Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte — Complete
antipathies; for those who are free from common prejudices acquire
others of their own in their stead, to which they are equally bigoted,
and which they bring forward on all occasions. When the evening passed
off in conversation without having recourse to books he considered it a
point gained.
Some one having asked the Emperor which was the greatest battle that he
had fought, he replied it was difficult to answer that question without
inquiring what was implied by the greatest battle. "Mine," continued
he, "cannot be judged of separately: they formed a portion of extensive
plans. They must therefore be estimated by their consequences. The
battle of Marengo, which was so long undecided, procured for us the
command of all Italy. Ulm annihilated a whole army; Jena laid the whole
Prussian monarchy at our feet; Friedland opened the Russian empire to
us; and Eckmuhl decided the fate of a war. The battle of the Moskwa
was that in which the greatest talent was displayed, and by which we
obtained the fewest advantages. Waterloo, where everything failed,
would, had victory crowned our efforts, have saved France and given
peace to Europe."
Madame Montholon having inquired what troops he considered the best,
"Those which are victorious, madam," replied the Emperor. "But," added
he, "soldiers are capricious and inconstant, like you ladies. The best
troops were the Carthaginians under Hannibal, the Romans under the
Scipios, the Macedonians under Alexander, and the Prussians under
Frederick." He thought, however, that the French soldiers were of all
others those which could most easily be rendered the best, and preserved
so. "With my complete guard of 40,000 or 50,000 men I would have
undertaken to march through Europe. It is perhaps possible to produce
troops as good as those that composed my army of Italy and Austerlitz,
but certainly none can ever surpass them."
The anniversary of the battle of Waterloo produced a visible
impression on the Emperor. "Incomprehensible day!" said he, dejectedly;
"concurrence of unheard-of fatalities! Grouchy, Ney, D'Erlon--was there
treachery or was it merely misfortune? Alas! poor France!" Here he
covered his eyes with his hands. "And yet," said he, "all that human
skill could do was accomplished! All was not lost until the moment when
all had succeeded." A short time afterwards, resuming the subject, he
exclaimed, "In that extraordinary campaign, thrice, in less than a week,
I saw the certain triumph of France slip through my fingers. Had it not
been for a traitor I should have annihilated the enemy at the outset of
the campaign. I should have destroyed him at Ligny if my left wing had
only done its duty. I should have destroyed him again at Waterloo if my
right had seconded me. Singular defeat, by which, notwithstanding the
most fatal catastrophe, the glory of the conquered has not suffered."
We shall here give Napoleon's own opinion of the battle of Waterloo.
"The plan of the battle," said he, "will not in the eyes of the
historian reflect any credit on Lord Wellington as a general. In the
first place, he ought not to have given battle with the armies divided.
They ought to have been united and encamped before the 15th. In the
next, the choice of ground was bad; because if he had been beaten he
could not have retreated, as there was only one road leading through the
forest in his rear. He also committed a fault which might have proved
the destruction of all his army, without its ever having commenced
the campaign, or being drawn out in battle; he allowed himself to be
surprised. On the 15th I was at Charleroi, and had beaten the Prussians
without his knowing anything about it. I had gained forty-eight hours
of manoeuvres upon him, which was a great object; and if some of my
generals had shown that vigour and genius which they had displayed on
other occasions, I should have taken his army in cantonments without
ever fighting a battle. But they were discouraged, and fancied that they
saw an army of 100,000 men everywhere opposed to them. I had not time
enough myself to attend to the minutiae of the army. I counted upon
surprising and cutting Wellington up in detail. I knew of Bulow's
arrival at eleven o'clock, but I did not regard it. I had still eighty
chances out of a hundred in my favour. Notwithstanding the great
superiority of force against me I was convinced that I should obtain the
victory, I had about 70,000 men, of whom 15,000 were cavalry. I had also
260 pieces of cannon; but my troops were so good that I esteemed
them sufficient to beat 120,000. Of all those troops, however, I only
reckoned the English as being able to cope with my own. The others I
thought little of. I believe that of English there were from 35,000 to
40,000. These I esteemed to be as brave and as good as my own troops;
the English army was well known latterly on the Continent, and besides,
your nation possesses courage and energy. As to the Prussians, Belgians,
and others, half the number of my troops, were sufficient to beat them.
I only left 34,000 men to take care of the Prussians. The chief causes
of the loss of that battle were, first of all, Grouchy's great tardiness
and neglect in executing his orders; next, the 'grenadiers a cheval' and
the cavalry under General Guyot, which I had in reserve, and which were
never to leave me, engaged without orders and without my knowledge; so
that after the last charge, when the troops were beaten and the English
cavalry advanced, I had not a single corps of cavalry in reserve to
resist them, instead of one which I esteemed to be equal to double their
own number. In consequence of this the English attacked, succeeded, and
all was lost. There was no means of rallying. The youngest general
would not have committed the fault of leaving an army entirely without
reserve, which, however, occurred here, whether in consequence of
treason or not I cannot say. These were the two principal causes of the
loss of the battle of Waterloo."
"If Lord Wellington had intrenched himself," continued Napoleon, "I
would not have attacked him. As a general, his plan did not show talent.
He certainly displayed great courage and obstinacy; but a little must
be taken away even from that when you consider that he had no means of
retreat, and that had he made the attempt not a man of his army would
have escaped. First, to the firmness and bravery of his troops, for
the English fought with the greatest courage and obstinacy, he is
principally indebted for the victory, and not to his own conduct as a
general; and next, to the arrival of Blücher, to whom the victory is
more to be attributed than to Wellington, and more credit is due as
a general; because he, although beaten the day before, assembled
his troops, and brought them into action in the evening. I believe,
however," continued Napoleon, "that Wellington is a man of great
firmness. The glory of such a victory is a great thing; but in the eye
of the historian his military reputation will gain nothing by it."
"I always had a high opinion of your seamen," said Napoleon one day to
O'Meara, in a conversation arising out of the expedition to Algiers.
"When I was returning from Holland along with the Empress Maria Louisa
we stopped to rest at Givet. During the night a violent storm of wind
and rain came on, which swelled the Meuse so much that the bridge
of boats over it was carried away. I was very anxious to depart, and
ordered all the boatmen in the place to be assembled that I might be
enabled to cross the river. They said that the waters were so high that
it would be impossible to pass before two or three days. I questioned
some of them, and soon discovered that they were fresh-water seamen. I
then recollected that there were English prisoners in the barracks, and
ordered that some of the oldest and best seamen among them should be
brought before me to the banks of the river. The waters were very high,
and the current rapid and dangerous. I asked them if they could join a
number of boats together so that I might pass over. They answered
that it was possible, but hazardous. I desired them to set about it
instantly. In the course of a few hours they succeeded in effecting what
the others had pronounced to be impossible, and I crossed before the
evening was over. I ordered those who had worked at it to receive a sum
of money each, a suit of clothes, and their liberty. Marchand was with
me at the time."
In December 1816 Las Cases was compelled to leave St. Helena. He had
written a letter to Lucien Bonaparte, and entrusted it to a mulatto
servant to be forwarded to Europe. He was detected; and as he was thus
endeavouring to carry on (contrary to the regulations of the island) a
clandestine correspondence with Europe, Las Cases and his son were sent
off, first to the Cape and then to England, where they were only allowed
to land to be sent to Dover and shipped off to Ostend.
Not long after their arrival at St. Helena, Madame Bertrand gave birth
to a son, and when Napoleon went to visit her she said, "I have the
honour of presenting to your Majesty the first French subject who has
entered Longwood without the permission of Lord Bathurst."
It has been generally supposed that Napoleon was a believer in the
doctrine of predestination. The following conversation with Las Cases
clearly decides that point. "Pray," said he, "am I not thought to be
given to a belief in predestination?"--"Yes, Sire; at least by many
people."--"Well, well! let them say what they please, one may sometimes
be tempted to set a part, and it may occasionally be useful. But what
are men? How much easier is it to occupy their attention and to strike
their imaginations by absurdities than by rational ideas! But can a
man of sound sense listen for one moment to such a doctrine? Either
predestination admits the existence of free-will, or it rejects it.
If it admits it, what kind of predetermined result can that be which a
simple resolution, a step, a word, may alter or modify ad infinitum? If
predestination, on the contrary, rejects the existence of free-will it
is quite another question; in that case a child need only be thrown into
its cradle as soon as it is born, there is no necessity for bestowing
the least care upon it, for if it be irrevocably decreed that it is to
live, it will grow though no food should be given to it. You see that
such a doctrine cannot be maintained; predestination is but a word
without meaning. The Turks themselves, the professors of predestination,
are not convinced of the doctrine, for in that case medicine would not
exist in Turkey, and a man residing in a third floor would not take the
trouble of going down stairs, but would immediately throw himself out of
the window. You see to what a string of absurdities that will lead?"
The following traits are characteristic of the man. In the common
intercourse of life, and his familiar conversation, Napoleon mutilated
the names most familiar to him, even French names; yet this would not
have occurred on any public occasion. He has been heard many times
during his walks to repeat the celebrated speech of Augustus in
Corneille's tragedy, and he has never missed saying, "Take a seat,
Sylla," instead of Cinna. He would frequently create names according to
his fancy, and when he had once adopted them they remained fixed in his
mind, although they were pronounced properly a hundred times a day in
his hearing; but he would have been struck if others had used them as he
had altered them. It was the same thing with respect to orthography;
in general he did not attend to it, yet if the copies which were made
contained any faults of spelling he would have complained of it. One day
Napoleon said to Las Cases, "Your orthography is not correct, is it?"