A Mythical Figure
THESE two volumes, by authors of distinction, may be briefly described as new variations on an old theme : the battle over Napoleon has been a hundred years' war. Our esteem for M. Bainville, less known in England than Mr. Belloc, dates from the time when we first fell in with that masterly little essay in which he showed that it was the King and Queen, and not the Revolutionary howlers against " l'Autrichienne," who stood for the true policy of France. And we shall please him—see his Preface—by telling him that the perusal of his book leaves our own opinion of Napoleon undisturbed. Nor, though Mr. Belloc does not, like M. Bain- ville, genially invite his readers to disagree with him, do we think it will particularly disturb him, if some of them do.
When Mr. Duff Cooper recently presented us with his vindi- cation of Talleyrand, we hailed it with inexpressible relief, since we have long been of opinion that Talleyrand, like Castlereagh, had been grossly calumniated, and principally because of the deification of Napoleon, who was, and still is with some, sacrosanct. Therefore it is that a necessary pre- liminary to the absolution of Talleymnd is an analysis of the Napoleonic Legend, so delightfully handled by M. Guerard. Nearly everything written about Napoleon, including the two books before us, sees him through the Legend. All admiration blinds, and the Napoleonic glitter is more dazzling than any other, so vast was the stage he played on, so romantic his career, so irresistible the military glamour. It is hard to see " mg," rarely has " ira " been looked at with clear eyes, neither hostile nor admiring. That is why the old Life, by Sir Walter, stands in a class by itself ; it is far more than "si mere curiosity " (Bainville, p. 439) ; it is the impartial view of the greatest genius that ever presented him ; and begun and finished as it was in a single year, might fairly be called the most wonderful feat Scott ever achieved. And reading recently the critical impertinences flung at the old Scottish lion, apropos of his centenary, by insignificant scribblers un- worthy to clean his boots, we thought of the old Hindoo proverb : the elephant walks, and the curs bark.
The proper place for Napoleon was the field of battle. There he was himself—at ease, happy ; there he was at home. The most egregious blunder ever made by his literary enemies was when they called him a coward. Napoleon ! A coward ! exclaims Bourrienne. They mistook their man. Napoleon, in danger, was like a fish in water. But, off the battlefield, it was another thing : he was out of his clement: he lost his nerve, his sang-froid deserted him, not once only, but time after time. Follow him, step by step, you will find him, in critical civil situations, constantly at a loss, not himself, feeble (timid is M. Bainville's word) ; nay, worse, contemptible. He was by no means the strong man people thought him : like Papa Tam, his mameluke, so humorously depicted by M. Lenbtre, the façade was imposing, the soul pitiful. Napo- leon had a little soul. The fire of Alexander, the imperturbable serenity of Caesar, were not his. And beyond all doubt, in things great or small that really mattered, he was stupid. That sounds paradoxical, yet is not : it is not in conflict with the intelligence before which Taine falls, as it were, on his knees. Because his intellect was a mathematical intellect :
that is the secret which escapes Taine. Outside that sphere he was, like so many great mathematicians, singularly defieient in understanding. Thence can all his disasters. That was why, with all the cards inhis hands, he threw away the game, mak'mg a mess of French interests as well as his own, when a man with far less cold intellect than his could have secured— and easily—both. No great historical figure ever displayed more intelligence, and less, than Napoleon. And Talleyrand knew. He had the two things Napoleon lacked : under- standing, and devotion to France alone. France first, and everything else—including Napoleonsecond, was Talley- rands motto. Napoleon reversed that order. Which .was the traitor ? Which was the statesman ? Above all, which was France ?
M. Bainville is like a swift runner, with his eye intently fixed on his goal. He is like a painter, bent on producing a picture in Rembrandt-is manner : the light concentrated on a central ilgure, alfsunnimding it left in obscurity. Mr. Belloc offers us a series of striking scenes and battle-pieces; for, like Thiers, he has a military quality ; prefixing to them a charac- teristically philosophical sketch of the leading actor in them all. Both write with style. Both, in our eyes, look at him through the Legend, and lay more stress on his genius, in accounting for his success, than on his astounding luck ; for the really miraculous thing in his career is the constancy with which luck stuck to him. Again and again he did things for which he deserved to be shot—or danuted—and yet by a paradox they turned inexplicably to his advantage. Some- times, even, he succeeded gloriously by failing. It seems im- possible—yet there it is, as, e.g., Egypt or Marengo—a battle which he lost, which yet raised him to a pinnacle. But we will leave the reader to judge, with the aid of Belloc and Bainville, for himself, bequeathing to him, as we withdraw, a legacy in the guise of a parable.
There was once a valiant little bookworm, juvenile and curly, who bored industriously from cover to cover through the Thiers and the Taines, the Henri Houssayes, the Massons and Vandals and Chuquets and the rest, not forgetting even the popular Abbotts, in whose pages the hero can do no wrong. And then one day, on an obscure shelf, he came across outsiders such as Gallais and old Colonel Mitchell, and Jung and that sinister advocatus diaboti, P. J. Proudhon, who with all his shortcomings saw into many millstones further than all the pundits put together, and others. So he scratched his little head and-began it all over again. And gradually, as he went, he seemed dimly to discern that the Golden Idol had feet of clay, and even a cloven hoof. And finally he stopped, and scratched his head again, and ejaculated : If a vulgar- minded little Corsican, a born soldier, tossed up to dizzy elevation by the chances of revolutionary eruptions, and obsessed with the tawdry ambition of aping Charlemagne, costs his country a hundred years of degradation and disaster in the vain attempt to realize his dream—what shall we call hint ? Demigod ? Or Charlatan ? F. W. BAIN.
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