Part 5

What a scene that was! I can see it still. It was not the genius of the man which I noticed, but his character. Bonaparte was not then as you knew him afterward; he had not grown gross--he had not the swollen face, the gouty legs, nor was he so ridiculously stout as he afterward became. Unfortunately, in art he is almost always represented by a sort of caricature, so that he will not be handed down to posterity as he really was. He was not ungainly then, but nervous and supple, lithe and active, convulsive in some of his gestures, in some gracious; his chest was flat and narrow--in short, he looked just as I had seen him at Malta.

He did not stop stalking round the room when the Pope entered. He wandered round the chair of the latter like a cautious hunter; then suddenly halting in front of Pius, he resumed a conversation which had been commenced in the carriage, and which he was evidently anxious to continue.

“I tell you again, Holy Father, I am not a free-thinker; and I don’t agree with those who are forever reasoning about religious matters. I assure you that in spite of my old republicans I shall go to mass.”

The last words he threw bruskly, as it were, in the Pope’s face--incense of flattery undisguised. Then he suddenly stopped and examined the Pope’s countenance to catch the result, which he seemed to expect to be great. The old man lowered his eyes and rested his hands on the heads of the eagles which formed the arms of the chair. He seemed to have assumed the attitude of a Roman statue purposely, as if wishing to express: I resign myself to hearing all the profane things that he may choose to say to me!

Bonaparte took a turn round the room, and round the chair which was in the middle, and it was plain to be seen that he was not satisfied either with himself or with his adversary, and that he was reproaching himself for having resumed the conversation so rashly. So he began to talk more connectedly as he walked round the room, all the time watching narrowly the reflection of the pontiff’s face in the mirror, and also eying him carefully in profile as he passed; but not venturing to look him full in the face for fear of appearing too anxious about the effect of his words.

“There is one thing that hurts me very much, Holy Father,” said he, “and that is that you consent to the coronation as you formerly consented to the Concordat--as if you were compelled to do so, and not as of free will. You sit there before me with the air of a martyr, resigned to the will of heaven, and suffering for the sake of your conscience. But that is not the fact. You are not a prisoner. You are as free as the air.”

Pius VII smiled and looked his interlocutor in the face. He realized that the despotic nature with which he had to contend was not satisfied with obedience unless one seemed willing, even anxious, to obey.

“Yes,” continued Bonaparte, “you are quite free. You may return to Rome if you like. The road is open and no one will stop you.”

Without uttering a word, the Pope sighed and raised his hand and his eyes to heaven; then very slowly he lowered his eyes and studied the cross on his bosom attentively.

Bonaparte continued to walk round the room and to talk to his captive, his voice becoming sweeter and more wheedling.

“Holy Father, were it not for the reverence I have for you I should be inclined to say that you are a little ungrateful. You seem to ignore entirely the services which France has rendered you. As far as I am able to judge, the Council of Venice, which elected you Pope, was influenced somewhat by my campaign in Italy, as well as by a word which I spoke for you. I was very much troubled at the time that Austria treated you so badly. I believe that your Holiness was obliged to return to Rome by sea for fear of passing through Austrian territory.”

He stopped for the answer of his silent guest; Pius VII made simply the slightest inclination of the head, and remained plunged in a melancholy reverie which seemed to prevent him from hearing Napoleon.

Bonaparte then pushed a chair near to that of the Pope. I started, for in seeking the chair he had come very near my hiding-place, he even brushed the curtains which concealed me.

“It was as a Catholic really that I was so afflicted about your vexations. I have never had much time to study theology, it is true, but I maintain a great faith in the Church. She has a wonderful vitality, Holy Father, although Voltaire did you some little harm, certainly. Now if you are only willing we can do a great deal of work together in the future.”

He assumed a caressing, wheedling air of innocence.

“Really, I have tried to understand your motives, but I can’t for the life of me see what objection you can have to making Paris your seat. I’ll leave the Tuileries to you if you like. You’ll find your room waiting for you there. I scarcely ever go there myself. Don’t you see, Father, it is the capital of the world. I’ll do whatever you want me to; and really, after all, I am not as bad as I am painted. If you’ll leave war and politics to me you may do as you like in ecclesiastical matters. In fact, I would be your soldier. Now wouldn’t that be a grand arrangement? We could hold our councils like Constantine and Charlemagne--I would open and dissolve them; and then I would put the keys of the world into your hands, for as our Lord said: ‘I came with a sword,’ and I would keep the sword; I would only bring it to you for your blessing after each new success of our arms.”

The Pope, who until then had remained as motionless as an Egyptian statue, slowly raised his head, smiled sadly, lifted his eyes to heaven, and said, after a gentle sigh, as if he were confiding the thought to his invisible guardian angel:

“Commediante!”

Napoleon leaped from his chair like a wounded tiger. He was in one of his “yellow tempers.” At first he stamped about without uttering a word, biting his lips till the blood came. He no longer circled round his prey cautiously, but walked from end to end of the room with firm resounding steps, and clinking his spurs noisily. The room shook; the curtains trembled like trees at the approach of a storm; I thought that something terrible would surely happen; my hair began to bristle, and I put my hand to my head unwittingly. I looked at the Pope. He did not stir, but simply pressed the heads of the eagles with his hands.

The storm burst violently.

“Comedian! What? I, a comedian? Indeed, I’ll play some comedies for you that will set you all a-weeping like women and children! Comedian, forsooth! You are mistaken if you think that you may insult me with impunity. My theatre is the world; the rôle that I play is the double one of master and actor; I use all of you as comedians, popes, kings, peoples, and the string by which I work you--_you_ my puppets--is fear. You would need to be a much heavier man than you are, Signor Chiaramonti, to dare to applaud or hiss me. Do you know that if it be my will you will become a simple _curé_? As for you and your tiara, France would mock at you if I did not seem to be serious in saluting you.

“Only four years ago nobody dared speak of Christ. Had that state of things continued who would have cared for the Pope, I should like to know? Comedian! You gentlemen are a little too ready at getting a foothold among us. And now you are dissatisfied because I am not such a fool as to sign away the liberties of France as did Louis XIV. But you had better not sing to me in that tune. It is I who hold you between my thumb and finger; it is I who can carry you from north to south and then back again to the north like so many marionettes; it is I who give you some stability because you represent an old idea which I wish to resuscitate; and you have not enough wit to see that, and to act as if you were not aware of the fact. Now I’ll speak to you frankly. Trouble your head with your own affairs and don’t interfere in what you don’t understand and with what doesn’t in the least concern you. You seem to think that you are necessary, you set yourselves up as if you were of some weight, and you dress yourselves in women’s clothes. But I’ll let you know that you don’t impose on me with all that; and if you don’t change your tactics very soon I’ll treat your robes as Charles XII did that of the Grand Vizier--I’ll tear them with my spur.”

Then he ceased. I scarcely dared breathe. I advanced my head a little, not hearing his voice, to see if the poor old priest was dead with fright. The same absolutely calm attitude, the same calm expression on his face. For the second time he raised his eyes to heaven, again he sighed, and smiled bitterly as he murmured:

“Tragediante!”

Bonaparte was at the farther end of the room, leaning against a marble chimney which was as high as he was tall. Like an arrow shot out of a bow, he rushed straight at the old man; I thought he was going to kill him as he sat. But he suddenly stopped short, seized a Sèvres vase on which the Capitol was painted, threw it on the hearth and ground it under his heels. Then he remained terribly quiet.

I was relieved, for I felt that his reason had got the better of his temper. He became sad, and when he finally spoke in a deep voice, it was evident that in the two words uttered by the Pope he had recognized his true portrait.

“Miserable life!” he said. Then he fell into reverie, and without speaking tore the brim of his hat. When his voice again was heard he was talking to himself:

“It’s true. Tragedian or comedian, I am always playing a part--all is costume and pose. How wearying it all is, and how belittling! Pose! pose! always pose! In one case full face, in another profile--but invariably for effect. Always trying to appear what others worship, so that I may deceive the fools, keeping them between hope and fear. Dazzling them by bulletins, by prestige. Master of all of them and not knowing what to do with them. That’s the simple truth after all. And to make myself so miserable through it all! It really is too much. For,” continued he, sitting down in an armchair and crossing his legs, “it bores me to death, the whole farce. As soon as I sit down I don’t know what to do with myself. I can’t even hunt for three days in succession at Fontainebleau with being weary of it. I must always be moving and making others move. I speak quite frankly. I have plans in my life which would require the lives of forty emperors to carry out, and I make new ones every morning and evening; my imagination is always on the _qui vive_; but before I have carried out two of them I shall be exhausted in body and mind; for our poor lamp of life doesn’t burn long enough. And I must confess that if I could carry them out I should not find that the world was one whit better than it is now; but it _would_ be better though, for it would be united. I am not a philosopher. I don’t understand many theories. Life is too short to stop. As soon as I have an idea I put it into execution. Others will find reasons after me for praising me if I succeed and for abusing me if I fail. Differences of opinion are active--they abound in France--but I keep them down while I am alive--afterward--Well, no matter! It is my business to succeed, and that I intend to do. Every day I make an Iliad by my actions--every day.”

Thereupon he rose quickly. In that moment he was lively and natural, and was not thinking of posing as he afterward did in St. Helena; he did not strive to make himself ideal or to pose for effect--he was himself outside of himself. He went back to the Pope, who had remained seated, and paced in front of him. Getting warmed up, he spoke with a dash of irony, at an incredible rate:

“Birth is everything. Those who come into the world poor and neglected are always desperate. That desperation turns to action or suicide according to character. When they have courage to attempt something as I have done, they raise the devil. But what else is to be done? One must live. One must find one’s place and make one’s mark. I have carried everything before me like a cannon-ball--all the worse for those who happened to be in my way. But what else could I have done? Each man eats according to his appetite, and I have an insatiable one. Do you know, Holy Father, at Toulon I had not wherewithal to buy myself a pair of epaulets, in place of which I had a mother and I don’t know how many brothers on my shoulders. They are all satisfactorily settled at present. Josephine married me out of pity in spite of her old notary, who objected that I owned nothing but my cap and cape, and now we are going to crown her. The old man was right, though, as to what I possessed at that time. Imperial mantle! Crown! what does all that mean? Is it mine? Costume! Actor’s costume! I will put them on for an hour and then I shall have had enough of them. Then I shall don my officer’s uniform, and ‘To horse’; all my life on horseback. I couldn’t pass a single day resting, without being in danger of falling out of the chair. I am to be envied? Eh?

“I repeat, Holy Father; there are only two classes of men in the world: those who have and those who gain.

“Those who are in the first class rest, the others are restless. As I learnt that lesson at an early age and to some purpose I shall go a long way. There are only two men who have done anything before they were forty years old; Cromwell and Jean-Jacques; if you had given one a farm, and the other twelve hundred francs and his servant, they would neither have commanded nor preached nor written. There are workmen in buildings, in colors, in forms, and in phrases; I am a workman in battles. It’s my business. At the age of thirty-five I have manufactured eighteen of them, which are called ‘Victories.’ I must be paid for my work. And a throne is certainly not extravagant payment. Besides, I shall always go on working. You will see that all dynasties will date from mine, although I am a mere parvenu. I am elected as you are, Holy Father--and drawn from the multitude. On this point we can well shake hands.”

And, approaching the Pope, Napoleon held out his hand. Pius took the hand which was offered to him, but shook his head sadly, and I saw his fine eyes cloud with tears.

Bonaparte cast a hurried glance at the tears which he had wrung from the old Pope, and I surprised even a rapid motion in the corners of his mouth much resembling a smile of triumph. At that moment his intensely powerful and overbearing nature seemed to me less admirable than that of his saintly adversary; I blushed for all my past admiration of Napoleon; I felt a sadness creep over me at the thought that the grandest policy appears little when stained by tricks of vanity. I saw that the emperor had gained his end in the interview by having yielded nothing and by having drawn a sign of weakness from the Pope. He had wished to have the last word, and without uttering another syllable, he left the room as abruptly as he had entered. I could not see whether he saluted the Pope or not, but I do not think he did.

CLAUDE GUEUX BY VICTOR MARIE HUGO

_Victor Hugo, greatest and most versatile of the French poets of the nineteenth century, was born at Besançon in 1802. He published a succession of monumental romances, plays, poems, until he was elected in 1844 to the Academy. After that he threw himself into the political turmoil of the period, becoming chief of the opponents of Louis Bonaparte and of the reconstruction of the Empire, and was exiled for eighteen years to Jersey and Guernsey, where he wrote, in 1862, “Les Misérables.”_

_All contemporary poetry has been said to take its inspiration from Victor Hugo. Besides a wonderfully fertile and monumental mind, dignified, dramatic, satiric, he had a special genius for expressing by the sound of a phrase what could not be directly expressed in words._

_“Claude Gueux,” which means ragamuffin and simpleton, written about 1828, is an indignant pleading in favor of the numerous classes of outcasts who would be useful citizens if not led to crime by misery._

CLAUDE GUEUX BY VICTOR HUGO

Claude Gueux was a poor workman, living in Paris about eight years ago, with his mistress and child. Although his education had been neglected, and he could not even read, the man was naturally clever and intelligent, and thought deeply over matters. Winter came with its attendant miseries--want of work, want of food, want of fuel. The man, the woman, and the child were frozen and famished. The man turned thief. I know not what he stole. What signifies, as the result was the same? To the woman and child it gave three days’ bread and warmth; to the man, five years’ imprisonment. He was taken to Clairvaux--the abbey now converted into a prison, its cells into dungeons, and the altar itself into a pillory. This is called progress.

Claude Gueux, the honest workman, who turned thief from force of circumstances, had a countenance which impressed you--a high forehead somewhat lined with care, dark hair already streaked with gray, deep-set eyes beaming with kindness, while the lower part clearly indicated firmness mingled with self-respect. He rarely spoke, yet there was a certain dignity in the man which commanded respect and obedience. A fine character, and we shall see what society made of it.

Over the prison workshop was an inspector, who rarely forgot that he was the jailer also to his subordinates, handing them the tools with one hand, and casting chains upon them with the other. A tyrant, never using even self-reasoning; with ideas against which there was no appeal; hard rather than firm, at times he could even be jocular--doubtless a good father, a good husband, really not vicious, but _bad_. He was one of those men who never can grasp a fresh idea, who apparently fail to be moved by any emotion; yet with hatred and rage in their hearts look like blocks of wood, heated on the one side but frozen on the other. This man’s chief characteristic was obstinacy; and so proud was he of this very stubbornness that he compared himself with Napoleon--an optical delusion, like taking the mere flicker of a candle for a star. When he had made up his mind to a thing, however absurd, he would carry out that absurd idea. How often it happens, that, when a catastrophe occurs, if we inquire into the cause we find it originated through the obstinacy of one with little ability, but having full faith in his own powers.

Such was the inspector of the prison workshop at Clairvaux--a man of flint placed by society over others, who hoped to strike sparks out of such material; but a spark from a like source is apt to end in a conflagration.

The inspector soon singled out Claude Gueux, who had been numbered and placed in the workshop, and, finding him clever, treated him well. Seeing Claude looking sad (for he was ever thinking of her he termed his wife), and being in a good humor, by way of pastime to console the prisoner he told him the woman had become one of the unfortunate sisterhood, and had been reduced to infamy; of the child nothing was known.

After a time Claude had accustomed himself to prison rule, and by his calmness of manner and a certain amount of resolution clearly marked in his face, he had acquired a great ascendency over his companions, who so much admired him that they asked his advice, and tried in all ways to imitate him. The very expression in his eyes clearly indicated the man’s character; besides, is not the eye the window of the soul, and what other result could be anticipated than that the intelligent spirit should lead men with few ideas, who yield to the attraction as the metal does to the lodestone? In less than three months Claude was the virtual head of the workshop, and at times he almost doubted whether he was king or prisoner, being treated something like a captive pope, surrounded by his cardinals.

Such popularity ever has its attendant hatred; and though beloved by the prisoners, Claude was detested by the jailers. To him two men’s rations would have been scarcely sufficient. The inspector laughed at this, as his own appetite was large; but what would be mirth to a duke, to a prisoner would be a great misfortune. When a free man, Claude Gueux could earn his daily four-pound loaf and enjoy it; but as a prisoner he daily worked, and for his labor received one pound and a half of bread and four ounces of meat: it naturally followed that he was always hungry.

He had just finished his meagre fare, and was about to resume his labors, hoping in work to forget famine, when a weakly looking young man came toward him, holding a knife and his untasted rations in his hand, but seemingly afraid to address him.

“What do you want?” said Claude, roughly.

“A favor at your hands,” timidly replied the young man.

“What is it?” said Claude.

“Help me with my rations; I have more than I can eat.”

For a moment Claude was taken aback, but without further ceremony he divided the food in two and at once partook of one-half.

“Thank you,” said the young man; “allow me to share my rations with you every day.”

“What is your name?” said Claude.

“Albin.”

“Why are you here?” added Claude.

“I robbed.”

“So did I,” said Claude.

The same scene took place daily between this man old before his time (he was only thirty-six) and the boy of twenty, who looked at the most seventeen. The feeling was more like that of father and son than one brother to another; everything created a bond of union between them--the very toil they endured together, the fact of sleeping in the same quarters and taking exercise in the same courtyard. They were happy, for were they not all the world to each other? The inspector of the workshop was so hated by the prisoners that he often had recourse to Claude Gueux to enforce his authority; and when a tumult was on the point of breaking out, a few words from Claude had more effect than the authority of ten wardens. Although the inspector was glad to avail himself of this influence, he was jealous all the same, and hated the superior prisoner with an envious and implacable feeling--an example of might over right, all the more fearful as it was secretly nourished. But Claude cared so much for Albin that he thought little about the inspector.

One morning as the warders were going their rounds one of them summoned Albin, who was working with Claude, to go before the inspector.

“What are you wanted for?” said Claude.

“I do not know,” replied Albin, following the warder.

All day Claude looked in vain for his companion, and at night, finding him still absent, he broke through his ordinary reserve and addressed the turnkey. “Is Albin ill?” said he.

“No,” replied the man.

“How is it that he has never put in an appearance to-day?”

“His quarters have been changed,” was the reply.

For a moment Claude trembled, then calmly continued, “Who gave the order?”

“Monsieur D----.” This was the inspector’s name.

On the following night the inspector, Monsieur D----, went his rounds as usual. Claude, who had perceived him from the distance, rose, and hastened to raise his woolen cap and button his gray woolen vest to the throat--considered a mark of respect to superiors in prison discipline.

“Sir,” said Claude, as the inspector was about to pass him, “has Albin really been quartered elsewhere?”

“Yes,” replied the inspector.

“Sir, I can not live without him. You know the rations are insufficient for me, and Albin divided his portion with me. Could you not manage to let him resume his old place near me?”

“Impossible; the order can not be revoked.”

“By whom was it given?”

“By me.”

“Monsieur D----,” replied Claude, “on you my life depends.”

“I never cancel an order once given.”

“Sir, what have I ever done to you?”

“Nothing.”

“Why, then,” cried Claude, “separate me from Albin?”