DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22444, 13 June 1936, Page 4 (Supplement)

DECLINE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON

Frenck Historian s Views M LOUIS MADELIN'S second volume of French ' history covers one of those momentous and fully documented periods which it is easy to record within tho space of fifty pages in a short history, but which overcrowds five hundred when the writer has that much space at his disposal. M. Madelin moves through his jungle of facts and tendencies with something like swaggering ease. Undpubtedly he has a strong bias, for Napoleon himself, rather than for the Empire and its institutions; and time and time again we feel that this leads him into unfairness to other figures. Sometimes, too, he goes so fast that he neglects small details which jet havo an important bearing upon the course o,f events. \ct, if the fiist function of the historian is to present a clear, picture, to make comprehensible the links between apparently unrelated facts, to give his reader a grip of tho period that he is never likely to lose, then M. Madelin has triumphantly fulfilled it here, states The Tfimes Literary Supplement. His curtain rises upon the month of October, 1809, with the Emperor confronting three problems—his quarrel with the Papacy, the desirability of dealing Britain a staggering blow in Spain, and his choice of a new Empress, for he had already decided upon the divorce of Josephine. Napoleon was often reasonable and broadipinded, but seldom patient; and it was chiefly his impatience that prevented him from reaching a settlement with Pius VIL, , who regarded him personally with respect and even affection. I his quarrel drasced on until the end, for Concordat of 1813 was abortive, and the decisive victory by which Napoleon hoped-to seal it never came. The Spanish Campaign With regard to the Spanish campaign, M. Madelin seems to think that his chief error was not, as many of his historians have held, in entering upon it at all, but in failing to take personal control of it. On three separate occasions he was on the point of setting forth for Madrid. Had he gone, there can hardly be serious doubt as to the issue, because the French forces in the country only required co-ordination by a master to make them irresistible. M. Madelin suggests that the magnet holding him back was the honeymoon Atmosphere of his life with .Marie Louise. The historian holds that the Austrian marriage was a misfortune. Throughout the whole period there was an honesty in Russian policy wholly lacking in Austrian; France was now drawn into the closest rela- » tions with the latter, which of itself ... implied her divergence from the former. There were other cracks in the edifice beside that; beside the unhealed quarrel with the Papacy and the continuous drain of the Peninsular War. Far the most serious was the Baltic leakage in the Continental system, which was to have forced England to come to terms, and the effect of Napoleon's attempts to close the leak, which rapidly alienated Russia and Sweden. There was some dangerous Royalist intrigue at homo, though it was dangerous only because the Emperor had been obliged to get rid of his policeman Fouche, very inadequately replaced by Savary. " Golden Age " Yet M. Madelin describes the years 1810-12 as the " Golden Age " of the Empire. The country—even the new vastly enlarged France —was generally prosperous and contented; the masses of the people were almost universally loyal. It- seemed possible that an understanding would be reached with England—far harder hit by the war than France —and if that happened there would be peace e%-erywhere. It was not to be. Of the Russian campaign M. Madelin takes much the same view as the late Jacques Bainville: in the circumstances of the Empire it was inevitable; the new institutions were not sufficiently solidified by time to allow Napoleon to retreat, and in any case if luj allowed the Continental system to collapse it was probable that everything would collapse with it. There is a clear though brief account of the campaign; but M. Madelin' is more interesting on the events of the next two years. He maintains that the secrets of the archives now made public, prove the Emperor to have been tho < only one of his side who saw clearly. His advisers believed that he could have saved himself by cutting his losses, and early historians such as Thiers, subscribed to that view. We havo now good reason for the belidf that everv surrender would have been followed by a fresh demand from one nation or another until France was reduced to the boundaries of 1792, after which the Empire and Napoleon himself would have disappeared. "The National History of France. The Consulate and the Empire, 1809-1815. by - Louis Madelin. Translated from the French by E. F. Buckley. Vol. 11. (Hememann.)