John Gibson Lockhart - The History of Napoleon Buonaparte

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A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed
& treasured upon purpose to a life beyond life.

Milton

THE HISTORY
OF NAPOLEON
BUONAPARTE

BY

JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART

LONDON & TORONTO J.M. DENT & SONS LTD.
NEW YORK E.P. DUTTON & CO

First issue of this edition: _February 1906_

Reprinted: _April 1906_; _May 1907_;
_July 1909_; _November 1910_;
_November 1912_; _March 1915_

INTRODUCTION

[LOCKHART, 1794-1854]

"Nations yet to come will look back upon his history as to some grand
and supernatural romance. The fiery energy of his youthful career, and
the magnificent progress of his irresistible ambition, have invested his
character with the mysterious grandeur of some heavenly appearance; and
when all the lesser tumults and lesser men of our age shall have passed
away into the darkness of oblivion, history will still inscribe one
mighty era with the majestic name of Napoleon."

These enthusiastic words, too, are Lockhart's, though they are not from
this history, but from some "Remarks on the Periodical Criticism of
England," which he published in _Blackwood's Magazine_. They serve, if
they are taken in conjunction with his book, to mark his position in the
long list of the historians, biographers and critics who have written in
English, and from an English or a British point of view, upon "Napoleon
the Great." Lockhart, that is to say, was neither of the idolaters, like
Hazlitt, nor of the decriers and blasphemers.

One recalls at once what he said of "the lofty impartiality" with which
Sir Walter Scott had written of Napoleon before him, and with which he
appears to have faced his lesser task. As a biography, as a writing of
history, as an example of historic style, Lockhart's comparatively
modest essay must be called a better performance than Scott's. But "the
real Napoleon" has not yet been painted.

Lord Rosebery, in his book on _Napoleon: the Last Phase_, asks if there
will ever be an adequate portrait? The life is yet to be written that
shall profit by all the new material that has come to light since Scott
wrote his nine volumes in 1827, and Lockhart published his in 1829. But
Lockhart's book has still the value of one written by a genuine man of
letters, who was a born biographer, and one written while the
world-commotion of Napoleon was a matter of personal report. It is
tinged by some of the contemporary illusions, no doubt; but it is
clearer in its record than Scott's, and while it is less picturesque, it
is more direct.

His comparative brevity is a gain, since he has to tell how, in brief
space, "the lean, hungry conqueror swells," as Lord Rosebery says, "into
the sovereign, and then into the sovereign of sovereigns."

In view of the influence of the one book upon the other, and the one
writer upon the other, it is worth note that Lockhart had a fit of
enthusiasm over Scott's _Napoleon_ when it first appeared, or rather
when he first read the first six volumes of the work, before they were
"out," in 1827. He thought Scott would make as great an effect by it as
by any two of his novels. This proved a mistaken forecast, but Scott was
paid an enormous price--some eighteen thousand pounds. When then John
Murray, who had already co-opted Lockhart as his _Quarterly_ editor,
thought of inaugurating a "Family Library," and he proposed to his
editor this other Napoleon book, it must have seemed in many ways a very
attractive piece of work. But owing partly to Lockhart's relations with
Scott, and partly to the need of avoiding any literary comparisons,
these small, fat duodecimos appeared anonymously. That was, as it has
been already mentioned, in 1829, two years after Scott's book.

To-day, it makes a capital starting-point for the long Napoleon
adventure, whose end, so far as it is prolonged by fresh literary
divigations, seems to be as remote as ever.

It is from the French side that one might chiefly draw those vivid and
sometimes questionable glimpses at first-hand, that can best add to
Lockhart's presentment. One must compare his retreat from Russia with
Rapp's and other remembrancers' accounts, and be reminded by Rapp to go
on to Jomini's _Vie Militaire_, and even turn for a single personal
reminiscence to a flagrant hero-worshipper like Dumas, in his rapid and
military biography.

"Only twice in his life," said Dumas, "had he who writes these lines
seen Napoleon. The first time on the way to Ligny; the second, when he
returned from Waterloo. The first time in the light of a lamp; the first
time amid the acclamations of the multitude; the second, amid the
silence of a populace. Each time Napoleon was seated in the same
carriage, in the same seat, dressed in the same attire; each time, it
was the same look, lost and vague; each time, the same head, calm and
impassible, only his brow was a little more bent over his breast in
returning than in going. Was it from weariness that he could not sleep,
or from grief to have lost the world?"

This is the French postscript to many English books about the victor and
loser of the world.

* * * * *

The following is a list of the works of John Gibson Lockhart
(1794-1854):--

Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk, by Peter Morris the Odontist (pseud.)
1819; Valerius, a Roman Story, 1821; Some Passages in the Life of Mr.
Adam Blair, 1822; Reginald Dalton, a Story of English University Life,
1823; Ancient Spanish Ballads (trans.) 1823; Matthew Wald, a Novel,
1824; Life of Robert Burns, 1828; History of Napoleon Buonaparte, 1829;
History of the late War, with Sketches of Nelson, Wellington and
Napoleon, 1832; Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, 7 vols. 1836-8;
Theodore Hook, a Sketch, 1852.

Lockhart was a Contributor to "Blackwood," and Editor of the "Quarterly
Review" from 1825 to 1853.

LIFE OF NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE

CHAPTER I

Birth and Parentage of Napoleon Buonaparte--His Education at
Brienne and at Paris--His Character at this Period--His Political
Predilections--He enters the Army as Second Lieutenant of
Artillery--His First Military Service in Corsica in 1793.

Napoleon Buonaparte was born at Ajaccio on the 15th of August, 1769. The
family had been of some distinction, during the middle ages, in Italy;
whence his branch of it removed to Corsica, in the troubled times of the
Guelphs and Gibellines. They were always considered as belonging to the
gentry of the island. Charles, the father of Napoleon, an advocate of
considerable reputation, married his mother, Letitia Ramolini, a young
woman eminent for beauty and for strength of mind, during the civil
war--when the Corsicans, under Paoli, were struggling to avoid the
domination of the French. The advocate had espoused the popular side in
that contest, and his lovely and high-spirited wife used to attend him
through the toils and dangers of his mountain campaigns. Upon the
termination of the war, he would have exiled himself along with Paoli;
but his relations dissuaded him from this step, and he was afterwards
reconciled to the conquering party, and protected and patronised by the
French governor of Corsica, the Count de Marboeuff.

It is said that Letitia had attended mass on the morning of the 15th of
August; and, being seized suddenly on her return, gave birth to the
future hero of his age, on a temporary couch covered with tapestry,
representing the heroes of the Iliad. He was her second child. Joseph,
afterwards King of Spain, was older than he: he had three younger
brothers, Lucien, Louis, and Jerome; and three sisters, Eliza, Caroline,
and Pauline. These grew up. Five others must have died in infancy; for
we are told that Letitia had given birth to thirteen children, when at
the age of thirty she became a widow.

In after-days, when Napoleon had climbed to sovereign power, many
flatterers were willing to give him a lofty pedigree. To the Emperor of
Austria, who would fain have traced his unwelcome son-in-law to some
petty princes of Treviso, he replied, "I am the Rodolph of my race,"[1]
and silenced, on a similar occasion, a professional genealogist, with,
"Friend, my patent dates from Monte Notte."[2]

Charles Buonaparte, by the French governor's kindness, received a legal
appointment in Corsica--that of _Procureur du Roi_ (answering nearly to
Attorney-General); and scandal has often said that Marboeuff was his
wife's lover. The story received no credence in Ajaccio.

Concerning the infancy of Napoleon we know nothing, except that he ever
acknowledged with the warmest gratitude the obligations laid on him, at
the threshold of life by the sagacity and wisdom of Letitia. He always
avowed his belief that he owed his subsequent elevation principally to
her early lessons; and indeed laid it down as a maxim that "the future
good or bad conduct of a child depends entirely on the mother." Even of
his boyish days few anecdotes have been preserved in Corsica. His chosen
plaything, they say, was a small brass cannon; and, when at home in the
school-vacations, his favourite retreat was a solitary summer-house
among the rocks on the sea-shore, about a mile from Ajaccio, where his
mother's brother (afterwards Cardinal Fesch) had a villa. The place is
now in ruins, and overgrown with bushes, and the people call it
"Napoleon's Grotto." He has himself said that he was remarkable only for
obstinacy and curiosity: others add, that he was high-spirited,
quarrelsome, imperious; fond of solitude; slovenly in his dress. Being
detected stealing figs in an orchard, the proprietor threatened to tell
his mother, and the boy pleaded for himself with so much eloquence, that
the man suffered him to escape. His careless attire, and his partiality
for a pretty little girl in the neighbourhood, were ridiculed together
in a song which his playmates used to shout after him in the streets of
Ajaccio:

"Napoleone di mezza calzetta
Fa l'amore a Giacominetta."[3]

His superiority of character was early felt. An aged relation, Lucien
Buonaparte, Archdeacon of Ajaccio, called the young people about his
death-bed to take farewell and bless them: "You, Joseph," said the
expiring man, "are the eldest; but Napoleon is the head of his family.
Take care to remember my words." Napoleon took excellent care that they
should not be forgotten. He began with beating his elder brother into
subjection.

From his earliest youth he chose arms for his profession. When he was
about seven years old (1776) his father was, through Marboeuff's
patronage, sent to France as one of a deputation from the Corsican
_noblesse_ to King Louis XVI.; and Napoleon, for whom the count had also
procured admission into the military school of Brienne, accompanied him.
After seeing part of Italy, and crossing France, they reached Paris; and
the boy was soon established in his school, where at first everything
delighted him, though, forty years afterwards, he said he should never
forget the bitter parting with his mother ere he set out on his travels.
He spoke only Italian when he reached Brienne; but soon mastered French.
His progress in Latin, and in literature generally, attracted no great
praise; but in every study likely to be of service to the future
soldier, he distinguished himself above his contemporaries. Of the
mathematical tutors accordingly he was a great favourite. One of the
other teachers having condemned him for some offence or neglect to wear
a course woollen dress on a particular day, and dine on his knees at the
door of the refectory, the boy's haughty spirit swelling under this
dishonour, brought on a sudden vomiting, and a strong fit of hysterics.
The mathematical master passing by, said they did not understand what
they were dealing with, and released him. He cared little for common
pastimes; but his love for such as mimicked war was extreme; and the
skill of his fortifications, reared of turf, or of snow, according to
the season, and the address and pertinacity with which he conducted
their defence, attracted the admiration of all observers. Napoleon was
poor and all but a foreigner[4] among the French youth, and underwent
many mortifications from both causes. His temper was reserved and proud;
he had few friends--no bosom-companion; he lived by himself, and among
his books and maps. M. Bourienne, whose friendship for him commenced
thus early, says--"Buonaparte was noticeable at Brienne for his Italian
complexion, the keenness of his look, and the tone of his conversation
both with masters and comrades. There was almost always a dash of
bitterness in what he said. He had very little of the disposition that
leads to attachments; which I can only attribute to the misfortunes of
his family every since his birth, and the impression which the conquest
of his country had made on his early years." One day, at dinner, the
principal of the school happened to say something slightingly of Paoli.
"He was a great man," cried young Buonaparte, "he loved his country; and
I shall never forgive my father, who had been his adjutant, for
consenting to the union of Corsica with France. He ought to have
followed the fortunes of Paoli."

There is reason to believe that the levity and haughtiness with which
some of the young French gentlemen at this seminary conducted themselves
towards this poor, solitary alien, had a strong effect on the first
political feelings of the future Emperor of France. He particularly
resented their jokes about his foreign name _Napoleon_. Bourienne says
he often told him--"Hereafter I will do the French what harm I can; as
for you, you never make me your jest--you love me."

From the beginning of the revolutionary struggle, boy and youth, he
espoused and kept by the side of those who desired the total change of
government. It is a strange enough fact, that Pichegru, afterwards so
eminent and ultimately so unfortunate, was for some time his monitor in
the school of Brienne. Being consulted many years later as to the chance
of enlisting Buonaparte in the cause of the exiled Bourbons, this man is
known to have answered: "It will be lost time to attempt that--I knew
him in his youth--he has taken his side, and he will not change it."

In 1783 Buonaparte was, on the recommendation of his masters, sent from
Brienne to the Royal Military School at Paris; this being an
extraordinary compliment to the genius and proficiency of a boy of
fifteen.[5] Here he spent nearly two years, devoted to his studies. That
he laboured hard, both at Brienne and at Paris, we may judge; for his
after-life left scanty room for book-work, and of the vast quantity of
information which his strong memory ever placed at his disposal, the far
greater proportion must have been accumulated now. He made himself a
first-rate mathematician; he devoured history--his chosen authors being
Plutarch and Tacitus; the former the most simple painter that antiquity
has left us of heroic characters--the latter the profoundest master of
political wisdom. The poems of Ossian were then new to Europe, and
generally received as authentic remains of another age and style of
heroism. The dark and lofty genius which they display, their indistinct
but solemn pictures of heroic passions, love, battle, victory, and
death, were appropriate food for Napoleon's young imagination; and, his
taste being little scrupulous as to minor particulars, Ossian continued
to be through life his favourite poet. While at Paris, he attracted much
notice among those who had access to compare him with his fellows; his
acquirements, among other advantages, introduced him to the familiar
society of the celebrated Abbe Raynal. Napoleon, shortly after entering
the school at Paris, drew up a memorial, which he in person presented to
the superintendents of the establishment. He complained that the mode of
life was too expensive and delicate for "poor gentlemen," and could not
prepare them either for returning to their "modest homes," or for the
hardships of the camp. He proposed that, instead of a regular dinner of
two courses daily, the students should have ammunition bread, and
soldiers' rations, and that they should be compelled to mend and clean
their own stockings and shoes. This memorial is said to have done him no
service at the military school.

He had just completed his sixteenth year when (in August, 1785,) after
being examined by the great Laplace, he obtained his first commission as
second lieutenant in the artillery regiment _La Fere_. His corps was at
Valance when he joined it; and he mingled, more largely than might have
been expected from his previous habits, in the cultivated society of the
place. His personal advantages were considerable; the outline of the
countenance classically beautiful; the eye deep-set and dazzlingly
brilliant; the figure short, but slim, active, and perfectly knit.
Courtly grace and refinement of manners he never attained, nor perhaps
coveted; but he early learned the art, not difficult probably to any
person possessed of such genius and such accomplishments, of rendering
himself eminently agreeable wherever it suited his purpose or
inclination to be so.

On the 27th February in this year his father died of a cancer in the
stomach, aged forty-five; the same disease which was destined, at a
somewhat later period of life, to prove fatal to himself.

While at Valance Buonaparte competed anonymously for a prize offered by
the Academy of Lyons for the best answer to Raynal's Question: "What are
the principles and institutions by the application of which mankind can
be raised to the highest happiness?" He gained the prize: what were the
contents of his Essay we know not. Talleyrand, long afterwards, obtained
the manuscript, and, thinking to please his sovereign, brought it to
him. He threw his eye over two or three pages, and tossed it into the
fire. The treatise of the Lieutenant probably abounded in opinions which
the Emperor had found it convenient to forget.

Even at Brienne his political feelings had been determined. At Valance
he found the officers of his regiment divided, as all the world then
was, into two parties; the lovers of the French Monarchy, and those who
desired its overthrow. He sided openly with the latter. "Had I been a
general," said Napoleon in the evening of his life, "I might have
adhered to the king: being a subaltern, I joined the patriots."

In the beginning of 1792 he became captain of artillery (_unattached;_)
and, happening to be in Paris, witnessed the lamentable scenes of the
20th of June, when the revolutionary mob stormed the Tuileries, and the
king and his family, after undergoing innumerable insults and
degradations, with the utmost difficulty preserved their lives. He
followed the crowd into the garden before the palace; and when Louis
XVI. appeared on a balcony with the red cap on his head, could no longer
suppress his contempt and indignation. "Poor driveller!" said Napoleon,
loud enough to be heard by those near him, "how could he suffer this
rabble to enter? If he had swept away five or six hundred with his
cannon, the rest would be running yet." He was also a witness of the
still more terrible 10th of August, when, the palace being once more
invested, the National Guard assigned for its defence took part with the
assailants; the royal family were obliged to take refuge in the National
Assembly, and the brave Swiss Guards were massacred almost to a man in
the courts of the Tuileries. Buonaparte was a firm friend to the
Assembly, to the charge of a party of which, at least, these excesses
must be laid; but the spectacle disgusted him. The yells, screams, and
pikes with bloody heads upon them, formed a scene which he afterwards
described as "hideous and revolting." At this time Napoleon was without
employment and very poor; and De Bourienne describes him as wandering
idly about Paris, living, chiefly at his (M. de B.'s) expense, at
restaurateurs' shops, and, among other wild-enough schemes, proposing
that he and his schoolfellow should take some houses on lease, and
endeavour to get a little money by subletting them in apartments. Such
were the views and occupations of Buonaparte--at the moment when the
national tragedy was darkening to its catastrophe. As yet he had been
but a spectator of the Revolution, destined to pave his own path to
sovereign power; it was not long before circumstances called on him to
play a part.

General Paoli, who had lived in England ever since the termination of
that civil war in which Charles Buonaparte served under his banner, was
cheered, when the great French Revolution first broke out, with the hope
that liberty was about to be restored to Corsica. He came to Paris, was
received with applause as a tried friend of freedom, and appointed
governor of his native island, which for some time he ruled wisely and
happily. But as the revolution advanced, Paoli, like most other wise
men, became satisfied that license was more likely to be established by
its leaders, than law and rational liberty; and avowing his aversion to
the growing principles of Jacobinism, and the scenes of tumult and
bloodshed to which they gave rise, he was denounced in the National
Assembly as the enemy of France. An expedition was sent to deprive him
of his government, under the command of La Combe, Michel, and Salicetti,
one of the Corsican deputies to the Convention; and Paoli called on his
countrymen to take arms in his and their own defence.

Buonaparte happened at that time (1793) to have leave of absence from
his regiment, and to be in Corsica on a visit to his mother. He had
fitted up a little reading-room at the top of the house as the quietest
part of it, and was spending his mornings in study, and his evenings
among his family and old acquaintance, when the arrival of the
expedition threw the island into convulsion. Paoli, who knew him well,
did all he could to enlist him in his cause; he used, among other
flatteries, to clap him on the back, and tell him he was "one of
Plutarch's men." But Napoleon had satisfied himself that Corsica was too
small a country to maintain independence,--that she must fall under the
rule either of France or England; and that her interests would be best
served by adhering to the former. He therefore resisted all Paoli's
offers, and tendered his sword to the service of Salicetti. He was
appointed provisionally to the command of a battalion of National
Guards; and the first military service on which he was employed was the
reduction of a small fortress, called the Torre di Capitello, near
Ajaccio. He took it, but was soon besieged in it, and he and his
garrison, after a gallant defence, and living for some time on
horseflesh, were glad to evacuate the tower, and escape to the sea. The
English government now began to reinforce Paoli, and the cause of the
French party seemed for the moment to be desperate. The Buonapartes were
banished from Corsica, and their mother and sisters took refuge first at
Nice, and afterwards at Marseilles, where for some time they suffered
all the inconveniences of exile and poverty. Napoleon rejoined his
regiment. He had chosen France for his country; and seems, in truth, to
have preserved little or no affection for his native soil.

After arriving at supreme power, he bestowed one small fountain on
Ajaccio; and succeeded, by the death of a relation, to a petty olive
garden near that town. In the sequel of his history the name of Corsica
will scarcely recur.

[Footnote 1: Rodolph of Hapsburg was the founder of the Austrian
family.]

[Footnote 2: His first battle.]

[Footnote 3: Napoleon, with his stockings about his heels, makes love to
Giacominetta.]

[Footnote 4: Corsica became by law a French department only two months
before Napoleon was born.]

[Footnote 5: The report, in consequence of which Buonaparte received
this distinction, is in these words: "M. de Buonaparte (Napoleon), born
the 15th August, 1769, height four feet ten inches ten lines; good
constitution; health excellent; character docile, upright, grateful;
conduct very regular: has always distinguished himself by his
application to the mathematics. He is passably acquainted with history
and geography: is weak enough as to his Latin diction and other elegant
accomplishments: would make an excellent sea-officer: deserves to be
transferred to the Military School at Paris."]

CHAPTER II

Buonaparte commands the Artillery at Toulon--Fall of Toulon--The
Representatives of the People--Junot.

Buonaparte's first military service occurred, as we have seen, in the
summer of 1793. The king of France had been put to death on the 21st of
January in that year; and in less than a month afterwards the convention
had declared war against England. The murder of the king, alike
imprudent as atrocious, had in fact united the princes of Europe against
the revolutionary cause; and within France itself a strong reaction took
place. The people of Toulon, the great port and arsenal of France on the
Mediterranean, partook these sentiments, and invited the English and
Spanish fleets off their coast to come to their assistance, and garrison
their city. The allied admirals took possession accordingly of Toulon,
and a motley force of English, Spaniards, and Neapolitans, prepared to
defend the place. In the harbour and roads there were twenty-five ships
of the line, and the city contained immense naval and military stores of
every description, so that the defection of Toulon was regarded as a
calamity of the first order by the revolutionary government.