Fouch6 and Napoleon

Fouche:. The Man Napoleon Feared. By Nils Forssell. Trans-

Translated and Edited by Julian Park. (Allen and Unwin. 128.)

LORD WOI-SELEY once wrote that, though he considered Napoleon by far the greatest of great men, he always thought him a bad judge of character. A tad judge of how to deal

with the characters he discovered and drew from oblivion he certainly proved himself from time to time. A Corsican roughness rim through him. He should not have insulted Soult at breakfast at the Caillou Farm on the morning of Waterloo, for instance ; and Talleyrand's infinite finesse and aristocrat's contempt of ill-temper he never in the least Understood, and so succeeded in turning his most brilliant minister into a dangerous enemy.

But when we pass in review the crowd of men by whom Napoleon found himself surrounded after Eighteenth Brumaire, soldiers of mean birth and trained in the roughest of schools and politicians who had evaded crisis after crisis and only saved their necks from the guillotine by betraying trust after trust, friend after friend, the wonder is that he found the material he did. Yet this material he gradually moulded into the machine that produced in civil life the Code and the Concordat, and in the Army the brilliant marshalate that carried his eagles from end to end of Europe. At the very centre of the machine, for six critical years, there "appears in the background," to quote M. Forssell, " little by little a tall, thin, angular figure, an impenetrable face, pale as death, with eyes that avoid our glance." They may well do so, for figure, face, and eyes are those of Fouche, Chief of Police. Fouche's was so loathsome and despicable a character, yet wielding so strange an influence, that the epithet " diabolical " seems alone to describe it. The man who, as Revolutionary Commissary at Lyons, ordered and calmly watched through his lorgnette the slaughter of battues of victims—nearly three hundred at a time, tied in couples—who helped to compass the ruin of his co-criminal, Robespierre, contrived to be an actor in the Brumaire coup and a stage-manager at the establishment of the Empire, worked for the divorce of Josephine after years of 'friendship with her, and reappeared at the head of his police during the Hundred Days, only to hcaind the fallen Emperor off the scene after Waterloo—is there anything to be said for him at all ? And was not Napoleon really at fault to employ an agent whom he could do neither with nor without ? As to that question, we think Napoleon had his wits very much about him. He gauged .

his man, and " set a thief to catch a thief," with surprising results. But his grip, as we shall see, was on the thief's arm all the while, till the last treason. As to Fouche's devilry, the Due d'Otrante actually contrived to add the touch of "the fallen angel " to his other qualities. For the spoliator of the Church and vulgar mocker of the Faith began his mental training on Pascal, and finished it beloved by all his family, with thoughts straying wistfully back across an ocean of evil to memories of the Abbe Merault de Moissy, his early instructor in religion. Yet Jerome Buonaparte

was burning piles of incriminating papers by -his bed the meanwhile, and, to use a businesslike, expression of his

own, " the more Nationalism raises its head in France, the greater the fall in Fouche shares." .

The ReVolution and the Terror tossed up many strange, enigmatic, and repulsive figures. Even hi the` portraitsof the period we can discern the contradictions of temperament which made men one day tender or dapper or frivolous, and the next Ake beasts of prey,- Maddened with sheer lust ffir blood. Of such were Robespierre and Couthon and Saint-Just, with their obliging, infantile, or seraphic coun• tenance3. No wonder that the drama with its quick changes of pat iotism, plotting, and savagery makes difficult telling.

Perhaps this accounts for the inequality of M. Forssell's book. The revolutionary period, of Fouche's life is hard to come to grips with, despite some horrors which stand out, such as dui ineffaceable wickedness of the Lyons massacres. And sorre episodes, such as. Robespierre's destruction, will

again always remain half in shadow, though Millen, Therezia Cabarrus (wrongly spelt Therese Cabarrus) and Fouche, felt rather than seen, play their parts. There is, indeed, an element of carelessness in these chapters. Thus, Louis XVI.'s death was not voted for by a majority of one, but of fifty-three ; Arcole should be Arcola ; the " Due d'Artois," the Comte d'Artois ; " Sieyes," Sieyes ; " the Council of the Seniors'," the Council of the Ancients. It .is a relief when. Buonaparte clears the air, and France settles down to the orderliness of the Consulate and the Empire. For here the real worth of the book appears in a brief but masterly account of Fouche's work as Minister of Police.

This could not be better done. Never, it may be said, had a Police Ministry such an incarnation of its spirit—granted the despotism of the system—as in Fouche. Even here, though, we must enter a caveat against the sub-title of the' book. Napoleon, the hero of sixty battles, never feared any person ; he did not even take precautions against assass- ination except at St. Helena. What he feared were intrigues, movements, the Paris mob. Hence he ceaselessly feared the influence of the Church, and, at the height of his power, would steal out, disguised, from the Tuileries at dawn to mix with the people in the streets and hear what talk was going on. This species of dread, quickened by something like epilepsy, accounts for his sudden panic on Eighteenth Brum. aire at the cry of " Outlaw," and for his helpless terror, on the morrow of his daring campaign of 1814, as he passed to captivity through the hostile population of the South.

No : he feared Fouche, if he feared him at all, as the spirit of intrigue. An episode not too plainly treated by M. Forssell is Napoleon's dash from Valladolid to Paris in 1809, one of the most furious rides in history. He broke off his pursuit of Moore, and it was not only the menace of the Austrian War that caused such a volte-face, but the news that Talleyrand and Fouche had been seen in close colloquy in Paris, " Vice and Crime arm in arm," and that both were in secret communication with the restless Murat at Naples. No fear, but the soldier's instinct to hurl himself straight at the heart of danger prompted the fierce gallop from Valladolid. The grip on the arm of the master-thief—and Napoleon kept many half-tamed thieves in his employ— suddenly tightened, and was successful. That was all.

As a matter of fact, the story of the Ministry of Police has its amusing as well as its tragic aspects. Fouche spied on everyone, not excepting the Emperor ; and seems to have been unaware that his master's eye was all the time tirelessly on guard on the other side of the keyhole. Not edifying, perhaps ; but Napoleon was, as he once told Metternich, a parvenu Emperor, and he had to manage a team of Marshals and Ministers who needed all the driving power that he possessed, to keep in order. Sou* for example, once assumed semi-royal state as " King of Leon and the Algarves," without any warrant, for quite. a long period. Crowns, in fact, as well as bitons, were in knapsacks.

M..Forssell shosis how one adventurer, at any rate, worked his .way through this tremendous episode of intrigue and empire. He fails to win-us to the view that Fottehe changed sides, as he so often did, on tiny higher instinct than that 'which prompts -the rat'to leave the-..-sialiini• Bat-he

says what he can for the detestable and clever villain whom he depicts. _ And we would add that he liVes us a' full and Most excellent Bibliography. • . - - - • •

The first practically complete English translation of the nalmain Correspondence fills up a gap in the St. Helena literature. It is a very capable piece of work. Alexandre "•21,ntonovich, Comte de. Balmain, descended froth a Scottish ,,family' the Ramsays of 13ahhain, was the Russian Comms- &loner, one of three appointed by the Powers. to.. watch over Napoleon, and, incidentally,- over Sir Hudson Lowe as well. The others were the. Marquis de Montchenti,.'from France; and Count Stunner, from Austria. The fortner seems to have been a despicable sort of person ; even amongst the -English he was described as " the buffoon," and lie was filled with hatred for " le petit monstre." Stiirmer was respectable enough, but his dislike of Lowe, in which he was not alone, led to complications, and his stay on " the rock " did not extend beyond three years. Balmain was by far the best of the three, and he was not worried by instructions. ",to assure himself with his own eyes ". of the captive's existence each day. These instructions Napoleon set himself successfully to thwart, and the ludicrous efforts to carry them out are amusingly detailed by Lord Rosebery in The Last Phase. -

Balmain did not suffer from undue prejudice against Lowe, and finally became engaged to his step-daughter. It may be remarked in passing that the very qualifications which fitted Lowe for his post—his acquaintance with Corsica before the British abandoned the island and his command of the ," Corsican Rangers," a corps recruited from Corsicans dis- affected to the Empire—were precisely matters which the fallen Emperor would regard as direct affronts. Nor did

Lowe discharge his duties in such fashion as recommended him to the .British Government for future service. Stiirmer's memoirs, are dull ; Montehenu's 'often ridiculous, but Bat- main's -dispatches, summarized and abridged as* they are, form the wittiest and possibly the most truthful of all the accounts of the strange life on the island. " The Commis- sioners did not like each other ; they did not like Lowe ; their duty forbade them from liking the inmates of Longwood," that residence which Lowe declined ivith disgust for Lady Lowe. Hot, windy, damp by -turns, and always rat-ridden; after Napoleon's death it was converted into a pig-sty. Not much is added, however, to what we know already of Napoleon's life and avocations. His fondness for little Betsy Balcombe, which at one time developed into the passing of his time amid a circle of children, comes out very amicably. Later on he took to shooting chickens and, any other animals that strayed into his gardens, but the exasperations of his last illness were on him then. The well-known and incessant bickerings between him and Lowe on matters of etiquette, title, supervision, and .maintenance supply food for many reports, and, in these days, of self-reproach on our part. Napoleon placed a good deal of hope in the ultimate inter- vention on his behalf by the Czar, his Tilsit friend of former days ; but in reality that strange potentate, a mixture of mysticism and self-seeking, never forgaVe. him Moscow, and was foremost in urging on the Powers repressive measures against their mighty captive.

For those who are interested in the story of St. Helena; its true records, and the " Legend " which was built upon them, partly by Napoleon himself, partly by his nephew, that Legend which helped to erect the edifice of the Second Empire, Mr. Park has compiled an indispensable book. • W. K. FLEMING,