The Project Gutenberg eBook, "1812" Napoleon I in Russia, by Vasilïĭ Vasilʹevich Vereshchagin

“1812”
NAPOLEON I IN RUSSIA

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“1812”

NAPOLEON I IN RUSSIA

BY

VASSILI VERESTCHAGIN

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

R. WHITEING

Illustrated from Sketches and Paintings by the Author

LONDON

WILLIAM HEINEMANN

1899

This Edition enjoys copyright in all countries signatory to the Berne Treaty, and is not to be imported into the United States of America.

CONTENTS

FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS

“1812”

NAPOLEON I IN RUSSIA

INTRODUCTION

The following pages are not offered to the reader as a history of the invasion of Russia by Napoleon. They are but the statement of the basis of observation on which M. Verestchagin has founded his great series of pictures illustrative of the campaign. These pictures are now to be exhibited in this country, and the painter has naturally desired to show us from what point of view he has approached the study of his subject—one of the greatest subjects in the whole range of history—especially for a Russian artist. The point of view is—inevitably in his case—that of the Realist; and this consideration gives unity to the conception of his whole career and endeavour. He has ever painted war as it is, and therefore in its horrors, as one of its effects, though not necessarily as an effect sought in and for itself. He has tried to be “true” in all his representations of the battle-field. His work may thus be said to constitute a powerful plea in support of the Tsar’s Rescript to the Nations in favour of peace. My meaning will be best illustrated by a short sketch of M. Verestchagin and his work, as painter, as soldier, and as traveller.

He was born in the province of Novgorod, in 1842, of a well-to-do family of landowners. The son wished to be an artist; the father wished to make him an officer of marines. As the shortest way out of the difficulty, he became both. He passed his work-hours at the naval school, and his play-hours at a school of design, working at each so well that he left the naval school as first scholar, and eventually won a silver medal at the Academy of Fine Arts. He entered the service, but only for a short time, and he was still three years under twenty when he quitted it to devote himself wholly to art.

He was a hard-working student, though he always showed a strong disposition to insist on working in his own way. When Gérôme sent him to the antique, he was half the time slipping away to nature. He played truant from the Athenian marbles to flesh and blood. In the meantime he was true to the instinct—as yet you could hardly call it a principle—of wandering from the beaten track in search of subjects. Every vacation was passed, not at Asnières or Barbizon, but in the far east of Europe, or even in Persia, among those ragged races not yet set down in artistic black and white. He had been on the borders of a quite fresh field of observation in these journeys; and he was soon to enter it for a full harvest of new impressions. It was in 1867; Russia was sending an army into Central Asia, to punish the marauding Turkomans for the fiftieth time, and General Kauffman, who commanded it, invited the painter to accompany him as an art volunteer. He was not to fight, but simply to look on. It was the very thing; Verestchagin at once took service on these terms with the expedition, and in faithfully following its fortunes, with many an artistic reconnaissance on his own account, he saw Asia to its core.

He returned from a second Asiatic journey to settle at Munich for three years; and here he built his first “open-air studio.” “If you are to paint out-door scenes,” he says, “your models must sit in the open;” and so he fashioned a movable room on wheels, running on a circular tramway, and open to sun and air on the side nearest the centre of the circle, where the model stood. The artist, in fact, worked in a huge box with one side out, while the thing he saw was in the full glare of day; and by means of a simple mechanical contrivance he made his room follow the shifting light.

After a long rest at Munich, he was impatient for action once more, and in 1873 he set off for British India.

Verestchagin filled one entire exhibition with his Indian studies. They form a definite part of his collection, a section of his life-work. Amazing studies they are. The end of his sojourn coincided with the visit of the Prince of Wales, and he saw India both at its best and at its worst. In one immense canvas he has represented the royal entry into Jeypore, the Prince and his native entertainer on a richly-caparisoned elephant, and a long line of lesser magnates similarly mounted in the rear. A scene of prayer in a mosque is noble in feeling, and it exhibits an amazing mastery of technique. The Temple of Indra, the Caves of Ellora—all the great show-places—are there, with their furniture of priests, deities, monsters, and men-at-arms. He made a prodigious journey, from St. Petersburg by Constantinople to Egypt, Hindostan, the Himalayas, and Thibet.

On his return he saw a great national subject at last—the Russo-Turkish War. He followed the armies and saw it all, still as a civilian in name, but as a soldier in fact. He could not keep out of it, both from patriotism and from artistic conscientiousness. On one occasion his desire to study the effect of a gun-boat in the air nearly cost him his life. When the Russians were preparing to cross the Danube opposite Rustchuk, their engineers found it almost impossible to carry on their surveys for a bridge, owing to the proximity of the Turkish gun-boats. Some men were accordingly sent out to lay fixed torpedoes across the river to prevent the approach of the gun-boats. But they themselves required protection while engaged in the service, and a few torpedo-launches were accordingly ordered to patrol the river for that purpose. They were not to wait to be attacked, but to boldly assume the offensive, and sink or drive off the big gun-boats. It was a most dangerous duty, and when Verestchagin asked permission to serve in one of the launches the officer in command tried to deter him. “Russia has many hundreds of officers like me,” he said, “but not two painters like you.” Verestchagin, however, was allowed to have his way. The launch he chose was very swift; it went almost at the speed of a train. It soon came in sight of one of the gun-boats, to the great terror of the Turkish crew. They could be seen running about the deck shouting and shaking their fists at one another. The gun-boat turned tail at once, but the little torpedo-launch gained on it every moment. By this time the whole Turkish force had taken the alarm, and a fire was concentrated on the little launch both from the gun-boat and the banks of the river, under which it was evident she could not live. She pushed on, however, shoved the torpedo under the bows of the Turk, and—it hung fire. It touched her fairly, but the wire connecting with the fuse had been cut in half by shot. Having done this, or rather having failed to do it, the launch was carried away by the tide, and just as she got clear of the vessel the Turks renewed their awful fire from ship and shore. Verestchagin suddenly felt a sickening sensation, as if he had been roughly pushed, and putting his hand to the place found a wound that would admit his three fingers. At this moment the crew of the Russian launch saw another Turkish monitor coming towards them, and firing as she came, so that they stood a good chance of being caught between these two monsters—as they might fairly be called in relation to the size of the launch. However, the launch turned and ran, closely pursued by the nearest gun-boat, which she had amiably tried to destroy. The pursuer was fast gaining on them in their crippled condition, when, at a turn in the river, they saw a little creek. They made for it and were saved. The gun-boat could not follow for fear of going aground.

This incident nearly finished Verestchagin’s artistic career. He lay between life and death for weeks, but a devoted Russian nurse brought him round. Of course he went back to work again as soon as he could move, and in one way or other saw and painted nearly all of the campaign, especially Shipka, and the final rush on Constantinople.

De Lonlay gives us a characteristic picture of Verestchagin at this time.

“On November 24, 1877,” he says, “we were in Bulgaria, at the foot of the great Balkans. Our little expeditionary corps, commanded by the brave General Daudeville, had just taken possession of a city after an obstinate fight, and was still trembling with the excitement of the struggle. We ran through the deserted streets of the Turkish quarter, which had been abandoned by its inhabitants. Everywhere we saw the same lamentable signs of devastation—doors broken open, windows smashed; and within the houses, furniture in fragments, heaps of wearing apparel in rags, and a quantity of the stuffing of the ottomans strewed all about, the Bulgarian pillagers having cared only for the ornamental coverings. Amid all this confusion lay the bodies of three Redifs and an Arnaut. The marauders had already stripped them of their uniforms, leaving them nothing but a little underclothing. A little further on, a Redif, still dressed in his blue tunic, lay on the ground. Suddenly, there came clattering by a troop of Cossacks who had just been hunting the Turkish runaways. They were rough-looking fellows, these soldiers in their white linen, all in rags, and with their fur caps browned by the bivouac fires and half bare with the wear and tear of the campaign; but among them I remarked an elegant horseman who contrasted strongly with the rest of the troop. He was dressed half like a soldier and half like a tourist. He wore a high Circassian cap in Astrakan fur trimmed with silver. From his breast hung the officer’s cross of the military order of St. George,[^[1]] a high distinction justly envied in Russia. The handle and the scabbard of his poignard and sabre were in chiselled silver. I followed him a long time with my eyes, admiring his bearing. A little later on in the same day I found my unknown once more. He was sitting on a low camp-stool in a corner of the grand mosque, and making a study of the minaret. His aristocratic face, of a long oval, was ornamented with a beard of a chestnut colour, and it contrasted strangely with the olive complexion and high cheek-bones of the Mussulman-Cossacks who surrounded him and peeped curiously at the work he was doing. It reminded me of Salvator Rosa working in the midst of the bandits of the Abruzzi. At this point a common friend of both of us came on the scene and presented us to one another. I had before me the great Russian painter Basil Verestchagin, who had but just recovered from the serious wound received in the previous June. We talked for a long time of Paris and of the war. Verestchagin complained bitterly of not having been able to take part in the passage of the Danube, and see the winter campaign as he had seen the summer one. ‘What good luck you had,’ he said, ‘to follow Gourko in his expedition beyond the great Balkans! What things you must have seen, the massacre at Shipka, and the burning of Eski Zara. If you only knew how it enraged me to be tied down to my bed in the ambulance while the army was going on!’ Then he paid me a few compliments on the modest drawings which I was sending to the Monde Illustré, compliments which touched me very much as they were offered by such an eminent artist.

“A few days after, the branch of the Cossacks of the Don to which I was attached, and the regiment of the Grenadiers of the Guard, entered the pass of the Balkans by the route which leads to Statitza. At nightfall we halted on a plateau covered with snow, and where the temperature was below zero. We were therefore not at all disinclined to take refuge in an old Turkish block-house and to light up a good fire. There I found Verestchagin again, with Prince Tzerteleff, the former secretary of Ignatieff, and Prince Tchakowski, who were all following our columns as amateurs. Enveloped in our bourkas, we talked away for hours round this bivouac fire, Verestchagin telling us of his perilous expedition in Turkestan. I can still hear him talking in his soft and quiet voice of all those scenes of massacre and carnage which he had seen with his own eyes.

“A fortnight after, I was at Plevna, which had just fallen into the hands of the Russian army, and there I saw Verestchagin again. He was staying with General Skobeleff, governor of the city. The great artist was fresh from the terrible battles, and from the scenes of misery which he had seen in the camps of the Turkish prisoners, and he was projecting another series of pictures. He was therefore, with his usual passion for accuracy, taking pains to collect arms and uniforms of the enemy as models. He showed great joy when one of the officers present offered to conduct him to the place in which the spoils of the garrison of Osman Pacha were stored. By the light of a torch carried by a grenadier he rummaged a long time in this heap of Peabody-Martini rifles, covered with mud and dust, torn uniforms stained with blood, blue vests with red lacings of the Nizams, brass-buttoned tunics and red waistbands of the Redifs, etc. Next morning we separated. Verestchagin followed the column of Skobeleff in its march to Shipka; and I went to Orkanie to rejoin the corps of General Gourko.”

As a war-painter Verestchagin is a great moralist, and he is a great moralist because he is quite sincere. He paints exactly what he sees on the battle-field, and he is far in advance of the French, who are the fathers of this species of composition, in his rendering of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, about this bloody sport of kings. There was a whole wide world of difference in spirit between his little military gallery and the big one at Versailles. The earlier Frenchmen give us pretty uniforms, a monarch prancing on his steed in the moment of victory, an elegantly wounded warrior or two in the foreground, obviously in the act of crying, “Vive la France!” a host in picturesque flight, a host in picturesque pursuit, waving banners, and a great curtain of smoke to hide the general scene of butchery, with supplementary puffs for every disgusting detail. Verestchagin’s manner, on the contrary, passing like a breeze of wholesome truthfulness, lifts this theatrical vapour, and shows us what is below—men writhing out their lives in every species of agony by shot and bayonet wounds, by the dry rot of fever, by the wet rot of cold and damp; and finding their last glance to heaven intercepted by the crows or the vultures, waiting for a meal. All this is very shocking, but looked at in the right way it is supremely moral.

His work is his biography. He has lived every one of his pictures, and he has often had to study at almost the cost of his life. All that he represents he has seen; all that he relates with his pencil he has lived. These pictures are just so many chapters detached from his history. They are the work of an artist of an exceptional nature; and are worthy of a book written on the critical method of Sainte-Beuve, a book wherein the man would occupy a place at least as considerable as the work itself; for the one and the other are inseparable. He is the first Russian painter who has given his countrymen a true impression of war—something besides those official pictures where victory is displayed and never defeat. Even when he paints victory he never separates it from its sadness, its ruin, its misery, its mourning beyond relief. I seem to have always before my eyes, as in a dream, that pyramid of piled-up skulls which he met with somewhere in his wanderings, and of which he has made one of his most striking pictures. He wrote underneath it, “Dedicated to the conquerors.”

Verestchagin had done nothing but draw; painting had frightened him. Gérôme and Bida in vain tried to persuade him to begin. When he returned from his second journey to the frontiers of Persia, among those nomadic tribes with changeless manners, who must have descended from Abraham, he showed his album and note-books to the two painters, and they pressed him all the more. Bida said, “No one draws like you,” and he accepted a few sketches, one of which is to be found in his famous Bible.

After his Asiatic campaign he had three years’ work at Munich, an enormous and improbable labour, so much so that his enemies insinuated that such a number and variety of pictures could not be the work of a single man, and that Verestchagin had been helped by German painters. The calumny reached St. Petersburg, where he was exhibiting at the time. At his request the Art Society of Munich opened a thorough inquiry into the matter. Models, porters, everybody that knew anything about it, testified on oath that no painter but Verestchagin had so much as entered the atelier. The report, covered all over with the best signatures of Munich, and with a postscript of the most flattering kind, was sent on to the Russian capital. When they gave Verestchagin the surname of the Horace Vernet of Russia, no doubt they thought they were saying something in his praise; but he certainly had a right to feel calumniated, for the general impression left by his work is not admiration for princes nor glorification of war. In telling the truth feelingly about the sufferings of the soldier, without distinction of nationality, with as much pity for the vanquished as for the victors, Verestchagin has shown himself essentially human. His pictures, with their poignant reality and elevated philosophy, are at the same time a terrible satire on ambitious despots. Verestchagin is a courtier of nothing but misfortune. A pupil of Gérome, he seems to have travelled very much in search of himself. Sometimes he has drawn near to Meissonier, then there is something in him of Géricault and of Courbet, and again he is a true Impressionist in the best acceptation of the term.

As a traveller he saw Samarcand when the sight was almost as rare and strange as that from the famous “peak in Darien.” “Samarcand,” he says, “was occupied by the Russians. Our armies had taken it without assault, after having routed the troops of the Emir. On reaching the summit of the hill I stopped there, dazzled, and, so to speak, awed by astonishment and admiration. Samarcand was there under my eyes, bathed in verdure. Above its gardens and its houses were reared ancient and gigantic mosques, and I who had come from so far was going to enter the city, once so splendid, which was the capital of Tamerlane.”

On that day, as Vambéry has told us, a new era opened for Central Asia. “The countries and cities once absolutely closed to the Western man are now opened before him. There where a European could not make a single step without danger of death, he now comes and goes as freely as he pleases, for a Christian army holds the land. At Tashkend, Khojend, and at Samarcand there are clubs, cafés, and churches. Tashkend has its Russian newspaper, and with the plaintive chant of the Muezzin is mingled the tinkling bell of the Greek Church, more terrible to the ear of the true believer than the thunder of cannonades. In the streets of Bokhara, where, but a few years ago, the author of these lines heard only Mussulman hymns, the Russian priest, the Russian soldier, and the Russian merchant are now walking together with the pride of the conqueror. A hospital and a storehouse occupy the once splendid palace where Tamerlane used to command; the palace to which all the princes of the East came to do homage, to which the monarchs of Spain and the Indies sent an embassy to beg for the friendship of the great conqueror, and where the Turanians, humble and devout, knelt, to strike with their foreheads the green stone which forms the sacred pedestal of the throne of Timour. By the victory of the Russian eagles in Central Asia, Islam has received a most terrible wound. For the whole thousand years and more during which it has struggled with Christianity it has never been hit so full in the breast. In our time Western civilization acts vigorously on Mussulman Asia from Byzantium to India, and even Mecca and Medina have not escaped its influence. Central Asia alone had remained the sanctuary of Mahomedanism. The evil there had not been changed, and it was not Mecca but Bokhara which passed for the intellectual centre of Islam. The ascetic, the member of a religious order, the theologian, sighed for this sacred city, and the most zealous Mussulmans of the Ottoman Empire, of Egypt, of Fez, and of Morocco, came to cherish their fanaticism in its schools and in its mosques. Samarcand is incontestably the Maracanda of the Greeks, the capital of the ancient Sogdiana. It was the queen city of the basin of the Oxus. It lost its preponderance for a time, but recovered it, and under Tamerlane reached the height of its splendour. The Mahomedans had a thousand poetic expressions in praise of its wealth, its abundance of water, its innumerable canals fed from mountain torrents, and running in all directions through the plain.”

When on the Himalayas Verestchagin ascended the highest mountain but one on the face of the globe—Kanchinga. Kanchinga is twenty-eight thousand odd feet above the level of the sea, and only Mount Everest in Nepaul takes the palm of it with 29,000 feet. But Mount Everest is a peak, and no one can get up there; while Kanchinga is a huge mass of mountain that invites the climber. But Verestchagin was at Kanchinga in January, when the mountain was covered with ice and snow, so he could not get higher than 15,000 feet, and he was considered a madman for trying to do that. Some English officers in the neighbourhood, when first they heard of his project, did all they could to dissuade him from it. With his characteristic obstinacy he simply thanked them for their advice and went on with his preparations for the ascent. “At least,” they said, “you will never take the lady?” Madame Verestchagin was with him, and had insisted on accompanying him. “That will depend upon her,” said Verestchagin, and his wife went with him all the same. It was a frightful ascent. The coolies abandoned them when they had gone a very little way—these dark-skinned races cannot stand the cold—and at last they had only one man, who carried the colour-box and drawing-tools, the use of which was Verestchagin’s main object in the journey. The painter wanted to go up there to study effects of snow and cloud. By and by even this man’s courage failed him, it became so intensely cold. They were wading in snow up to the knees in some places and in others up to the waist. The ponies had been left below. There was no house or shelter of any kind. They called a halt, and the courier went back to get help, leaving Verestchagin and his wife on the mountain in the midst of the snow, with only a small wood fire between them and all but certain death, and with nothing but snow for meat and drink. They cowered over the fire till the falling snow put it out, and then for all that day and night till far into the next day they struggled as best they could for life. As a final and desperate effort, Verestchagin, taking leave of his wife, whom he never expected to see again, roused himself and dragged his almost frozen limbs down the mountain to look for help. When he had gone a long way he met the coolie who had last left them, coming back with food and aid, only just in time to save both the travellers’ lives. Verestchagin was so exhausted that he had to be carried back to where his wife lay. As soon as he had recovered, he took out his colour-box and made some capital sketches of Himalayan effects.

In 1881, a memorable exhibition of Verestchagin’s pictures was held in Vienna. Its success was probably without a parallel in the history of art exhibitions by a single painter. For a whole month the public poured into the rooms at an average rate of certainly not less than eight thousand a day (on the last day twenty thousand passed or tried to pass through the rooms), until, from the Emperor to his humblest subjects, the peasantry included, there was no class, and it may be added no nationality, within the Empire, which had not sent its representatives to the Künstlerhaus. An attempt, by some political papers, to make the enthusiasm of the Slavs for Verestchagin a means of exciting the hereditary jealousy between them and other races of the Empire was happily frustrated. It is literally true that the broad thoroughfare leading to the exhibition was often blocked by the immense crowd, and that the announcement, “The gallery is full to overflowing,” had to be hung out to excuse the temporary closing of the building two or three times a day. The artist did not conceal from his friends that he was proud of the popular and even of the numerical element in his success, because it showed that his work had touched those it was above all meant to reach. He had painted for the people in the highest sense, and their response showed that he had not laboured in vain. Du reste, this and this only was his reward, for, beyond the payment of his bare expenses, he had no pecuniary interest in the exhibition.

I may now leave the painter to speak for himself in regard to his own guiding principles in art. The theory of them will be found in what he has written on Progress in Art, and on Realism. The practice, in so far as it relates to right methods of historic study for the painter, is, in all that follows relating to the Campaign of Moscow, his latest and his greatest series of works.

Richard Whiteing.

[1]. The cross of St. George, the highest military distinction in Russia, is not given in the usual way on a mere order of the sovereign, but only after a special inquiry into the circumstances of each case by the Council of the Order.

ON PROGRESS IN ART

We artists always learn too little, and if we have recourse to books it is only cursorily, and without a system, as though we held a solid education to be quite unnecessary for the development of our talents. It must be allowed that herein lies one of the principal, if not the chief, reasons why art in its fuller and more complete development is checked, and has not yet succeeded in throwing off its hitherto thankless part of serving only as the pliable and pleasing companion to society, and in taking the lead, not merely in the æsthetic, but essentially also in the more important psychological development of mankind. While in all other regions of intellectual life it is admitted that new ideas arise, and with these the means of realizing and perfecting them, yet, in art, especially in sculpture and painting, and to a degree also in music, the old phrase still asserts itself—“The great masters have done thus, and therefore must we also do the same.” In the handling of every subject, an advance in thought may be remarked. Our view of the world is far from being what it was a few centuries ago; our handiwork itself, in its execution, has changed and improved. Under such circumstances one would think that in the region of art—for instance in painting—either a new idea or a more truthful and natural style might be possible. But no! One is always met by the same assertion—that, “Not only in the perfect construction of their pictures, but also in the sublimity of conception, the old masters stand on an unapproachable height, and we can only strive after them.”

The culture of the individual, as well as of society itself, has far overstepped its former level. On the one hand science and literature, on the other improved means of communication, have disclosed a new horizon, have presented new problems to artists. These ought also to have stimulated to some new efforts. But, again the same assertion blocks the way—“The old masters have done thus, and therefore....”

In the art of painting, this excessive veneration and imitation show themselves to a certain degree in representations of the nude and in portraits, for both these branches of art reached a high stage of development among the old masters. But, even here, we are struck by the one-sidedness in the execution—the effect is always one and the same: a very bright light on a very dark and sometimes black ground—an effect often startling, but artificially produced, unnatural, and untrue.

Painters’ studios were formerly, it is true, small and, owing to the costliness of gas, dimly lighted. But close to these studios there were courtyards, gardens, and fields, with a beautiful background, and an abundance and variety of light, which would have been as effective, and would have made the black tones clearer and less monotonous.

We know that the darkness of the ground in old portraits is only partly attributable to the influence of age, and that in most cases it is intentional. On studying a series of old portraits one can only regret that so much technical ability in representing the body, face, clothes, lace, jewels, etc., should have been harmonized, not with the light, airy shadows of a summer’s day as we all sufficiently know and see it, but with a thick artificial black. Undoubtedly the new school of painters will render a service to art by taking men out of the darkness of attics and cellars into the clear light of gardens. It is indisputable that the monotonous early style, which showed everything in the same light of the studio, spares the artist many difficulties and embarrassments; but in art there ought to be even less hesitation than in anything else in the face of technical difficulties.

Turning to historical pictures, we are struck by the more thoroughly intellectual and characteristic handling of the subject at the present time. History is certainly still illustrated more or less by amusing anecdotes, and artists content themselves by depicting that which science has established, instead of contributing the results of their own researches; but even now there is a very marked advance on the usual adulation and the uncritical traditions, legends, and assertions of the old school.

If painters were to study history, not in a fragmentary way from this to that page, if they would understand that the imitation of dramatic exaggeration on canvas has become obsolete, they would begin to arouse the interest of society in the past quite in a different way from that which is possible by means of anecdote, picturesque costumes, and types that are for the most part fables of history. It is a fact, that hitherto the treatment of memorable events by artists has been of a nature to draw a smile from the educated. But by changing the sunny holiday of the historical picture into a more acceptable workday, truth and simplicity would certainly be the gainers.

It seems superfluous to mention the extraordinary advance made at the present day in landscape painting, an advance due to very many causes, but chiefly, of course, to the development of natural science. It is not too much to say that the landscapes of the old masters are mere childish essays, as compared with the works of the leading living artists in this field. And it is really difficult to understand how and in what direction landscape painting can be brought to greater perfection.

In the so-called religious painting, imitation of the old masters is nearly as great as in portraits. But this is fully explained by the gradual disappearance of religious perception, and the consequent preference for an old ideal, rather than the creation of a new one without the strong faith of olden times.

Nevertheless, the new school finds it not only possible, but even necessary, to reject inherited ideas, though hallowed by time and custom, when they evidently contradict the artistic eye and feeling of our time. First: the manner of placing God and the Saints on clouds, as though these were chairs and stools, and not substances whose physical condition is well known to us. Second: the custom of representing Christ and the holy men and women as a Roman patrician surrounded by his slaves. Third: the representation of God in the style of our kings, in robes of state, seated on a throne of gold, silver, and precious stones, with a crown on his head and a sceptre in his hand, all suspended in clouds. Fourth: the representation of the Virgin Mary in the costly robe of a lady of high rank covered with jewels. Possibly religious painting will not now rise to a second renaissance, but it may nevertheless be assumed that the advance in technical knowledge may even be useful in Church paintings, if the painter, in his representation of the Deity and the Saints in their manifestations in heaven or upon earth, would replace the dim, poor, and monotonous light of the studio by a brilliant, clear, sunny atmosphere, and delicate, transparent, airy shadows.

In order to explain our meaning, we will cite some of the famous religious works of the old masters as examples: for instance, the well-known pictures by Titian in Venice, and Rubens in Antwerp, representing the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. We are not going to speak of the great excellence of those two pictures, recognized all the world over, and by no means valued too highly. If it be also beyond doubt that these pictures have in course of time become darker, it must nevertheless be understood that they were executed within four walls, and produced by the traditional contrast of very strong light and very deep shadow. Now, we ask, whence could these black shadows have come? If the Assumption of the Virgin Mary had perchance taken place in a grotto, or in some dark, artificially-illumined space, these shadows would be intelligible, but in such case the strong lights would be inexplicable. Now it was accomplished in free air, and we may be allowed to suppose that a beautiful sunny day was chosen by God for so sublime and solemn an event. So much the brighter should the pictures have been painted, both on account of the direct and reflected sunlight. Whence then, we may ask, came these black tones? Well, they were simply due to the fact that the lights as well as the shadows were not derived from observation, but invented, as artists say, “by the head,” and were therefore from beginning to end false. But, can it be supposed that great painters like Titian and Rubens should not themselves have recognized such defects? Of course this can be as little understood as that the great Leonardo da Vinci should not have remarked the false light in his celebrated picture of beauty, La Joconde, when he painted her in free air, with hard, metallic tones on the face, and an impossible landscape in the background. Had he, then, no presentiment of the wonderfully tender lights and half lights, shadows and half shadows, wafted over the face of a lovely woman by the air?—how everything out of doors has quite another appearance about it than within four walls?

We will not digress too far with our investigations, and only venture to ask whether it occurred to no one at that time to demand so much from the artist? No; they were not asked. But these niceties, are they not required in these days from the artist? Yes, they are.... Then the advance is evident.

In like manner, we cannot suppose that another shortcoming in the artistic conception of such masters could have escaped their acuteness. For instance, in the representations of the Apostles, whose personalities are so clear and convincing in the Gospels, we recognize in their forms, faces, and attitudes—particularly in Titian’s pictures—not modest, humble fishermen, but fine Italian models of athletic appearance. This error was evidently acknowledged even then by the artists themselves, with their usual tact and good sense; and Rembrandt went so far as to introduce into his religious subjects Dutch market-figures. But there is still a long stride from this to the true rendering of the types and costumes recognized at the present day as indispensable. Is this not an advance? Certainly it is. We deny that study has ever yet created talent; but, on the other hand, we do not for a moment doubt that it stimulates it.

As regards time and place, the worshippers of the earlier style of painting go to such lengths in their imitation, that they not only work with the same colours and in the same manner as their adored masters, but also aim at lending to their pictures that peculiar tint which time has produced on the canvas. They cover their pictures with some dark shiny colour, in order to give an appearance of age, as if they were painted one, two, or three centuries ago. This tendency is even taught in many modern schools, and individual artists have gained great reputation as colourists merely because they can impart to their productions a resemblance to those of Rubens, Van Dyck, Rembrandt, or Velasquez. Let us hope that the new school will go to work with greater deliberation, not only as regards the conception of their subject, but also in colouring; for it is impossible to treat this aright by imitating, with a quantity of varnish, a canvas which has become yellowish or reddish through time. The young school will make it a strict rule to bring every event into harmony with the time, place, and light selected, in order to benefit by all the modern acquisitions of science, in relation to the characteristics, costumes, and every psychological and ethnographical detail.

A scene which takes place in heaven or on earth should positively not be painted within four walls, but in the true light of morning or mid-day, evening or night. The illusion and effect produced by the picture cannot but gain by this, and the language of painting will become more expressive and intelligible.

Perhaps the same might be said, with little variation, of sculpture, and even of music. All the arts are now, more than ever, brothers and sisters, and long ago should have been united in one temple of taste, intellect, and talent.

REALISM
I

An old Russian.

“Realism—realism!” How very often do we hear this term, and yet how seldom does it appear to be applied understandingly.

“What do you take realism to be?” I asked a well-educated lady in Berlin, who had been talking a great deal about realism and the realists in art. The lady did not seem to be ready with an answer, for she could only reply that “A realist is he who represents subjects in a realistic manner.”

I hold, though, that the art of representing subjects in a realistic manner does not entitle a person to the name of realist. And, in order to illustrate my meaning, I may present the following example—

When the war of the British with the Zulus came to an end, there could be found no man among the prominent English artists who would take upon himself the task of committing to canvas that epopee enacted between the whites and blacks, and so the English had to have recourse to a very talented French artist. They gave him money, and explained to him that such and such were the uniforms and the arms of the English soldiers, and such and such were the clothes, or what represents clothes, among the Zulus. Then, eye-witnesses to the military encounters told the Frenchman of what the background consisted in each case, probably supplementing their accounts with photographic views. Armed with this information the artist set to work, without having the least personal knowledge of the country he was going to reproduce, nor of the types, the peculiarities, nor the customs of Zululand. With much assurance the artist went on with his task, and turned out several lively pictures in which there are a great many men attacking an enemy—defending itself; a great number of dead and wounded; much blood; much gunpowder-smoke, and all that kind of thing; yet, with all this, there is total lack of the principal thing: there are no British nor Zulus to be found in the pictures. Instead of the former we behold Frenchmen dressed up in British uniforms, and instead of Zulus, the ordinary Parisian negro-models, reproduced in various more or less warlike attitudes.

Well, is that realism? No.

Most artists, besides, do not take sufficient pains to reproduce the true light under which the events they treat have really taken place. Thus, such scenes as are taken up in the just-mentioned pictures—scenes of battles under the intolerably torrid sun of Africa, are being painted by the greyish light of European studios. Of course the sunlight, and the numerous peculiar effects dependent on it, cannot prove successful in such a case, and the effect is lost.

Is that realism, then? Certainly not.

I go further, and assert that in cases where there exists but a bare representation of a fact or of an event without idea, without generalization, there can possibly be found some qualities of realistic execution, but of realism there would be none: of that intelligent realism, I mean, which is built on observation and on facts—in opposition to idealism, which is founded on impressions and affirmations, established à priori.

Now, can any one bring the reproach against me that there is no idea, no generalization in my works? Hardly.

Can any one say that I am careless about the types, about the costumes, about the landscape of the scenes represented by me? That I do not study out beforehand the personages, the surroundings figuring in my works? Hardly so.

Can any one say that, with me, any scene, taking place in reality in the broad sunlight, has been painted by studio light—that a scene, taking place under the frosty skies of the North, is reproduced in the warm enclosure of four walls? Hardly so.

Consequently, I can claim to be a representative of realism—such realism as requires the most severe manipulating of all the details of creation, and which not only does not exclude an idea, but implies it.

That I am not alone in such an estimate of my work, is proved by the following lines, from a correspondent to an American paper,[^[2]] sent from Paris at the time of the last exhibition of my paintings in that city—

“The respect shown to certain pictured ideals—the ideals of a painter so foreign to Parisian conventions as Verestchagin—is noted as a pleasing indication of departure from the gross realism that was beginning to obtain in French art. Mr. Dargenty, of the Courrier de l’Art, does not consider Verestchagin as a ‘seducing’ painter, but concedes to him knowledge and talent, and declares that for his part he prefers the refinement of an idea to the ‘brutal expression of vulgar realism.’ He hopes for a reaction and believes that the crowd that ‘precipitated’ itself in the exposition of Mr. Verestchagin ‘heralded’ a running victory for the idea.”

Still more notable was the judgment of the London Christian of December 2, 1887—a view having all the more interest to me because of the special character of the paper that published it—

“These paintings are the work of a Russian, Verestchagin, a painter equal to any of his contemporaries in artistic ability, and beyond any painter who ever lived in the grandeur of his moral aims and the application of his lessons to the consciences of all who take the least pains to understand him....

“I will only say that he who misses seeing these paintings will miss the best opportunity he may ever have of understanding the age in which he lives; for if ever the nineteenth century has had a prophet, it is the Russian painter, Verestchagin.”

I repeat it: I cite this last passage expressed in consideration of its character, as an opinion emitted by a specially religious organ, an opinion made all the more significant in view of the attacks to which I had been submitted by people striving to prove themselves greater papists than the Pope.

Realism is not antagonistic to anything that is held dear by the contemporary man—it does not clash with common sense, with science, nor with religion. Can any one have anything but the deepest reverence for the teachings of Christ concerning the Father and Creator of all that exists—for the golden rule of Christian charity?

It is true that we are enemies of bigotry, of all ostentatious, assumed piety; but who is it that can blame us for this since Christ Himself has said—

“But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do; for they think they shall be heard for their much speaking.”[^[3]]

As can be easily conceived, we have a different estimation of many things that were explained in another way some hundreds of years ago. The infancy of science and, consequently, of the entire conception of the universe can interest us now, but it can no more direct us. At the threshold of the twentieth century, we can no longer admit that the skies above are peopled by saints and by angels; that the interior of the earth is occupied by devils engaged in their task of roasting the sinners of the world. We refuse even to accept, in its literal sense, the ancient idea of rewards for good deeds, and that of torments in slow fires as punishment for evil deeds.

In our capacity of artists we do not deny the ideals of the past ages and of the ancient masters. On the contrary, we give them an honourable place in the history of art; but we refuse to imitate them, for the very simple reason that everything is good in its own time, and that the realism of one century already bears in itself the germs of the idealism of the next.

The very masters who are held to be great idealists in art—have not they been great realists in their own time?

Who would risk the assertion that Raphael was not a realist in the age in which he lived: that his works did not scandalize many of his contemporaries, whose tastes were formed on the work of primitive masters?

And Rubens, who transgressed all limits of contemporary decency, and that, not only in his capacity of painter, but even as a thinker? I hope no one would be ready to question the fact that his powerful but one-sided genius has intermingled the types of the personalities of the Christian religion with those of the heathenish mythology; that his God the Father is the same as his Jupiter of Olympus; that they are portraits of the very same red-cheeked studio model; that his Virgin and his Hebe—one may even say his Venus—are all personalities of the same type, all alike red-cheeked, handsome, and self-satisfied! Who would deny that Rubens, having peopled the Christian heavens with heavy, buxom, healthy, and very immodest ladies and gentlemen, had reversed all traditions and thus had shown himself to be a talented, powerful realist in his time? Doubtlessly, he bewildered and scandalized a good many of his pious contemporaries.

And Rembrandt? and the rest of them, all of whom are now held to be idealists, more or less: was not each one of them a representative of realism in his time—realism that has been considerably smoothed down in our days by the hand of time on one side and the onward march of our self-consciousness on the other?

Who would think now-a-days of reproaching those painters for all that boldness, which certainly proved astounding to their contemporaries? And yet how many were the disputes concerning those painters, how many lances have been broken in their behalf! As we look back now all that seems strange to us. But is it not a sign of what awaits the noted works of our own time? These also were received inimically, were proclaimed to be too far-reaching, too bold, too realistic, yet will not they also in their turn acquire lasting strength under the influence of onward marching thought and technique? Will not the day come when they will also find themselves, unawares, in the archives of old ideals?

But we have to count with our irascible and exacting contemporaries. It is generally held to be unpardonable boldness—quite a scandalous proceeding in fact—to recede from formulas, recognized by successive generations, through centuries. Novelists, painters, sculptors, musicians, are all alike invited to make compromises with triviality and absurdity which invariably retard the development of the idea and of the technique.

Even such persons as grudgingly admit that we also are “men of thoughts,” that we also are “men of well-developed technique,” even they express their regrets that we should prove false to the traditions of the old masters; that we should not follow the tenets consecrated by great names.

Yes, it is true: we differ in many ways. We think differently, we are bolder in our generalization of the facts of the past, the present, and the future; we even work differently and transfer our impressions in a different manner.

Can we take it now in its literal sense—the generally-accepted conception of God, who had once assumed the form of man, and is now sitting on the right hand of the Father Almighty, with all the hosts of saints and angels gathered around Him? Can we admit as facts the idea of all those thrones that surpass in richness the celebrated thrones of the Great Moguls of India? Can we admit now the idea of all those splendid vestments, adorned with embroidery, with pearls and precious stones—and all that in the clouds? Can we sincerely and artlessly represent to ourselves the saints that are supposed to sit on those same clouds as on arm-chairs and sofas, likewise in the richest attire—saints who would thus be found amidst the luxurious surroundings that were so distasteful to them in their life on earth?

All those splendid garments, all those gilded surroundings, held out as everlasting rewards for virtue practised on earth—do they not appear to us quite childish now, not to say wholly inconsistent with good taste?

A good deal has been written about my works: many were the reproaches brought against my paintings, those treating of religious subjects as well as of military. And yet they were, all of them, painted without any preconceived idea,—were painted only because their subjects interested me. The moral in each case appeared afterwards, coming up of its own account, from the very truthfulness of impressions.

Now, for instance, I have seen the Emperor Alexander II. on five consecutive days, as he sat on a little knoll—the battle-field spreading out before him—watching, with field-glass in hand, first the bombardment, and then the storming of the enemy’s positions. This surely was also the way in which the old German Emperor attended battles,—as well as his son, that admirable man, the late Frederick of Germany. Of this I have even been assured by eye-witnesses. Certainly, it would be ridiculous to suppose that an Emperor assisting at battles would canter about brandishing his sword as a young ensign, and yet the desire has been attributed to me to undermine by my picture the prestige of the sovereign in the eyes of the masses, who are prone to imagine their Emperor prancing on a fiery steed, in times of danger, in the very thick of the fight.

I have represented the bandaging and the transporting of the wounded exactly as I have seen it done, and have felt it in my own person when wounded, bandaged, and transported in the most primitive manner. And yet, that again has been declared to be a gross exaggeration, a calumny.

I observed during several days how prisoners were slowly freezing to death on a road extending over thirty miles. I called the attention of the American artist, Frank D. Millet, who was on the spot, to that scene; and when he afterwards saw my painting he declared it to be strikingly correct; yet for that painting I have been treated to such abuse as would not admit of repetition in print.

I have seen a priest performing the last religious rites on a battle-field over a mass of killed, plundered, mutilated soldiers, who had just given up their life in the defence of their country; and that scene again—a picture which I had painted, literally, with tears in my eyes—has been also proclaimed in high quarters to be the product of my imagination, a downright falsehood.

My lofty accusers did not deign to pay any attention to the fact that the lie was given them by that same priest who, disgusted with the accusations against me, declared—and that in the presence of the public standing before the picture—that it was he who had been performing those last rites over the massed bodies of the killed soldiers—had done it in the very surroundings reproduced in my picture. Yet, notwithstanding all this, my picture barely escaped being ejected from the exhibition, and when afterwards it was intended to publish all those pictures in coloured prints, the officials put their veto on the scheme, for fear lest they should find their way among the masses.

It should not be imagined, however, that that indignation prevailed exclusively in Russian high spheres. It was a very well known Prussian general who advised the Emperor Alexander II. to have all my military paintings burned as objects of a most pernicious kind.

There were still more inimical commentaries on those of my pictures which treat of religious subjects. Yet have I attacked the Christian morals? No—I hold these very highly. Have I attacked the idea of Christianity or its founder? No—I have the highest respect for them. Have I tried to detract from the significance of the Cross? No—this would be a sheer impossibility.

I have travelled all over the Holy Land with the book of the Gospels in my hand; I have visited all the places sanctified, centuries ago, by the presence of our Saviour in them. Consequently, I must have, and do have, my own ideas and conceptions as to the representation of many events and facts recorded in the Gospels. My ideas necessarily differ from the conceptions of artists who have never seen the scenery of the Holy Land, have not personally observed its population and their customs.

Here is my idea, for instance, of the fact of the Adoration of the Magi; a painting contemplated, but not yet executed:—

A clear, starry night; travellers are approaching Bethlehem—these are the Magi, men versed in science, having a knowledge of astrology. Proceeding on their way toward the city, the wise men notice a star standing over it—a star which they had never yet observed. Since, at that time, the idea was prevalent that every man had his own star, and, vice versâ, every star corresponded to some man on earth, so the Magi naturally conclude that this new star indicates the birth of a child somewhere in the neighbourhood, and that—the star being exceptionally brilliant—the new-born child must develop into a most prominent man.

Arriving at Bethlehem, the Magi put up at an inn. Soon after, the servant, who had been attending to the travellers’ mules, comes in and tells the Magi that a poor woman had sought refuge in the place where their animals were kept, and there had given birth to a most beautiful child. Hearing this, the Magi exchange significant glances—the coming up of the star has been rightly interpreted by them.

“Let us go and see; it must be an extraordinary child,” they say, and thereupon proceed to the grotto of the inn, where the horses, the cows, and the donkeys were kept, being followed by a few other travellers, who are likewise curious to see the new-born child.

In a corner of the grotto they observe a beautiful, pale young woman, sitting on a pile of straw and nursing her baby, whilst her husband, an elderly man, is seen in the distance, outside the grotto, preparing something for his family.

“What a beautiful child!” exclaimed the Magi, and, turning to the Virgin, say: “Remember our words, He will be a great man; we have seen His star.”

Then, their pity being stirred by the poverty of the surroundings, one of the wise men would offer a gold coin as a gift to the child, while another would, perhaps, pour out a little of the precious myrrh from his travelling-flask. As the wise men get ready to leave the grotto, they turn once more to Mary and repeat their prediction concerning the great future of the child, and “Mary kept these things, and pondered them in her heart.”

I firmly believe that such a realistic representation of the poverty and simplicity attending the nativity of Christ is incomparably loftier than the idealization of richness and other exaggerations to which the old masters had recourse. But such a treatment of the subject is new; therefore it appears strange, and very likely will excite comment. And only our descendants in a century or two will be able to decide which of these two opposing views was the correct one.

Among the paintings on exhibition will be noticed one portraying a not infrequent event in Palestine in the olden time—an event highly dramatic, yet retaining all its simplicity. I mean “A Crucifixion under the Romans.”

The sky is overcast by heavy black clouds. Just outside the walls of Jerusalem, on a small rock, are erected three crosses, all of the same size, shape, and appearance. The figures of the crucified on the two sides are of a vulgar type and of coarse build, while the central figure is of a more refined form. His face is not seen; it is hidden by long auburn hair that hangs over it; long hair indicates that the crucified was a man who dedicated himself to God. The wounds on the hands and feet of the three crucified men bleed profusely (it being a well-known fact that physicians find it difficult to stop the flow of blood out of outstretched palms and feet). In front of the crosses stand two priests of high rank, and they seemingly argue about some matter, as if trying to prove something to a Roman in military attire; possibly they refer to the guilt of the man crucified on the middle cross, a guilt about which the military man seems to retain some doubts. Around the rock soldiers are forming a chain to restrain the crowd.

In the foreground of the painting are seen people of every description; some on foot, some on horseback; others mounted on camels or on donkeys. Those are country folks or nomads, who, returning home from market, stopped on their way for a moment in order to witness the event of the day—the execution of a man, the renown of whose deeds had reached even their huts and tents—a man whose arrest caused almost an insurrection in the city. Among others in the crowd can be noticed a few Hebrew merchants with their characteristic head-gear (which was discarded at a comparatively late date), and Pharisees with the letters of the Law written on the coverings of their heads. One of the Pharisees is discussing something with his neighbour concerning a woman who is seen weeping bitterly, in the corner of the picture, presumably the mother of one of the crucified men. Her face cannot be seen, but her sorrow must be great indeed, and none of the women surrounding her seem likely to be able to console her. Many a time, probably, had she tried to divert her son from his chosen course, but all in vain, and now his time has come.

By the side of the heart-broken mother stands a handsome young woman plunged into deep consternation at the sight of the executed man; the tears run down her cheek, but she is not conscious of it, so thoroughly absorbed is she by her terrible, unspeakable grief.

As soon as the authorities should retire and the crowd thin out, there would be a chance for the mother, and those that surround her, to approach the crosses; then they would find it possible to say their last farewell....

Further on, we have a representation of a contemporary execution, among other people and surroundings. Here we see a cold winter day in the North. A mass of people is crowding into one of the squares of St. Petersburg, pressing toward the gallows and being held back by mounted gendarmes. Close to the gallows only a select few are admitted, mostly the military, all representatives of the gilded youth of the city, who are in hopes of getting a piece of the cord used by the hangman: the superstition being very common that a piece of the cord on which a man is hanged is sure to bring luck at cards to its fortunate possessor.

The criminal, enveloped in a white shroud, with the cap drawn over his head, has just been hanged and is still whirling round on the cord, while the people stand in mute bewilderment before the instructive sight. There is but a single hoarse voice raised from among the crowd: “There now—serves him right, too!” But these words are immediately hushed by several women’s voices crying out, “What are you saying? It is beyond us to condemn him now. Let God Almighty pass judgment on him!”

Meantime the snow continues to fall, the smoke is rising from the factories, work is going on as usual....

It is worthy of notice that this last painting, while it did not please the Russians, pleased the English people very much indeed; on the other side the “Blowing from guns in India” is not at all liked by Englishmen, and yet the Russians fancied it very much. Men who had seen much service in India assured me that I was mistaken in presenting such an execution as a typical, characteristic way of capital punishment in that country; they insisted that this mode of execution had been adopted but once—in the course of the last insurrection of the Sepoys—and even at that time it had been used only in a very few instances. But I maintain that this mode of execution—a comparatively humane one too—not only has been in constant use during the revolt referred to, when the Sepoys were blown from guns by the thousand, but that it was used by the British authorities in India for many years before and after the Sepoy revolt of 1858. More than that, I am quite positive that that particular mode of execution will have to be used in future times. The Hindoo does not fear any other kind of capital punishment received at the hands of the “heathenish, unclean Europeans.” They hold that any one shot down or hanged by the European goes to swell the ranks of the martyrs who are entitled to a high reward in the future life. But an execution by means of a gun carries positive terror into the heart of a native, for such a shot tears the criminal’s body in many parts, and thus prevents him from presenting himself in decent form in heaven. This bugbear was used by the British, and will be used by them as long as they fear to lose their Indian possessions.

In order to hold a population of 250,000,000 in political and economical submission by means of 60,000 bayonets, it is not enough to be brave and to be possessed of political tact—punishment and bloody reprisals cannot be avoided.

All this is so self-evident, that it seems really wonderful that, while we artists are required to observe and discriminate, people are still inclined to be astonished and indignant whenever we put those faculties of ours to use and transfer our impressions to canvas or paper.

The artists are on all hands pressed to give the public something new, something original, something that is not hackneyed by fashion and triviality; yet, when we make an effort to present something of the sort, we are accused of insolence.

And what are the results of such a state of things?

People get tired of books and gorge themselves on crude facts from real life as recorded in daily newspapers; people get tired of picture galleries and exhibitions, being certain to find in most of them the very same kind of pictures—all treating of the very same subjects, painted in an identical manner; people find it a dull task to go to the theatres where in nine plays out of ten they will find the very same conventional plot, invariably terminating in a wedding.

Well, what is now generally speaking the part of art?

Why, art is brought down to the level of a toy for such as can be and like to be amused by it; it is expected, as it were, to stimulate the public’s digestive powers. Paintings, for instance, are considered simply as furniture: if there happens to remain an empty space on the wall between the door and the corner taken up, let us say, by a what-not surmounted by a vase—why then, that empty space is forthwith covered by a picture of light contents and of pleasant execution; such a one as would not distract too much attention from the other furniture and bric-à-brac, would not interfere with the dolce far niente of visitors.

And yet the influence and the resources of art are enormous. The majority of old-time painters were handicapped by their allegiance to power and riches; they were men who were not weighed down by any sense of serious civil responsibility, and yet, notwithstanding this, how powerful was the influence of art during whole centuries! It was felt in all the corners and hidden recesses of the life of nations!

What, then, is not to be expected from art in our time, when artists are inspired with their duties as citizens of their country—when they cease to dance attendance on the rich and powerful, who love to be called patrons of art—when artists have acquired independence, and have begun to realize that the first condition of a fruitful activity is to be a gentleman, not in the narrow meaning of caste, but in the wide acceptance of the term pertaining to the time we live in?

Armed with the confidence of the public, art will adhere more closely to society, will constitute itself its ally in the face of the serious danger that threatens society now-a-days—that kind of society which we all know, which we are all more or less prompted to love and to respect.

There is no gainsaying the fact that all the other questions of our time are paling before the question of socialism that advances on us, threateningly, like a tremendous thunder-cloud.

The masses that have been for centuries leading a life of expectancy while hanging on the very borders of starvation, are willing to wait no more. Their former hopes in the future are discarded; their appetites are whetted, and they are clamouring for arrears, which means now the division of all the riches, and so as to make the division more lasting, they are claiming that talents and capacities should be levelled down to one standard, all workers of progress and comfort alike drawing the same pay. They are striving to reconstruct society on new foundations, and in case of opposition to their aims, they threaten to apply the torch to all the monuments pertaining to an order that, according to them, has already outlived its usefulness; they threaten to blow up the public buildings, the churches, the art galleries, libraries and museums—a downright religion of despair!

[2]. Sunday Express, Albany, July 22, 1888.

[3]. St. Matthew vi. 7.

II

A Russian Woman.

My friend, the late General Skobeleff, once asked me, “How do you understand the movement of the Socialists and the Anarchists?” He owned that he himself did not understand at all what they aimed at. “What do they want? What are they striving to attain?”

“First of all,” I answered, “those people object to wars between nations; again, their appreciation of art is very limited, the art of painting not excluded. Thus, if they ever come into power, you, with your strategic combinations, and I, with my pictures, will both be shelved immediately. Do you understand this?”

“Yes, I understand this,” rejoined Skobeleff, “and from this time forth I am determined to fight them.”

There is no mistaking the fact that, as I have said before, society is seriously threatened at the hands of a large mass of people counting hundreds of millions. Those are the people, who, for generations, during entire centuries, have been on the brink of starvation, poorly clad, living in filthy and unhealthy quarters; paupers, and such people as have scarcely any property, or no property at all. Well, who is to blame for their poverty—are not they themselves to be blamed for it?

No, it would be unjust to lay all the blame at their door; it is more likely that society at large is more to blame for their condition than they are themselves.

Is there any way out of the situation?

Certainly there is. Christ, our Great Teacher, has long ago pointed out the way in which the rich and the powerful could remedy the situation without bringing things to a revolutionary pass, without any upheaval of the existing social order, if they would only seriously take care of the miserable; that certainly would have ensured them the undisturbed enjoyment of the bulk of their fortune. But there is little hope of a peaceful solution of the question now; it is certain that the well-to-do classes will still prefer to remain Christians in name only; they will still hope that palliative measures will be sufficient to remedy the situation; or else, believing the danger to be distant, they will not be disposed to give up much; while the paupers—though formerly they were ready for a compromise—may be soon found unwilling to take the pittance offered them.

What do they want, then?

Nothing less than the equalization of riches in the society to come. They claim the material as well as moral equalization of all rights, trades, all capacities and talents; as we have already said, they strive to undermine all the foundations of the existing state of society, and, in inaugurating a new order of things, they claim to be able to open a real era of liberty, equality, and fraternity, instead of the shadows of those lofty things, as existing now.

I do not mean to go into the discussion of the matter; I would not pretend to point out how much justice or injustice, how much soundness or unsoundness, there is in these claims; I state only the fact that there is a deep gulf between the former cries for bread and the sharply formulated claims of the present. It is evident that the appetite of the masses has grown within the past centuries, and the bill which they intend to present for payment will not be a small one.

Who will be required to pay this bill?

Society, most certainly.

Will it be done willingly?

Evidently not.

Consequently there will be complications, quarrels, civil wars.

Certainly there will be serious complications; they are already casting their shadows before them in the shape of disturbances of a socialistic character that are originating here and there. In America, most likely, those disturbances are lesser and less pointed; but in Europe, in France and Belgium, for instance, such disorders assume a very threatening aspect.

Who is likely to be victorious in this struggle?

Unless Napoleon I. was wrong in his assertion that victory will always remain with the gros bataillons, the “regulators” will win. Their numbers will be very great; whoever knows human nature will understand that all such as have not much to lose will, at the decisive moment, join the claims of those who have nothing to lose.

It is generally supposed that the danger is not so imminent yet; but, as far as I was able to judge, the imminence of the danger varies in different countries. France, for instance—that long-suffering country which is for ever experimenting on herself, whether it be in social or scientific questions, or in politics—is the nearest to a crisis; then follow Belgium and other countries.

It is very possible that even the present generation will witness a serious upheaval. As to the coming generations, there is no doubt that they will assist at a thorough reconstruction of the social structure in all countries.

The claims of socialists, and, particularly, the anarchists, as well as the disorders incited by them, generally produce a great sensation in society. But no sooner are the disorders suppressed, than society relapses again into its usual unconcern, and no one gives a thought to the fact that the frequency of these painful symptoms, recurring with so much persistency, is in itself a sign of disease.

Far-seeing people begin to realize that palliative measures are no longer of use; that a change of governments and of rulers will no longer avail; and that nothing is left but to await developments contingent on the attitude of the opposed parties—the energetic determination of the well-to-do classes, not to yield, and that of the proletariat, to keep their courage and persevere.

The only consolation remaining to the rich consists in the fact that the “regulators” have not had time as yet to organize their forces for a successful struggle with society. This is true to a certain extent. But, though they do it slowly, the “regulators” are steadily perfecting their organization; on the other hand, can we say that society is well enough organized not to stand in dread of attacks?

Who are the recognized and official defenders of society?

The Army and the Church.

A soldier, there is no doubt, is a good support, he represents a solid defence; the only trouble about him is that the soldier himself begins to get weary of his ungrateful part. It is likely that for many years to come the soldier will shoot with a light heart at such as are called his “enemies”; but the time is not far distant when he will refuse to shoot at his own people.

Who is a good soldier? Only one to whom you can point out his father, his mother, or his brother in the crowd, saying, “Those are enemies of society, kill them”—and who will obey.

I may remark here, in passing, that it occurred to me to refer to this idea in a conversation I had with the well-known French writer and thinker, Alexandre Dumas, fils, and with what success? Conceding the justice of the apprehension, he had no other comforting suggestion to offer than to say, “Oh, yes, the soldier will shoot yet!”

The other defender of society, the priest, has been less ill-used than the soldier, and consequently he is not so tired of his task; but, on the hand, people begin to tire of him, less heed is paid to his words, and there arises a doubt as to the truth of all that he preaches.

There was a time when it was possible to tell the people that there is but one sun in the heavens, as there is but one God-appointed king in the country. As stars of the first, second, third, and fourth magnitude are grouping themselves around the sun, so the powerful, the rich, the poor, and the miserable, surround the king on earth. And, as it all appeared plausible, people used to believe that such arrangements were as they ought to be. All was accepted, all went on smoothly: none of such things can be advanced now-a-days, however; no one will be ready to believe in them.

Clearly, things assume a serious aspect. Suppose the day comes when the priests entirely lose their hold on the people, when the soldiers turn their guns’ muzzles down—where will society look for bulwarks then? Is it possible that it has no more reliable defence?

Certainly, it has such a defence, and it is nothing else than talent, and its representatives, in science, literature, and art in all its ramifications.

Art must and will defend society. Its influence is less apparent and palpable, but it is very great; it might even be said that its influence over the minds, the hearts, and the actions of people is enormous, unsurpassed, unrivalled. Art must and will defend society with all the more care and earnestness, because its devotees know that the “regulators” are not disposed to give them the honourable, respectable position they occupy now—for, according to them, a good pair of boots is more useful than a good picture, a novel, or a statue. Those people declare that talent is luxury, that talent is aristocratic, and that, consequently, talent has to be brought down from its pedestal to the common level—a principle to which we shall never submit.

Let us not deceive ourselves; there will arise new talents, which will gradually adapt themselves to new conditions, if such will prevail, and their works may perhaps gain from it; but we shall not agree to the principle of general demolition and reconstruction, when this has no other foundation but the well-known thesis—“Let us destroy everything and clear the ground; as to the reconstruction—about that we shall see later on.” We shall defend and advocate the improvement of the existing order by means of peaceful and gradual measures.

It goes without saying that we demand that society, on its side, should help us to fulfil our task; that it should trust us, give us all the freedom necessary for the development and exertion of talent.

There is the rub!

Well-fed, self-satisfied society quails at every change, at all blame, derision, and comment; it distrusts the foremost, daring representatives of science, literature, and art. Society strives jealously to retain the right not only to point out the road for talent, but even to regulate the measure, the degree of its development, and its manifestation.

In this society of ours anything that is common and conventional is shielded by all kinds of rights and privileges, while anything that is new and original is bound to awaken animosity and censure, has to go through a severe struggle under the pressure of wide-spread cant and hypocrisy.

Try to create anything ingenious in any of the regions of science and literature, try to present in graphic or plastic form the most original, striking conception, but only forget or refuse to surround it with the conventional layer of triviality and vulgarity so dear to the heart of society, you will be “done for,” you will not even obtain a hearing, you will be called a charlatan, if nothing worse than that.

Why is that so? Was it society that has shown the way to all great discoveries? No; it has always delayed them, has always put brakes on them.

Has society, in its collective form, ever evoked any of the great manifestations of art or literature? No; society was always eager to worry, to persecute men of talent, though it erects monuments to them after their death.

How did society come to display such arrogance and presumption? It was tempted that way only by the unchristian conviction that “the aim justifies the means.”

Can there be anything more exasperating than the conversation we hear sometimes—

“Have you been to the Salon?”

“No; we did not happen to go there this year, but last year we were there more than once.”

There is irony here as well as truth, for in the majority of cases, you will find in the Salon the same number of pictures nearly of the same quality, treating on nearly the same subjects, and, most assuredly, painted nearly in the same style.

“Have you seen the new play of Sardou?”

“Just imagine, could not possibly get to see it yet, had to go to the country; but then to-morrow we go to the Comédie Française to see that new thing of Dumas’. They say both plays are very much alike in conception, as well as in plot.” And this is perfectly true; they are doubtlessly more or less alike.

Whose fault is this, then, if not the authors’?

Ask the playwrights, whether they would dare to represent the action in such a way as it has been suggested to them by real life, with its logical conclusion, made unavoidable by the march of events, omitting, for once, the long-established, hackneyed, conventional termination?

“No,” the authors would tell you, “such a thing is not to be thought of,” and they will be in the right. Society, weighed down by cant, will not go to see such a play, however interesting it may be; so the author has to humour the public if he does not want to bring ruin on his manager and on himself.

The same is the case with artists, sculptors, even composers. How many favourites of the Muses have been driven into early graves by the animosity of the public against all new construction of poetical as well as musical ideas?

On one side we hear complaints of the dulness, the monotony, even the triviality, prevailing in art; people clamour for something inspired, something original; on the other hand, the same public arbitrarily chastises you for all that fails to come within the range of established, conventional ideas!

It is high time, it seems to me, to understand the necessity of treating art with tolerance and confidence, if we want it to fraternize with society, to become as one with it, to serve it faithfully and well in the present troubled times when the poet and the artist are soldiers at their posts.

“But, you representative of art,” I might be asked, “what are the tidings that you are so eager to announce to us—what are your discoveries that would be so entirely new to society?”

Well, what we should say would, perhaps, not be news, yet certainly the idea of it has not yet penetrated the consciousness of the people. Armed with the rich, varied resources of art we should tell people some truths.

“Give up,” we shall say to them, “give up enjoying yourselves amidst the illusions of the idealism which lulls your senses, of the idealism of high-sounding words and phrases. Look around you through the eye of sensible realism, and you will acquire the certitude of your mistake. You are not the Christians you assume yourselves to be. You are not representatives of Christian societies, of Christian countries.”

Those who kill their kind by the hundred thousand are not Christians.

Those who are always moved, in private as well as in public life, by the principle of “eye for eye, and tooth for tooth,” are not Christians.

Those who spend many hours of their lives in churches, yet who give nothing, or next to nothing, to the poor, are not Christians.

What have you done with the decree of the Saviour concerning Christian humility, and to help such as are in real need?

What is the stand taken now, let us ask, by those two great branches of the administration of Christ’s Church, that call themselves the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Churches, which have separated, thanks to their inability to agree as to whether the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father and the Son or from the Father alone? Is it possible that they have not come yet to an understanding, and, blinded by mutual hatred, are neglecting the loftiness of their mission on earth?

What is the stand taken by those new Churches originated of late, comparatively speaking, on the plea of a more realistic understanding of the connection of life with its Originator? Is it possible that, having concluded the fight with their great adversary, those Churches have also drifted into a sweet nap over the existing order of things, and have also renounced taking a hand in any further reforms?

Well, if it be so, let men of talent shake the strong and the powerful out of the somnolence into which they have fallen; a difficult task it will be, but a noble one. And if we are refused a hearing, or attempts are made to muzzle us, why, it will be the worse for society. Rouse itself it must; but it will be too late—the “Vandals will have burned Rome” once again. We may be assured that no churches, no bankers’ offices will then be spared.

“If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.”

I
NAPOLEON

Napoleon.

It is, no doubt, from the Dresden Conference that we must date Napoleon’s open hostility towards Russia. After his unsuccessful endeavour to secure the hand of the Tsar’s sister, it was rumoured in well-informed French Court circles that Napoleon had made up his mind once and for all to humble the pride of Russia. It was not, however, until the Dresden Conference that Napoleon threw off the mask. He then adopted a distinctly threatening attitude in the face of Alexander’s refusal to reconsider his decision and humble himself in the eyes of Europe.

The Russian Emperor firmly refused to submit, and his defiant attitude was the more offensive to Napoleon inasmuch as it was open and undisguised. There was no question of concealing it or of receding from the position already adopted. “The bottle is opened—the wine must be drunk,” was Napoleon’s own expression.

It was, moreover, at the Dresden Conference that Napoleon attained the zenith of his power. At Dresden he was indeed a king of kings. The Emperor of Austria respectfully and repeatedly assured his august cousin that he might “fully rely upon Austria for the triumph of the common cause;” while the King of Prussia reassured him of his “unswerving fidelity.”

The splendour and magnificence of the French Court at the time of the Dresden Conference, says an eye-witness, gave Napoleon the air of some legendary Grand Mogul. As at Tilsit, he showered magnificent presents on all sides. At his levées reigning princes danced attendance for hours in the hope of being honoured with an audience. This new order of would-be courtiers was so numerous that the Emperor’s chamberlains and officials had constantly to give one another warning lest they should jostle a Royal Highness unawares.

Every country sent its contingent. There were no eyes but for Napoleon. The populace gathered in crowds outside the palace, following his every movement, and dogging his progress through the streets, in hourly expectation of some great event.

Never, probably, were such elaborate arrangements made as for this campaign. Besides the usual preparations for a war, engagements were made with tradesmen of all kinds—tin-workers, masons, watchmakers, and other skilled artisans. There was no word of explanation as to the place in which their services would be required, so that until the opening of the campaign the general public had no inkling of the object of all these preparations. It was even rumoured that Napoleon was about to aid Russia against the Turks.

The abrupt departure of the Russian military agent Tczernicheff from Paris, and the court-martial on certain persons who had treasonably supplied him with various documents, at last revealed the Emperor’s plans, and it was then positively stated in the salons that the preparations were directed against Russia. The authorities, however, refused to confirm these reports, and went so far as to issue an order to the army, forbidding the officers and men to discuss the rumoured campaign.

The French army was at that moment in the most flourishing condition. It consisted of twelve infantry corps of 20,000 men each, three cavalry corps of the same strength, and with 40,000 men of the Guard, Artillery, Engineers, and Sappers, amounted to 400,000 men, including 300,000 Frenchmen. This enormous force possessed 1200 guns

and more than 100,000 ammunition-wagons and caissons. Such a body of troops, accustomed to victory, proud of its traditions, full of confidence in its officers, and led by a commander with the prestige of twenty years’ brilliant success, might well be deemed invincible.

Every subaltern regarded a campaign in Russia as a pleasant six months’ outing. The whole army, fully assured of speedy success, looked forward to the war as a means of rapid promotion. All were eager to start. “We are off to Moscow,” they cried to their friends, “à bientôt!”

It was said that Prussia would receive from the expected conquests full compensation for her former losses. Napoleon himself suggested this in his proclamation—“At the beginning of July we shall be in St. Petersburg; I shall be avenged on the Emperor Alexander, and the King of Prussia will be Emperor of the North.”

There were prophets who declared that “if the Russians do not make their peace in time, Napoleon will divide their European territories into two parts—the Dukedom of Smolensk, and the Dukedom of St. Petersburg. The Emperor Alexander, if Napoleon thinks it worth while to leave him his throne, will reign only in Asia.”

The Comte de Narbonne, Napoleon’s envoy to Vilna, was obliged to admit that the Emperor Alexander conducted himself with irreproachable dignity. He displayed neither fear nor arrogance. The answer with which Narbonne returned to his Imperial master at Dresden proved that the Russian Emperor was firmly resolved to offer no other terms than those which his Ambassador at Paris had already communicated. He had nothing to subtract from them, and nothing to add. An eye-witness describes the impression produced in Dresden, where everybody was eagerly waiting to learn the result of his mission, by the arrival of Comte Narbonne’s travel-stained carriage, when he returned with the news that “the Emperor Alexander refused to alter his decision.”

“Although,” Alexander said, “no one tells me so to my face, I am well aware, and I am not ashamed to own it, that I am not so great a soldier as Napoleon, and that I have no generals who are a match for his. This assurance on my part should, I think, serve as the clearest proof of my sincere desire for the maintenance of peace.”

Alexander was extremely indignant at Napoleon’s subsequent high-handed proceeding in crossing the frontier without declaring war, for although the Russians were expecting hostilities, there were some, including Rumyantsef and other notables, who regarded it to the last as unlikely, firmly believing that the matter would end in a few threats and a compromise.

Nine years later, when Napoleon was at St. Helena, the Emperor Alexander caused him to be asked why he had refused the terms brought by Narbonne from Vilna. “Because by the terms of the offer,” replied Napoleon, “a month was required before any definitive treaty could be arrived at, and such a delay might have involved the loss of the campaign, of all our stupendous preparations, and of the alliances that had been entered into, and which there was little prospect of renewing.”

Napoleon loudly proclaimed that “Fate was leading Russia to her doom,” and took upon himself the duty of executing the decree of destiny, by which the Russians, as enemies of European civilization, were to be driven into the wilds of Asia.

Napoleon’s own baggage-train consisted of seventy wagons, each drawn by eight horses; twenty carriages, open and closed; forty pack-mules; and two hundred riding-horses. During his drives from place to place the Emperor was never idle. When darkness fell, a lamp fixed inside the carriage enabled him to work as comfortably as if he were sitting at home in his own room. Aides-de-camp and orderlies were always within call at the door of his carriage, and a number of riding-horses followed with the body-guard.

In this way Napoleon reached the Niemen on June 11/23, and mounted his horse at two o’clock at night. It is said that as he approached the bank of the river, his horse stumbled and threw him, and that some one cried out, “That’s a bad omen; a Roman would have turned back;” but no one could distinguish whether it was the Emperor or one of his suite who uttered the words.

I extract from M. Bertin’s book a characteristic account given by Count Soltyk, general of the Polish artillery. “On the arrival of the Emperor, several officers, together with myself and Suchorzewski, the major of the regiment, ran up. Napoleon quickly approached the major and asked for the colonel of the regiment. Suchorzewski, in no wise disconcerted at the absence of the colonel, who was still asleep, answered that he was filling his place, and was ready to receive any orders. Napoleon then asked him which was the road to the Niemen, and made inquiries regarding the outposts and the position of the Russians. Whilst asking these questions, he ordered a change of uniform, as it had been agreed, or rather ordered, that no French soldier should be seen by the Russians. He took off his coat, and the rest of us—the Prince of Neufchâtel, Suchorzewski, Colonel Pagowski, who had hurried to the spot, General Bruyères, and myself—followed his example.

There were therefore five or six of us in our shirts in the middle of the bivouac surrounding the Emperor, each with his uniform in his hand. The Poles offered theirs to the French. Altogether the scene was most amusing. Of all our uniforms, Colonel Pagowski’s coat and forage cap best fitted the Emperor. He had been offered a Lancer’s head-dress, but refused it as being too heavy. All this took place in a few minutes. Berthier also put on a Polish uniform. The colonel’s horses were at once led up. Napoleon mounted one of them; Berthier took the other, and Lieutenant Zrelski, whose company was on outpost duty, was ordered to accompany the Emperor as guide.

“They went as far as Alexota, a village about three miles distant, opposite Kovno, and within range of its guns. The Emperor alighted in the courtyard of a house belonging to a doctor, whose windows overlooked the Niemen, and from which one might easily survey the surrounding country. I had myself three days previously made a plan of Kovno from this very spot. From there Napoleon thoroughly reconnoitred the district without himself being seen. His horses were carefully concealed in the courtyard. After completing his survey he returned to the bivouac, and called for details as to the position of the enemy. The colonel having told him that I knew the neighbourhood thoroughly, he put several questions to me as to the fords that might be passable, the conformation and irregularities of the ground, and the position of the enemy. The Emperor questioned me searchingly as to where the Russians were massed, whether on the right or left bank of the Vilia. He evidently wished to ascertain whether the road along the Vilia was free, intending to march in that direction in heavy columns, so as to seize this centre of operations, and cut off the enemy’s corps, which were spread along the whole length of the Niemen.

“When Napoleon returned we noticed a marked change of expression. He looked happy, even merry, being evidently satisfied with the idea of the surprise which he was preparing for the Russians on the following morning, and of which he had calculated the results beforehand. Some refreshments were brought to him, which he ate in our midst on the high-road. He seemed amused at his masquerade, and asked us twice if the Polish uniform suited him. After having breakfasted, he said laughing, ‘Now we must return what does not belong to us.’ He then took off the garments which he had borrowed, put on his uniform of Chasseur of the Guard, entered his carriage

accompanied by Berthier, and rapidly drove away. That very day he inspected several other points on the Niemen, and chose Poniémon as the place of crossing. General Haxo accompanied him on this tour.”

“This reconnaissance being finished,” adds Ségur, “he issued an order that on the following evening three bridges should be thrown across the river.... Then he returned to his quarters, where he passed the day partly in his tent and partly in a Polish house, vainly seeking rest in the sultry heat that prevailed.”

When the army began the passage next day, Napoleon took up a position near the bridge, and encouraged the soldiers by his presence, while they greeted him with the customary cries. But his impatience would not allow him to remain long on this spot. He crossed the bridge and galloped through the forest that stretches along the bank of the stream, careering along at full speed on his Arab, as though in pursuit of some invisible foe.

“What is to be said of an Emperor,” remarks an eye-witness, “who dresses up in an outlandish disguise, rides off to his outposts, orders some one to bring him some water from the Niemen in a helmet, and tastes it with the air of a seer waiting for inspiration? It would have been better to keep these absurd tricks for the banks of the Nile, among the superstitious nations for whose behoof they were invented, rather than bring them over to Europe.”

“Napoleon,” says Boutourline, “was preparing to crush the First Army of the West with his Guards, Davout’s, Oudinot’s, and Ney’s Army Corps, and Nansouty’s, Montbrun’s, and Grouchy’s cavalry—250,000 men in all—by a sudden attack on the centre before the Second Army could come to its support. The King of Westphalia, with the corps of Junot, Poniatowski, and Renier, and Latour-Maubourg’s cavalry, making a force of 80,000, was to execute the same manœuvre against the Second Army. The Viceroy of Italy, with an army of about the same strength, consisting of his own corps and that of St. Cyr, was to throw himself between the two Russian armies, and cut off all communication between them. On the left, Major Macdonald’s division, some 30,000 strong, was to enter Courland and threaten St. Petersburg and the Russian right. On the right, Schwarzenberg and the Austrians, also about 30,000 strong, were to hold Tormasof in check.”

It was a well-conceived plan, and the movements of the French on Vilna were so swift and decisive that General Dokhturof’s corps and Dorokhof’s division were almost cut off.

This brilliant beginning was, however, followed by a number of mistakes. The execution of the plan was marred by the slowness of the King of Westphalia (who soon afterwards threw up his command and returned home), and by the Emperor’s own irresolution. Napoleon appears to have lost sight of the fact that he should have taken the direct road from Vilna to Smolensk as his principal line of operations. If he had concentrated the whole weight of his army on this line he would have successfully outflanked Barclay on the left and Bagration on the right, and might then have fallen on either of them with the whole strength of his army, or, indeed, on both simultaneously. It was with the object of taking the Russians by surprise that Napoleon crossed the frontier without declaring war, and appeared at Vilna the day after the Emperor Alexander had left.

Mme. de Choiseul-Gouffier, in her reminiscences of Napoleon’s stay in Vilna, describes among other events his visit to the church. “A herald shouted, ‘L’Empereur!’ and I saw a short, stout little man in a green uniform with coat unbuttoned, and displaying a white waistcoat, surrounded by a crowd of marshals. He flew by like a bullet, and took up his place behind a prie-dieu. When mass was over he departed at the same lightning speed.” She describes Napoleon’s arrival at a ball—“At the first signal of his approach the dukes and marshals rushed off to meet him as quickly as they could hurry; and to tell the truth, their faces were a most amusing sight. We were hustled down the stairs almost on all fours. Napoleon’s carriage drove up, with the Master of the Horse, M. Caulaincourt, galloping behind. They put down a footstool for the Emperor to alight on, as if the earth were unworthy of the honour of being trodden by his Imperial foot. He went up-stairs amid shouts of ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ When he entered the salon he cried, as if giving an order, ‘Ladies, be seated!’”

“Napoleon’s face,” says Madame de Choiseul-Gouffier later on, “appeared to me as severe as an antique bust, and of the colour of yellow marble.” And further—“Napoleon’s expression when lighted up by his beautiful smile was pleasant, and even when seen closer his pallor was not remarkable. What is most noteworthy is that his countenance expresses more good-nature than genius.... He knew every bit of gossip.”

The distance between the head-quarters of the two armies led Napoleon to express the belief that “in all probability, they are afraid of Alexander and myself meeting and coming to terms.” However, when the opportunity of making terms did present itself, Napoleon let it pass. Balachef, the Russian general, presented himself at the French outposts demanding a parley. When they conducted him into Napoleon’s presence at Vilna, he declared, in Alexander’s name—“If there is war between Russia and France, it will be a long and bloody war, and before entering upon it the Russian Emperor solemnly proclaims that it is not he who is responsible for it. Though the Russian Ambassador has left Paris, war has not yet been declared; there is still time to come to terms; it is not yet too late.”

Having been told that the messenger who had been selected for the embassy was the Minister of Police, the French suspected that the sole object of his coming was to observe the position of the army and to gain time. They regarded his visit, therefore, as a sign of weakness in the Russian Government, and received his overtures with coldness. Besides, it would have cost Napoleon a great struggle, after refusing to listen to any explanations at Paris, to adopt a conciliatory tone in Vilna. What would Europe think of him? What possible explanation could there be of the enormous preparations, the vast movements of troops and expenditure of money? It would have been

tantamount to a confession of defeat. Besides, he had gone so far in his utterances before the allies as to render retreat almost impossible. But this was not all. Napoleon lost control over himself, and broke out, as usual, into complaints and reproaches. He used insulting language in speaking of the Emperor Alexander to the Russian general. “Why did he ever come to Vilna? What does he want? Does he mean to match his strength with me? He, this carpet knight? Napoleon’s only counsellor is himself; who will advise the Tsar? Whom does he mean to look to? Kutuzof is a Russian, he, therefore, will not be selected; six years ago Benigsen was old and useless—he is in his dotage now; Barclay, no doubt, is a man of courage and capacity—but he only displays it by retreating.” Napoleon added spitefully—“You all imagine that you understand the art of war because you have read your Jomini, but if Jomini’s book were enough to teach you generalship, do you think I should have allowed it to be printed?”

It is difficult to understand how, after sending such an insolent answer to his “friend and brother,” Napoleon could bring himself to assure him later on of his unswerving devotion. On the other hand, it is easy to appreciate why his “friend and brother” after this message received all the French Emperor’s subsequent blandishments in stony silence.

Napoleon began to be alarmed at the proclamations and manifestoes issued by the St. Petersburg Cabinet. He displayed a naïve astonishment at the expressions of hatred and anger which were levelled at his own person. What had happened to the Emperor Alexander, who had up to that time been so suave and gentle? It is said that Napoleon endeavoured to keep these vigorous proclamations from the knowledge of his army, and commanded that the Russians should be represented as disheartened and on the point of disbanding; the Russian Emperor as having actually left his troops and fled to St. Petersburg in order to implore assistance and mollify the wrath of the Senate, which was demanding an explanation of what had happened; the Russian generals as having lost their heads; and the people at large as ready to fling themselves in despair at Napoleon’s feet.

Ségur has preserved to us the order of march of the French troops. The army advanced in column ready for instant battle, the Emperor on horseback in the centre. Rivers were crossed by fords which soon, however, became impassable, and the regiments in the rear crossed elsewhere, wherever they could; no one troubled his head about them. The staff neglected these details. No one remained behind to point out the dangers, if there were any, or the route, where several roads met. Each corps d’armée was left to shift for itself.