THE LIGHTER SIDE OF FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY.*
THE characteristics of the larger of the works whose titles are given below are easily stated. The author does not profess to give a new theory of the founder of Bonapartist greatness, or to make fresh revelations as to his life. He simply thinks that " the various historians who have dealt with the First Napoleon have hardly paid sufficient attention to the matrimonial alliances by which he hoped to found and consolidate, not only an empire as large as that over which Charlemagne held sway, but several kingdoms in addition," and has endeavoured to supply the deficiency by collecting and giving to the public in two volumes all that history and gossip have had to say on the marriages of the Napoleonidas. Mr. Bingham, already favour- ably known for his account of the last siege of Paris, is what used to be known, a generation ago, as an "agreeable writer." He does not seek to go below the surface of events, or to moralise upon them ; he contents himself with gently scan- ning and narrating them, in the style of an Englishman of the world, whom long residence in France has compelled not only to tolerate the difference in moral stand-point between Paris and London society, but to do so without a sigh. To deal properly with the scandals, intrigues, and passions which constitute the balk of these two volumes, is to execute a kind of moral sword- dance ; and this feat Mr. Bingham has performed with consider- able skill and success. There is not a whiff of café-Voltaireanism in the whole book, and when Mr. Bingham retails gossip, as he is sometimes compelled to do, he does so in the spirit of the typical middle-class and middle-aged Englishman who likes his club and joins in its talk, but .never forgets that he has daughters at home. He should, however, abstain from making historical com- parisons, for he is the reverse of successful in such efforts. Thus, to take only one example, be is not happy in his observa- tions on the eccentricities of the Directory. He says, "The reaction was the same as the reaction in England on the restora- tion of Charles II.," and further on he says the same thing, in a more elaborate way, and with a disregard for the niceties of grammar to which, to do him justice, he is not prone. " Neither Puritanism nor Jacobinism was indigenous of the soil where they flourished for a time, and the disappearance of the sanguinary epoch in. France was hailed with the same unre- stricted delight and relaxation of morals as the disappearance of a Puritan administration in England." The resemblance between the Carnival of the Restoration and the Carnival of the Directory is of the slightest and most superficial char- acter. The fall of the Puritan supremacy in England and the close of the Reign of Terror in France were both welcomed with shouts of joy and relief ; but that is all that can be said. The morality of the Restoration was in direct opposition to that of Puritanism, and hence its temporary triumph, as being the most effectual protest against Cromwell and the Long Parliament. On the other hand, there is no con- trast between the ethics of Jacobinism and the " relaxation of morals " under the Directory. There is rather a filial connec- tion between them, and the best proof of this is the fact that the morality of Parisian literature at the present day, even leaving out of account M. Zola and his school, is only that of the Directory "through some certain strainers well refined." The decorous respectability which is the note of the governing section of English society at the present day, is an equally good proof that Puritanism was much more truly "indigenous " than the cynical Hobbism that succeeded it.
The First Napoleon is, of course, the true hero of Mr. Bing- ham's volumes, and he evidently considers, as most English-
* The marriages of the Bonaparte& By the Hon. D. A. Bingham. 2 vols. London : Longmans, Green, and Co. 18E.
The French Court and Society, Louis XVI. and the First _Empire. By Catherine Charlotte, Lady Jackson. 2 vols. London : Bentley and Son. 1882. men do, that that hero showed himself least heroic in his relations with women. Napoleon figures here once more as the same " miracle of unscrupulousness " that he was recently represented by Professor Seeley, as the " colossal cad " of Madame de R6musat's memoirs. Nor can it be denied that when success had turned his head, and the splendours of the Empire had eaten out his heart, his worse nature conquered his better. His insults to women were only surpassed in coarse vulgarity by his fami- liarities. He became in theory and in practice a polygamist♦ a fact which gives some support to Mr. Seeley's belief that it was the " prophet conquerors of Asia," rather than Charlemagne and Cmsar, that he set up as his models. When his fortunes became desperate, he would allow no sentiment to stand in the way of his schemes. In the whole course of his career there is nothing—probably not even the murder of the Due d'Enghien- which is so selfishly cruel as his tearing Marshal Berthier from Madame Visconti, and compelling him to marry the daughter of the Duke of Birkenfeld, only to hear in three months that, by the death of her husband, Madame Visconti had become free. Mr. Bingham probably does not exaggerate in the slightest, when he says that had Napoleon "remained much longer on the throne, he would have no doubt revived the old French law by which, as M. Tains says, children of fourteen were bound to march, and widows, up to the age of sixty were obliged to. remarry."
In spite of all this, it is the softer side of the First Napoleon's nature that stands out most prominently, after a perusal of these volumes. We are too prone to judge of Napoleon as he pourtrayed himself at St. Helena. There the moral ruin that success had begun, failure completed. The Napoleon of the conversations with Las Cases is but a peevish and malignant imp- of darkness, who tried to believe that he had never loved any one, and that all his actions were governed by what he styled " reason." That is not the Napoleon of the early days, the " lean and taciturn " artillery officer, whose eyes followed the graceful motions of the widow Beauharnais at the Directory balls. It is true that, as he told Las Cases, his first marriage was useful to him politically, because it brought him into relations with the Royalists. But that was an after-thought. He married Josephine because he was madly in love with her. Her outlook when they met was little less forlorn than his own. She had barely escaped the fate that befell Beanharnais. She had to pay a high price for the friendship of the chiefs of the Directory—Mr. Bingham has no doubt that she was for a time the mistress of Barras. She married ce drdle Bonaparte with- out loving him ; against his vigorous, "young Lochinvar style of wooing, her languid, though sensuous, Creole tem- perament could offer no adequate defence. In the height of his honeymoon, his passion was as intense as that of the otherwise cold-blooded Marlborough for his Sarah. From Italy he writes, " Yon have deprived me of my soul; you are the only thought of my life. If I am worried with business, if I fear the issue, if people disgust me, if I am ready to curse existence, I place my hand on my heart; your portrait beats there. I look at it. Love is an absolute happiness to me, and everything smiles, excepting the time when I am absent from my adored one I cherish honour because you cherish it, and victory because it pleases you, without which I should renounce everything, and throw myself at your feet." Mr. Bingham says of this period, " We doubt if the King of Prussia got through as much fighting and writing as did Napoleon during his first Italian campaign. Napoleon carried no poison, wrote no doggerel, but his pockets were stuffed with the wildest letters addressed to his adorable Josephine, while beating Beaulieu and Wnrmser, in the course of a few months he wrote a thousand despatches." It should never be forgotten that it was Josephine herself who began the estrange- ment between her and Napoleon. Her infidelities came to his ears, and, although he condoned them, he considered himself free to retaliate in kind. It is true that she was from first to last loyal to his personal interests and ambitions ; she rejoiced after her divorce to hear that Marie Louise had borne him an heir, and she mourned over his fall. On his part, he always appreciated her undoubted abilities, declared her fit to super- intend any department of State, except the Ministry of Finance, and even pardoned her almost helpless extravagance. But for Josephine's Creole nature, or her "relaxation of morals" during the despair of the Terror and the orgies of the Directory, she might have aided in the development of what was good in Napoleon's heart, as well as in his head.
The romance of Josephine and Napoleon is the soul of Mr. Bingham's volumes. One hardly wonders at Napoleon's im- patience with his relatives. Except Lucien, who had some spirit, and in the matter of his marriage successfully defied Napoleon, there is not one of them that commands any respect. Joseph and Louis Bonaparte were contemptible weaklings ; Jerome had his " big brother's " unscrupulousness, without his brains. There was an uncomfortable amount of the Borgia in Pauline Borghese and Caroline Murat. We suspect, indeed, Napoleon made mar- riages for his relatives more because he despised their incom- petence, and hesitation, and small selfishness, and because he was passionately fond of " managing," than because he contem- plated strengthening himself through such alliances. As events - turned out, he was a disastrous failure as a matchmaker. Per- haps nowhere in history is to be found such a dismal story of scandal and misery as that of the married life of Louis and Hortense, which Mr. Bingham gives here with all details, not omitting even the report—which he does not seem inclined to diamiss as a mere report—that the Third Napoleon had as much right to the royal title he bore as the Duo de Morny. In the shady ambitions of intrigue, as in the nobler dreams of politics, the Third Napoleon appears here as but a feeble imitator of the First. It is becoming plainer and plainer every day that if Josephine had too little influence over the uncle, Eugenie had too much influence over the nephew.
Lady Jackson's new work is in all respects a continuation of her Old _Regime. There is the same devotion to the more frivolous side of French life ; there is the same abundant use of " boudoir inanities " such as " poor," " monster," "such is the irony of fate," and so forth. Her style is, if possible, more mongrel and Gallican than ever. Every page is studded with italics, occasioned by the necessity for using such charm- ing French as spirituelle, cercle intime, hors de service, and reunion. Lady Jackson, too, is still afflicted with a weakness for making what she would be certain to style faux pas in her quotations. One of her blunders is positively delicious as an unconscious innuendo. Poor Calonne is pictured as tendering his resignation to Louis XVI., and " saying, with an approving conscience,—
"Nunc dimittis servum tuan-t, Domine."
Calonne has been irreverently styled "an old woman" fre- quently enough, but never till now has the contemptuous criti- cism come out of his own mouth. Still, Lady Jackson's book is readable, and may well be read after more serious works on recent French history. In the first part, she tells over again the story of the downfall of the French throne, being especially hard on light-headed Marie Antoinette, for what she character- istically styles her "disregard of the bienseances." The story of the "Diamond Necklace " is somewhat carelessly told; and the portrait of Cagliostro is by no means satisfactory. Lady Jack- son is more at home when she is telling of Talma, the actor, and Contat, the actress. As for her account of the Revo- lutionary period, it is enough to say that she picks her steps through that sea of blood with a comic daintiness. Lady Jackson is more at home in the Court of Napoleon and Josephine. To some extent, the second part of her book covers the same ground as Mr. Bingham's work, and she makes abundant quotations from the Memoirs of Count Miot de Melito, recently reviewed in these columns. On the whole, the blunders and jealousies of " the regime of Imperialism and gingerbread" are well told ; Lady Jackson is full and faithful in respect of all millinery details ; and her account of a thoroughly feminine passage-at-arms between Josephine and Pauline her sister-in-law is full of her own favourite esprit. A prominent attraction of these volumes consists of the por- traits of Necker, Charlotte Corday, Talma, the Comtesse de Provence, Josephine, and Marie Louise. That of Josephine is surely a caricature ; it suggests nothing so much as a fat, country barmaid, tricked out in tinsel ornaments, brought by her admirers from a village fair. This cannot be " the little Creole " that racked Napoleon's brain, and dominated his whole nature during the Italian war.
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