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which we have allowed ourselves....
"The Commission has decided in favour of chronological order
throughout. It is, moreover, the only one which can reproduce
faithfully the sequence of the Emperor's thoughts. It is also the best
for putting in relief his universal aptitude and his marvellous
fecundity.
"Napoleon wrote little with his own hand; nearly all the items of his
correspondence were dictated to his secretaries, to his aides-de-camp
and his chief of staff, or to his ministers. Thus the Commission has
not hesitated to comprise in this collection a great number of items
which, although bearing another signature, evidently emanate from
Napoleon....
"By declaring that his public life dated from the siege of Toulon,
Napoleon has himself determined the point of departure which the
Commission should choose. It is from this immortal date that commences
the present publication.
"(Signed) THE MEMBERS OF THE COMMISSION.
"_Paris, January 20, 1858._"
CONTEMPORARY SOURCES.--It is a commonplace that the history of
Napoleon has yet to be written. His contemporaries were stunned or
overwhelmed by the whirlwind of his glory; the next generation was
blinded by meteoric fragments of his "system," which glowed with
impotent heat as they fell through an alien atmosphere into oblivion.
Such were the Bourriennes, the Jominis, the Talleyrands, and other
traitors of that ilk. But
"The tumult and the shouting dies;
The captains and the kings depart;"
and now, when all the lesser tumults and lesser men _have_ passed
away, each new century will, as Lockhart foretold, "inscribe one
mighty era with the majestic name of Napoleon." And yet the writings
of no contemporary can be ignored; neither Alison nor Scott, certainly
not Bignon, Montgaillard, Pelet, Mathieu Dumas, and Pasquier.
Constant, Bausset, Meneval, Rovigo, and D'Abrantes are full of
interest for their personal details, and D'Avrillon, Las Cases,
Marmont, Marbot, and Lejeune only a degree less so. Jung's _Memoirs of
Lucien_ are invaluable, and those of Joseph and Louis Bonaparte
useful. But the _Correspondence_ is worth everything else, including
Panckouke (1796-99), where, in spite of shocking arrangement, print,
and paper, we get the replies as well as the letters. The _Biographie
Universelle Michaud_ is hostile, except the interesting footnotes of
Begin. It must, however, be read. The article in the _Encyclopaedia
Britannica_ was the work of an avowed enemy of the Napoleonic system,
the editor of the _Life and Times of Stein_.
For the Diary, the _Revue Chronologique de l'Histoire de France_ or
Montgaillard (1823) has been heavily drawn upon, especially for the
later years, but wherever practicable the dates have been verified
from the _Correspondence_ and bulletins of the day. On the whole, the
records of respective losses in the battles are slightly favourable to
the French, as their figures have been usually taken; always, however,
the maximum French loss and the minimum of the allies is recorded,
when unverified from other sources.
The late Professor Seeley, in his monograph, asserts that Napoleon,
tried by his plan, is a failure--that even before death his words and
actions merited no monument. We must seek, however, for the mightiest
heritage of Napoleon in his brainchildren of the second generation,
the Genii of the Code.
The Code Napoleon claims to-day its two hundred million subjects. "The
Law should be clean, precise, uniform; to interpret is to corrupt it."
So ruled the Emperor; and now, a century later, Archbishop Temple
(born in one distant island the year Napoleon died in another) bears
testimony to the beneficent sway of Napoleon's Word-Empire.
Criticising English legal phraseology, the Archbishop of Canterbury
said, "The French Code is always welcome in every country where it has
been introduced; and where people have once got hold of it, they are
unwilling to have it changed for any other, because it is _a marvel of
clearness_." Surely if ever Style _is_ the Man, it is Napoleon,
otherwise the inspection of over seven million words, as marshalled
forth in his _Correspondence_, would not only confuse but confound. As
it is, its "hum of armies, gathering rank on rank," has left behind
what Bacon calls a conflation of sound, from which, however, as from
Kipling's steel-sinewed symphony,
"The clanging chorus goes--
Law, Order, Duty and Restraint, Obedience, Discipline."
FOOTNOTES
[6] Sometimes he is perhaps more to be trusted than the leading
lexicographer, as for example when, the day after Wagram, he
writes his Minister of War that the _coup de Jarnac_ will come
from the English in Spain. Now, when the Jarnac in question was
slain in fair fight by La Chateignerie by a blow _au jarret_,
it was an _unexpected_ blow, but not surely, as Littre tells
us, _manoeuvre perfide_, _deloyale_. Nothing was too disloyal
for perfidious Albion, but for 30,000 English to outmanoeuvre
three marshals and 100,000 French veterans would be, and was,
the unexpected which happened at Talavera three weeks later.
[7] Findel's _History of Freemasonry_.
[8] Lord Rosebery.
[9] This versatile writer, the author of _Oberon_, the translator of
Lucian and Shakespeare, and the founder of psychological
romance in Germany, was then in his seventy-fifth year.
[10] The historian (1755-1809), "the Thucydides of Switzerland."
[11] Horne's _History of Napoleon_ (1841).
[12] Ibid.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Column Headings:
A: Pages.
B: Series.
C: Dates.
D: No. of Letters.
E: Sources.
F: Tennant.
G: Didot.
H: Various.
I: Pages of Corresponding Notes.
| | | | | E | |
| A | B| C | D |----------------------------------- | I |
| | | | | F | G | H | |
| | | | | | |{No. 2, from } | |
| 1-16 | A|1796 | 8 |{ Nos.} | |{ St. Amand, } |198-211|
| | | | |{1, } | |{ _La Citoyenne_} | |
| | | | |{3-8 } | |{ _Bonaparte_ } | |
| | | | | | | | |
| | | | | |{Nos. }|{No. 15, from } | |
| 17-38 | B|1796-7 | 25 | |{1-14 }|{ Bourrienne's } |211-223|
| | | | | |{16-25}|{ _Life of_ } | |
| | | | | | |{ _Bonaparte_ } | |
| | | | | | | | |
| 39-46 | C|1800 | 4 | No. 3 | 1,2,4 | |223-225|
| | | | | | | | |
| 47-53 | D|1801-2 | 5 | | all | |225-231|
| | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |{No. 1, } | |
| | | | | | |{ _Correspondence_}|
| 55-60 | E|1804 | 6 | |{Nos. }|{No. 5, } |232-237|
| | | | | |{2,3,} |{ Collection } | |
| | | | | |{4,6 } |{ of Baron Heath} | |
| | | | | | | | |
| 61-74 | F|1805 | 19 | | all | |237-243|
| | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |{No. 9A, from } | |
| | | | | | |{ Mlle. }|243-264 | |
| | | | | | |{ D'Avrillon } | |
| 75-118| G|1806-7 | 87 | |all but|{No. 85, from } | |
| | | | | | |{ Las Casas } | |
| | | | | | | | |
|119-122| H|1807 | 3 | | all | |264-267|
| | | | | | | | |
|123-128| I|1808 | 4 | | all | |267-269|
| | | | | | | | |
|129-132| J|1808 | 3 | | all | |269-273|
| | | | | | | | |
|133-140| K|1808-9 | 14 | | all | |273-278|
| | | | | | | | |
|141-154| L|1809Previous Next |