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From The British Quarterly Review.

advanced at all upon this subject. They, LANFREY'S NAPOLEON THE FIRST.* too, regard Napoleon much as their fathTRANSLATIONS from a language so gen-ers did, only with less personal animosity. erally known as the French are, in most They confound him with the other great instances, of doubtful utility. They may men of modern history, and consider him be interesting as studies of language, greater in genius than almost all, and when the originals are specimens of ex- neither more nor less unscrupulous than quisite style, but even then they chiefly the average of them.

interest those who can do best without It is certainly desirable that popular them, that is those who are intimately ac- opinion should learn to see great historiquainted with the originals. As a gen- cal figures more distinctly and become eral rule, it is hard to see what is gained dissatisfied with the indolent formula, by translating from the French an histor-"Wonderful man, but unscrupulous." And ical book, the merit of which lies entirely to this end no more judicious step could in its matter, and not in any special sub- have been taken than to translate M. Lantlety of language. In saying this, we are frey. We are not likely to have for some well on our guard against the decorous convention that every one reads French; we are awake to the fact that multitudes cannot, and still greater multitudes do not read French; still, among people sufficiently literary in their habits to be deeply interested in historical questions, there must be few who much need a transla- the moral from the story. tion of the language which all Frenchmen alike seem to write with so much clearness. On the other hand, it is no remarkable or interesting achievement to translate an ordinary French historian pretty well.

But M. Lanfrey's "Histoire de Napoléon I. " is an exception to this rule. This book ought to be translated, because it is important that Napoleon's career should be properly presented, not merely to historical students, but to the multitude. All alike have an interest in knowing the truth about this man. Whatever new approximations are made in the learned world to a just estimate of his character, ought to be popularized without delay. The quality of the lives of Napoleon which are now or will for the future be, in the hands of schoolboys is a matter of serious public concern. Hitherto, we believe, the vulgar opinion of this hero remains quite unaffected by any changes of opinion among the learned. He still appears to boys by far the most interesting man of modern times, and perhaps to boys it cannot be expected that be will ever appear otherwise. But the general opinion of grown men also has not yet, we believe,

The History af Napoleon the First. By P. LANFREY. Vol. I. Macmillan & Co.

time a book on the subject more true, or more clear, or more concise. There is no book one could more earnestly desire to see read, we do not say widely, but universally. It will therefore be worth our while to make its appearance in an English dress the occasion of an attempt to draw

The spell in which the first Napoleon held the imagination of France so long captive has now, we may trust, been broken by the only hand which can break through such diabolical entanglements - by the hand of Providence. Neither the Napoleon Correspondence nor M. Lanfrey's book would ever have done it. M. Lanfrey does not even profess to modify much the prevalent opinion about his genius as a commander; nor is it possible by any reasoning to make his success appear less wonderful. You may indeed destroy his character for morality; you may dwell upon his crimes longer than it has been the custom to do; you may sweep away the sophistries by which they have been defended, and this is what has been done in these two publications. But his influence over the French mind has never in any way depended upon any supposed virtues. What his morality was has never been really doubful. Facts enough to establish that point have been before the world from the beginning; a few additional ones can never materially change our opinion upon it. A devotion that had been proof against evidence so palpable was not likely to yield to any new disclosures. One or two forgeries, one or two

treasons, more or less, could make no dif-, as dazzling the judgments of men, is corference to Napoleon's reputation. It might rect as far as it goes, but it is not a comfairly be said of Napoleon, as of his Eng-plete description. If all the brilliancy of lish rival, though in quite another sense, his career were away, if he did not, in the that he was safe against posthumous dis- strict sense, dazzle us at all, it would still coveries, "whatever record leap to light, be perplexing to understand precisely his he never shall be shamed." When such relation to the Revolution. There are inveterate prepossessions, fairly comparable many who have no taste whatever for to magical enchantments, have hold of a military glory, who yet respect Napoleon nation's mind, they can only be destroyed because they respect the French Revoluby a great judgment of Providence. Some tion, and cannot bring themselves to think mighty disaster, arising directly out of the of him as altogether separate from the mistaken belief in question, opens all eyes Revolution. They may be aware of much at once. It is a hint to the nation that that can be said to show that he was in they are on a wrong road. When nothing fact the leader of the reaction and the else could cure Austria of her mediæval mortal enemy of the Revolution; they may dreams, Sadowa brought her in a moment even admit that in his last years he was to her senses. The defeat of the Armada so, when he was allied with the Pope and decided in English minds the question be- with Russia, married to an archduchess, tween Catholicism and Protestantism. And the founder of a new dynasty, and the surely we have every reason to hope that head of an ultra-mediæval court; but, at the occurrences of 1870 will be received by the same time, they find his greatness risthe French as a final decision upon Napo- ing so naturally and so necessarily out of leonism. It will be hardly possible for the Revolution, they have so much diffithem any longer to speak of Austerlitz culty in pointing out the special act by and Jena without a keen feeling of pain. which he broke with the Revolution, and All the brilliant story that they have been in proving him guilty of any deliberate so fond of recalling must seem to them apostasy from it, they see so much of the now positively humiliating. And the im- energy and brilliancy of the Revolution inagination thus sobered, they will see in herited by the Napoleonic régime, that due course the tastelessness, the vulgarity, they persist in thinking of Napoleon and the odiousness of the whole melodrama. the Revolution together. They try to esThe stage figure of the Emperor will dis-tablish a distinction between his earlier and gust them like a character of Crebillon; later years; they give up the Emperor but they will turn upon him as upon their earlier Grand Monarque; and may perhaps acknowledge that of the two infatuations, the less mischievous was that which had for its object the magnificent Bourbon, who, with all his faults, was a gentleman and a friend to cul

ture.

hold to the Consul. The Consul they think, was still en rapport with the Revolution, and, as they have made up their minds that the Revolution was, on the whole, a good thing, they extend the same vaguely favourable estimate to Napoleon. On this point the three following propositions may be stated :

1. The great lines of the Napoleonic policy were laid down, not by Napoleon himself, but by the revolutionary governments which had preceded him.

2. The Napoleonic policy was flatly opposed to all the great principles of the Revolution.

When once Napoleon has lost his hold upon the French imagination, it will be comparatively easy for them to judge him rightly. For hitherto their judgment has been enslaved by the association of his name with the national glory, and now that it is associated inseparably with national humiliation, they may 3. As a necessary consequence there be expected to recover the freedom of must have been an enormous inconsistentheir reason. But even when this cause of cy in the conduct of the revolutionary bewilderment is removed, it is not quite governments; upon this inconsistency and easy to see him truly. To describe him ambiguity Napoleonism rested.

frey has told over again the story of Brumaire, and draws attention to the perfidy and callous brutality displayed by Napoleon in this usurpation. But perhaps, he does not sufficiently recognize, what does not at all excuse Napoleon, but yet is very important, that the Directory had nurtured military power so long, and leaned upon it so much, that a military usurpation was

It is particularly important in the case of a career like Napoleon's to keep details in proper subordination. Such men bewilder our judgment quite as much by the multitude of their acts as by the brilliancy of them. We will say nothing here of what are commonly quoted as Napoleon's crimes. We will not inquire how he treated D'Enghien, Palm, Hofer, Toussaint. We will not go through the cata- inevitable. Indeed, it is necessary to use logue of the enormities of which he was stronger language. The truth is, much guilty, and the other list of those of which may be said of this usurpation by Napohe may have been guilty. We will not in- leon, which has often been said of the quire what became of Pichegru, nor exam- usurpation of Cæsar. When Cæsar broke ine what we ought to think of his beha- with the so-called Republic, he did not viour towards Josephine - Fusa venena si- really introduce military government — lent, malus ingratusque maritus. No one that had been done before- all he did doubts that Napoleon was utterly unscru- was to appropriate to himself the military pulous in the means he adopted to com- power. The struggle was not really bepass his ends. What we are considering tween an Imperator and a Republic, but is the vague opinion so many entertain between Cæsar and the combined governthat the ends themselves were good, and ment of Cæsar and Pompey. Just in the that his policy, looked at in its large out-same way Napoleon in Brumaire, did not lines, will be found beneficial. Now what so much create as appropriate military were the principal acts of his career from government. Military government had which the outlines of his policy may be inferred? It is these, and these only, that we ought to keep in view. They are three in number. If we were abridging the history of France to the utmost, we should summarize Napoleon's career, by saying that he (1) subjected France to a military Government in France had, in fact, no government by the coup d'état of Brumaire; (2) reconciled France to Catholicism by the concordat; (3) subjected several countries of Europe to a military government, modelled on his own government of France and held in dependence on it. These were Napoleon's achievements; it is upon the merit of these that his character as a statesman depends; the multitude of acts of which his biography is full, battles, intrigues, treaties made and broken, all occasional murders, treasons, forgeries, libels, are subordinate to these three achievements, and make part of the means by which they were accomplished.

been created before by the Directory itself, when in Fructidor they employed Augereau to purge the Councils. That was a military interference, much more open than the triumvirate at Rome ever had occasion for. After Fructidor, the

He

right but the sword. It may be true, that but for Napoleon's usurpation a better state of things might gradually have been introduced. Such rough remedies might not have been needed or used again. But it must be admitted that Napoleon did not destroy a legitimate Government. merely asserted that if the sword gives sovereignty, it does go to the man that wields it, and not to those that hire it. Nor can it be argued that the coup d'état of Fructidor was an isolated usurpation on the part of the Directory, or that the Directory did not fairly represent the spirit of the Revolution in resorting to Now of these three achievements, two such usurpations. For in the first place most emphatically, and the third also in the Directory was the legitimate representsome sense, had been designed and com- ative of the Revolution, not a government menced by the Revolution, and were but of compromise, but a government contrived continued and completed by Napoleon. by a special arrangement of the revoluFirst let us consider how military govern- tionary party to prevent reaction; and ment was established in France. M. Lan- secondly, in overruling the popular will by

treasons, more or less, could make no dif-, as dazzling the judgments of men, is corference to Napoleon's reputation. It might rect as far as it goes, but it is not a comfairly be said of Napoleon, as of his Eng-plete description. If all the brilliancy of lish rival, though in quite another sense, his career were away, if he did not, in the that he was safe against posthumous dis- strict sense, dazzle us at all, it would still coveries, "whatever record leap to light, be perplexing to understand precisely his he never shall be shamed." When such relation to the Revolution. There are inveterate prepossessions, fairly comparable many who have no taste whatever for to magical enchantments, have hold of a military glory, who yet respect Napoleon nation's mind, they can only be destroyed because they respect the French Revoluby a great judgment of Providence. Some tion, and cannot bring themselves to think mighty disaster, arising directly out of the of him as altogether separate from the mistaken belief in question, opens all eyes Revolution. They may be aware of much at once. It is a hint to the nation that that can be said to show that he was in they are on a wrong road. When nothing fact the leader of the reaction and the else could cure Austria of her mediæval mortal enemy of the Revolution; they may dreams, Sadowa brought her in a moment even admit that in his last years he was to her senses. The defeat of the Armada so, when he was allied with the Pope and decided in English minds the question be- with Russia, married to an archduchess, tween Catholicism and Protestantism. And the founder of a new dynasty, and the surely we have every reason to hope that head of an ultra-nediæval court; but, at the occurrences of 1870 will be received by the same time, they find his greatness risthe French as a final decision upon Napo- ing so naturally and so necessarily out of leonism. It will be hardly possible for the Revolution, they have so much diffithem any longer to speak of Austerlitz culty in pointing out the special act by and Jena without a keen feeling of pain. which he broke with the Revolution, and All the brilliant story that they have been in proving him guilty of any deliberate so fond of recalling must seem to them apostasy from it, they see so much of the now positively humiliating. And the im- energy and brilliancy of the Revolution inagination thus sobered, they will see in herited by the Napoleonic régime, that due course the tastelessness, the vulgarity, they persist in thinking of Napoleon and the odiousness of the whole melodrama. the Revolution together. They try to esThe stage figure of the Emperor will dis-tablish a distinction between his earlier and gust them like a character of Crebillon; later years; they give up the Emperor but they will turn upon him as upon their earlier Grand Monarque; and may perhaps acknowledge that of the two infatuations, the less mischievous was that which had for its object the magnificent Bourbon, who, with all his faults, was a gentleman and a friend to cul

ture.

hold to the Consul. The Consul they think, was still en rapport with the Revolution, and, as they have made up their minds that the Revolution was, on the whole, a good thing, they extend the same vaguely favourable estimate to Napoleon. On this point the three following propositions may be stated:

1. The great lines of the Napoleonic policy were laid down, not by Napoleon himself, but by the revolutionary governments which had preceded him.

2. The Napoleonic policy was flatly opposed to all the great principles of the Revolution.

When once Napoleon has lost his hold upon the French imagination, it will be comparatively easy for them to judge him rightly. For hitherto their judgment has been enslaved by the association of his name with the national glory, and now that it is associated inseparably with national humiliation, they may 3. As a necessary consequence there be expected to recover the freedom of must have been an enormous inconsistentheir reason. But even when this cause of cy in the conduct of the revolutionary bewilderment is removed, it is not quite governments; upon this inconsistency and easy to see him truly. To describe him ambiguity Napoleonism rested.

every couuntry which he overran," they, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. say, "you will find that the people date a No regeneration of Prussia would then new era of improvement from his appear- have followed, and Spain would have found ance. His wholesome chastisement led to a degradation lower far than any she had the regeneration of Prussia; Spain might yet explored. Literature would have died never have been awakened to modern ideas out in Europe, as it did in France, and the had he not sent his armies across the old aristocracies would have been regretted Pyrenees;" and so on. Such admirers in the presence of the new guard-room make two oversights. First, they overlook bureaucracy. the distinction between that which does This by the way. What we wish at good, and that which, according to a very present to point out is that Napoleon here good phrase, is over-ruled for good. We too followed the example set him by the may, no doubt, owe to Napoleon the same Jacobins. His guilt, no doubt, is far sort of gratitude that we owe to the plague greater than theirs, for he was cynically or the cholera. The appearance of the clear-headed, and the men of the Revolucholera may force us to sanitary reform, tion were drunk with the intoxicating mixand sanitary reform once taken up may ture of philanthropy and vanity. Still he save us from other evils besides cholera. could quote their authority; they did his In this way a visitation of cholera may pro- work for him; he had only to translate duce on the whole a balance of good. But their blunders into crimes. Just as on the if anyone should argue from this that chol- 10th of August they adopted a principle era ought to be regarded as a good thing, of which the Consulate was the legitimate we should reply, it is not cholera which consequence, so in their proclamation to has done us good but resistance to cholera, all nations, in the invasion of Belgium by trying to find remedies against cholera. Dumouriez, in the invasion of the PalatinApply the distinction to the case of Napo- ate by Custine, in the invasion of Holland leon. Conquests may be quoted which by Pichegru, they had foreshadowed the may perhaps have done good. The con- Napoleonic conquests and tributary kingquest of Gaul by Cæsar admitted a new territory within the area of civilization; the conquest of Persia by Alexander hellenized Asia. Whether in these cases there was a balance of good may remain an open question; at any rate, the conquests did good as well as harm. But the good was done by the conquests themselves, and the merit of it, whatever that may amount to, belongs to the conquerors, to Cæsar and Alexander. Not so with Napoleon's conquests; the good that followed them, the regeneration of Prussia, the awakening of Spain, arose not from the invasion but from resistance to the invasion, and the merit of it belongs not in the least to Napoleon, but to the men who refused to submit to him, who organized resistance to him. This leads us to the second consideration which is overlooked. Not merely did Napoleon's conquests do good only just so far as they were resisted; they would never have done any good had they not ultimately failed. Had the Napoleonidæ retained their thrones in dependence on the despot at Paris, had the system taken root, had the King of Rome succeeded in due course, had a new military empire of the West divided Europe with Russia, we may say with great confidence that Europe would have been ruined. Perhaps for hundreds of years the principal countries of Europe would have been in a state resembling the state of Italy in

doms. The transition which seems so abrupt when we look back upon it from maxims of universal brotherhood to a policy of universal war was made possible and even easy by the Jacobins. It was not through any reaction, as we might imagine, against a cloying sentimentalism that the Revolution became more warlike than any military monarchy had ever been; nor was it necessary for Napoleon to give any new bias to popular feeling in order to procure leave to indulge his military instincts to the utmost. As at home the Jacobins had contrived to connect inseparably the ideas of fraternity and the guillotine, so abroad it was a trifle to them to interpret international brotherhood into war and plunder. They created a new and monstrous kind of Islamism in comparison with which the original Islamism of the East is civilized and philosophical; the doctrine of human brotherhood propagated by the sword! When the Mussulman cries, "There is no God but God; therefore let us fight!" you recognize the untutored and half barbarian mind, but there is nothing incoherent or insane in the impulse that aniinates him. Far more barbarous was the war-cry of the Revolution, "To arms, because all men are brothers," and far more barbarous was the spirit in which they carried out their new crusade, paying themselves out of the property of the brothers whom they had

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