It was for this reason that the young
Countess
had visited Bronia.
Orr - Famous Affinities of History, Romacen of Devotion
"
She did not, however, spend her girlish years amid the fields and woods
tending her sheep, as did the other Jeanne d'Arc; but she was placed
in charge of the sisters in a convent, and from them she received such
education as she had. She was a lonely child, and her thoughts turned
inward, brooding over many things.
After she had left the convent she was sent to live with an aunt. Here
she devoted herself to reading over and over the few books which
the house contained. These consisted largely of the deistic writers,
especially Voltaire, and to some extent they destroyed her convent
faith, though it is not likely that she understood them very fully.
More to her taste was a copy of Plutarch's Lives. These famous stories
fascinated her. They told her of battle and siege, of intrigue and
heroism, and of that romantic love of country which led men to throw
away their lives for the sake of a whole people. Brutus and Regulus were
her heroes. To die for the many seemed to her the most glorious end that
any one could seek. When she thought of it she thrilled with a sort
of ecstasy, and longed with all the passion of her nature that such a
glorious fate might be her own.
Charlotte had nearly come to womanhood at the time when the French
Revolution first broke out. Royalist though she had been in her
sympathies, she felt the justice of the people's cause. She had seen the
suffering of the peasantry, the brutality of the tax-gatherers, and all
the oppression of the old regime. But what she hoped for was a
democracy of order and equality and peace. Could the king reign as a
constitutional monarch rather than as a despot, this was all for which
she cared.
In Normandy, where she lived, were many of those moderate republicans
known as Girondists, who felt as she did and who hoped for the same
peaceful end to the great outbreak. On the other hand, in Paris, the
party of the Mountain, as it was called, ruled with a savage violence
that soon was to culminate in the Reign of Terror. Already the
guillotine ran red with noble blood. Already the king had bowed his head
to the fatal knife. Already the threat had gone forth that a mere breath
of suspicion or a pointed finger might be enough to lead men and women
to a gory death.
In her quiet home near Caen Charlotte Corday heard as from afar the
story of this dreadful saturnalia of assassination which was making
Paris a city of bloody mist. Men and women of the Girondist party came
to tell her of the hideous deeds that were perpetrated there. All these
horrors gradually wove themselves in the young girl's imagination around
the sinister and repulsive figure of Jean Paul Marat. She knew nothing
of his associates, Danton and Robespierre. It was in Marat alone that
she saw the monster who sent innocent thousands to their graves, and who
reveled like some arch-fiend in murder and gruesome death.
In his earlier years Marat had been a very different figure--an
accomplished physician, the friend of nobles, a man of science and
original thought, so that he was nearly elected to the Academy of
Sciences. His studies in electricity gained for him the admiration
of Benjamin Franklin and the praise of Goethe. But when he turned to
politics he left all this career behind him. He plunged into the very
mire of red republicanism, and even there he was for a time so much
hated that he sought refuge in London to save his life.
On his return he was hunted by his enemies, so that his only place
of refuge was in the sewers and drains of Paris. A woman, one Simonne
Evrard, helped him to escape his pursuers. In the sewers, however,
he contracted a dreadful skin-disease from which he never afterward
recovered, and which was extremely painful as well as shocking to
behold.
It is small wonder that the stories about Marat circulated through the
provinces made him seem more a devil than a man. His vindictiveness
against the Girondists brought all of this straight home to Charlotte
Corday and led her to dream of acting the part of Brutus, so that she
might free her country from this hideous tyrant.
In January, 1793, King Louis XVI. met his death upon the scaffold; and
the queen was thrust into a foul prison. This was a signal for activity
among the Girondists in Normandy, and especially at Caen, where
Charlotte was present at their meetings and heard their fervid oratory.
There was a plot to march on Paris, yet in some instinctive way she felt
that such a scheme must fail. It was then that she definitely formed
the plan of going herself, alone, to the French capital to seek out the
hideous Marat and to kill him with her own hands.
To this end she made application for a passport allowing her to
visit Paris. This passport still exists, and it gives us an official
description of the girl. It reads:
Allow citizen Marie Corday to pass. She is twenty-four years of age,
five feet and one inch in height, hair and eyebrows chestnut color, eyes
gray, forehead high, mouth medium size, chin dimpled, and an oval face.
Apart from this verbal description we have two portraits painted while
she was in prison. Both of them make the description of the passport
seem faint and pale. The real Charlotte had a wealth of chestnut hair
which fell about her face and neck in glorious abundance. Her great
gray eyes spoke eloquently of truth and courage. Her mouth was firm yet
winsome, and her form combined both strength and grace. Such is the girl
who, on reaching Paris, wrote to Marat in these words:
Citizen, I have just arrived from Caen. Your love for your native place
doubtless makes you wish to learn the events which have occurred in that
part of the republic. I shall call at your residence in about an hour.
Be so good as to receive me and give me a brief interview. I will put
you in such condition as to render great service to France.
This letter failed to gain her admission, and so did another which she
wrote soon after. The fact is that Marat was grievously ill. His disease
had reached a point where the pain could be assuaged only by hot water;
and he spent the greater part of his time wrapped in a blanket and lying
in a large tub.
A third time, however, the persistent girl called at his house and
insisted that she must see him, saying that she was herself in danger
from the enemies of the Republic. Through an open door Marat heard her
mellow voice and gave orders that she should be admitted.
As she entered she gazed for a moment upon the lank figure rolling in
the tub, the rat-like face, and the shifting eyes. Then she approached
him, concealing in the bosom of her dress a long carving-knife which she
had purchased for two francs. In answer to Marat's questioning look she
told him that there was much excitement at Caen and that the Girondists
were plotting there.
To this Marat answered, in his harsh voice:
"All these men you mention shall be guillotined in the next few days! "
As he spoke Charlotte flashed out the terrible knife and with all her
strength she plunged it into his left side, where it pierced a lung and
a portion of his heart.
Marat, with the blood gushing from his mouth, cried out:
"Help, darling! "
His cry was meant for one of the two women in the house. Both heard it,
for they were in the next room; and both of them rushed in and succeeded
in pinioning Charlotte Corday, who, indeed, made only a slight effort to
escape. Troops were summoned, she was taken to the Prison de l'Abbaye,
and soon after she was arraigned before the revolutionary tribunal.
Placed in the dock, she glanced about her with an air of pride, as
of one who gloried in the act which she had just performed. A written
charge was read. She was asked what she had to say. Lifting her head
with a look of infinite satisfaction, she answered in a ringing voice:
"Nothing--except that I succeeded! "
A lawyer was assigned for her defense. He pleaded for her earnestly,
declaring that she must he regarded as insane; but those clear, calm
eyes and that gentle face made her sanity a matter of little doubt.
She showed her quick wit in the answers which she gave to the rough
prosecutor, Fouquier-Tinville, who tried to make her confess that she
had accomplices.
"Who prompted you to do this deed? " roared Tinville.
"I needed no prompting. My own heart was sufficient. "
"In what, then, had Marat wronged you? "
"He was a savage beast who was going to destroy the remains of France in
the fires of civil war. "
"But whom did you expect to benefit? " insinuated the prosecutor.
"I have killed one man to save a hundred thousand. "
"What? Did you imagine that you had murdered all the Marats? "
"No, but, this one being dead, the rest will perhaps take warning. "
Thus her directness baffled all the efforts of the prosecution to trap
her into betraying any of her friends. The court, however, sentenced her
to death. She was then immured in the Conciergerie.
This dramatic court scene was the beginning of that strange, brief
romance to which one can scarcely find a parallel. At the time there
lived in Paris a young German named Adam Lux. The continual talk about
Charlotte Corday had filled him with curiosity regarding this young girl
who had been so daring and so patriotic. She was denounced on every hand
as a murderess with the face of a Medusa and the muscles of a Vulcan.
Street songs about her were dinned into the ears of Adam Lux.
As a student of human nature he was anxious to see this terrible
creature. He forced his way to the front of the crowded benches in the
court-room and took his stand behind a young artist who was finishing a
beautiful sketch. From that moment until the end of the trial the
eyes of Adam Lux were fastened on the prisoner. What a contrast to the
picture he had imagined!
A mass of regal chestnut hair crowned with the white cap of a Norman
peasant girl; gray eyes, very sad and serious, but looking serenely
forth from under long, dark lashes; lips slightly curved with an
expression of quiet humor; a face the color of the sun and wind, a
bust indicative of perfect health, the chin of a Caesar, and the whole
expression one of almost divine self-sacrifice. Such were the features
that the painter was swiftly putting upon his canvas; but behind them
Adam Lux discerned the soul for which he gladly sacrificed both his
liberty and his life.
He forgot his surroundings and seemed to see only that beautiful, pure
face and to hear only the exquisite cadences of the wonderful voice.
When Charlotte was led forth by a file of soldiers Adam staggered from
the scene and made his way as best he might to his lodgings. There he
lay prostrate, his whole soul filled with the love of her who had in an
instant won the adoration of his heart.
Once, and only once again, when the last scene opened on the tragedy,
did he behold the heroine of his dreams.
On the 17th of July Charlotte Corday was taken from her prison to the
gloomy guillotine. It was toward evening, and nature had given a setting
fit for such an end. Blue-black thunder-clouds rolled in huge masses
across the sky until their base appeared to rest on the very summit of
the guillotine. Distant thunder rolled and grumbled beyond the river.
Great drops of rain fell upon the soldiers' drums. Young, beautiful,
unconscious of any wrong, Charlotte Corday stood beneath the shadow of
the knife.
At the supreme moment a sudden ray from the setting sun broke through
the cloud-wrack and fell upon her slender figure until she glowed in the
eyes of the startled spectators like a statue cut in burnished bronze.
Thus illumined, as it were, by a light from heaven itself, she
bowed herself beneath the knife and paid the penalty of a noble, if
misdirected, impulse. As the blade fell her lips quivered with her last
and only plea:
"My duty is enough--the rest is nothing! "
Adam Lux rushed from the scene a man transformed. He bore graven upon
his heart neither the mob of tossing red caps nor the glare of the
sunset nor the blood-stained guillotine, but that last look from
those brilliant eyes. The sight almost deprived him of his reason. The
self-sacrifice of the only woman he had ever loved, even though she had
never so much as seen him, impelled him with a sort of fury to his own
destruction.
He wrote a bitter denunciation of the judges, of the officers, and
of all who had been followers of Marat. This document he printed,
and scattered copies of it through every quarter in Paris. The last
sentences are as follows:
The guillotine is no longer a disgrace. It has become a sacred altar,
from which every taint has been removed by the innocent blood shed
there on the 17th of July. Forgive me, my divine Charlotte, if I find
it impossible at the last moment to show the courage and the gentleness
that were yours! I glory because you are superior to me, for it is
right that she who is adored should be higher and more glorious than her
adorer!
This pamphlet, spread broadcast among the people, was soon reported to
the leaders of the rabble. Adam Lux was arrested for treason against
the Republic; but even these men had no desire to make a martyr of this
hot-headed youth. They would stop his mouth without taking his life.
Therefore he was tried and speedily found guilty, but an offer was
made him that he might have passports that would allow him to return to
Germany if only he would sign a retraction of his printed words.
Little did the judges understand the fiery heart of the man they had
to deal with. To die on the same scaffold as the woman whom he had
idealized was to him the crowning triumph of his romantic love. He gave
a prompt and insolent refusal to their offer. He swore that if released
he would denounce his darling's murderers with a still greater passion.
In anger the tribunal sentenced him to death. Only then he smiled and
thanked his judges courteously, and soon after went blithely to the
guillotine like a bridegroom to his marriage feast.
Adam Lux! Spirit courtship had been carried on silently all through that
terrible cross-examination of Charlotte Corday. His heart was betrothed
to hers in that single gleam of the setting sun when she bowed beneath
the knife. One may believe that these two souls were finally united
when the same knife fell sullenly upon his neck and when his life-blood
sprinkled the altar that was still stained with hers.
NAPOLEON AND MARIE WALEWSKA
There are four women who may be said to have deeply influenced the life
of Napoleon. These four are the only ones who need to be taken into
account by the student of his imperial career. The great emperor was
susceptible to feminine charms at all times; but just as it used to be
said of him that "his smile never rose above his eyes," so it might as
truly be said that in most instances the throbbing of his heart did not
affect his actions.
Women to him were the creatures of the moment, although he might seem to
care for them and to show his affection in extravagant ways, as in his
affair with Mlle. Georges, the beautiful but rather tiresome actress.
As for Mme. de Stael, she bored him to distraction by her assumption
of wisdom. That was not the kind of woman that Napoleon cared for. He
preferred that a woman should be womanly, and not a sort of owl to sit
and talk with him about the theory of government.
When it came to married women they interested him only because of
the children they might bear to grow up as recruits for his insatiate
armies. At the public balls given at the Tuileries he would walk about
the gorgeous drawing-rooms, and when a lady was presented to him he
would snap out, sharply:
"How many children have you? "
If she were able to answer that she had several the emperor would look
pleased and would pay her some compliment; but if she said that she had
none he would turn upon her sharply and say:
"Then go home and have some! "
Of the four women who influenced his life, first must come Josephine,
because she secured him his earliest chance of advancement. She met him
through Barras, with whom she was said to be rather intimate. The young
soldier was fascinated by her--the more because she was older than he
and possessed all the practised arts of the creole and the woman of the
world. When she married him she brought him as her dowry the command of
the army of Italy, where in a few months he made the tri-color, borne by
ragged troops, triumphant over the splendidly equipped hosts of Austria.
She was his first love, and his knowledge of her perfidy gave him the
greatest shock and horror of his whole life; yet she might have held him
to the end if she had borne an heir to the imperial throne. It was her
failure to do so that led Napoleon to divorce Josephine and marry the
thick-lipped Marie Louise of Austria. There were times later when he
showed signs of regret and said:
"I have had no luck since I gave up Josephine! "
Marie Louise was of importance for a time--the short time when she
entertained her husband and delighted him by giving birth to the little
King of Rome. Yet in the end she was but an episode; fleeing from her
husband in his misfortune, becoming the mistress of Count Neipperg, and
letting her son--l'Aiglon--die in a land that was far from France.
Napoleon's sister, Pauline Bonaparte, was the third woman who comes to
mind when we contemplate the great Corsican's career. She, too, is an
episode. During the period of his ascendancy she plagued him with her
wanton ways, her sauciness and trickery. It was amusing to throw him
into one of his violent rages; but Pauline was true at heart, and when
her great brother was sent to Elba she followed him devotedly and gave
him all her store of jewels, including the famous Borghese diamonds,
perhaps the most superb of all gems known to the western world. She
would gladly have followed him, also, to St. Helena had she been
permitted. Remaining behind, she did everything possible in conspiring
to secure his freedom.
But, after all, Pauline and Marie Louise count for comparatively little.
Josephine's fate was interwoven with Napoleon's; and, with his Corsican
superstition, he often said so. The fourth woman, of whom I am writing
here, may be said to have almost equaled Josephine in her influence on
the emperor as well as in the pathos of her life-story.
On New-Year's Day of 1807 Napoleon, who was then almost Emperor of
Europe, passed through the little town of Bronia, in Poland. Riding with
his cavalry to Warsaw, the ancient capital of the Polish kingdom, he
seemed a very demigod of battle.
True, he had had to abandon his long-cherished design of invading and
overrunning England, and Nelson had shattered his fleets and practically
driven his flag from the sea; but the naval disaster of Trafalgar had
speedily been followed by the triumph of Austerlitz, the greatest and
most brilliant of all Napoleon's victories, which left Austria and
Russia humbled to the very ground before him.
Then Prussia had dared to defy the over-bearing conqueror and had put
into the field against him her armies trained by Frederick the Great;
but these he had shattered almost at a stroke, winning in one day the
decisive battles of Jena and Auerstadt. He had stabled his horses in
the royal palace of the Hohenzollerns and had pursued the remnant of the
Prussian forces to the Russian border.
As he marched into the Polish provinces the people swarmed by thousands
to meet him and hail him as their country's savior. They believed down
to the very last that Bonaparte would make the Poles once more a free
and independent nation and rescue them from the tyranny of Russia.
Napoleon played upon this feeling in every manner known to his artful
mind. He used it to alarm the Czar. He used it to intimidate the Emperor
of Austria; but more especially did he use it among the Poles themselves
to win for his armies thousands upon thousands of gallant soldiers, who
believed that in fighting for Napoleon they were fighting for the final
independence of their native land.
Therefore, with the intensity of patriotism which is a passion among the
Poles, every man and every woman gazed at Napoleon with something like
adoration; for was not he the mighty warrior who had in his gift what
all desired? Soldiers of every rank swarmed to his standards. Princes
and nobles flocked about him. Those who stayed at home repeated
wonderful stories of his victories and prayed for him and fed the flame
which spread through all the country. It was felt that no sacrifice was
too great to win his favor; that to him, as to a deity, everything that
he desired should be yielded up, since he was to restore the liberty of
Poland.
And hence, when the carriage of the emperor dashed into Bronia,
surrounded by Polish lancers and French cuirassiers, the enormous crowd
surged forward and blocked the way so that their hero could not pass
because of their cheers and cries and supplications.
In the midst of it all there came a voice of peculiar sweetness from the
thickest portion of the crowd.
"Please let me pass! " said the voice. "Let me see him, if only for a
moment! "
The populace rolled backward, and through the lane which they made a
beautiful girl with dark blue eyes that flamed and streaming hair that
had become loosened about her radiant face was confronting the emperor.
Carried away by her enthusiasm, she cried:
"Thrice welcome to Poland! We can do or say nothing to express our joy
in the country which you will surely deliver from its tyrant. "
The emperor bowed and, with a smile, handed a great bouquet of roses to
the girl, for her beauty and her enthusiasm had made a deep impression
on him.
"Take it," said he, "as a proof of my admiration. I trust that I may
have the pleasure of meeting you at Warsaw and of hearing your thanks
from those beautiful lips. "
In a moment more the trumpets rang out shrilly, the horsemen closed up
beside the imperial carriage, and it rolled away amid the tumultuous
shouting of the populace.
The girl who had so attracted Napoleon's attention was Marie Walewska,
descended from an ancient though impoverished family in Poland. When she
was only fifteen she was courted by one of the wealthiest men in Poland,
the Count Walewska. He was three or four times her age, yet her dark
blue eyes, her massive golden hair, and the exquisite grace of her
figure led him to plead that she might become his wife. She had accepted
him, but the marriage was that of a mere child, and her interest still
centered upon her country and took the form of patriotism rather than
that of wifehood and maternity.
It was for this reason that the young Countess had visited Bronia. She
was now eighteen years of age and still had the sort of romantic feeling
which led her to think that she would keep in some secret hiding-place
the bouquet which the greatest man alive had given her.
But Napoleon was not the sort of man to forget anything that had given
him either pleasure or the reverse. He who, at the height of his cares,
could recall instantly how many cannon were in each seaport of France
and could make out an accurate list of all his military stores; he who
could call by name every soldier in his guard, with a full remembrance
of the battles each man had fought in and the honors that he had won--he
was not likely to forget so lovely a face as the one which had gleamed
with peculiar radiance through the crowd at Bronia.
On reaching Warsaw he asked one or two well-informed persons about
this beautiful stranger. Only a few hours had passed before Prince
Poniatowski, accompanied by other nobles, called upon her at her home.
"I am directed, madam," said he, "by order of the Emperor of France,
to bid you to be present at a ball that is to be given in his honor
to-morrow evening. "
Mme. Walewska was startled, and her face grew hot with blushes. Did the
emperor remember her escapade at Bronia? If so, how had he discovered
her? Why should he seek her out and do her such an honor?
"That, madam, is his imperial majesty's affair," Poniatowski told her.
"I merely obey his instructions and ask your presence at the ball.
Perhaps Heaven has marked you out to be the means of saving our unhappy
country. "
In this way, by playing on her patriotism, Poniatowski almost persuaded
her, and yet something held her back. She trembled, though she was
greatly fascinated; and finally she refused to go.
Scarcely had the envoy left her, however, when a great company of nobles
entered in groups and begged her to humor the emperor. Finally her own
husband joined in their entreaties and actually commanded her to go; so
at last she was compelled to yield.
It was by no means the frank and radiant girl who was now preparing
again to meet the emperor. She knew not why, and yet her heart was full
of trepidation and nervous fright, the cause of which she could not
guess, yet which made her task a severe ordeal. She dressed herself in
white satin, with no adornment save a wreath of foliage in her hair.
As she entered the ballroom she was welcomed by hundreds whom she had
never seen before, but who were of the highest nobility of Poland.
Murmurs of admiration followed her, and finally Poniatowski came to her
and complimented her, besides bringing her a message that the emperor
desired her to dance with him.
"I am very sorry," she said, with a quiver of the lips, "but I really
cannot dance. Be kind enough to ask the emperor to excuse me. "
But at that very moment she felt some strange magnetic influence; and
without looking up she could feel that Napoleon himself was standing by
her as she sat with blanched face and downcast eyes, not daring to look
up at him.
"White upon white is a mistake, madam," said the emperor, in his
gentlest tones. Then, stooping low, he whispered, "I had expected a far
different reception. "
She neither smiled nor met his eyes. He stood there for a moment and
then passed on, leaving her to return to her home with a heavy heart.
The young countess felt that she had acted wrongly, and yet there was an
instinct--an instinct that she could not conquer.
In the gray of the morning, while she was still tossing feverishly, her
maid knocked at the door and brought her a hastily scribbled note. It
ran as follows:
I saw none but you, I admired none but you; I desire only you. Answer at
once, and calm the impatient ardor of--N.
These passionate words burned from her eyes the veil that had hidden
the truth from her. What before had been mere blind instinct became an
actual verity. Why had she at first rushed forth into the very streets
to hail the possible deliverer of her country, and then why had she
shrunk from him when he sought to honor her! It was all clear enough
now. This bedside missive meant that he had intended her dishonor and
that he had looked upon her simply as a possible mistress.
At once she crushed the note angrily in her hand.
"There is no answer at all," said she, bursting into bitter tears at the
very thought that he should dare to treat her in this way.
But on the following morning when she awoke her maid was standing beside
her with a second letter from Napoleon. She refused to open it and
placed it in a packet with the first letter, and ordered that both of
them should be returned to the emperor.
She shrank from speaking to her husband of what had happened, and there
was no one else in whom she dared confide. All through that day there
came hundreds of visitors, either of princely rank or men who had won
fame by their gallantry and courage. They all begged to see her, but to
them all she sent one answer--that she was ill and could see no one.
After a time her husband burst into her room, and insisted that she
should see them.
"Why," exclaimed he, "you are insulting the greatest men and the
noblest women of Poland! More than that, there are some of the most
distinguished Frenchmen sitting at your doorstep, as it were. There
is Duroc, grand marshal of France, and in refusing to see him you are
insulting the great emperor on whom depends everything that our country
longs for. Napoleon has invited you to a state dinner and you have given
him no answer whatever. I order you to rise at once and receive these
ladies and gentlemen who have done you so much honor! "
She could not refuse. Presently she appeared in her drawing-room, where
she was at once surrounded by an immense throng of her own countrymen
and countrywomen, who made no pretense of misunderstanding the
situation. To them, what was one woman's honor when compared with
the freedom and independence of their nation? She was overwhelmed by
arguments and entreaties. She was even accused of being disloyal to the
cause of Poland if she refused her consent.
One of the strangest documents of that period was a letter sent to her
and signed by the noblest men in Poland. It contained a powerful appeal
to her patriotism. One remarkable passage even quotes the Bible to point
out her line of duty. A portion of this letter ran as follows:
Did Esther, think you, give herself to Ahasuerus out of the fulness of
her love for him? So great was the terror with which he inspired her
that she fainted at the sight of him. We may therefore conclude that
affection had but little to do with her resolve. She sacrificed her own
inclinations to the salvation of her country, and that salvation it was
her glory to achieve. May we be enabled to say the same of you, to your
glory and our own happiness!
After this letter came others from Napoleon himself, full of the
most humble pleading. It was not wholly distasteful thus to have the
conqueror of the world seek her out and offer her his adoration any
more than it was distasteful to think that the revival of her own nation
depended on her single will. M. Frederic Masson, whose minute studies
regarding everything relating to Napoleon have won him a seat in the
French Academy, writes of Marie Walewska at this time: Every force
was now brought into play against her. Her country, her friends, her
religion, the Old and the New Testaments, all urged her to yield; they
all combined for the ruin of a simple and inexperienced girl of eighteen
who had no parents, whose husband even thrust her into temptation, and
whose friends thought that her downfall would be her glory.
Amid all these powerful influences she consented to attend the dinner.
To her gratification Napoleon treated her with distant courtesy, and, in
fact, with a certain coldness.
"I heard that Mme. Walewska was indisposed. I trust that she has
recovered," was all the greeting that he gave her when they met.
Every one else with whom she spoke overwhelmed her with flattery and
with continued urging; but the emperor himself for a time acted as if
she had displeased him. This was consummate art; for as soon as she was
relieved of her fears she began to regret that she had thrown her power
away.
During the dinner she let her eyes wander to those of the emperor almost
in supplication. He, the subtlest of men, knew that he had won. His
marvelous eyes met hers and drew her attention to him as by an electric
current; and when the ladies left the great dining-room Napoleon sought
her out and whispered in her ear a few words of ardent love.
It was too little to alarm her seriously now. It was enough to make
her feel that magnetism which Napoleon knew so well how to evoke and
exercise. Again every one crowded about her with congratulations. Some
said:
"He never even saw any of US. His eyes were all for YOU! They flashed
fire as he looked at you. "
"You have conquered his heart," others said, "and you can do what you
like with him. The salvation of Poland is in your hands. "
The company broke up at an early hour, but Mme. Walewska was asked to
remain. When she was alone General Duroc--one of the emperor's favorite
officers and most trusted lieutenants--entered and placed a letter from
Napoleon in her lap. He tried to tell her as tactfully as possible how
much harm she was doing by refusing the imperial request. She was deeply
affected, and presently, when Duroc left her, she opened the letter
which he had given her and read it. It was worded thus:
There are times when all splendors become oppressive, as I feel but too
deeply at the present moment. How can I satisfy the desires of a heart
that yearns to cast itself at your feet, when its impulses are checked
at every point by considerations of the highest moment? Oh, if you
would, you alone might overcome the obstacles that keep us apart. MY
FRIEND DUROC WILL MAKE ALL EASY FOR YOU. Oh, come, come! Your every wish
shall be gratified! Your country will be dearer to me when you take pity
on my poor heart. N.
Every chance of escape seemed to be closed. She had Napoleon's own word
that he would free Poland in return for her self-sacrifice. Moreover,
her powers of resistance had been so weakened that, like many women, she
temporized. She decided that she would meet the emperor alone. She would
tell him that she did not love him, and yet would plead with him to save
her beloved country.
As she sat there every tick of the clock stirred her to a new
excitement. At last there came a knock upon the door, a cloak was thrown
about her from behind, a heavy veil was drooped about her golden hair,
and she was led, by whom she knew not, to the street, where a finely
appointed carriage was waiting for her.
No sooner had she entered it than she was driven rapidly through the
darkness to the beautifully carved entrance of a palace. Half led, half
carried, she was taken up the steps to a door which was eagerly opened
by some one within. There were warmth and light and color and the scent
of flowers as she was placed in a comfortable arm-chair. Her wrappings
were taken from her, the door was closed behind her; and then, as
she looked up, she found herself in the presence of Napoleon, who was
kneeling at her feet and uttering soothing words.
Wisely, the emperor used no violence. He merely argued with her; he told
her over and over his love for her; and finally he declared that for her
sake he would make Poland once again a strong and splendid kingdom.
Several hours passed. In the early morning, before daylight, there came
a knock at the door.
"Already? " said Napoleon. "Well, my plaintive dove, go home and rest.
You must not fear the eagle. In time you will come to love him, and in
all things you shall command him. "
Then he led her to the door, but said that he would not open it unless
she promised to see him the next day--a promise which she gave the more
readily because he had treated her with such respect.
On the following morning her faithful maid came to her bedside with
a cluster of beautiful violets, a letter, and several daintily made
morocco cases. When these were opened there leaped out strings and
necklaces of exquisite diamonds, blazing in the morning sunlight. Mme.
Walewska seized the jewels and flung them across the room with an order
that they should be taken back at once to the imperial giver; but
the letter, which was in the same romantic strain as the others, she
retained.
On that same evening there was another dinner, given to the emperor by
the nobles, and Marie Walewska attended it, but of course without the
diamonds, which she had returned. Nor did she wear the flowers which had
accompanied the diamonds.
When Napoleon met her he frowned upon her and made her tremble with the
cold glances that shot from his eyes of steel. He scarcely spoke to her
throughout the meal, but those who sat beside her were earnest in their
pleading.
Again she waited until the guests had gone away, and with a lighter
heart, since she felt that she had nothing to fear. But when she met
Napoleon in his private cabinet, alone, his mood was very different from
that which he had shown before. Instead of gentleness and consideration
he was the Napoleon of camps, and not of courts. He greeted her bruskly.
"I scarcely expected to see you again," said he. "Why did you refuse
my diamonds and my flowers? Why did you avoid my eyes at dinner? Your
coldness is an insult which I shall not brook. " Then he raised his voice
to that rasping, almost blood-curdling tone which even his hardiest
soldiers dreaded: "I will have you know that I mean to conquer you. You
SHALL--yes, I repeat it, you SHALL love me! I have restored the name of
your country. It owes its very existence to me. "
Then he resorted to a trick which he had played years before in dealing
with the Austrians at Campo Formio.
"See this watch which I am holding in my hand. Just as I dash it to
fragments before you, so will I shatter Poland if you drive me to
desperation by rejecting my heart and refusing me your own. "
As he spoke he hurled the watch against the opposite wall with terrific
force, dashing it to pieces. In terror, Mme. Walewska fainted. When she
resumed consciousness there was Napoleon wiping away her tears with the
tenderness of a woman and with words of self-reproach.
The long siege was over. Napoleon had conquered, and this girl of
eighteen gave herself up to his caresses and endearments, thinking that,
after all, her love of country was more than her own honor.
Her husband, as a matter of form, put her away from him, though at heart
he approved what she had done, while the Polish people regarded her as
nothing less than a national heroine. To them she was no minister to the
vices of an emperor, but rather one who would make him love Poland for
her sake and restore its greatness.
So far as concerned his love for her, it was, indeed, almost idolatry.
He honored her in every way and spent all the time at his disposal
in her company. But his promise to restore Poland he never kept, and
gradually she found that he had never meant to keep it.
"I love your country," he would say, "and I am willing to aid in the
attempt to uphold its rights, but my first duty is to France. I cannot
shed French blood in a foreign cause. "
By this time, however, Marie Walewska had learned to love Napoleon for
his own sake. She could not resist his ardor, which matched the ardor
of the Poles themselves. Moreover, it flattered her to see the greatest
soldier in the world a suppliant for her smiles.
For some years she was Napoleon's close companion, spending long hours
with him and finally accompanying him to Paris. She was the mother of
Napoleon's only son who lived to manhood. This son, who bore the name of
Alexandre Florian de Walewski, was born in Poland in 1810, and later
was created a count and duke of the second French Empire. It may be said
parenthetically that he was a man of great ability. Living down to 1868,
he was made much of by Napoleon III. , who placed him in high offices
of state, which he filled with distinction. In contrast with the Duc
de Morny, who was Napoleon's illegitimate half-brother, Alexandre de
Walewski stood out in brilliant contrast. He would have nothing to do
with stock-jobbing and unseemly speculation.
"I may be poor," he said--though he was not poor--"but at least I
remember the glory of my father and what is due to his great name. "
As for Mme. Walewska, she was loyal to the emperor, and lacked the greed
of many women whom he had made his favorites. Even at Elba, when he
was in exile and disgrace, she visited him that she might endeavor to
console him. She was his counselor and friend as well as his earnestly
loved mate. When she died in Paris in 1817, while the dethroned emperor
was a prisoner at St. Helena, the word "Napoleon" was the last upon her
lips.
THE STORY OF PAULINE BONAPARTE
It was said of Napoleon long ago that he could govern emperors and
kings, but that not even he could rule his relatives. He himself once
declared:
"My family have done me far more harm than I have been able to do them
good. "
It would be an interesting historical study to determine just how far
the great soldier's family aided in his downfall by their selfishness,
their jealousy, their meanness, and their ingratitude.
There is something piquant in thinking of Napoleon as a domestic sort of
person. Indeed, it is rather difficult to do so. When we speak his name
we think of the stern warrior hurling his armies up bloody slopes and on
to bloody victory. He is the man whose steely eyes made his haughtiest
marshals tremble, or else the wise, far-seeing statesman and lawgiver;
but decidedly he is not a household model. We read of his sharp speech
to women, of his outrageous manners at the dinner-table, and of the
thousand and one details which Mme. de Remusat has chronicled--and
perhaps in part invented, for there has always existed the suspicion
that her animus was that of a woman who had herself sought the imperial
favor and had failed to win it.
But, in fact, all these stories relate to the Napoleon of courts and
palaces, and not to the Napoleon of home. In his private life this great
man was not merely affectionate and indulgent, but he even showed a
certain weakness where his relatives were concerned, so that he let them
prey upon him almost without end.
He had a great deal of the Italian largeness and lavishness of character
with his family. When a petty officer he nearly starved himself in
order to give his younger brother, Louis, a military education. He was
devotedly fond of children, and they were fond of him, as many anecdotes
attest. His passionate love for Josephine before he learned of her
infidelity is almost painful to read of; and even afterward, when he had
been disillusioned, and when she was paying Fouche a thousand francs
a day to spy upon Napoleon's every action, he still treated her with
friendliness and allowed her extravagance to embarrass him.
He made his eldest brother, Joseph, King of Spain, and Spain proved
almost as deadly to him as did Russia. He made his youngest brother,
Jerome, King of Westphalia, and Jerome turned the palace into a pigsty
and brought discredit on the very name of Bonaparte. His brother Louis,
for whom he had starved himself, he placed upon the throne of Holland,
and Louis promptly devoted himself to his own interests, conniving
at many things which were inimical to France. He was planning high
advancement for his brother Lucien, and Lucien suddenly married a
disreputable actress and fled with her to England, where he was received
with pleasure by the most persistent of all Napoleon's enemies.
So much for his brothers--incompetent, ungrateful, or openly his foes.
But his three sisters were no less remarkable in the relations which
they bore to him. They have been styled "the three crowned courtesans,"
and they have been condemned together as being utterly void of principle
and monsters of ingratitude.
Much of this censure was well deserved by all of them--by Caroline and
Elise and Pauline. But when we look at the facts impartially we shall
find something which makes Pauline stand out alone as infinitely
superior to her sisters.
She did not, however, spend her girlish years amid the fields and woods
tending her sheep, as did the other Jeanne d'Arc; but she was placed
in charge of the sisters in a convent, and from them she received such
education as she had. She was a lonely child, and her thoughts turned
inward, brooding over many things.
After she had left the convent she was sent to live with an aunt. Here
she devoted herself to reading over and over the few books which
the house contained. These consisted largely of the deistic writers,
especially Voltaire, and to some extent they destroyed her convent
faith, though it is not likely that she understood them very fully.
More to her taste was a copy of Plutarch's Lives. These famous stories
fascinated her. They told her of battle and siege, of intrigue and
heroism, and of that romantic love of country which led men to throw
away their lives for the sake of a whole people. Brutus and Regulus were
her heroes. To die for the many seemed to her the most glorious end that
any one could seek. When she thought of it she thrilled with a sort
of ecstasy, and longed with all the passion of her nature that such a
glorious fate might be her own.
Charlotte had nearly come to womanhood at the time when the French
Revolution first broke out. Royalist though she had been in her
sympathies, she felt the justice of the people's cause. She had seen the
suffering of the peasantry, the brutality of the tax-gatherers, and all
the oppression of the old regime. But what she hoped for was a
democracy of order and equality and peace. Could the king reign as a
constitutional monarch rather than as a despot, this was all for which
she cared.
In Normandy, where she lived, were many of those moderate republicans
known as Girondists, who felt as she did and who hoped for the same
peaceful end to the great outbreak. On the other hand, in Paris, the
party of the Mountain, as it was called, ruled with a savage violence
that soon was to culminate in the Reign of Terror. Already the
guillotine ran red with noble blood. Already the king had bowed his head
to the fatal knife. Already the threat had gone forth that a mere breath
of suspicion or a pointed finger might be enough to lead men and women
to a gory death.
In her quiet home near Caen Charlotte Corday heard as from afar the
story of this dreadful saturnalia of assassination which was making
Paris a city of bloody mist. Men and women of the Girondist party came
to tell her of the hideous deeds that were perpetrated there. All these
horrors gradually wove themselves in the young girl's imagination around
the sinister and repulsive figure of Jean Paul Marat. She knew nothing
of his associates, Danton and Robespierre. It was in Marat alone that
she saw the monster who sent innocent thousands to their graves, and who
reveled like some arch-fiend in murder and gruesome death.
In his earlier years Marat had been a very different figure--an
accomplished physician, the friend of nobles, a man of science and
original thought, so that he was nearly elected to the Academy of
Sciences. His studies in electricity gained for him the admiration
of Benjamin Franklin and the praise of Goethe. But when he turned to
politics he left all this career behind him. He plunged into the very
mire of red republicanism, and even there he was for a time so much
hated that he sought refuge in London to save his life.
On his return he was hunted by his enemies, so that his only place
of refuge was in the sewers and drains of Paris. A woman, one Simonne
Evrard, helped him to escape his pursuers. In the sewers, however,
he contracted a dreadful skin-disease from which he never afterward
recovered, and which was extremely painful as well as shocking to
behold.
It is small wonder that the stories about Marat circulated through the
provinces made him seem more a devil than a man. His vindictiveness
against the Girondists brought all of this straight home to Charlotte
Corday and led her to dream of acting the part of Brutus, so that she
might free her country from this hideous tyrant.
In January, 1793, King Louis XVI. met his death upon the scaffold; and
the queen was thrust into a foul prison. This was a signal for activity
among the Girondists in Normandy, and especially at Caen, where
Charlotte was present at their meetings and heard their fervid oratory.
There was a plot to march on Paris, yet in some instinctive way she felt
that such a scheme must fail. It was then that she definitely formed
the plan of going herself, alone, to the French capital to seek out the
hideous Marat and to kill him with her own hands.
To this end she made application for a passport allowing her to
visit Paris. This passport still exists, and it gives us an official
description of the girl. It reads:
Allow citizen Marie Corday to pass. She is twenty-four years of age,
five feet and one inch in height, hair and eyebrows chestnut color, eyes
gray, forehead high, mouth medium size, chin dimpled, and an oval face.
Apart from this verbal description we have two portraits painted while
she was in prison. Both of them make the description of the passport
seem faint and pale. The real Charlotte had a wealth of chestnut hair
which fell about her face and neck in glorious abundance. Her great
gray eyes spoke eloquently of truth and courage. Her mouth was firm yet
winsome, and her form combined both strength and grace. Such is the girl
who, on reaching Paris, wrote to Marat in these words:
Citizen, I have just arrived from Caen. Your love for your native place
doubtless makes you wish to learn the events which have occurred in that
part of the republic. I shall call at your residence in about an hour.
Be so good as to receive me and give me a brief interview. I will put
you in such condition as to render great service to France.
This letter failed to gain her admission, and so did another which she
wrote soon after. The fact is that Marat was grievously ill. His disease
had reached a point where the pain could be assuaged only by hot water;
and he spent the greater part of his time wrapped in a blanket and lying
in a large tub.
A third time, however, the persistent girl called at his house and
insisted that she must see him, saying that she was herself in danger
from the enemies of the Republic. Through an open door Marat heard her
mellow voice and gave orders that she should be admitted.
As she entered she gazed for a moment upon the lank figure rolling in
the tub, the rat-like face, and the shifting eyes. Then she approached
him, concealing in the bosom of her dress a long carving-knife which she
had purchased for two francs. In answer to Marat's questioning look she
told him that there was much excitement at Caen and that the Girondists
were plotting there.
To this Marat answered, in his harsh voice:
"All these men you mention shall be guillotined in the next few days! "
As he spoke Charlotte flashed out the terrible knife and with all her
strength she plunged it into his left side, where it pierced a lung and
a portion of his heart.
Marat, with the blood gushing from his mouth, cried out:
"Help, darling! "
His cry was meant for one of the two women in the house. Both heard it,
for they were in the next room; and both of them rushed in and succeeded
in pinioning Charlotte Corday, who, indeed, made only a slight effort to
escape. Troops were summoned, she was taken to the Prison de l'Abbaye,
and soon after she was arraigned before the revolutionary tribunal.
Placed in the dock, she glanced about her with an air of pride, as
of one who gloried in the act which she had just performed. A written
charge was read. She was asked what she had to say. Lifting her head
with a look of infinite satisfaction, she answered in a ringing voice:
"Nothing--except that I succeeded! "
A lawyer was assigned for her defense. He pleaded for her earnestly,
declaring that she must he regarded as insane; but those clear, calm
eyes and that gentle face made her sanity a matter of little doubt.
She showed her quick wit in the answers which she gave to the rough
prosecutor, Fouquier-Tinville, who tried to make her confess that she
had accomplices.
"Who prompted you to do this deed? " roared Tinville.
"I needed no prompting. My own heart was sufficient. "
"In what, then, had Marat wronged you? "
"He was a savage beast who was going to destroy the remains of France in
the fires of civil war. "
"But whom did you expect to benefit? " insinuated the prosecutor.
"I have killed one man to save a hundred thousand. "
"What? Did you imagine that you had murdered all the Marats? "
"No, but, this one being dead, the rest will perhaps take warning. "
Thus her directness baffled all the efforts of the prosecution to trap
her into betraying any of her friends. The court, however, sentenced her
to death. She was then immured in the Conciergerie.
This dramatic court scene was the beginning of that strange, brief
romance to which one can scarcely find a parallel. At the time there
lived in Paris a young German named Adam Lux. The continual talk about
Charlotte Corday had filled him with curiosity regarding this young girl
who had been so daring and so patriotic. She was denounced on every hand
as a murderess with the face of a Medusa and the muscles of a Vulcan.
Street songs about her were dinned into the ears of Adam Lux.
As a student of human nature he was anxious to see this terrible
creature. He forced his way to the front of the crowded benches in the
court-room and took his stand behind a young artist who was finishing a
beautiful sketch. From that moment until the end of the trial the
eyes of Adam Lux were fastened on the prisoner. What a contrast to the
picture he had imagined!
A mass of regal chestnut hair crowned with the white cap of a Norman
peasant girl; gray eyes, very sad and serious, but looking serenely
forth from under long, dark lashes; lips slightly curved with an
expression of quiet humor; a face the color of the sun and wind, a
bust indicative of perfect health, the chin of a Caesar, and the whole
expression one of almost divine self-sacrifice. Such were the features
that the painter was swiftly putting upon his canvas; but behind them
Adam Lux discerned the soul for which he gladly sacrificed both his
liberty and his life.
He forgot his surroundings and seemed to see only that beautiful, pure
face and to hear only the exquisite cadences of the wonderful voice.
When Charlotte was led forth by a file of soldiers Adam staggered from
the scene and made his way as best he might to his lodgings. There he
lay prostrate, his whole soul filled with the love of her who had in an
instant won the adoration of his heart.
Once, and only once again, when the last scene opened on the tragedy,
did he behold the heroine of his dreams.
On the 17th of July Charlotte Corday was taken from her prison to the
gloomy guillotine. It was toward evening, and nature had given a setting
fit for such an end. Blue-black thunder-clouds rolled in huge masses
across the sky until their base appeared to rest on the very summit of
the guillotine. Distant thunder rolled and grumbled beyond the river.
Great drops of rain fell upon the soldiers' drums. Young, beautiful,
unconscious of any wrong, Charlotte Corday stood beneath the shadow of
the knife.
At the supreme moment a sudden ray from the setting sun broke through
the cloud-wrack and fell upon her slender figure until she glowed in the
eyes of the startled spectators like a statue cut in burnished bronze.
Thus illumined, as it were, by a light from heaven itself, she
bowed herself beneath the knife and paid the penalty of a noble, if
misdirected, impulse. As the blade fell her lips quivered with her last
and only plea:
"My duty is enough--the rest is nothing! "
Adam Lux rushed from the scene a man transformed. He bore graven upon
his heart neither the mob of tossing red caps nor the glare of the
sunset nor the blood-stained guillotine, but that last look from
those brilliant eyes. The sight almost deprived him of his reason. The
self-sacrifice of the only woman he had ever loved, even though she had
never so much as seen him, impelled him with a sort of fury to his own
destruction.
He wrote a bitter denunciation of the judges, of the officers, and
of all who had been followers of Marat. This document he printed,
and scattered copies of it through every quarter in Paris. The last
sentences are as follows:
The guillotine is no longer a disgrace. It has become a sacred altar,
from which every taint has been removed by the innocent blood shed
there on the 17th of July. Forgive me, my divine Charlotte, if I find
it impossible at the last moment to show the courage and the gentleness
that were yours! I glory because you are superior to me, for it is
right that she who is adored should be higher and more glorious than her
adorer!
This pamphlet, spread broadcast among the people, was soon reported to
the leaders of the rabble. Adam Lux was arrested for treason against
the Republic; but even these men had no desire to make a martyr of this
hot-headed youth. They would stop his mouth without taking his life.
Therefore he was tried and speedily found guilty, but an offer was
made him that he might have passports that would allow him to return to
Germany if only he would sign a retraction of his printed words.
Little did the judges understand the fiery heart of the man they had
to deal with. To die on the same scaffold as the woman whom he had
idealized was to him the crowning triumph of his romantic love. He gave
a prompt and insolent refusal to their offer. He swore that if released
he would denounce his darling's murderers with a still greater passion.
In anger the tribunal sentenced him to death. Only then he smiled and
thanked his judges courteously, and soon after went blithely to the
guillotine like a bridegroom to his marriage feast.
Adam Lux! Spirit courtship had been carried on silently all through that
terrible cross-examination of Charlotte Corday. His heart was betrothed
to hers in that single gleam of the setting sun when she bowed beneath
the knife. One may believe that these two souls were finally united
when the same knife fell sullenly upon his neck and when his life-blood
sprinkled the altar that was still stained with hers.
NAPOLEON AND MARIE WALEWSKA
There are four women who may be said to have deeply influenced the life
of Napoleon. These four are the only ones who need to be taken into
account by the student of his imperial career. The great emperor was
susceptible to feminine charms at all times; but just as it used to be
said of him that "his smile never rose above his eyes," so it might as
truly be said that in most instances the throbbing of his heart did not
affect his actions.
Women to him were the creatures of the moment, although he might seem to
care for them and to show his affection in extravagant ways, as in his
affair with Mlle. Georges, the beautiful but rather tiresome actress.
As for Mme. de Stael, she bored him to distraction by her assumption
of wisdom. That was not the kind of woman that Napoleon cared for. He
preferred that a woman should be womanly, and not a sort of owl to sit
and talk with him about the theory of government.
When it came to married women they interested him only because of
the children they might bear to grow up as recruits for his insatiate
armies. At the public balls given at the Tuileries he would walk about
the gorgeous drawing-rooms, and when a lady was presented to him he
would snap out, sharply:
"How many children have you? "
If she were able to answer that she had several the emperor would look
pleased and would pay her some compliment; but if she said that she had
none he would turn upon her sharply and say:
"Then go home and have some! "
Of the four women who influenced his life, first must come Josephine,
because she secured him his earliest chance of advancement. She met him
through Barras, with whom she was said to be rather intimate. The young
soldier was fascinated by her--the more because she was older than he
and possessed all the practised arts of the creole and the woman of the
world. When she married him she brought him as her dowry the command of
the army of Italy, where in a few months he made the tri-color, borne by
ragged troops, triumphant over the splendidly equipped hosts of Austria.
She was his first love, and his knowledge of her perfidy gave him the
greatest shock and horror of his whole life; yet she might have held him
to the end if she had borne an heir to the imperial throne. It was her
failure to do so that led Napoleon to divorce Josephine and marry the
thick-lipped Marie Louise of Austria. There were times later when he
showed signs of regret and said:
"I have had no luck since I gave up Josephine! "
Marie Louise was of importance for a time--the short time when she
entertained her husband and delighted him by giving birth to the little
King of Rome. Yet in the end she was but an episode; fleeing from her
husband in his misfortune, becoming the mistress of Count Neipperg, and
letting her son--l'Aiglon--die in a land that was far from France.
Napoleon's sister, Pauline Bonaparte, was the third woman who comes to
mind when we contemplate the great Corsican's career. She, too, is an
episode. During the period of his ascendancy she plagued him with her
wanton ways, her sauciness and trickery. It was amusing to throw him
into one of his violent rages; but Pauline was true at heart, and when
her great brother was sent to Elba she followed him devotedly and gave
him all her store of jewels, including the famous Borghese diamonds,
perhaps the most superb of all gems known to the western world. She
would gladly have followed him, also, to St. Helena had she been
permitted. Remaining behind, she did everything possible in conspiring
to secure his freedom.
But, after all, Pauline and Marie Louise count for comparatively little.
Josephine's fate was interwoven with Napoleon's; and, with his Corsican
superstition, he often said so. The fourth woman, of whom I am writing
here, may be said to have almost equaled Josephine in her influence on
the emperor as well as in the pathos of her life-story.
On New-Year's Day of 1807 Napoleon, who was then almost Emperor of
Europe, passed through the little town of Bronia, in Poland. Riding with
his cavalry to Warsaw, the ancient capital of the Polish kingdom, he
seemed a very demigod of battle.
True, he had had to abandon his long-cherished design of invading and
overrunning England, and Nelson had shattered his fleets and practically
driven his flag from the sea; but the naval disaster of Trafalgar had
speedily been followed by the triumph of Austerlitz, the greatest and
most brilliant of all Napoleon's victories, which left Austria and
Russia humbled to the very ground before him.
Then Prussia had dared to defy the over-bearing conqueror and had put
into the field against him her armies trained by Frederick the Great;
but these he had shattered almost at a stroke, winning in one day the
decisive battles of Jena and Auerstadt. He had stabled his horses in
the royal palace of the Hohenzollerns and had pursued the remnant of the
Prussian forces to the Russian border.
As he marched into the Polish provinces the people swarmed by thousands
to meet him and hail him as their country's savior. They believed down
to the very last that Bonaparte would make the Poles once more a free
and independent nation and rescue them from the tyranny of Russia.
Napoleon played upon this feeling in every manner known to his artful
mind. He used it to alarm the Czar. He used it to intimidate the Emperor
of Austria; but more especially did he use it among the Poles themselves
to win for his armies thousands upon thousands of gallant soldiers, who
believed that in fighting for Napoleon they were fighting for the final
independence of their native land.
Therefore, with the intensity of patriotism which is a passion among the
Poles, every man and every woman gazed at Napoleon with something like
adoration; for was not he the mighty warrior who had in his gift what
all desired? Soldiers of every rank swarmed to his standards. Princes
and nobles flocked about him. Those who stayed at home repeated
wonderful stories of his victories and prayed for him and fed the flame
which spread through all the country. It was felt that no sacrifice was
too great to win his favor; that to him, as to a deity, everything that
he desired should be yielded up, since he was to restore the liberty of
Poland.
And hence, when the carriage of the emperor dashed into Bronia,
surrounded by Polish lancers and French cuirassiers, the enormous crowd
surged forward and blocked the way so that their hero could not pass
because of their cheers and cries and supplications.
In the midst of it all there came a voice of peculiar sweetness from the
thickest portion of the crowd.
"Please let me pass! " said the voice. "Let me see him, if only for a
moment! "
The populace rolled backward, and through the lane which they made a
beautiful girl with dark blue eyes that flamed and streaming hair that
had become loosened about her radiant face was confronting the emperor.
Carried away by her enthusiasm, she cried:
"Thrice welcome to Poland! We can do or say nothing to express our joy
in the country which you will surely deliver from its tyrant. "
The emperor bowed and, with a smile, handed a great bouquet of roses to
the girl, for her beauty and her enthusiasm had made a deep impression
on him.
"Take it," said he, "as a proof of my admiration. I trust that I may
have the pleasure of meeting you at Warsaw and of hearing your thanks
from those beautiful lips. "
In a moment more the trumpets rang out shrilly, the horsemen closed up
beside the imperial carriage, and it rolled away amid the tumultuous
shouting of the populace.
The girl who had so attracted Napoleon's attention was Marie Walewska,
descended from an ancient though impoverished family in Poland. When she
was only fifteen she was courted by one of the wealthiest men in Poland,
the Count Walewska. He was three or four times her age, yet her dark
blue eyes, her massive golden hair, and the exquisite grace of her
figure led him to plead that she might become his wife. She had accepted
him, but the marriage was that of a mere child, and her interest still
centered upon her country and took the form of patriotism rather than
that of wifehood and maternity.
It was for this reason that the young Countess had visited Bronia. She
was now eighteen years of age and still had the sort of romantic feeling
which led her to think that she would keep in some secret hiding-place
the bouquet which the greatest man alive had given her.
But Napoleon was not the sort of man to forget anything that had given
him either pleasure or the reverse. He who, at the height of his cares,
could recall instantly how many cannon were in each seaport of France
and could make out an accurate list of all his military stores; he who
could call by name every soldier in his guard, with a full remembrance
of the battles each man had fought in and the honors that he had won--he
was not likely to forget so lovely a face as the one which had gleamed
with peculiar radiance through the crowd at Bronia.
On reaching Warsaw he asked one or two well-informed persons about
this beautiful stranger. Only a few hours had passed before Prince
Poniatowski, accompanied by other nobles, called upon her at her home.
"I am directed, madam," said he, "by order of the Emperor of France,
to bid you to be present at a ball that is to be given in his honor
to-morrow evening. "
Mme. Walewska was startled, and her face grew hot with blushes. Did the
emperor remember her escapade at Bronia? If so, how had he discovered
her? Why should he seek her out and do her such an honor?
"That, madam, is his imperial majesty's affair," Poniatowski told her.
"I merely obey his instructions and ask your presence at the ball.
Perhaps Heaven has marked you out to be the means of saving our unhappy
country. "
In this way, by playing on her patriotism, Poniatowski almost persuaded
her, and yet something held her back. She trembled, though she was
greatly fascinated; and finally she refused to go.
Scarcely had the envoy left her, however, when a great company of nobles
entered in groups and begged her to humor the emperor. Finally her own
husband joined in their entreaties and actually commanded her to go; so
at last she was compelled to yield.
It was by no means the frank and radiant girl who was now preparing
again to meet the emperor. She knew not why, and yet her heart was full
of trepidation and nervous fright, the cause of which she could not
guess, yet which made her task a severe ordeal. She dressed herself in
white satin, with no adornment save a wreath of foliage in her hair.
As she entered the ballroom she was welcomed by hundreds whom she had
never seen before, but who were of the highest nobility of Poland.
Murmurs of admiration followed her, and finally Poniatowski came to her
and complimented her, besides bringing her a message that the emperor
desired her to dance with him.
"I am very sorry," she said, with a quiver of the lips, "but I really
cannot dance. Be kind enough to ask the emperor to excuse me. "
But at that very moment she felt some strange magnetic influence; and
without looking up she could feel that Napoleon himself was standing by
her as she sat with blanched face and downcast eyes, not daring to look
up at him.
"White upon white is a mistake, madam," said the emperor, in his
gentlest tones. Then, stooping low, he whispered, "I had expected a far
different reception. "
She neither smiled nor met his eyes. He stood there for a moment and
then passed on, leaving her to return to her home with a heavy heart.
The young countess felt that she had acted wrongly, and yet there was an
instinct--an instinct that she could not conquer.
In the gray of the morning, while she was still tossing feverishly, her
maid knocked at the door and brought her a hastily scribbled note. It
ran as follows:
I saw none but you, I admired none but you; I desire only you. Answer at
once, and calm the impatient ardor of--N.
These passionate words burned from her eyes the veil that had hidden
the truth from her. What before had been mere blind instinct became an
actual verity. Why had she at first rushed forth into the very streets
to hail the possible deliverer of her country, and then why had she
shrunk from him when he sought to honor her! It was all clear enough
now. This bedside missive meant that he had intended her dishonor and
that he had looked upon her simply as a possible mistress.
At once she crushed the note angrily in her hand.
"There is no answer at all," said she, bursting into bitter tears at the
very thought that he should dare to treat her in this way.
But on the following morning when she awoke her maid was standing beside
her with a second letter from Napoleon. She refused to open it and
placed it in a packet with the first letter, and ordered that both of
them should be returned to the emperor.
She shrank from speaking to her husband of what had happened, and there
was no one else in whom she dared confide. All through that day there
came hundreds of visitors, either of princely rank or men who had won
fame by their gallantry and courage. They all begged to see her, but to
them all she sent one answer--that she was ill and could see no one.
After a time her husband burst into her room, and insisted that she
should see them.
"Why," exclaimed he, "you are insulting the greatest men and the
noblest women of Poland! More than that, there are some of the most
distinguished Frenchmen sitting at your doorstep, as it were. There
is Duroc, grand marshal of France, and in refusing to see him you are
insulting the great emperor on whom depends everything that our country
longs for. Napoleon has invited you to a state dinner and you have given
him no answer whatever. I order you to rise at once and receive these
ladies and gentlemen who have done you so much honor! "
She could not refuse. Presently she appeared in her drawing-room, where
she was at once surrounded by an immense throng of her own countrymen
and countrywomen, who made no pretense of misunderstanding the
situation. To them, what was one woman's honor when compared with
the freedom and independence of their nation? She was overwhelmed by
arguments and entreaties. She was even accused of being disloyal to the
cause of Poland if she refused her consent.
One of the strangest documents of that period was a letter sent to her
and signed by the noblest men in Poland. It contained a powerful appeal
to her patriotism. One remarkable passage even quotes the Bible to point
out her line of duty. A portion of this letter ran as follows:
Did Esther, think you, give herself to Ahasuerus out of the fulness of
her love for him? So great was the terror with which he inspired her
that she fainted at the sight of him. We may therefore conclude that
affection had but little to do with her resolve. She sacrificed her own
inclinations to the salvation of her country, and that salvation it was
her glory to achieve. May we be enabled to say the same of you, to your
glory and our own happiness!
After this letter came others from Napoleon himself, full of the
most humble pleading. It was not wholly distasteful thus to have the
conqueror of the world seek her out and offer her his adoration any
more than it was distasteful to think that the revival of her own nation
depended on her single will. M. Frederic Masson, whose minute studies
regarding everything relating to Napoleon have won him a seat in the
French Academy, writes of Marie Walewska at this time: Every force
was now brought into play against her. Her country, her friends, her
religion, the Old and the New Testaments, all urged her to yield; they
all combined for the ruin of a simple and inexperienced girl of eighteen
who had no parents, whose husband even thrust her into temptation, and
whose friends thought that her downfall would be her glory.
Amid all these powerful influences she consented to attend the dinner.
To her gratification Napoleon treated her with distant courtesy, and, in
fact, with a certain coldness.
"I heard that Mme. Walewska was indisposed. I trust that she has
recovered," was all the greeting that he gave her when they met.
Every one else with whom she spoke overwhelmed her with flattery and
with continued urging; but the emperor himself for a time acted as if
she had displeased him. This was consummate art; for as soon as she was
relieved of her fears she began to regret that she had thrown her power
away.
During the dinner she let her eyes wander to those of the emperor almost
in supplication. He, the subtlest of men, knew that he had won. His
marvelous eyes met hers and drew her attention to him as by an electric
current; and when the ladies left the great dining-room Napoleon sought
her out and whispered in her ear a few words of ardent love.
It was too little to alarm her seriously now. It was enough to make
her feel that magnetism which Napoleon knew so well how to evoke and
exercise. Again every one crowded about her with congratulations. Some
said:
"He never even saw any of US. His eyes were all for YOU! They flashed
fire as he looked at you. "
"You have conquered his heart," others said, "and you can do what you
like with him. The salvation of Poland is in your hands. "
The company broke up at an early hour, but Mme. Walewska was asked to
remain. When she was alone General Duroc--one of the emperor's favorite
officers and most trusted lieutenants--entered and placed a letter from
Napoleon in her lap. He tried to tell her as tactfully as possible how
much harm she was doing by refusing the imperial request. She was deeply
affected, and presently, when Duroc left her, she opened the letter
which he had given her and read it. It was worded thus:
There are times when all splendors become oppressive, as I feel but too
deeply at the present moment. How can I satisfy the desires of a heart
that yearns to cast itself at your feet, when its impulses are checked
at every point by considerations of the highest moment? Oh, if you
would, you alone might overcome the obstacles that keep us apart. MY
FRIEND DUROC WILL MAKE ALL EASY FOR YOU. Oh, come, come! Your every wish
shall be gratified! Your country will be dearer to me when you take pity
on my poor heart. N.
Every chance of escape seemed to be closed. She had Napoleon's own word
that he would free Poland in return for her self-sacrifice. Moreover,
her powers of resistance had been so weakened that, like many women, she
temporized. She decided that she would meet the emperor alone. She would
tell him that she did not love him, and yet would plead with him to save
her beloved country.
As she sat there every tick of the clock stirred her to a new
excitement. At last there came a knock upon the door, a cloak was thrown
about her from behind, a heavy veil was drooped about her golden hair,
and she was led, by whom she knew not, to the street, where a finely
appointed carriage was waiting for her.
No sooner had she entered it than she was driven rapidly through the
darkness to the beautifully carved entrance of a palace. Half led, half
carried, she was taken up the steps to a door which was eagerly opened
by some one within. There were warmth and light and color and the scent
of flowers as she was placed in a comfortable arm-chair. Her wrappings
were taken from her, the door was closed behind her; and then, as
she looked up, she found herself in the presence of Napoleon, who was
kneeling at her feet and uttering soothing words.
Wisely, the emperor used no violence. He merely argued with her; he told
her over and over his love for her; and finally he declared that for her
sake he would make Poland once again a strong and splendid kingdom.
Several hours passed. In the early morning, before daylight, there came
a knock at the door.
"Already? " said Napoleon. "Well, my plaintive dove, go home and rest.
You must not fear the eagle. In time you will come to love him, and in
all things you shall command him. "
Then he led her to the door, but said that he would not open it unless
she promised to see him the next day--a promise which she gave the more
readily because he had treated her with such respect.
On the following morning her faithful maid came to her bedside with
a cluster of beautiful violets, a letter, and several daintily made
morocco cases. When these were opened there leaped out strings and
necklaces of exquisite diamonds, blazing in the morning sunlight. Mme.
Walewska seized the jewels and flung them across the room with an order
that they should be taken back at once to the imperial giver; but
the letter, which was in the same romantic strain as the others, she
retained.
On that same evening there was another dinner, given to the emperor by
the nobles, and Marie Walewska attended it, but of course without the
diamonds, which she had returned. Nor did she wear the flowers which had
accompanied the diamonds.
When Napoleon met her he frowned upon her and made her tremble with the
cold glances that shot from his eyes of steel. He scarcely spoke to her
throughout the meal, but those who sat beside her were earnest in their
pleading.
Again she waited until the guests had gone away, and with a lighter
heart, since she felt that she had nothing to fear. But when she met
Napoleon in his private cabinet, alone, his mood was very different from
that which he had shown before. Instead of gentleness and consideration
he was the Napoleon of camps, and not of courts. He greeted her bruskly.
"I scarcely expected to see you again," said he. "Why did you refuse
my diamonds and my flowers? Why did you avoid my eyes at dinner? Your
coldness is an insult which I shall not brook. " Then he raised his voice
to that rasping, almost blood-curdling tone which even his hardiest
soldiers dreaded: "I will have you know that I mean to conquer you. You
SHALL--yes, I repeat it, you SHALL love me! I have restored the name of
your country. It owes its very existence to me. "
Then he resorted to a trick which he had played years before in dealing
with the Austrians at Campo Formio.
"See this watch which I am holding in my hand. Just as I dash it to
fragments before you, so will I shatter Poland if you drive me to
desperation by rejecting my heart and refusing me your own. "
As he spoke he hurled the watch against the opposite wall with terrific
force, dashing it to pieces. In terror, Mme. Walewska fainted. When she
resumed consciousness there was Napoleon wiping away her tears with the
tenderness of a woman and with words of self-reproach.
The long siege was over. Napoleon had conquered, and this girl of
eighteen gave herself up to his caresses and endearments, thinking that,
after all, her love of country was more than her own honor.
Her husband, as a matter of form, put her away from him, though at heart
he approved what she had done, while the Polish people regarded her as
nothing less than a national heroine. To them she was no minister to the
vices of an emperor, but rather one who would make him love Poland for
her sake and restore its greatness.
So far as concerned his love for her, it was, indeed, almost idolatry.
He honored her in every way and spent all the time at his disposal
in her company. But his promise to restore Poland he never kept, and
gradually she found that he had never meant to keep it.
"I love your country," he would say, "and I am willing to aid in the
attempt to uphold its rights, but my first duty is to France. I cannot
shed French blood in a foreign cause. "
By this time, however, Marie Walewska had learned to love Napoleon for
his own sake. She could not resist his ardor, which matched the ardor
of the Poles themselves. Moreover, it flattered her to see the greatest
soldier in the world a suppliant for her smiles.
For some years she was Napoleon's close companion, spending long hours
with him and finally accompanying him to Paris. She was the mother of
Napoleon's only son who lived to manhood. This son, who bore the name of
Alexandre Florian de Walewski, was born in Poland in 1810, and later
was created a count and duke of the second French Empire. It may be said
parenthetically that he was a man of great ability. Living down to 1868,
he was made much of by Napoleon III. , who placed him in high offices
of state, which he filled with distinction. In contrast with the Duc
de Morny, who was Napoleon's illegitimate half-brother, Alexandre de
Walewski stood out in brilliant contrast. He would have nothing to do
with stock-jobbing and unseemly speculation.
"I may be poor," he said--though he was not poor--"but at least I
remember the glory of my father and what is due to his great name. "
As for Mme. Walewska, she was loyal to the emperor, and lacked the greed
of many women whom he had made his favorites. Even at Elba, when he
was in exile and disgrace, she visited him that she might endeavor to
console him. She was his counselor and friend as well as his earnestly
loved mate. When she died in Paris in 1817, while the dethroned emperor
was a prisoner at St. Helena, the word "Napoleon" was the last upon her
lips.
THE STORY OF PAULINE BONAPARTE
It was said of Napoleon long ago that he could govern emperors and
kings, but that not even he could rule his relatives. He himself once
declared:
"My family have done me far more harm than I have been able to do them
good. "
It would be an interesting historical study to determine just how far
the great soldier's family aided in his downfall by their selfishness,
their jealousy, their meanness, and their ingratitude.
There is something piquant in thinking of Napoleon as a domestic sort of
person. Indeed, it is rather difficult to do so. When we speak his name
we think of the stern warrior hurling his armies up bloody slopes and on
to bloody victory. He is the man whose steely eyes made his haughtiest
marshals tremble, or else the wise, far-seeing statesman and lawgiver;
but decidedly he is not a household model. We read of his sharp speech
to women, of his outrageous manners at the dinner-table, and of the
thousand and one details which Mme. de Remusat has chronicled--and
perhaps in part invented, for there has always existed the suspicion
that her animus was that of a woman who had herself sought the imperial
favor and had failed to win it.
But, in fact, all these stories relate to the Napoleon of courts and
palaces, and not to the Napoleon of home. In his private life this great
man was not merely affectionate and indulgent, but he even showed a
certain weakness where his relatives were concerned, so that he let them
prey upon him almost without end.
He had a great deal of the Italian largeness and lavishness of character
with his family. When a petty officer he nearly starved himself in
order to give his younger brother, Louis, a military education. He was
devotedly fond of children, and they were fond of him, as many anecdotes
attest. His passionate love for Josephine before he learned of her
infidelity is almost painful to read of; and even afterward, when he had
been disillusioned, and when she was paying Fouche a thousand francs
a day to spy upon Napoleon's every action, he still treated her with
friendliness and allowed her extravagance to embarrass him.
He made his eldest brother, Joseph, King of Spain, and Spain proved
almost as deadly to him as did Russia. He made his youngest brother,
Jerome, King of Westphalia, and Jerome turned the palace into a pigsty
and brought discredit on the very name of Bonaparte. His brother Louis,
for whom he had starved himself, he placed upon the throne of Holland,
and Louis promptly devoted himself to his own interests, conniving
at many things which were inimical to France. He was planning high
advancement for his brother Lucien, and Lucien suddenly married a
disreputable actress and fled with her to England, where he was received
with pleasure by the most persistent of all Napoleon's enemies.
So much for his brothers--incompetent, ungrateful, or openly his foes.
But his three sisters were no less remarkable in the relations which
they bore to him. They have been styled "the three crowned courtesans,"
and they have been condemned together as being utterly void of principle
and monsters of ingratitude.
Much of this censure was well deserved by all of them--by Caroline and
Elise and Pauline. But when we look at the facts impartially we shall
find something which makes Pauline stand out alone as infinitely
superior to her sisters.
