Napoleon's difficulties.

never dreamt of resistance; he scarcely would believe in climate. In the Kremlin he sacrificed the time which autumn allowed him for his retreat. His generals said to him-"Remain here with the élite of your troops during this long winter, or lose no time in falling back on a line of operations in communication with your empire and your reinforcements;" but he had not the wisdom to choose either the bold cantonment, or the prudent retreat. Deceived by the illusions of peace, with which he persisted in lulling himself, he did not retreat till actually driven by the first snows. He was then flanked by the Russians, harassed by the Cossacks, weakened by hunger, and separated from his disaffected auxiliaries; thus every night leaving fragments of his dying army upon the road. Germany, a witness of this flight, slipt through his fingers. His allies being vanquished enemies, his defeat restored to them their patriotism. He had been sufficiently fascinated by his own prestige to induce him to believe in the fidelity of these allies in the midst of his misfortunes; but he had scarcely taken shelter in the Tuileries before the feeble nucleus of his army, left by him under the command of Murat, had vanished; and Murat himself had thrown up his command, that he might go to Naples, and meditate his defection to save his throne.

III.

Napoleon's courage rather than his genius seemed to have revived in the German campaign of 1813. Dresden and Leipsic were victories and reverses worthy of his name. Peace was still in his hands; but a humiliating peace could not satisfy a man whose fame, as an invincible general, was his title to the respect of Europe, and to the absolute throne of France. He had reckoned again on impossibilities. He had neglected to recall from Spain and Italy his old legions, who were inured to war, being afraid of appearing to give up one single thought of universal monarchy. To fall back and concentrate his forces was to avow himself defeated, and to confess that he felt his weakness. This, however, he did not feel; or, at least, he did not wish to confess as much to France. He had incessantly

His illusions and hopes.

feasted the nation with miracles, and he promised to treat it with new ones; nay, he promised them to himself. He had been so deified by his flatterers, that he finished by believing in his own divinity: hence the rupture of all serious negociations with the continent, the scattering of his armies from Madrid to Amsterdam, and the weakness and inexperience of his troops in France at the moment the allied armies crossed the Rhine.

IV.

Then indeed he relinquished the demi-god, and once more became a man. The shame of having brought the armies of Europe upon the soil of his country, as the only result of so many victories, purchased with the blood of France,—the mortification of reigning over an empire, every inhabitant of which might call him to account for his violated hearth,—the respect due to his military name,-the inveterate expectation of prodigies,—the suffering patriotism of this great people, who in accusing their sovereign recognised in him their general also,— the devotion of his old lieutenants and of his young troops, proud of combating under the orders and under the eye of the genius of war, the dissipated illusions which allowed him to see distinctly both his peril and his resources,—the field of battle on the soil of France, so well studied, every city, every village, and every furrow of which reminded him that he fought for the national hearth,-in fine, his wife, his child, the throne, to leave, or to lose them,-the despair of nature and of ambition in his breast-restored to him all that he had lost in the whirlwind of prosperity. He forgot his ten years of universal power and pride,―he flung away his sceptre and his mantle of ceremony, and resumed his uniform and his sword. He again became a soldier, to reconquer the empire, or to fall in the midst of his undiminished glory. This was the day for testing his genius; the others had been only those of his fortune. The most pre judiced historian must hail him as great in this final effort to retain the fortune that was eluding his grasp. He shook off ten years of his age. His soul, benumbed by the throne,

Napoleon's personal appearance.

triumphed over the enfeeblement of his body. The Bonaparte of Marengo was no longer seen; but in him revived another Napoleon.

V.

The empire had made him old before his time. Gratified ambition, satiated pride, the delights of a palace, a luxurious table, a voluptuous couch, youthful wives, complaisant mistresses, long vigils, sleepless nights, divided between labour and festive pleasure, the habit of constant riding which made him corpulent, -all tended to deaden his limbs and enervate his faculties. An early obesity overloaded him with flesh. His cheeks, formerly streaked with muscles and hollowed by the working of genius, were broad, full, and overhanging, like those of Otho in the Roman medals of the empire. An excess of bile mingling with the blood, gave a yellow tint to the skin, which at a distance looked like a varnish of pale gold on his countenance. His lips still preserved their Grecian outline and steady grace, passing easily from a smile to a menace. His solid bony chin formed an appropriate base for his features. His nose was but a line, thin and transparent. The paleness of his cheeks gave greater brilliancy to the blue of his eyes. His look was searching, unsteady as a wavering flame-an emblem of inquietude. His forehead seemed to have widened, from the scantiness of his thin black hair, which was falling from the moisture of continual thought. It might be said that his head, naturally small, had increased in size to give ample scope between his temples for the machinery and combinations of a mind, every thought of which was an empire. The map of the world seemed to have been encrusted on the orb of that reflective head. But it was beginning to yield; and he inclined it often on his breast, while crossing his arms like Frederick II.an attitude and gesture which he appeared to affect. Unable any longer to seduce his courtiers and his soldiers by the charm of youth, it was evident he wished to fascinate them by the rough, pensive, and disdainful character of himself,-of his model in his latter days. He moulded himself, as it were, into the statue of reflection, before his troops, who gave him

His return to Paris in 1813.

*

the nickname of Father Thoughtful. He assumed the pose of destiny. Something rough, rude, and savage in his movements revealed his southern and insular origin. The man of the Mediterranean broke out constantly through the Frenchman. His nature, too great and too powerful for the part he had to play, overflowed on all occasions. He bore no resemblance to any of the men around him. Superior and altogether different, he was an offspring of the sun, of the sea, and of the battle field,-out of his element even in his own palace, and a stranger even in his own empire. Such was at this period the profile, the bust, and the external physiognomy of Napoleon.

VI.

Two years previously, his return to Paris, formerly so triumphant, was sudden, gloomy, and nocturnal. He arrived without attendants, as if he wished to surprise or outstrip a revolution. He had thus entered the capital vanquished but not beaten down, on the night of November 9th, 1813. His armies had vanished, while those of the allies were on the Rhine. The latter seemed to stop, undecided, and as if astonished at their victories, without knowing whether they dared venture to cross the river. France was really no longer guarded except by the shadow of her buried legions, by the Rhine, by her fortified places, and by the mountains of the Vosges, But the police of the empire was so implacable, and the silence of public opinion so strictly enforced, that the mass of the population was altogether ignorant of the truth, even of the ordinary facts; and the overwhelming rush of all Europe upon us was unrevealed in the intimacy of private intercourse, except in an under tone, by vague and broken expressions. Spies and informers had become acknowledged ministers of despotism. Even the features seemed fearful of betraying the secrets of the heart. To announce a defeat of the Emperor would have been high treason against his fortune. There was a lurking recollection of the terrible '93 in the government of Napoleon, who had lived, and grown up, and been intimate with the men

Pere la Pensée.

Convocation of the Council of State

of that period. The summary justice, the dungeons, the state prisons, the courts-martial, even the bloodshed of that period, were not modes of governing so repugnant to his ministers as no longer to be apprehended. This was evinced a few weeks afterwards in the capital city of the province of Champagne.

VII.

Napoleon devoted the following day to his wife, to his son, to his family, and to his confidential friends. He resolved to forestal public complaints by audacity, and to quell the rising opposition by additional exactions and persecution of public opinion. To avoid accusation he placed himself in the situation of accuser. On the 11th of November he convoked his Council of State at the Tuileries. This Council was composed of able professional men, well acquainted with business, rigid to subordinates, and pliant to their master. The majority were men of talent and intelligence, whose characters were not inured to resistance. Several were men of the Convention; some of the Reign of Terror, and a few of them regicides. But these were too decidedly sold to the Empire, and they had too often repudiated liberty ever to fall back on revolution. Napoleon held them by their apostacy; he showed them to the people as ensigns of democracy and pledges of revolution; but he himself looked on them without fear, as instruments of domination incapable thenceforward of any other task than of rendering servitude popular. How great soever was their habit of smiling on their master, and felicitating every conjuncture with a common-place affectation of joy, the ministers and councillors of State had not, on the present occasion, time to compose their features. Their looks and their silence betrayed their embarrassment. They did not yet know if Napoleon wished for condolence or encouragement. They were beginning also mentally to accuse that ill fortune which by its adverse obstinacy seriously compromised their own positions. They were melancholy and undecided. Napoleon had learned their sentiments from his minister of police, and had resolved to astonish them by the amplitude of his confessions, and to overstep their fears by the exaggeration