thus treated.
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