Part 8 (1/2)
XVII.
PARIS IN THE BEGINNING OF 1806.
Napoleon arranged his return with the utmost skill. His prolonged stay at Munich kept alive the impatience of the Parisians for his return, and meanwhile there was a constant stream of flattery and enthusiasm. January 1, 1806, had just put an end to the Republican calendar, which had existed for thirteen years, three months, and a few days. The Year XIV. found itself suddenly interrupted by the return to the Gregorian calendar. Thus vanished the last trace of the Republic. The same day the new year was inaugurated with a patriotic ceremony. The Tribune carried with great solemnity to the Senate the forty-four Russian and Austrian flags which the hero of Austerlitz had entrusted to its care. All the houses in the streets through which the procession was to pa.s.s were decorated. In front of many of them were to be seen the Emperor's bust crowned with laurels.
The ever lyrical _Moniteur_ said: ”At the sight of these n.o.ble spoils, these startling proofs of the heroism of the French army, all hearts seemed to meet in a common feeling of admiration and grat.i.tude which was but faintly expressed by the shouts issuing from the crowd and from every window, of 'Long live the Emperor!' 'Hurrah for the Grand Army!' 'Victory, victory!' 'Long live the Emperor!' It was in this way that the people of Paris, of all cla.s.ses, of both s.e.xes, of all ages, manifested in the most vivid and unanimous way their devotion and grat.i.tude to His Majesty and his victorious armies.”
One Tribune, M. Joubert, exclaimed: ”Is not Napoleon the man of history, the man of all ages? May we not say that there is something supernatural in him, since it is true that G.o.d disposes of the fate of empires, and that Napoleon the Great gladly submits everything to Providence and ascribes everything to religion?” In their official enthusiasm the Tribunes, as accomplished courtiers, made one motion after another. One proposed that the Emperor on his return should receive triumphal honors, like those of ancient Rome, and the city of Paris should go to meet him.
Another suggested that the sword which he wore at the battle of Austerlitz should be solemnly consecrated and placed in some public monument. Another expressed a desire that on one of the princ.i.p.al places in the city a column should be set up, bearing the Emperor's statue, with this inscription: ”To Napoleon the Great, the grateful country.” The Senate, with similar zeal, hastened to carry out the plan by a decree.
The Parisians, who always wors.h.i.+p success of monarches, generals, or artists, then felt the wildest admiration for the victorious Napoleon. The _Moniteur_ was full of dithyrambic eulogies, in prose and verse. Flattery appeared as it had never appeared before. Bishops became conspicuous for their ardent praise; some phrases from their charges may be quoted. Thus the Bishop of Versailles said: ”G.o.d says: 'No one shall resist him, whom I have clothed with a special mission to re-establish my wors.h.i.+p, to lead my chosen people; no one will resist him because I am with him, and he is with me. _Dem c.u.m eo_.'”
The Bishop of Bayonne; ”Behold our enemies ones more defeated. Let incredulity be silent and the atheist confounded. Our annals will be the story of the wonders of Providence... Widows, cease to bemoan the loss of a loved husband; you are not left alone; you belong to the country.
Orphans, you have found another father; Napoleon has adopted you.”
The Bishop of Rennes: ”Did not those kings know, or did they forget in their delirium, that the French nation is now the first nation in the world? Did they not know that the man who governs it is the most astounding man in the world, and the greatest warrior history has ever known?”
The Bishop of Coutances: ”The Almighty wishes Napoleon to attain this new glory and hence impresses upon him a sort of divine character. He wishes him to attain it on the day and at the same hour that the Sovereign Pontiff, one year ago, poured on his brow the holy oil.”
The Bishop of Montpellier: ”Let the earth be shaken, and the mountains cast into the bosom of the seas; our G.o.d blesses the views, the wisdom, the talents, and the courage of our august monarch.”
The Emperor, in dividing the flags which he had captured from Russia and Austria, had given fifty-four to the Senate, eight to the Tribunes, eight to the city of Paris, and fifty to the church of Notre Dame, which he wished to adorn with his trophies as the Marshal of Luxembourg had done in the reign of Louis XIV. The day when these fifty flags were given to the Cathedral the Cardinal Archbishop of France said, ”O Posterity, when you read our history you will imagine that you are reading anew the fall of the walls of Jericho, and listening to the miraculous deeds of Joshua, David, and Judas Maccabaeus. _Benedictus Dominus qui facit mirabilia solus_.... G.o.d of Marengo, you declare yourself the G.o.d of Austerlitz; and the German eagle, the Russian eagle, abandoned by you, became the prey of the French eagle, which you never cease to protect.” A singular piece of flattery this, to call the Creator of the universe--of which this earth is not a millionth part--the G.o.d of a village, because near this village a man has wrought the death of many other men!
Paris seemed to have recovered its ardor of the first days of the Revolution in order to salute the triumphant hero. The day of his arrival, January 27, 1806, the managers of the bank, anxious that his presence should be the signal for public prosperity, ordered the resumption of specie payments. The Opera celebrated his return and that of the Empress by a grand performance which took place February 4. The bills announced the _Pretendus_ and a divertis.e.m.e.nt, The public knew that this divertis.e.m.e.nt was to be a sort of apotheosis in honor of the Imperial glories. The house was crowded, and the pa.s.sages themselves were crammed by the enthusiastic crowd. During the second act of the _Pretendus_ there was great excitement over the arrival of Napoleon and Josephine. Applause resounded from every side. Ladies distributed laurel branches, which all the spectators waved, shouting, ”Long live the Emperor!” Musicians played the chorus of the _Caravan_. Meanwhile, the scenery of the _Pretendus_ disappeared, and applause began over the magnificent decorations that took its place. It was a semicircular enclosure with trophies forming a colonnade showing the course of the Seine from the Pont Neuf to the western limit of Paris, showing the Louvre, which Napoleon had promised to complete, the Pont des Arts, the Palais de la Monnaie, the Tuileries, and in the misty distance the Champs Elysees overlooking this fine view. The interior of the enclosure was adorned with garlands and crowded with people, awaiting the return of the Grand Army. This appeared with a military march: the sappers in front with their axes and white ap.r.o.ns; the grenadiers of the Guard with their high fur caps; the artillerymen with their black caps; the dragoons with their double armor; the Mamelukes with their scimetars. Then came the Bavarians, worthy comrades of Napoleon's soldiers. The people applauded their defenders. Pupils of the military schools sprang into the ranks to welcome their fathers, while old men embraced their children. A general chorus was heard. Then a warrior came to the front of the stage and celebrated in a hymn the marvels of the campaign of Austerlitz. This was followed by a ballet of foreign nations, in which joined French peasants and girls in the dress of their provinces, from Caux and Alsace, Provence, Bearn, Auvergne, and the Alps. After the dances came songs,--the words by Esmenard, author of the _Navigation_, the music by Stobelt. The marches, evolutions, and ballet were arranged by Gardel. The princ.i.p.al stanzas were sung by the most distinguished artists, Lainez, Las, Madame Armand, Madame Branchu. When it was all over, the Emperor and the Empress withdrew amid applause, and there was sung the _Vivat_ of Abbe Rose which had made such a success at Notre Dame on Coronation Day, and was as warmly applauded at the Opera as it had been in the Cathedral.
XVIII.
THE MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE OF BADEN.
If anything is capable of proving the admiration, terror, and fascination that the hero of Austerlitz exercised over Europe, and especially over Germany, in 1806, it is certainly the marriage of the hereditary Prince of Baden with Mademoiselle Stephanie de Beauharnais. It was a curious sight!
A Prince belonging to one of the oldest and most ill.u.s.trious families in the world, whose three sisters had married, one, the Emperor of Russia; another, the King of Sweden; the third, the King of Bavaria; a Prince who might have allied himself with the oldest reigning houses had come to regard as an honor a marriage with, the plain daughter of a French senator,--a girl not united by any ties of blood with Napoleon, but only by adoption; that is to say, by a whim. One might have supposed that the Empire of the new Charlemagne was centuries old, and the German Princes bowed before it like devoted va.s.sals before their suzerain. What a vast power he had attained, and how easily he could have kept it, if he had limited his ambition, and put bounds to his power, and had not asked of docile Germany more than it could give him!
The marriage of Mademoiselle Stephanie de Beauharnais with the hereditary Prince of Baden was at first warmly opposed by the Margravine, this Prince's mother. M. Ma.s.sias, French charge d'affaires at Baden, had written on this matter to M. de Talleyrand, Minister of Foreign Affairs, January 6, 1806: ”My Lord,--For some days there has been a rumor quietly circulating among the princ.i.p.al persons of the court of Carlsruhe that the object of M. de Thiard's last journey was to arrange the marriage of the Electoral Prince of Baden with the daughter of Senator Beauharnais. Last evening arrived a messenger from the Electress of Bavaria for the Margravine, the mother of this Prince. I have learned by chance the contents of this missive to his mother. She says substantially that she has had a talk of more than an hour with the Emperor Napoleon; that His Majesty promised that the marriage of the Electoral Prince of Baden with Mademoiselle Beauharnais should never take place without the consent of the Margravine; and in case of her refusal of this consent, he would only reserve to himself the right of being consulted on the choice of the wife to be given to this young Prince.... The Electoral Prince called on his mother after she had received this despatch, and was with her alone for two hours; he came away in great dejection. When he got to his grandfather's, he exclaimed, involuntarily, 'That woman is lost; she wants to ruin herself!'”
The charge d'affaires ended his letter with this sketch of the Margravine: ”I have known the Margravine for six years, and I think I can say that if she judges the match in question opposed to the pride inspired by the first ideas of her education, no persuasion can move her. She possesses to a very marked degree the confident obstinacy of feeble and timid spirits.
She does not dare to dismiss an incompetent footman; and when she has once made up her mind, which is only possible in matters about which her opinions are rigidly formed, neither force nor persuasion can modify her.
That is my reading of her character, and I think it the true one.”
The more the Margravine opposed this match which the Emperor had suggested, the more the young Prince of Baden and his grandfather, the Elector, desired it. M. Ma.s.sias wrote again to M. de Talleyrand, January 9, 1806: ”His Most Serene Highness, the Prince Electoral of Baden, is to leave tomorrow for Ulm and Augsburg, to invite, in his grandfather's name, His Majesty the Emperor and King to honor Carlsruhe with his presence, and to stay at the castle on his way back to France. But, he tells me himself, the main object of his journey is to convince His Majesty that the marriage of which I had the honor to speak to Your Excellency in my last letter, is far from opposing his desires; and he hopes to dissipate without difficulty the doubts which it has been sought to raise regarding this in the mind of His Majesty, for whom he always manifested a profound devotion and a sincere attachment.”
What was the origin of this young girl whose hand was thus sought by the hereditary Prince of Baden? The Marquis of Beauharnais, the father of the Viscount of Beauharnais, the first husband of the Empress Josephine, had a brother, Count Claude de Beauharnais, who was a commodore, and married Mademoiselle f.a.n.n.y Mouchard. Countess f.a.n.n.y, a friend of Dorat and Cubieres, took much interest in literature and wrote many novels. She was a blue-stocking, and it was about her that Lebrun wrote the malicious epigram:--
”Egle, fair and a poetess, has then two slight faults: She makes her face and does not make her verses.”
By her marriage with Count Claude de Beauharnais, the Countess f.a.n.n.y (born in 1738, died in 1813) had one son, named Claude after his father, who married the daughter of the Count of Lezay-Marnesia. They had a daughter, Stephanie de Beauharnais, born August 28, 1789, who was adopted by Napoleon, married the hereditary Prince of Baden, became the grandd.u.c.h.ess of this country, and died in 1860, much loved by her family and the people of Baden. Her father, Claude de Beauharnais, was a senator in the Empire, a peer of France at the Restoration, and died in 1819.