THE

EDINBURGH REVIEW,

OCTOBER, 1867.

No. CCLVIII. AV

ART. I.-Correspondance de Napoléon Ier, publiée par ordre de l'Empereur Napoléon III. Vols. I.-XV. Paris: 1858-1864. THE diffidence we feel in commencing our present task arises

far less from the thought of what we shall say, than from the consciousness of all that must unavoidably be left unsaid. The mass of materials before us is disheartening from its abundance; and the stern necessity for rejection and compression, which generally becomes evident to reviewers when they draw nigh to their concluding pages, strikes us with dismay at the very outset. The salutary warning of Boileau-.

'Qui ne sut se borner ne sut jamais écrire,'

was never more necessary than in the present instance, and no writer who was not resolved to confine himself strictly within certain self-imposed bounds could hope in a few pages to give any idea of the value and interest of the Correspondence of Napoleon I. The work is still in progress and will not be completed, it is said, for some years. Twenty-one volumes have been already published, comprising nearly twelve thousand closely printed large octavo pages, and containing up'wards of seventeen thousand letters, proclamations, bulletins and documents of different kinds, all emanating, directly or indirectly, from Napoleon-yet these only bring the collection down to the spring of 1811. Judging from these data, and taking into consideration the fact that the number of letters contributed from private and foreign sources increases as the Correspondence draws nearer to our own times, we may pretty safely reckon on about ten volumes more. Under these circumstances we might fairly hope to be excused, without further explanation, for limiting our criticism in the present instance to

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what may be considered as the first half of this stupendous collection. But a short account of the two successive Editorial Commissions to which the duty of carrying out the instructions of the present Emperor of the French has been entrusted, will show that we have drawn no arbitrary line for our own convenience, and that, in some very material respects, the first fifteen volumes of the Correspondence may be taken as a separate work. Where so much depends on the spirit in which the selection of materials is made, a change of editors-involving, as in this case, a change in the mode of exercising their discretionary power-is an all-important circumstance.

In September 1854 the Emperor of the French appointed a Commission whose functions were to collect, set in order, and publish the Correspondence of his august predecessor, Napoleon I., relating to the different branches of public interest.' This Commission was composed of thirteen members, and had for its President Marshal Vaillant, then Minister of War. It was instructed-and the instructions appear to have been faithfully followed-to abstain from any alteration, suppression, or 'modification of the texts.' The Commission immediately commenced its labours, and in 1858 published a first volume headed by a Report, the opening sentence of which is in the grandest style of Napoleonic magniloquence: Sire, Augustus placed Cæsar among the Gods and dedicated a temple to him; the temple has disappeared, the Commentaries have ' remained.' The Commentaries of the modern Cæsar, as they stand collected in the Correspondence, are as little likely, we should say, to be overlooked by posterity as those of his Roman prototype. Fourteen other volumes had followed in quick succession, with an interval of only a few months between each, when suddenly, in 1864, the Commission, notwithstanding its zeal in the cause of historical truth-or, as it may be surmised, in consequence of a zeal too little tempered with discretion-was superseded, and other editors were appointed in its stead.

If any surprise was felt by the public, it was caused, not by the measure itself, but by the fact of its having been so long delayed. Had the situation of the French press been different, had there existed in France any of those sure and prompt means for testing public opinion which free countries afford, there can be little doubt that the knowledge of the impression produced by the publication of this Correspondence would have quickly dispelled the delusions of those who flattered themselves that they were raising a monument to the glory of the founder of the Bonaparte dynasty. No pamphleteer, however hostile,

could have produced a work half so damaging to the reputation of the imperial hero; no libeller, however unscrupulous, would have dared to invent some of the letters which have thus been given to the world in the blindness of political idolatry. But it was long before the effect on the public outside the imperialist atmosphere could be appreciated, and, in the meantime, fifteen volumes had been published. The work was expensive and quite beyond the reach of popular readers; it was long and filled up in a great measure with administrative and military matters which deterred indolent minds accustomed to the light food of small chronicles and lively causeries. Newspapers and reviews were afraid to tread on such dangerous ground, and withheld their criticism; in a word, the Correspondence, all things considered, was little read and still less spoken of. Now and then a political writer, bolder than the rest, would quote some startling passage to show the evils of uncontrolled power and the dangers of excessive centralisation, but without daring to add a commentary. So the work proceeded rapidly and noiselessly, watched and appreciated only by a select few. It was half completed before its most zealous promoters had found out that their pious efforts had resulted in the most complete and irrefragable collection of accusing testimony that any one man was ever made to furnish against himself.

Still, the stifled whispers of public opinion will with time, in the best ordered States, grow into a collective murmur which makes itself heard, even through palace walls and in the chambers where Imperial Commissions sit; and in 1864, as we have said, the present Commission was appointed. It consists of six members only-a manageable number-and the President is Prince Napoleon. With the labours of this second Commission we do not mean to deal, our object in alluding to them being merely to show that the spirit in which they are conducted is somewhat different from that which actuated the first editors. A single sentence, taken from Prince Napoleon's first half-yearly Report to the Emperor, will suffice:-

'In general we have been guided by a very simple idea, namely, that we were called upon to publish that which the Emperor himself would have rendered public could he have outlived himself and— anticipating the judgment of future ages-have wished to make known to posterity, his personal character and his system.'

A very simple idea certainly, but one that will not generally be considered as conducive to impartiality in editorship. At all events, it constitutes the marked difference between the second series of the Correspondence and the first. No one

who has read the fifteen volumes now before us will be disposed to assert that they were compiled in obedience to the rule subsequently laid down by Prince Napoleon, and that they exhibit the Emperor as he would have wished to be presented to the judgment of future ages. Most certainly they do not show him as he painted himself at St. Helena, when the fear of posterity was upon him.

It is impossible to read some of these letters without feeling wonder that men devoted to the imperial dynasty, and jealous of its honour, should have willingly given them to the world. Was it possible that unquestioning admiration had so far blunted their moral sense, that they could not foresee what the judgment of mankind would be? We would rather try to believe that the Commissioners were enlightened and honest men, who, being carried away by the engrossing interest of the labours in which they were engaged, forgot all else, and lost sight for a time of the political passions of the day in the ardour of historic research. We have, however, heard it whispered that even these conscientious collectors have not given us all, and that some letters, incautiously sent to the Commission by their too confiding possessors, have been neither inserted nor returned.

Be that as it may, the first part of the Correspondence, as it stands, is a most valuable collection of materials for history, and the public may well be thankful for it. Many of these letters, it is true, have been published before: some in a collected form under the Restoration, others, interspersed in the memoirs or correspondence of those to whom they were addressed; but the effect is much heightened by the circumstance of their being now presented in one series. The same subject was often treated by Napoleon in several letters, and the mode of treatment generally varied greatly according to the correspondent. The discrepancies and contradictions thus brought forward are not the least curious parts of the work.

We have said that our first care must be to circumscribe our field. The fact of limiting our review to the first fifteen volumes would scarcely prove a sufficient precaution. These range over fourteen eventful years, from the siege of Toulon in 1793 down to the end of August 1809, after the conclusion of the Peace of Tilsit, and comprise nearly fourteen thousand documents of different kinds. Naturally-we had almost said fortunately these are of very unequal interest, and many may pass unnoticed without any great effort of self-denial on the part of the reviewer. The distinction between what strictly comes under the head of Correspondence and the

general works of Napoleon has not been sufficiently kept in view by the Commission. Proclamations, bulletins, messages to the Senate exposing the general situation of the affairs of the Empire-all of which are to be found in the Moniteur'— have been reprinted. Official documents, which, though signed by the Emperor, were certainly the work of ministers or even of employés of an inferior order, instructions for the fleet, long lists of the works of art taken from foreign capitals, extracts from publications of the day which have been, with more or less good reason, attributed to Napoleon, and fragments of speeches reported secondhand, swell the bulk of these volumes. Even as regards the Correspondence properly so-called, the rules laid down by the Commission have not been strictly adhered to. The selection is arbitrary and incomplete. Letters have been inserted into the collection which in no way relate to branches of public interest,' while they are too few and too uninteresting to give an idea of Napoleon's familiar correspondence. A dozen unmeaning notes to Joséphine, for instance, are given for no other reason, it would seem, than to show that some sparks of common humanity lingered in the Imperial breast. Again we might well have dispensed with the conventional letters of condolence addressed to the families of those who died in battle, or the official letters notifying the birth of infant princes or princesses of the Imperial family. Still, after deducting all that is useless and uninteresting, there remains an almost bewildering mass of attractive matter, and some rules of selection must be laid down to avoid losing ourselves hopelessly. We purpose, therefore, dwelling only on such portions of the Correspondence as explain the traditions of the Imperial system which still survive in France and influence her government, or on those which illustrate the personal character of Napoleon. We cannot attempt to follow the great events of history by the help of the Correspondence. On these it throws no new light. But it does throw great and powerful light on much that must seem incomprehensible to most Englishmen in the domestic politics of France. It brings the theory of personal government, and the whole machinery, so to speak, of centralisation so forcibly before the reader, that the shortcomings and backslidings of France in her search after liberty are explained. The network of administrative tyranny, without a loophole for escape, as it is exhibited in these pages, is fearful. No nation which had been subjected for years to such a régime—or, to speak more properly, no nation which had submitted to it-could recover without long and patient efforts. France has not yet recovered and perhaps never may.