CHAPTER VIII

Cæsar--Charlemagne--Napoleon.

It now remains for us to explain why it was that this man was both so strong at the beginning of his career and so weak at its close; why, at a given hour, in the prime of life, at forty-six years of age, his genius deserted him, his fortune betrayed him. The reason is this: he was but an instrument in the hands of God, and when God no longer had need of him He broke him.

I must re-write what I wrote in 1832; eighteen years have rolled by: time has confirmed my judgment in every particular. The Duke of Reichstadt died at Schönbrunn, Louis-Philippe died at Claremont, France is a Republic, and if a Bonaparte is at the head of the French people he is so simply as the titular president, the elected magistrate, the removable head.

In the eyes of historians who simply relate facts, who watch the game of chance being played on earth and not the will of Providence working above, Napoleon was a madman like Alexander, or a despot like Cromwell.

Napoleon was neither the one nor the other. Napoleon belongs to the race of Cæsar and Charlemagne. Just as those two men each had his mission, Napoleon had his.

These three men made the modern world. Cæsar's was the first hand that worked therein, Napoleon's the last.

Cæsar, a pagan, prepared the way for Christianity; Charlemagne, a barbarian, prepared the way for civilisation; and Napoleon, a despot, prepared the way for liberty.

Not one of these three men knew what he did, for, the greater the genius, the blinder is it. It is the instrument of God, that is all: _Deum patitur_, as Luther said.

Cæsar, the general and dictator, passed across the world with his immense flood of an army, in which fourteen nations were absorbed like so many streams, making one watercourse by their junction, one people out of all their peoples, one language out of their many tongues, an organisation which only passed out of his hands to become under Augustus a single empire out of all the other empires.

Then, when the time was ripe, Christ, the Sun of civilisation, was born in an obscure corner of Judea, in the far East, whence rises the day, and He shone upon the Roman world. The rays of Christianity separated the ancient age from the modern age, and gave light for three centuries before Constantine was illumined by them.

Charlemagne, whom certain historians (whose fame is already secured to them) have presented to the world as a French emperor, was simply and solely of Northern descent; he was, as we have stated, a barbarian, who, having never learned to write even his name, sealed his treaties with the hilt of his sword, and made them respected with the point. His chosen state was Germany, the cradle of his race; his two capitals were Aix-la-Chapelle or Thionville; he spoke Teutonic by choice, and he dressed in the costumes of his ancestors. Eginhard tells us what that dress was. He wore a linen shirt and drawers under a tunic bound round by a silken girdle; socks and fillets round his legs; sandals on his feet. In winter, a jerkin of otter skin kept the cold from his body and shoulders. He was always protected by the _saye des Vénètes._ He despised foreign clothes, and the more sumptuous they were the less he liked to be dressed up in them. Only twice during the visit he paid to Rome, first at the request of Pope Adrian and then at the instance of Pope Leo, did he consent to don the chlamys and the Roman toga; and, when he saw the Roman tongue gain ground over his own, he gave orders for the collection of all his native songs, so that they should not be lost to posterity.

Those were his acts; now see what he was commissioned to do. We have indicated Cæsar's mission; Charlemagne's mission was to raise in the heart of the Europe of the ninth century, half-way between the time of Cæsar and of Napoleon, a colossal empire, against whose outposts those warlike nations, whose repeated inroads hindered the Word of Christ, and overturned all attempts at civilisation, should dash themselves in vain. Thus the long reign of that great emperor was dedicated to but one object: barbarian repulsing barbarian, driving the Goths back to the Pyrenees, and hounding out Huns and Alans as far as Pannonia. He destroyed the kingdom of Didier in Italy, and, after having overcome Witikind, who was hard to overcome, and being weary of a war that had lasted thirty-three years, anxious to put an end to all resistance, treason, and idolatry at a single blow, he went from town to town, and, planting his sword in the ground in the heart of each city, he drove the people into the public places, and cut off the head of every man who was taller than the height of his sword handle.

One people alone managed to escape him--the Normans, who, later, combined with other peoples already established in the plains of Gaul, were to form the French nation. Wherever they put their foot on the soil of his empire, Charlemagne quickly made his appearance as well, and as soon as he appeared they went back into their vessels, like frightened sea-birds flying along the coasts, skimming over the ocean with rapid motion.

Charlemagne, in ignorance of the future, wanted to exterminate them, and, when old, he wept to see them cast anchor in a port of Narbonnese Gaul. He rose from his table in great fear, and stood looking out of his window for a long time, with his arms crossed, weeping, and not even wiping away his tears; then, as no one dare disturb so deep a grief, he said: "My faithful followers, can you tell why I weep so bitterly? It is certainly not because I fear those men will harm me by their wretched raidings; but I am deeply afflicted because they have dared to approach this sea-board during my very lifetime; I am miserable and utterly wretched when I foresee what sorrow they will cause my children and their peoples."

These Normans whom you wished to exterminate, O noble emperor! those men whom you looked upon as savages and whose escape out of your hands caused you to shed tears of rage--do you know whom they were? They were the ancestors of William the Conqueror; those daring vessels were the embryo of that English navy, which was one day to cover the three oceans, whose thousands of ships and vessels were to put a girdle round the globe.

We have said that Cæsar prepared the way for Christianity and Charlemagne prepared the way for civilisation; let us now see how Napoleon prepared the way for liberty.

When Napoleon appeared before our fathers under the name of Bonaparte, France was just emerging, not from Republicanism but, from a state of Revolution. She had disturbed the balance of the world by feverish political conditions that had shaken her for nine years and put her far in advance of other nations. An Alexander was needed to tackle this Bucephalus, an Androcles to combat this lion. The 13th Vendémiaire placed them face to face, and Revolution was conquered. Crowned heads, who should have recognised a brother at the head of the struggle in the rue Saint-Honoré, believed they saw an enemy in the Dictator of the 18th Brumaire. They took the man who was already the head of a monarchy to be simply the consul of a Republic, and, in their stupid ignorance, they made war against him, instead of incarcerating his energies in a general peace.

Thus Bonaparte gave way to Napoleon with his double-edged instinct for despotic rule and warfare, his two-sided nature, democratic and aristocratic, behind-hand, according to French notions, but in advance of European ideas; conservative in home policy, but a creature of progress in foreign affairs.

He took all the youth and intelligence and strength of France; he formed armies of this material, and spread his forces over Europe; they carried death everywhere to kings, but the breath of life to their peoples. Wherever the genius of France went, liberty made gigantic strides in its wake, throwing revolutions to the winds as a sower scatters seed.

Napoleon fell in 1815, and only three years passed over before the crop which he sowed was ripe for harvest.

In 1818 the grand-duchies of Baden and of Bavaria clamoured for and obtained a constitution.

In 1819 Wurtemberg clamoured for and obtained a constitution.

In 1820 there was a Revolution and constitutional changes in Spain and Portugal.

In 1821 there was a Revolution and constitutional changes in Naples and Piedmont.

In 1822 occurred the insurrection of the Greeks against Turkey.

1823 saw the institution of Prussian States.

A single nation escaped this progressive influence on account of its topographical position, it was too far off for us ever to think of setting foot in it. Napoleon gazed at it so long that he became accustomed to its distance, till it seemed at first possible, and finally easy, to bridge that distance. He only wanted an excuse to conquer Russia as he had conquered Italy, Egypt, Austria, Prussia, and Spain! He had not long to wait for this excuse. In spite of the interview with Niémen, in spite of the fraternal greeting between the two emperors, a vessel entered a port on the Baltic, and war was speedily declared between Napoleon the Great, Emperor of the French, King of Italy, and his brother, Alexander I., Czar of all the Russias.

At first it seemed as though the foresight of God were fighting against the despotic influence of a man. France entered Russia but as a lance enters the body, by a wound: liberty and serfdom could have no contact with each other.

It was in vain for Napoleon to scatter abroad programmes and revolutionary proclamations, no seed could germinate on such cold soil; for, before our armies,-not only the enemy's armies retreated but the whole population. We invaded a desert country, and it was a burning capital that fell into our hands. When we entered Moscow, it was not only uninhabited, but in flames!

Napoleon's mission was fulfilled, and his downfall had begun; henceforth his fall was to be as serviceable to liberty as his rise had been. The czar, who had been so prudent before the conquering enemy, might be imprudent with a conquered enemy. He had retreated before the conqueror; perhaps he would pursue the fugitives.

The hand of God was withdrawn from Napoleon, and, although Divine intervention was this time plainly visible in human affairs, it was no longer men who fought against men. The order of the seasons was subverted: snow and cold stole a forced march; these were the elements that destroyed our army.

And now the events foreseen by the wise came to pass: Paris did not carry civilisation to Moscow, Moscow came to ask for it from Paris.

Two years after the burning of his capital, Alexander entered ours.

But his sojourn was of short duration. His soldiers scarcely touched French soil; our sun, which was to enlighten them, was too dazzling for them.

God recalled His elect. Napoleon reappeared, and fate's gladiator set forth, still bleeding from his last struggle, not to beat, but to be beaten at Waterloo.

Then Paris re-opened its gates to the czar and his wild army. This time, their occupation lasted three years. The men of the Volga, the Tanaïs, and the Don camped on the banks of the Seine. They became impressed with new and strange ideas, they stammered the unknown words of civilisation and freedom, they returned regretfully to their barbarous country; and, eight years later, a Republican conspiracy broke out in St. Petersburg.

Turn over the great book of the past, and tell me whether you can find in any other period so many tottering thrones, and kings fleeing along the great highways.

These imprudent folk had buried alive the enemy they had so badly beaten, and the modern Encelados shook the world every time he moved in his grave.