CHAPTER XXXVI
SCULPTURE AND PAINTING
When Roland returned to the Luxembourg, the clock of the palace
marked one hour and a quarter after mid-day.
The First Consul was working with Bourrienne.
If we were merely writing a novel, we should hasten to its close,
and in order to get there more expeditiously we should neglect
certain details, which, we are told, historical figures can do
without. That is not our opinion. From the day we first put pen
to paper--now some thirty years ago--whether our thought were
concentrated on a drama, or whether it spread itself into a novel,
we have had a double end--to instruct and to amuse.
And we say instruct first, for amusement has never been to our
mind anything but a mask for instruction. Have we succeeded? We
think so. Before long we shall have covered with our narratives
an enormous period of time; between the "Comtesse de Salisbury"
and the "Comte de Monte-Cristo" five centuries and a half are
comprised. Well, we assert that we have taught France as much
history about those five centuries and a half as any historian.
More than that; although our opinions are well known; although,
under the Bourbons of the elder branch as under the Bourbons
of the younger branch, under the Republic as under the present
government, we have always proclaimed them loudly, we do not
believe that that opinion has been unduly manifested in our books
and dramas.
We admire the Marquis de Posa in Schiller's "Don Carlos"; but, in
his stead, we should not have anticipated the spirit of that age
to the point of placing a philosopher of the eighteenth century
among the heroes of the sixteenth, an encyclopedist at the court
of Philippe II. Therefore, just as we have been--in literary
parlance--monarchical under the Monarchy, republican under the
Republic, we are to-day reconstructionists under the Consulate.
That does not prevent our thought from hovering above men, above
their epoch, and giving to each the share of good and evil they
do. Now that share no one, except God, has the right to award
from his individual point of view. The kings of Egypt who, at
the moment they passed into the unknown, were judged upon the
threshold of their tombs, were not judged by a man, but by a
people. That is why it is said: "The judgment of a people is
the judgment of God."
Historian, novelist, poet, dramatic author, we are nothing more
than the foreman of a jury who impartially sums up the arguments
and leaves the jury to give their verdict. The book is the summing
up; the readers are the jury.
That is why, having to paint one of the most gigantic figures,
not only of modern times but of all times; having to paint the
period of his transition, that is to say the moment when Bonaparte
transformed himself into Napoleon, the general into an emperor--that
is why we say, in the fear of becoming unjust, we abandon
interpretations and substitute facts.
We are not of those who say with Voltaire that, "no one is a hero
to his valet."
It may be that the valet is near-sighted or envious--two infirmities
that resemble each other more closely than people think. We maintain
that a hero may become a kind man, but a hero, for being kind,
is none the less a hero.
What is a hero in the eyes of the public? A man whose genius is
momentarily greater than his heart. What is a hero in private
life? A man whose heart is momentarily greater than his genius.
Historians, judge the genius!
People, judge the heart!
Who judged Charlemagne? The historians. Who judged Henri IV.?
The people. Which, in your opinion, was the most righteously
judged?
Well, in order to render just judgment, and compel the court
of appeals, which is none other than posterity, to confirm
contemporaneous judgments, it is essential not to light up one
side only of the figure we depict, but to walk around it, and
wherever the sunlight does not reach, to hold a torch, or even
a candle.
Now, let us return to Bonaparte.
He was working, as we said, with Bourrienne. Let us inquire into
the usual division of the First Consul's time.
He rose at seven or eight in the morning, and immediately called
one of his secretaries, preferably Bourrienne, and worked with him
until ten. At ten, breakfast was announced; Josephine, Hortense
and Eugène either waited or sat down to table with the family,
that is with the aides-de-camp on duty and Bourrienne. After
breakfast he talked with the usual party, or the invited guests,
if there were any; one hour was devoted to this intercourse,
which was generally shared by the First Consul's two brothers,
Lucien and Joseph, Regnault de Saint-Jean-d'Angely, Boulay (de
la Meurthe), Monge, Berthollet, Laplace and Arnault. Toward noon
Cambacérès arrived. As a general thing Bonaparte devoted half
an hour to his chancellor; then suddenly, without warning, he
would rise and say: "Au revoir, Josephine! au revoir, Hortense!
Come, Bourrienne, let us go to work."
This speech, which recurred almost regularly in the same words,
was no sooner uttered than Bonaparte left the salon and returned
to his study. There, no system of work was adopted; it might be
some urgent matter or merely a caprice. Either Bonaparte dictated
or Bourrienne read, after which the First Consul went to the
council.
In the earlier months of the Consulate, he was obliged to cross
the courtyard of the little Luxembourg to reach the council-chamber,
which, if the weather were rainy, put him in bad humor; but toward
the end of December he had the courtyard covered; and from that
time he almost always returned to his study singing. Bonaparte
sang almost as false as Louis XV.
As soon as he was back he examined the work he had ordered done,
signed his letters, and stretched himself out in his armchair,
the arms of which he stabbed with his penknife as he talked.
If he was not inclined to talk, he reread the letters of the
day before, or the pamphlets of the day, laughing at intervals
with the hearty laugh of a great child. Then suddenly, as one
awakening from a dream, he would spring to his feet and cry out:
"Write, Bourrienne!"
Then he would sketch out the plan for some building to be erected,
or dictate some one of those vast projects which have amazed--let
us say rather, terrified the world.
At five o'clock he dined; after dinner the First Consul ascended
to Josephine's apartments, where he usually received the visits
of the ministers, and particularly that of the minister of foreign
affairs, M. de Talleyrand. At midnight, sometimes earlier, but
never later, he gave the signal for retiring by saying, brusquely:
"Let us go to bed."
The next day, at seven in the morning, the same life began over
again, varied only by unforeseen incidents.
After these details of the personal habits of the great genius
we are trying to depict under his first aspect, his personal
portrait ought, we think, to come.
Bonaparte, First Consul, has left fewer indications of his personal
appearance than Napoleon, Emperor. Now, as nothing less resembles
the Emperor of 1812 than the First Consul of 1800; let us endeavor,
if possible, to sketch with a pen those features which the brush
has never fully portrayed, that countenance which neither bronze
nor marble has been able to render. Most of the painters and
sculptors who flourished during this illustrious period of art--Gros,
David, Prud'hon, Girodet and Bosio--have endeavored to transmit to
posterity the features of the Man of Destiny, at the different
epochs when the vast providential vistas which beckoned him first
revealed themselves. Thus, we have portraits of Bonaparte,
commander-in-chief, Bonaparte, First Consul, and Napoleon, Emperor;
and although some painters and sculptors have caught more or less
successfully the type of his face, it may be said that there
does not exist, either of the general, the First Consul, or the
emperor, a single portrait or bust which perfectly resembles him.
It was not within the power of even genius to triumph over an
impossibility. During the first part of Bonaparte's life it was
possible to paint or chisel Bonaparte's protuberant skull, his
brow furrowed by the sublime line of thought, his pale elongated
face, his granite complexion, and the meditative character of his
countenance. During the second part of his life it was possible to
paint or to chisel his broadened forehead, his admirably defined
eyebrows, his straight nose, his close-pressed lips, his chin
modelled with rare perfection, his whole face, in short, like a
coin of Augustus. But that which neither his bust nor his portrait
could render, which was utterly beyond the domain of imitation,
was the mobility of his look; that look which is to man what
the lightning is to God, namely, the proof of his divinity.
In Bonaparte, that look obeyed his will with the rapidity of
lightning; in one and the same minute it dared from beneath his
eyelids, now keen and piercing as the blade of a dagger violently
unsheathed, now soft as a sun ray or a kiss, now stern as a
challenge, or terrible as a threat.
Bonaparte had a look for every thought that stirred his soul.
In Napoleon, this look, except in the momentous circumstances of
his life, ceased to be mobile and became fixed, but even so it
was none the less impossible to render; it was a drill sounding
the heart of whosoever he looked upon, the deepest, the most
secret thought of which he meant to sound. Marble or painting
might render the fixedness of that look, but neither the one nor
the other could portray its life--that is to say, its penetrating
and magnetic action. Troubled hearts have veiled eyes.
Bonaparte, even in the days of his leanness, had beautiful hands,
and he displayed them with a certain coquetry. As he grew stouter
his hands became superb; he took the utmost care of them, and
looked at them when talking, with much complacency. He felt the
same satisfaction in his teeth, which were handsome, though not
with the splendor of his hands.
When he walked, either alone or with some one, whether in a room
or in a garden, he always bent a little forward, as though his
head were heavy to carry, and crossed his hands behind his back.
He frequently made an involuntary movement with the right shoulder,
as if a nervous shudder had passed through it, and at the same time
his mouth made a curious movement from right to left, which seemed
to result from the other. These movements, however, had nothing
convulsive about them, whatever may have been said notwithstanding;
they were a simple trick indicative of great preoccupation, a
sort of congestion of the mind. It was chiefly manifested when
the general, the First Consul, or the Emperor, was maturing vast
plans. It was after such promenades, accompanied by this twofold
movement of the shoulders and lips, that he dictated his most
important notes. On a campaign, with the army, on horseback,
he was indefatigable; he was almost as much so in ordinary life,
and would often walk five or six hours in succession without
perceiving it.
When he walked thus with some one with whom he was familiar, he
commonly passed his arm through that or his companion and leaned
upon him.
Slender and thin as he was at the period when we place him before
our readers' eyes, he was much concerned by the fear of future
corpulence; it was to Bourrienne that he usually confided this
singular dread.
"You see, Bourrienne, how slim and abstemious I am. Well, nothing
can rid me of the idea that when I am forty I shall be a great
eater and very fat. I foresee that my constitution will undergo
a change. I take exercise enough, but what will you!--it's a
presentiment; and it won't fail to happen."
We all know to what obesity he attained when a prisoner at Saint
Helena.
He had a positive passion for baths, which no doubt contributed
not a little to make him fat; this passion became an irresistible
need. He took one every other day, and stayed in it two hours,
during which time the journals and pamphlets of the day were
read to him. As the water cooled he would turn the hot-water
faucet until he raised the temperature of his bathroom to such a
degree that the reader could neither bear it any longer, nor see
to read. Not until then would he permit the door to be opened.
It has been said that he was subject to epileptic attacks after
his first campaign in Italy. Bourrienne was with him eleven years,
and never saw him suffer from an attack of this malady.
Bonaparte, though indefatigable when necessity demanded it, required
much sleep, especially during the period of which we are now
writing. Bonaparte, general or First Consul, kept others awake,
but he slept, and slept well. He retired at midnight, sometimes
earlier, as we have said, and when at seven in the morning they
entered his room to awaken him he was always asleep. Usually
at the first call he would rise; but occasionally, still half
asleep, he would mutter: "Bourrienne, I beg of you, let me sleep
a little longer."
Then, if there was nothing urgent, Bourrienne would return at
eight o'clock; if it was otherwise, he insisted, and then, with
much grumbling, Bonaparte would get up. He slept seven, sometimes
eight, hours out of the twenty-four, taking a short nap in the
afternoon. He also gave particular instruction for the night.
"At night," he would say, "come in my room as seldom as possible.
Never wake me if you have good news to announce--good news can
wait; but if there is bad news, wake me instantly, for then there
is not a moment to be lost in facing it."
As soon as Bonaparte had risen and made his morning ablutions,
which were very thorough, his valet entered and brushed his hair
and shaved him; while he was being shaved, a secretary or an
aide-de-camp read the newspapers aloud, always beginning with
the "Moniteur." He gave no real attention to any but the English
and German papers.
"Skip that," he would say when they read him the French papers;
"_I know what they say, because they only say what I choose._"
His toilet completed, Bonaparte went down to his study. We have
seen above what he did there. At ten o'clock the breakfast as
announced, usually by the steward, in these words: "The general
is served." No title, it will be observed, not even that of First
Consul.
The repast was a frugal one. Every morning a dish was served
which Bonaparte particularly liked--a chicken fried in oil with
garlic; the same dish that is now called on the bills of fare
at restaurants "Chicken à la Marengo."
Bonaparte drank little, and then only Bordeaux or Burgundy,
preferably the latter. After breakfast, as after dinner, he drank
a cup of black coffee; never between meals. When he chanced to work
until late at night they brought him, not coffee, but chocolate,
and the secretary who worked with him had a cup of the same.
Most historians, narrators, and biographers, after saying that
Bonaparte drank a great deal of coffee, add that he took snuff
to excess.
They are doubly mistaken. From the time he was twenty-four, Bonaparte
had contracted the habit of taking snuff: but only enough to keep
his brain awake. He took it habitually, not, as biographers have
declared, from the pocket of his waistcoat, but from a snuff-box
which he changed almost every day for a new one--having in this
matter of collecting snuff-boxes a certain resemblance to the great
Frederick. If he ever did take snuff from his waistcoat pocket, it
was on his battle days, when it would have been difficult, while
riding at a gallop under fire, to hold both reins and snuff-box.
For those days he had special waistcoats, with the right-hand
pocket lined with perfumed leather; and, as the sloping cut of
his coat enabled him to insert his thumb and forefinger into
this pocket without unbuttoning his coat, he could, under any
circumstances and at any gait, take snuff when he pleased.
As general or First Consul, he never wore gloves, contenting
himself with holding and crumpling them in his left hand. As
Emperor, there was some advance in this propriety; he wore one
glove, and as he changed his gloves, not once, but two or three
times a day, his valet adopted the habit of giving him alternate
gloves; thus making one pair serve as two.
Bonaparte had two great passions which Napoleon inherited--for
war and architectural monuments to his fame.
Gay, almost jolly in camp, he was dreamy and sombre in repose.
To escape this gloom he had recourse to the electricity of art,
and saw visions of those gigantic monumental works of which he
undertook many, and completed some. He realized that such works are
part of the life of peoples; they are history written in capitals,
landmarks of the ages, left standing long after generations are
swept away. He knew that Rome lives in her ruins, that Greece
speaks by her statues, that Egypt, splendid and mysterious spectre,
appeared through her monuments on the threshold of civilized
existence.
What he loved above everything, what he hugged in preference
to all else, was renown, heroic uproar; hence his need of war,
his thirst for glory. He often said:
"A great reputation is a great noise; the louder it is, the further
it is heard. Laws, institutions, monuments, nations, all fall; but
sound remains and resounds through other generations. Babylon and
Alexandria are fallen; Semiramis and Alexander stand erect, greater
perhaps through the echo of their renown, waxing and multiplying
through the ages, than they were in their lifetimes." Then he
added, connecting these ideas with himself: "My power depends
on my fame and on the battles I win. Conquest has made me what
I am, and conquest alone can sustain me. A new born government
must dazzle, must amaze. The moment it no longer flames, it dies
out; once it ceases to grow, it falls."
He was long a Corsican, impatient under the conquest of his country;
but after the 13th Vendemiaire he became a true Frenchman, and
ended by loving France with true passion. His dream was to see
her great, happy, powerful, at the head of the nations in glory
and in art. It is true that, in making France great, he became
great with her, and attached his name indissolubly to her grandeur.
To him, living eternally in this thought, actuality disappeared
in the future; wherever the hurricane of war may have swept him,
France, above all things else, above all nations, filled his
thoughts. "What will my Athenians think?" said Alexander, after
Issus and Arbela. "I hope the French will be content with me,"
said Bonaparte, after Rivoli and the Pyramids.
Before battle, this modern Alexander gave little thought to what
he should do in case of victory, but much in case of defeat. He,
more than any man, was convinced that trifles often decide the
greatest events; he was therefore more concerned in foreseeing
such events than in producing them. He watched them come to birth,
and ripen; then, when the right time came, he appeared, laid his
hand on them, mastered and guided them, as an able rider roasters
and guides a spirited horse.
His rapid rise in the midst of revolutions and political changes
he had brought about, or seen accomplished, the events which
he had controlled, had given him a certain contempt for men;
moreover, he was not inclined by nature to think well of them.
His lips were often heard to utter the grievous maxim--all the
more grievous because he personally knew its truth--"There are
two levers by which men are moved, fear and self-interest."
With such opinions Bonaparte did not, in fact, believe in friendship.
"How often," said Bourrienne, "has he said to me, 'Friendship
is only a word; I love no one, not even my brothers--Joseph a
little possibly; but if I love him it is only from habit, and
because he is my elder. Duroc, yes, I love him; but why? Because
his character pleases me; because he is stern, cold, resolute;
besides, Duroc never sheds a tear. But why should I love any
one? Do you think I have any true friends? As long as I am what
I am, I shall have friends--apparently at least; but when my
luck ceases, you'll see! Trees don't have leaves in winter. I
tell you, Bourrienne, we must leave whimpering to the women,
it's their business; as for me, no feelings. I need a vigorous
hand and a stout heart; if not, better let war and government
alone.'"
In his familiar intercourse, Bonaparte was what schoolboys call
a tease; but his teasings were never spiteful, and seldom unkind.
His ill-humor, easily aroused, disappeared like a cloud driven
by the wind; it evaporated in words, and disappeared of its own
will. Sometimes, however, when matters of public import were
concerned, and his lieutenants or ministers were to blame, he
gave way to violent anger; his outbursts were then hard and cruel,
and often humiliating. He gave blows with a club, under which,
willingly or unwillingly, the recipient had to bow his head;
witness his scene with Jomini and that with the Duc de Bellune.
Bonaparte had two sets of enemies, the Jacobins and the royalists;
he detested the first and feared the second. In speaking of the
Jacobins, he invariably called them the murderers of Louis XVI.;
as for the royalists, that was another thing; one might almost
have thought he foresaw the Restoration. He had about him two
men who had voted the death of the king, Fouché and Cambacérès.
He dismissed Fouché, and, if he kept Cambacérès, it was because
he wanted the services of that eminent legist; but he could not
endure him, and he would often catch his colleague, the Second
Consul, by the ear, and say: "My poor Cambacérès, I'm so sorry
for you; but your goose is cooked. If ever the Bourbons get back
they will hang you."
One day Cambacérès lost his temper, and with a twist of his head
he pulled his ear from the living pincers that held it.
"Come," he said, "have done with your foolish joking."
Whenever Bonaparte escaped any danger, a childish habit, a Corsican
habit, reappeared; he always made a rapid sign of the cross on his
breast with the thumb.
Whenever he met with any annoyance, or was haunted with a
disagreeable thought, he hummed--what air? An air of his own
that was no air at all, and which nobody ever noticed, he sang so
false. Then, still singing, he would sit down before his writing
desk, tilting in his chair, tipping it back till he almost fell
over, and mutilating, as we have said, its arms with a penknife,
which served no other purpose, inasmuch as he never mended a
pen himself. His secretaries were charged with that duty, and
they mended them in the best manner possible, mindful of the
fact that they would have to copy that terrific writing, which,
as we know, was not absolutely illegible.
The effect produced on Bonaparte by the ringing of bells is known.
It was the only music he understood, and it went straight to
his heart. If he was seated when the vibrations began he would
hold up his hand for silence, and lean toward the sound. If he
was walking, he would stop, bend his head, and listen. As long
as the bell rang he remained motionless; when the sound died
away in space, he resumed his work, saying to those who asked him
to explain this singular liking for the iron voice: "It reminds
me of my first years at Brienne; I was happy then!"
At the period of which we are writing, his greatest personal
interest was the purchase he had made of the domain of Malmaison.
He went there every night like a schoolboy off for his holiday,
and spent Sunday and often Monday there. There, work was neglected
for walking expeditions, during which he personally superintended
the improvements he had ordered. Occasionally, and especially
at first, he would wander beyond the limits of the estate; but
these excursions were thought dangerous by the police, and given
up entirely after the conspiracy of the Aréna and the affair
of the infernal machine.
The revenue derived from Malmaison, calculated by Bonaparte himself,
on the supposition that he should sell his fruits and vegetables,
did not amount to more than six thousand francs.
"That's not bad," he said to Bourrienne; "but," he added with a
sigh, "one must have thirty thousand a year to be able to live
here."
Bonaparte introduced a certain poesy in his taste for the country.
He liked to see a woman with a tall flexible figure glide through
the dusky shrubberies of the park; only that woman must be dressed
in white. He hated gowns of a dark color and had a horror of
stout women. As for pregnant women, he had such an aversion for
them that it was very seldom he invited one to his soirées or
his fêtes. For the rest, with little gallantry in his nature,
too overbearing to attract, scarcely civil to women, it was rare
for him to say, even to the prettiest, a pleasant thing; in fact,
he often produced a shudder by the rude remarks he made even to
Josephine's best friends. To one he remarked: "Oh! what red arms
you have!" To another, "What an ugly headdress you are wearing!"
To a third, "Your gown is dirty; I have seen you wear it twenty
times"; or, "Why don't you change your dressmaker; you are dressed
like a fright."
One day he said to the Duchesse de Chevreuse, a charming blonde,
whose hair was the admiration of everyone:
"It's queer how red your hair is!"
"Possibly," replied the duchess, "but this is the first time any
man has told me so."
Bonaparte did not like cards; when he did happen to play it was
always vingt-et-un. For the rest, he had one trait in common
with Henry IV., he cheated; but when the game was over he left
all the gold and notes he had won on the table, saying:
"You are ninnies! I have cheated all the time we've been playing,
and you never found out. Those who lost can take their money back."
Born and bred in the Catholic faith, Bonaparte had no preference
for any dogma. When he re-established divine worship it was done
as a political act, not as a religious one. He was fond, however,
of discussions bearing on the subject; but he defined his own part
in advance by saying: "My reason makes me a disbeliever in many
things; but the impressions of my childhood and the inspirations
of my early youth have flung me back into uncertainty."
Nevertheless he would never hear of materialism; he cared little
what the dogma was, provided that dogma recognized a Creator.
One beautiful evening in Messidor, on board his vessel, as it
glided along between the twofold azure of the sky and sea, certain
mathematicians declared there was no God, only animated matter.
Bonaparte looked at the celestial arch, a hundred times more
brilliant between Malta and Alexandria than it is in Europe,
and, at a moment when they thought him unconscious of the
conversation, he exclaimed, pointing to the stars: "You may say
what you please, but it was a God who made all that."
Bonaparte, though very exact in paying his private debts, was
just the reverse about public expenses. He was firmly convinced
that in all past transactions between ministers and purveyors
or contractors, that if the minister who had made the contract
was not a dupe, the State at any rate was robbed; for this reason
he delayed the period of payment as long as possible; there were
literally no evasions, no difficulties he would not make, no
bad reasons he would not give. It was a fixed idea with him, an
immutable principle, that every contractor was a cheat.
One day a man who had made a bid that was accepted was presented
to him.
"What is your name?" he asked, with his accustomed brusqueness.
"Vollant, citizen First Consul."
"Good name for a contractor."
"I spell it with two l's, citizen."
"To rob the better, sir," retorted Bonaparte, turning his back
on him.
Bonaparte seldom changed his decisions, even when he saw they
were unjust. No one ever heard him say: "I was mistaken." On
the contrary, his favorite saying was: "I always believe the
worst"--a saying more worthy of Simon than Augustus.
But with all this, one felt that there was more of a desire in
Bonaparte's mind to seem to despise men than actual contempt for
them. He was neither malignant nor vindictive. Sometimes, it is
true, he relied too much upon necessity, that iron-tipped goddess;
but for the rest, take him away from the field of politics and
he was kind, sympathetic, accessible to pity, fond of children
(great proof of a kind and pitying heart), full of indulgence for
human weakness in private life, and sometimes of a good-humored
heartiness, like that of Henri IV. playing with his children in
the presence of the Spanish ambassador.
If we were writing history we should have many more things to
say of Bonaparte without counting those which--after finishing
with Bonaparte--we should still have to say of Napoleon. But we
are writing a simple narrative, in which Bonaparte plays a part;
unfortunately, wherever Bonaparte shows himself, if only for a
moment, he becomes, in spite of himself, a principal personage.
The reader must pardon us for having again fallen into digression;
that man, who is a world in himself, has, against our will, swept
us along in his whirlwind.
Let us return to Roland, and consequently to our legitimate tale.
