Throne-Makers. William Roscoe Thayer
it showed in deeds many signs of nervousness. No longer did it think it prudent, for instance, to abet the enormous extravagances of Hausmann, the remodeler of Paris. It even talked Liberalism, and set up a seeming Liberal Cabinet, with Ollivier at its head. “All the reform you may give us, we accept,” said Gambetta bluntly; “and we may possibly force you to yield more than you intend; but all you give, and all we take, we shall simply use as a bridge to carry us over to another form of government.” Evidently the conscience of France, expressing itself through the Republican spokesman, could not be placated or seduced.
A still blacker omen ushered in 1870. Pierre Bonaparte, the Emperor’s cousin, shot in cold blood a journalist, Victor Noir. Two hundred thousand persons followed the victim’s hearse; two hundred thousand voices shouted through the streets of Paris, “Vengeance! Down with the Empire! Long live the Republic!” In April the ministers proposed further reforms, and called for another plebiscite, that worn-out Napoleonic device for deceiving public opinion. Seven and a third million votes were dutifully registered for the Empire, and only a million and a half against it; but the Imperialists did not exult—a majority of voters in Paris, and forty-six thousand soldiers, had voted no.
To be deserted by the Parisians, on whom Napoleon had lavished so much pomp—that, indeed, was hard; but the disaffection in the army meant danger. One desperate remedy remained—a foreign war. Victory would bring to Imperialism sufficient prestige to postpone for several years the impending collapse; meanwhile, public attention would be diverted from grievances at home.
Nemesis saw to it that rogues thus minded should not lack opportunity. The Spaniards having elected an obscure German prince to be their king, the French ministers announced that they would never suffer him to reign. Of his own motion, the German prince declined the election, but the French were not appeased. They would humble the King of Prussia by forcing from him a meek promise. King William refused to be bullied; the French ministers proclaimed that France had been insulted. Not Imperialists only, but Frenchmen of all parties clamored for satisfaction. That love of gloire, that mercurial vanity which, twenty years before, had made them an easy prey to Louis Napoleon, now made them abettors of his breakneck venture. He appealed to their patriotism, the last refuge of a scoundrel, and they were beguiled.
War came, the Emperor being, by common report, most reluctant to consent to its declaration. He was its first victim. Five weeks after taking the field, he surrendered with nearly one hundred and ninety thousand men at Sédan. The corruption which through twenty years he had fostered, in all parts of the state where he expected to profit by it, had gangrened the army also, that branch which a military tyrant needs to have honestly administered. And now in his need the army failed him. He had been caught, as every one is caught who imagines that he can be wicked with impunity and still keep virtue for an ally when he needs her. From top to bottom his war department was rotten. Conscripts had, by bribe, evaded service; generals had sworn to false muster-rolls; ministers had connived with dishonest contractors. At Sédan, Napoleon paid the penalty of the corruption which he had erected into a system; at Sédan, moreover, he completed that cycle of parallels and imitations which he had made the business of his life. Just as Prussian Blücher paralyzed the last rally of the great Napoleon at Waterloo, so Prussian Moltke achieved the ignominy of Napoleon the Little at Sédan.
Men forget, even when they do not forgive. Frenchmen, furious at the humiliation of Sédan, cursed Napoleon as the author of it. But after a quarter of a century, although they have not forgiven him, they have come to look on him as victim rather than as villain. Later writers have held him up to be pitied. They describe his long years of suffering from the stone; they paint him during that month of August, 1870, as a poor, abject creature of circumstances, driven to bay by an irresistible foe, buffeted, scorned, despised by his own officers and troops. They show him to us, speechless and in agony, lifted from his horse at Saarbrücken; or huddled into a third-class railway carriage with a crowd of common soldiers escaping from the oncoming Prussians; or sitting, as cheerless as a death’s-head, at a council of war; now lodged in mean quarters; now passing gloomily down regiments on their way to defeat, and never a voice to cry Vive l’Empereur; ever growing more and more haggard and nervous with worry, disaster, and endless cigarettes; continually pelted with telegrams from Empress Eugénie at Paris, “Do this—do that, or the Empire is lost;” until that final early morning interview with Bismarck in the weaver’s cottage at Donchéry. Latter-day Frenchmen, beholding such misery, have forgotten that Napoleon himself was chiefly responsible for it, and have ceased to execrate.
In closing, let us read, from a letter Bismarck wrote to his wife the day after the surrender, a description of the meeting of Napoleon and his conqueror:—
“Vendresse, Sept. 3, 1870. Yesterday morning at five o’clock, after I had been negotiating until one o’clock, A. M., with Moltke and the French generals about the capitulation to be concluded, I was awakened by General Reille, with whom I am acquainted, to tell me that Napoleon wished to speak with me. Unwashed and unbreakfasted, I rode towards Sedan, found the Emperor in an open carriage, with three aides-de-camp and three in attendance on horseback, halted on the road before Sédan. I dismounted, saluted him just as politely as at the Tuileries, and asked for his commands. He wished to see the King. I told him, as the truth was, that his Majesty had his quarters fifteen miles away, at the spot where I am now writing. In answer to Napoleon’s question where he should go, I offered him, as I was not acquainted with the country, my own quarters at Donchéry, a small place in the neighborhood, close by Sédan. He accepted and drove, accompanied by his six Frenchmen, by me and by Carl (who in the mean time had ridden after me), through the lonely morning, towards our lines. Before reaching the spot, he began to be troubled on account of the possible crowd, and he asked me if he could alight in a lonely cottage by the wayside. I had it inspected by Carl, who brought word it was mean and dirty. ‘N’importe’ (No matter), said N., and I ascended with him a rickety, narrow staircase. In an apartment ten feet square, with a deal-table and two rush-bottomed chairs, we sat for an hour; the others were below. A powerful contrast with our last meeting in the Tuileries in ’67. Our conversation was difficult, if I wanted to avoid touching on topics which could not but affect painfully the man whom God’s mighty hand had cast down. I had sent Carl to fetch officers from the town, and to beg Moltke to come.”
That morning the terms of capitulation were drawn up, and the next day Napoleon went a prisoner to Wilhelmshöhe, whence, in due time, he was allowed to depart for England. At Chislehurst, on January 9, 1873, he died, having lived to see not only the extinction of French Imperialism and of the temporal Papacy, but also the creation of the German Empire and the union of Italy. To prevent all of these things had been his aim.
In a life like Garibaldi’s we see what a disinterested genius can do by appealing to men’s noble motives: the career of Louis Napoleon illustrates not less clearly what a man with talents and without scruples can accomplish by appealing to the instincts of vainglory and selfishness and terror; to the instinct which bullies weak nations and hoists the flag where it does not belong; to the instinct which has not the courage to acknowledge an error, but is quick to impute injuries, and declares that there shall be one conscience for politicians and another for citizens. Let us not flatter ourselves that only the French have cherished these stupendous delusions; let us rather take warning by the retribution exacted from them.
“Forgetful is green earth: the Gods alone
Remember everlastingly; they strike
Remorselessly, and ever like for like.
By their great memories the Gods are known.”
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно