NAPOLEON
The Riddle of Napoleon. By Raoul Brice. Translated from the French by Basil Creighton. (Putnam. 15s.)
A FEW years ago the historian Kircheisen, one of the greatest authorities on the bibliography of the Napoleonic period, pointed out that there were nearly ioo,000 works, large and small, bearing directly or indirectly upon the life and actions
of Napoleon. The number continues to increase. Most of the books are ephemeral ; a good many are merely impositions
on the public. The " crank " books (Secrets of the Devil, The diabolic Prophet, or a little friendly talk between Ashtaroth and Napoleon, &c.) have ceased to have much sale, but the
pseudo-picturesque and the amateur psychological writers have taken their place. Therefore a reviewer may well be pleased when he finds himself asked to give an opinion about two books of real merit, written by authors with a right to be
heard. Of these two books, Professor Tarle's Bonaparte takes the form of an ordinary biography, but the author's
position and antecedents give him a different place from that of most of Napoleon's biographers. Professor Tarle is a Russian scholar who has held high academic posts at Leningrad since 1918. He has already made a name for himself by his studies in the social and economic history of the Napoleonic age, and particularly in the history of the Continental Blockade. As a Russian he looks at the career of Napoleon from the standpoint of Eastern Europe ; as an economic historian he is interested in the great tidal move- ments of European society, the ebb and flow of economic power, brought about by forces which the older school of political historians tended to ignore. Professor Tarle's interests indeed result in an overemphasis, which is not without value for English readers, but is not strictly scientific. Thus in a book which gives a great deal of space to the detailed description of war, there is a disproportion between one sentence given to the battle of Trafalgar, and seven pages given to the battle of Borodino. Moreover the insistence upon one particular method of historical interpretation leads to a certain rigidity. Professor Tarle makes a number of references, sometimes with unconcealed contempt, to bourgeois historians. As he uses bourgeois in two different senses, one is left to infer whether he always includes Lord Acton and Lord Rosebery, or, for that matter, M. de la Gorce, or the Grand Duke Nicholas Mikhailowitch among bourgeois historians. It is perhaps better, in these days, when different philosophies of history are proclaimed loud enough for any one to hear, not to label historians as bourgeois and non- bourgeois, but to divide them according to their knowledge of the evidence, their critical faculties, and their power of writing. Under the first of these three headings there is not the least doubt about Professor Thies competence ; under the second and third, he is not in the class in which one would
include, for example, Dr. Holland Rose. He has not enough sympathy with people or things outside his own experience and environment. He has little power of writing or of sustained narration. His translator has not given him
much help, but no translator could break through the wooden- ness of the descriptions of campaigns, with the outstanding exception of the Russian campaign of 1812.
In spite of these faults and of a number of minor slips, the book is good, and not merely good, but good enough to deserve a place among the best five or six biographies of Napoleon at the disposal of English readers. The sections dealing with the economic background are excellent, and the general impression of Napoleon is grimly true.
The second book is less easy to place. The author is a Surgeon Lieutenant-General in the French army. His work is not primarily a narrative of Napoleon's career, but an analysis of the man himself, and of the influences which made up his character and affected his actions. The book is well translated, and of great interest, especially in the chapters where General Brice makes full use of his medical knowledge. General Brice is not less rigorous than Professor Tarle in his scientific method ; in some respects he is more rigorous, because he is less tied to a particular interpretation of history. It is not a paradox to say that because General Brice is a soldier he is less harsh than Professor Tarle in his estimate of Napoleon. There are passages when General Brice carries his admiration
too far, though curiously enough it is not wholly absurd to speak of Napoleon's " essential goodness," even if it were only the goodness of a schoolboy who never grew up.
These two interpretations of Napoleon are very different. They are not incompatible ; they do not exhaust the subject. Frederic Masson, who gave many years of his life to the study of Napoleon and his family, said, at the end, that he was still unable to understand the man, and anyone who thinks he can make a simple job of the matter would be wise to notice the caution of scholars most competent to speak.
One final remark. English readers of these two books, and of a good many other lives of Napoleon, will notice how difficult it is for writers without close knowledge of England to understand the attitude of the English people towards the Napoleonic war. Professor Tarle is often wide of the mark, and gives one the impression that his judgements on the subject are entirely a priori. General Brice is not concerned with the reaction of England as a whole ; but he thinks that the British Government treated Napoleon, after 1815, with the cold- blooded cruelty meted out by the Habsburgs to Napoleon's son. Thomas Hardy, in The Dynasts, has written, once and for all, the history of the English people and the Napoleonic war ; yet in spite of, or over and above, Dr. Holland Rose's work, there is still room for a full-length study of the relations between England and Napoleon. It would take a good many years to write this book, but the book would be worth writing.
E. L. WOODWARD.
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