War And Peace

‘The sovereigns! I am not talking about Russia,’ said the viscount, respectful but despairing . . . ‘But Madame, the sovereigns! What did they do for Louis XVI, the Queen, Madame Elisabeth? Nothing,’ he went on, gathering confidence. ‘And believe me, they’re being punished now for their betrayal of the Bourbon cause. The European sovereigns! They are sending ambassadors to congratulate the usurper.’

And he gave a scornful sigh as he shifted position. Then, at these words, Prince Hippolyte, who had been studying the viscount through his lorgnette, suddenly turned right round to face the little princess, borrowed a needle from her and used it to scratch an outline of the Condé family coat-of-arms on the tabletop. He began to explain it in some detail as if this was something she had asked for. ‘Staff, gules, engrailed with azure gules – the House of Condé,’ he said. The princess smiled as she listened.

‘If Bonaparte stays on the throne of France for another year,’ said the viscount, taking up the thread of the conversation with the air of an informed person pursuing his own train of thought and ignoring everybody else, ‘things will have gone too far. After all the plotting and violence, the exiles and executions, society – I mean good, French society – will have been destroyed for ever, and then . . .’

He gave a shrug, and spread his hands. Pierre was about to say something – the conversation fascinated him – but the ever-vigilant Anna Pavlovna intervened.

‘Emperor Alexander,’ she said with that doleful manner that she always adopted when referring to the royal family, ‘has announced that he will leave it to the French people to choose their own form of government. I myself have no doubt the entire nation, once it is delivered from the usurper, will rush to embrace its lawful king,’ said Anna Pavlovna, trying to be nice to a royalist émigré.

‘That’s doubtful,’ said Prince Andrey. ‘The viscount is right when he says things have gone too far. I think it will be difficult to turn the clock back.’

‘From what I hear,’ said Pierre, reddening as he got back into the conversation, ‘almost all the aristocrats have gone over to Bonaparte.’

‘That’s what the Bonapartists say,’ said the viscount without looking at Pierre. ‘It’s not easy nowadays to find out what public opinion is in France.’

‘That’s what Bonaparte said,’ observed Prince Andrey with a grin. It was obvious that he didn’t like the viscount, and he was directing his remarks at him without looking his way.

‘ “I have shown them the path to glory, but they wouldn’t take it,” ’ he said after a brief pause, once more quoting Napoleon. ‘ “I have opened my antechambers to them, and the crowds rushed in . . .” I don’t know what justification he had for saying that.’

‘None at all!’ retorted the viscount. ‘Since the duke’s murder, even his strongest supporters have ceased to regard him as a hero. There may be some people who made a hero of him,’ said the viscount, turning to Anna Pavlovna, ‘but since the duke’s assassination there has been one more martyr in heaven, and one hero less on earth.’

Anna Pavlovna and the others had barely had time to smile in appreciation of the viscount’s words when Pierre broke into the conversation again, and although Anna Pavlovna knew in advance he was going to put his foot in it, this time she couldn’t stop him.

‘The execution of the Duke of Enghien,’ said Pierre, ‘was a political necessity, and in my opinion it was a measure of Napoleon’s true greatness that he didn’t baulk at assuming total responsibility for it.’

‘Merciful heaven!’ Anna Pavlovna intoned in a horrified whisper.

‘So Monsieur Pierre! You think murder is the measure of true greatness,’ said the little princess, smiling and drawing in her work.

Ohs and ahs came from all sides.

‘Capital!’ said Prince Hippolyte, using the English word, and he began slapping his knee. The viscount merely shrugged.

Pierre looked solemnly over his spectacles at his audience.

‘The reason I say this,’ he carried on in some despair, ‘is that the Bourbons were running away from the Revolution, leaving the people to anarchy, and Napoleon was the only one capable of understanding the Revolution, and transcending it, and that was why, for the public good, he couldn’t baulk at the taking of one man’s life.’

‘Would you like to come over to this other table?’ asked Anna Pavlovna. But Pierre didn’t answer; he was in full flow.

‘Oh no,’ he said, warming to his task, ‘Napoleon is great because he towered above the Revolution, he stopped its excesses and he preserved all its benefits – equality, free speech, a free press. That was his only reason for assuming supreme power.’

‘Yes, if only he had transferred it to the lawful king once he had obtained power, instead of using it to commit murder,’ said the viscount, ‘then I might have called him a great man.’