Francis before he left Fontainebleau. 'I have decided,' Francis wrote, 'to
propose that she should pass some months in the bosom of her family.
Her need of rest and quiet is paramount, and Your Majesty has given her
too many proofs of real attachment for me to doubt that you will share
my wishes on the subject and approve of my decision. Once she has
regained her health, my daughter will proceed to assume the sovereignty
of her country and this will naturally bring her near Your Majesty's place
of abode. I assume it is unnecessary to assure Your Majesty that her son
will be accepted as a member of my family, and that during his residence
in my dominions he will enjoy his mother's constant care.'
By his paralysis of will during the week after his abdication, Napoleon
lost the chance of reunion with his wife. But he seems to have been in the
state of mind during this period when rapid decisions were beyond him
and his will to live at all was faltering. He was in the grip of the
dislocating effects of anomie - too great a change in circumstances in too
short a time. The obvious cliche - how are the mighty fallen - was put
more trenchantly by Hegel, not normally a writer associated with clarity.
It was Hegel who had recorded this impression of Napoleon after Jena: 'I
saw the Emperor - this world-soul - riding out of the city on
reconnaissance. It is indeed a wonderful sensation to see such an
individual, concentrated here at a single point, astride a horse, reach out
over the world and master it ... It is only from heaven, that is, from the
will of the French Emperor, that matters can be set in motion.' But on
the fall of Napoleon he wrote gloomily: 'It is a fr ightful spectacle, to see a
great genius destroy himself. There is nothing more tragic in Greek
literature. The entire mass of mediocrity, with its irresistible leaden
weight ... has succeeded in bringing down the highest to the same level
as itself.'
Doubtless revolving similar thoughts in his own mind, the Emperor
thought of suicide, as he had often done in an abstract, Werther-like way.
But did he go further this time? There seem to have been two attempts to
poison himself, one on 7 April and one on the night of 12-13 April, but
everything about these incidents is mysterious, including the method
Napoleon used, why it failed, and who witnessed the botched bids for
self-slaughter. It is also impossible to establish what kind of poison was
used. The accounts given by Constant, Meneval and Laure Abrantes can
be dismissed as mere fa ntasy and rumour-mongering, but the narrative
by Caulaincourt, usually an unimpeachable source, commands our
attention.
Caulaincourt's version is that, ever since his narrow escape from the
Cossacks at Maloyaroslavets in 1812, Napoleon carried a small bag
marcin
(Marcin)
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