Chapter 10

Turn to Bonaparte. It was a saying of his sycophants, that he sometimes spoke like a god, and sometimes worse than the feeblest of mortals. But, says one who knew him well,--the mortal I have often heard, unfortunately never yet the god. He who sent down this sneer to posterity, was at Napoleon's right hand on the most memorable occasion of his whole career--that cardinal occasion, as we may aptly term it, (for upon _that_ his whole fortunes hinged,) when he intruded violently upon the legislative body, dissolved the Directory and effected the revolution of the 18th Brumaire. That revolution it was which raised him to the Consular power; and by that revolution, considered in its manner and style, we may judge of Napoleon in several of his chief pretensions--courage, presence of mind, dignity, and eloquence; for then, if ever, these qualities were all in instant requisition; one word effectually urged by the antagonist parties, a breath, a gesture, a nod, suitably followed up, would have made the total difference between ruler of France and a traitor hurried away _a la lanterne_. It is true that the miserable imbecility of all who should have led the hostile parties, the irresolution and the quiet-loving temper of Moreau, the base timidity of Bernadotte, in fact, the total defect of heroic minds amongst the French of that day, neutralized the defects and more than compensated the blunders of Napoleon. But these were advantages that could not be depended on: a glass of brandy extraordinary might have emboldened the greatest poltroon to do that which, by once rousing a movement of popular enthusiasm, once making a beginning in that direction, would have precipitated the whole affair into hands which must have carried it far beyond the power of any party to control. Never, according to all human calculation, were eloquence and presence of mind so requisite: never was either so deplorably wanting. A passionate exposition of the national degradations inflicted by the imbecility of the Directors, an appeal to the Assembly as Frenchmen, contrasting the glories of 1796 with the humiliating campaigns that had followed, might, by connecting the new candidate for power with the public glory, and the existing rulers with all the dishonors which had settled on the French banners, have given an electric shock to the patriotism of the audience, such as would have been capable for the moment of absorbing their feelings as partisans. In a French assembly, movements of that nature, under a momentary impulse, are far from being uncommon. Here, then, if never before, and never again, the grandeur of the occasion demanded--almost, we might say, implored, and clamorously invoked, the effectual powers of eloquence and perfect self-possession. How was the occasion met? Let us turn to the actual scene, as painted in lively colors by a friend and an eye-witness: [Footnote 7]--'The accounts brought every instant to General Bonaparte determined him to enter the hall [of the Ancients] and take part in the debate. His entrance was hasty and in anger--no favorable prognostics of what he would say. The passage by which we entered led directly forward into the middle of the house; our backs were towards the door; Bonaparte had the President on his right; he could not see him quite in front. I found myself on the General's right; our clothes touched: Berthier was on his left.

'All the harangues composed for Bonaparte after the event differ from each other;--no miracle that. There was, in fact, none pronounced to the Ancients; unless a broken conversation with the President, carried on without nobleness, propriety, or dignity, may be called a speech. We heard only these words--"_Brothers in arms--frankness of a soldier_." The interrogatories of the President were clear. Nothing could be more confused or worse enounced, than the ambiguous and disjointed replies of Bonaparte. He spoke incoherently of volcanoes--secret agitations--victories--constitution violated. He found fault even with the 18th Fructidor, of which he had himself been the prime instigator and most powerful upholder.' [Not, reader, observe, from bold time-serving neglect of his own principles, but from absolute distraction of mind, and incoherency of purpose.] 'Then came _Caesar_--_Cromwell_--_Tyrant_'--[allusions which, of all others, were the most unseasonable for that crisis, and for his position.] 'He repeated several times--_I have no more than that to tell you_; and he had told them nothing. Then out came the words,--_Liberty, Equality:_ for these every one saw he had not come to St. Cloud. Then his action became animated, and we lost him--comprehending nothing beyond _18th Fructidor, 30 Prairial, hypocrites, intriguers; I am not so; I shall declare all; I will abdicate the power when the danger which threatens the Republic has passed_.' Then, after further instances of Napoleon's falsehood, and the self-contradictory movements of his disjointed babble, the secretary goes on thus: 'These interruptions, apostrophes, and interrogations, overwhelmed him; he believed himself lost. The disapprobation became more violent, and his discourse still more wanting in method and coherence. Sometimes he addressed the representatives, quite stultified; sometimes the military in the court,' [_i. e._ outside,] 'who were beyond hearing; then, without any transition, he spoke of the thunder of war--saying, _I am accompanied by the god of war and fortune_. The President then calmly observed to him that he found nothing, absolutely nothing, upon which they could deliberate; that all he had said was vague. _Explain yourself, unfold the plots into which you have been invited to enter_. Bonaparte repeated the same things; and in what style! No idea in truth can be formed of the whole scene, unless by those present. There was not the least order in all he stammered out (to speak sincerely) with the most inconceivable incoherence. Bonaparte was no orator. Perceiving the bad effect produced upon the meeting by this rhapsody, and the progressive confusion of the speaker, I whispered (pulling his coat gently at the same time)--'Retire, General, you no longer know what you are saying.' I made a sign to Berthier to second me in persuading him to leave the place; when suddenly, after stammering out a few words more, he turned round, saying, 'Let all who love me follow.' So ended this famous scene--in which, more than in any other upon record, eloquence and presence of mind were needful. And if it should be said that vagueness was not altogether the least eligible feature in a speech whose very purpose was to confuse, and to leave no room for answer, we reply--true; but then it was the vagueness of art, which promised to be serviceable, and that of preconcerted perplexity, not the vagueness of incoherence, and a rhapsody of utter contradiction. [Footnote 8]

What a contrast all this to the indefeasible majesty of Charlemagne--to his courage and presence of mind, which always rose with the occasion, and, above all, to his promptitude of winning eloquence, that _promptum ac praftuens genus sermonis_, which caused him to be accounted _evi sui eloquentissimus!_

Passing for a moment to minor accomplishments, we find that Charlemagne excelled in athletic and gymnastic exercises; he was a _pancratiast_. Bonaparte wanted those even which were essential to his own daily security. Charlemagne swam well; Bonaparte not at all. Charlemagne was a first-rate horseman even amongst the Franks; Napoleon rode ill originally, and no practice availed to give him a firm seat, a graceful equestrian deportment, or a skilful bridle hand. In a barbarous age the one possessed all the elegances and ornamental accomplishments of a gentleman; the other, in a most polished age, and in a nation of even false refinement, was the sole barbarian of his time; presenting, in his deficiencies, the picture of a low mechanic--and, in his positive qualities, the violence and brutality of a savage. [Footnote 9] Hence, by the way, the extreme folly of those who have attempted to trace a parallel between Napoleon and the first Caesar. The heaven-born Julius, as beyond all dispute the greatest man of ancient history in moral grandeur, and therefore raised unspeakably above comparison with one who was eminent, even amongst ordinary men, for the pettiness of his passions--so also, upon an intellectual trial, will be found to challenge pretty nearly an equal precedency. Meantime, allowing for the inequality of their advantages, even Caesar would not have disdained a comparison with Charlemagne. All the knowledge current in Rome, Athens, or Rhodes, at the period of Caesar's youth, the entire cycle of a nobleman's education in a republic where all noblemen were from their birth dedicated to public services, this--together with much and various knowledge peculiar to himself and his own separate objects--had Caesar mastered; whilst, in an age of science, and in a country where the fundamental science of mathematics was generally diffused in unrivalled perfection, it is well ascertained that Bonaparte's knowledge did not go beyond an elementary acquaintance with the first six books of Euclid; but, on the other hand, Charlemagne, even in that early age, was familiar with the intricate mathematics and the elaborate _computus_ of Practical Astronomy.

But these collations, it will be said, are upon questions not primarily affecting their peculiar functions. They are questions more or less extra-judicial. The true point of comparison is upon the talents of policy in the first place, and strategies in the second. A trial between two celebrated performers in these departments, is at any rate difficult; and much more so when they are separated by vast intervals of time. Allowances must be made, so many and so various; compensations or balances struck upon so many diversities of situation; there is so much difference in the modes of warfare--offensive and defensive; the financial means, the available alliances, and other resources, are with so much difficulty appraised--in order to raise ourselves to that station from which the whole question can be overlooked, that nothing short of a general acquaintance with the history, statistics, and diplomacy of the two periods, can lay a ground for the solid adjudication of so large a comparison. Meantime, in the absence of such an investigation, pursued upon a scale of suitable proportions, what if we should sketch a rapid outline [Greek Text: os en tupo pexilabeln] of its _elements_, (to speak by a metaphor borrowed from practical astronomy)--_i. e._ of the principal and most conspicuous points which its path would traverse? How much these two men, each central to a mighty system in his own days, how largely and essentially they differed--whether in kind or in degree of merit, will appear in the course even of the hastiest sketch. The circumstances in which they agreed, and that these were sufficient to challenge an inquiry into their characteristic differences, and to support the interest of such an inquiry, will probably be familiar to most readers, as among the common places of general history which survive even in the daily records of conversation. Few people can fail to know--that each of these memorable men stood at the head of a new era in European history, and of a great movement in the social development of nations; that each laid the foundations for a new dynasty in his own family, the one by building forwards upon a basis already formed by his two immediate progenitors, the other by dexterously applying to a great political crisis his own military preponderance; and finally, that each forfeited within a very brief period--the one in his own person, the other in the persons of his immediate descendants--the giddy ascent which he had mastered, and all the distinctions which it conferred; in short, that 'Time, which gave, did his own gifts confound;' [Footnote 10] but with this mighty difference--that Time co-operated in the one case with extravagant folly in the individual, and in the other with the irresistible decrees of Providence.

Napoleon Bonaparte and Charlemagne were both, in a memorable degree, the favorites of fortune. It is true, that the latter found himself by inheritance in possession of a throne, which the other ascended by the fortunate use of his own military advantages. But the throne of Charlemagne had been recently won by his family, and in a way so nearly corresponding to that which was afterwards pursued by Napoleon, that in effect, considering how little this usurpation had been hallowed by time, the throne might in each case, if not won precisely on the same terms, be considered to be held by the same tenure. Charlemagne, not less than Napoleon, was the privileged child of revolution; he was required by the times, and indispensable to the crisis which had arisen for the Franks; and he was himself protected by the necessities to which he ministered. Clouds had risen, or were rising, at that era, on every quarter of France; from every side she was menaced by hostile demonstrations; and, without the counsels of a Charlemagne, and with an energy of action inferior to his, it is probable that she would have experienced misfortunes which, whilst they depressed herself, could not but have altered the destinies of Christendom for many ages to come. The resources of France, it is true, were immense; and, as regarded the positions of her enemies, they were admirably concentrated. But to be made available in the whole extent which the times demanded, it was essential that they should be wielded by a first-rate statesman, supported by a first-rate soldier. The statesman and the soldier were fortunately found united in the person of one man; and that man, by the rarest of combinations, the same who was clothed with the supreme power of the State. Less power, or power less harmonious, or power the most consummate, administered with less absolute skill, would doubtless have been found incompetent to struggle with the tempestuous assaults which then lowered over the entire frontier of France. It was natural, and, upon the known constitution of human nature, pretty nearly inevitable, that, in the course of the very extended warfare which followed, love for that glorious trade--so irritating and so contagious--should be largely developed in a mind as aspiring as Charlemagne's, and stirred by such generous sensibilities. Yet is it in no one instance recorded, that these sympathies with the pomp and circumstance of war, moved him to undertake so much as a single campaign, or an expedition which was not otherwise demanded by his judgment, or that they interfered even to bias or give an impulse to his judgment, where it had previously wavered. In every case he tried the force of negotiation before he appealed to arms; nay, sometimes he condescended so far in his love of peace, as to attempt purchasing with gold rights or concessions of expediency, which he knew himself in a situation amply to extort by arms. Nor where these courses were unavailing, and where peace was no longer to be maintained by any sacrifices, is it ever found that Charlemagne, in adopting the course of war, suffered himself to pursue it as an end valuable in and for itself. And yet _that_ is a result not uncommon; for a long and conscientious resistance to a measure originally tempting to the feelings, once being renounced as utterly unavailing, not seldom issues in a headlong surrender of the heart to purposes so violently thwarted for a time. And even as a means, war was such in the eyes of Charlemagne to something beyond the customary ends of victory and domestic security. Of all conquerors, whose history is known sufficiently to throw light upon their motives, Charlemagne is the only one who looked forward to the benefit of those he conquered, as a principal element amongst the fruits of conquest. 'Doubtless,' says his present biographer, 'to defend his own infringed territory, and to punish the aggressors, formed a part of his design; but, beyond that, he aimed at civilizing a people whose barbarism had been for centuries the curse of the neighboring countries, and at the same time communicating to the cruel savages, who shed the blood of their enemies less in the battle than in the sacrifice, the bland and mitigating spirit of the Christian religion.'

This applies more particularly and circumstantially to his Saxon campaigns; but the spirit of the remark is of general application. At that time a weak light of literature was beginning to diffuse improvement in Italy, in France, and in England. France, by situation, geographically and politically speaking, by the prodigious advantage which she enjoyed exclusively of an undivided government, and consequently of entire unity in her counsels, was peculiarly fitted for communicating the benefits of intellectual culture to the rest of the European continent, and for sustaining the great mission of civilizing conquest. Above all, as the great central depository of Christian knowledge, she seemed specially stationed by Providence as a martial apostle for carrying by the sword that mighty blessing, which, even in an earthly sense, Charlemagne could not but value as the best engine of civilization, to the potent infidel nations on her southern and eastern frontier. A vast revolution was at hand for Europe; all her tribes were destined to be fused in a new crucible, to be recast in happier moulds, and to form one family of enlightened nations, to compose one great collective brotherhood, united by the tie of a common faith and a common hope, and hereafter to be known to the rest of the world, and to proclaim this unity, under the comprehensive name of _Christendom_. Baptism therefore was the indispensable condition and forerunner of civilization; and from the peculiar ferocity and the sanguinary superstitions which disfigured the Pagan nations in Central Europe, of which the leaders and the nearest to France were the Saxons, and from the bigotry and arrogant intolerance of the Mahometan nations who menaced her Spanish frontier, it was evident that by the sword only it was possible that baptism should be effectually propagated. War, therefore, for the highest purposes of peace, became the present and instant policy of France; bloodshed for the sake of a religion the most benign; and desolation with a view to permanent security. The Frankish Emperor was thus invited to indulge in this most captivating of luxuries--in the royal tiger-hunt of war--as being also at this time, and for a special purpose, the sternest of duties. He had a special dispensation for wielding at times a barbarian and exterminating sword--but for the extermination of barbarism; and he was privileged to be in a single instance an Attila, in order that Attilas might no more arise. Simply as the enemies, bitter and perfidious of France, the Saxons were a legitimate object of war; as the standing enemies of civilization, who would neither receive it for themselves, nor tolerate its peaceable enjoyment in others, they and Charlemagne stood opposed to each other as it were by hostile instincts. And this most merciful of conquerors was fully justified in departing for once, and in such a quarrel, from his general rule of conduct; and for a paramount purpose of comprehensive service to all mankind, we entirely agree with Mr. James, that Charlemagne had a sufficient plea, and that he has been censured only by calumnious libellers, or by the feeble- minded, for applying a Roman severity of punishment to treachery continually repeated. The question is one purely of policy; and it may be, as Mr. James is disposed to think, that in point of judgment the emperor erred; but certainly the case was one of great difficulty; for the very infirmity even of maternal indulgence, if obstinately and continually abused, must find its ultimate limit; and we have no right to suppose that Charlemagne made his election for the harsher course without a violent self-conflict. His former conduct towards those very people, his infinite forbearance, his long-suffering, his monitory threats, all make it a duty to presume that he suffered the acutest pangs in deciding upon a vindictive punishment; that he adopted this course as being virtually by its consequences the least sanguinary; and finally, that if he erred, it was not through his heart, but by resisting its very strongest impulses.