Joseph Roth - The Hundred Days

It was one day before the start of spring, an unfriendly day, a sullen welcome for spring. The violet, however, the bravest of all flowers, was already blooming in the woods outside the gates of Paris. It was as though these people from the suburbs were carrying the spirit of spring into the city of stone, toward the palace of stone. The freshly plucked bouquets of violets shone a radiant blue at the ends of the sticks held aloft by the men, between the warm and swelling breasts of the women, on the hats and caps that were being waved high in the air, in the joyful hands of the workers and craftsmen, on the swords of the officers, on the drums of the old percussionists and the silver cornets of the old trumpeters. At the front of some of the groups marched the drummers of the old Imperial Army. They rapped out old battle melodies on their old calfskin drums, let their drumsticks fly through the air and caught them again, like slender homing pigeons, in fatherly hands held open in welcome. Heading up other groups, or contained within their midst, marched the ancient trumpeters of the old army, who from time to time set their instruments upon their lips and blew the old battle calls of the Emperor, the simple, melancholy calls to death and triumph, each of which reminded a soldier of his own pledge to die for the Emperor and also of the last sigh of a beloved wife before he left her to lay down for the Emperor. In the midst of all the people, raised upon shoulders, were the Emperor’s old officers. They swayed, or rather were swayed, above the surging heads of the crowd like living, human banners. They had their swords drawn. On the sword tips fluttered their hats, like little black flags decorated with the tricolored cockades of the Emperor and the people of France. And from time to time, as if compelled to release the oppressive longing that had quickly built up in their hearts once again, the men and women cried out: “Long live France! Long live the Emperor! Long live the people! Long live the Father of the Violet! Long live liberty! Long live the Emperor!” And once more: “Long live the Emperor!” Often, some enthusiast from within the center of the crowd would begin to sing. He sang the old songs of the old soldiers, from battles of days past, the songs that celebrate man’s farewell to life, his prayer before death, the sung confession of the soldier lacking the time for final exoneration. They were songs proclaiming love of both life and death. They were tunes in which one could hear undertones of marching regiments and clattering muskets. Suddenly someone struck up a song that had not been heard for a long time, the “Marseillaise” — and all the many thousands joined in singing it. It was the song of the French people. It was the song of liberty and duty. It was the song of the motherland and of the whole world. It was the song of the Emperor just as the violet was his flower, as the eagle was his bird, as white, blue, and red were his colors. It glorified victory and even cast its sheen upon lost battles. It gave voice to the spirit of triumph and its brother death. Within it was both despair and reassurance. Anyone who sang the “Marseillaise” to himself joined the powerful community and fellowship of the many whose song it was. And anyone who sang it in the company of many others could feel his own loneliness in spite of the crowd. For the “Marseillaise” proclaimed both victory and defeat, communion with the world and the isolation of spirit, man’s deceptive might and actual powerlessness. It was the song of life and the song of death. It was the song of the French people.

They sang it on the day that the Emperor Napoleon returned home.

Many of his old friends hurried to meet him even as he was still on his way home. Others prepared to greet him in the city. The King’s white banners had been hastily removed from the tower of the city hall, already replaced by the fluttering blue, white, and red of the Emperor. On the walls, which even that same morning had still carried the King’s farewell message, there were now posted new broadsides, no longer rain-soaked and tear-stained, but clear, legible, clean, and dry. At their tops, mighty and steadfast, soared the Imperial eagle, spreading its strong, black wings in protection of the neat black type, as if he himself had dropped them, letter by letter, from his threatening yet eloquent beak. It was the Emperor’s manifesto. Once again the Parisians gathered at these same walls, and in each group read, in a loud voice, the Emperor’s words. They had a different tone from the King’s wistful farewell. The Emperor’s words were polished and powerful and carried the roll of drums, the clarion call of trumpets, and the stormy melody of the “Marseillaise.” And it seemed as if the voice of each reader of the Emperor’s words was transformed into the voice of the Emperor himself. Yes, he who had not yet arrived was already speaking to the people of Paris through ten thousand heralds sent on ahead. Soon, the very broadsides themselves seemed to be speaking from the walls. The printed words had voices, the letters trumpeted their message, and above them the mighty yet peacefully hovering eagle, seemed to stir his wings. The Emperor was coming. His voice was already speaking from all the walls.

His old friends, the old dignitaries and their wives, hurried to the palace. The generals and ministers put on their old uniforms, pinned on their Imperial decorations, and viewed themselves in the mirror before leaving their homes, feeling that they had only recently been revived. Even more elated were the ladies of the Imperial court, as they once more donned their old clothes. They were accustomed to viewing their youth as a thing of the past, their beauty as faded, their glory as lost. Now, however, as they put on their clothes, the symbols of their youth and their triumphant glory, they could actually believe that time had stood still since the Emperor’s departure. Time, woman’s enemy, had been halted in its track; the rolling hours, the creeping weeks, the murderously slow and boring months, had been only a bad dream. Their mirrors lied no more. Once again, they revealed the true images of youth. And with victorious steps, on feet more joyously winged than those of youth — for their feet were revived and had awakened to a second youth — the ladies entered their carriages and headed toward the palace amid cheers from the thronging, waiting crowds.

They waited in the gardens before the palace, clamoring at the gates. In every arriving minister and general they saw another of the Emperor’s emissaries. Besides these exalted persons, there came also the lesser staff of the Emperor — the old cooks and coachmen and bakers and laundresses, grooms and riding-masters, tailors and cobblers, masons and upholsterers, lackeys and maids. And they began to prepare the palace for the Emperor so he would find it just as he had left it, with no reminders of the King who had fled. The exalted ladies and gentlemen joined the lowly servants in this work. In fact, the ladies of the Imperial court worked even more zealously than the servants. Disregarding their dignity and the damage to their delicate clothing or their carefully cultivated fingernails, they scratched, clawed, and peeled from the walls the tapestries and the white lilies of the King with vindictiveness, fury, impatience, and enthusiasm. Under the King’s tapestries were the old and familiar symbols of the Emperor — countless golden bees with widespread, glassy, and delicately veined little wings and black-striped hind ends, Imperial insects, industrious manufacturers of sweetness. Soldiers carried in the Imperial eagles of shiny, golden brass and placed them in every corner, so that at the very moment of his arrival, the Emperor would know that his soldiers were awaiting him — even those who had not been able to be at his side upon his entrance.

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