and in manners; it seemed as if he must have been destined either to live in a tent where all men are equal, or upon a throne where everything is permitted. He did not know how either to enter or to leave a room; he did not know how to make a bow, how to rise, or how to sit down. His questions were abrupt, and so also was his manner of speech. Spoken by him, Italian loses all its grace and sweetness. Whatever language he speaks, it seems always to be a foreign tongue to him; he appears to force it to express his thoughts. And then, as any rigid rule becomes an insupportable annoyance to him, every liberty which he takes pleases him as though it were a victory, and he would never yield even to grammar. He used to say that in his youth he had liked reading romances as well as studying the exact sciences; and probably he was influenced by so incongruous a mixture. Unfortunately, he had met with the worst kind of romances, and retained so keen a remembrance of the pleasure they had given him that, when he married the Archduchess Marie Louise, he gave her “Hippolyte, Comte de Douglas,” and “Les Contemporains,” so that, as he said, she might form an idea of refined feeling, and also of the customs of society.
In trying to depict Bonaparte, it would be necessary, following the analytical forms of which he was so fond, to separate into three very distinct parts his soul, his heart, and his mind; for no one of these ever blended completely with the others. Although very remarkable for certain intellectual qualities, no man, it must be allowed, was ever less lofty of soul. There was no generosity, no true greatness in him. I have never known him to admire, I have never known him to comprehend, a fine action. He always regarded every indication of a good feeling with suspicion; he did not value sincerity; and he did not hesitate to say that he recognized the superiority of a man by the greater or less degree of cleverness with which he used the art of lying. On the occasion of his saying this, he added, with great complacency, that when he was a child one of his uncles had predicted that he should govern the world, because he was an habitual liar. “M. de Metternich,” he added, “approaches to being a statesman—he lies very well.”
All Bonaparte’s methods of government were selected from among those which have a tendency to debase men. He dreaded the ties of affection; he endeavored to isolate every one; he never sold a favor without awakening a sense of uneasiness, for he held that the true way to attach the recipients to himself was by compromising them, and often even by blasting them in public opinion. He could not pardon virtue until he had succeeded in weakening its effect by ridicule. He can not be said to have truly loved glory, for he never hesitated to prefer success to it; thus, although he was audacious in good fortune, and although he pushed it to its utmost limits, he was timid and troubled when threatened with reverses. Of generous courage he was not capable; and, indeed, on that head one would hardly venture to tell the truth so plainly as he has told it himself, by an admission recorded in an anecdote which I have never forgotten. One day, after his defeat at Leipsic, and when, as he was about to return to Paris, he was occupied in collecting the remains of his army for the defense of our frontiers, he was talking to M. de Talleyrand of the ill success of the Spanish war, and of the difficulty in which it had involved him. He spoke openly of his own position, not with the noble frankness that does not fear to own a fault, but with that haughty sense of superiority which releases one from the necessity of dissimulation. At this interview, in the midst of his plain speaking, M. de Talleyrand said to him suddenly, “But how is it? You consult me as if we had not quarreled.”
Bonaparte answered, “Ah, circumstances! circumstances! Let us leave the past and the future alone. I want to hear what you think of the present moment.”
“Well,” replied M. de Talleyrand, “there is only one thing you can do. You have made a mistake: you must say so; try to say so nobly. Proclaim, therefore, that being a King by the choice of the people, elected by the nations, it has never been your design to set yourself against them. Say that, when you began the war with Spain, you believed you were about to deliver the people from the yoke of an odious minister, who was encouraged by the weakness of his prince; but that, on closer observation, you perceive that the Spaniards, although aware of the faults of their King, are none the less attached to his dynasty, which you are therefore about to restore to them, so that it may not be said you ever opposed a national aspiration. After that proclamation, restore King Ferdinand to liberty, and withdraw your troops. Such an avowal, made in a lofty tone, and when the enemy are still hesitating on our frontier, can only do you honor; and you are still too strong for it to be regarded as a cowardly act.”
“A cowardly act!” replied Bonaparte; “what does that matter to me? Understand that I should not fail to commit one, if it were useful to me. In reality, there is nothing really noble or base in this world; I have in my character all that can contribute to secure my power, and to deceive those who think they know me. Frankly, I am base, essentially base. I give you my word that I should feel no repugnance to commit what would be called by the world a dishonorable action; my secret tendencies, which are, after all, those of nature, opposed to certain affectations of greatness with which I have to adorn myself, give me infinite resources with which to baffle every one. Therefore, all I have to do now is to consider whether your advice agrees with my present policy, and to try and find out besides,” he added (says M. de Talleyrand), with a satanic smile, “whether you have not some private interest in urging me to take this step.”
Another anecdote which bears on the same characteristic will not be out of place here. Bonaparte, when on the point of setting out for Egypt, went to see M. de Talleyrand, then Minister of Foreign Affairs under the Directory. “I was in bed, being ill,” said M. de Talleyrand. “Bonaparte sat down near me, and divulged to me all the dreams of his youthful imagination. I was interested in him because of the activity of his mind, and also on account of the obstacles which I was aware would be placed in his way by secret enemies of whom I knew. He told me of the difficulty in which he was placed for want of money, and that he did not know where to get any. ‘Stay,’ I said to him; ‘open my desk. You will find there a hundred thousand francs that belong to me. They are yours for the present; you may repay the money when you return,’ Bonaparte threw himself on my neck, and I was really delighted to witness his joy. When he became Consul, he gave me back the money I had lent him; but he asked me one day, ‘What interest could you have had in lending me that money? I have thought about it a hundred times since then, and have never been able to make out your object.’ ‘I had none,’ I replied. ‘I was feeling very ill: it was quite possible I might never see you again; but you were young, you had impressed me very strongly, and I felt impelled to render you a service without any afterthought whatsoever.’ ‘In that case,’ said Bonaparte, ‘and if it was really done without any design, you acted a dupe’s part.’ ”
According to the order I have laid down, I ought now to speak of Bonaparte’s heart; but, if it were possible to believe that a being, in every other way similar to ourselves, could exist without that portion of our organization which makes us desire to love and to be loved, I should say that in his creation the heart was left out. Perhaps, however, the truth was that he succeeded in suppressing it completely. He was always too much engrossed by himself to be influenced by any sentiment of affection, no matter of what kind. He almost ignored the ties of blood and the rights of nature; I do not know that even paternity weighed with him. It seemed, at least, that he did not regard it as his primary relation with his son. One day, at breakfast, when, as was often the case, Talma had been admitted to see him, the young Napoleon was brought to him. The Emperor took the child on his knee, and, far from caressing, amused himself by slapping him, though not so as to hurt him; then, turning to Talma, he said, “Talma, tell me what I am doing?” Talma, as may be supposed, did not know what to say. “You do not see it,” continued the Emperor; “I am slapping a King.”
Notwithstanding his habitual hardness, Bonaparte was not entirely without experience of love. But, good heavens! what manner of sentiment was it in his case? A sensitive person forgets self in love, and becomes almost transformed; but to a man of the stamp of Bonaparte it only supplies an additional sort of despotism. The Emperor despised women, and contempt can not exist together with love. He regarded their weakness as an unanswerable proof of their inferiority, and the power they have acquired in society as an intolerable usurpation—a result and an abuse of the progress of that civilization which, as M. de Talleyrand said, was always his personal enemy. On this account Bonaparte was under restraint in the society of women; and, as every kind of