Joseph Roth - The Hundred Days

What was a throne? Indeed, he the Emperor, who had erected so many and demolished so many, knew very well that it was just a piece of furniture, fragile enough to be smashed by accident. What was an empty throne, a throne without an heir? What was an Emperor without a son? Oh, if only his son still lived in this city! For whom else except his son should he reveal the traitors, scold the lawyers, round up his soldiers, and crush his enemies? For his vain and foolish brothers? For the lowly family from which he had sprung but that in reality sprang from him, as though he were the begetter and not the begotten? For his weak and traitorous friends? For the women who had succumbed to him, as was their nature, and who might just as easily have offered themselves to his fine grenadiers? For those children whom he had perhaps fathered with careless passion? For the army? Yes, perhaps for it alone! Yet he himself had allowed its destruction only a few hours ago! There was no army! His son and heir was far away and powerless! Only the throne remained in the city of Paris, an empty throne, nothing but an armchair of wood and velvet and gold! Worms were already eating through the wood. Moths were already gnawing holes in the velvet. Only the gold survived, the most permanent and deceptive of all materials, the devil’s confidante!

All at once the horses’ pace seemed too swift, the rolling of the wheels too hurried, and he wanted to order that the carriage be driven more slowly. He was suddenly overcome by a fear of Paris and of the empty throne, of the traitors and the lawyers. He needed a little more time to think things over but the city was nearing rapidly, increasingly fast as though it were approaching him so as to meet him halfway, with its teary face and its spectral throne. He wanted to shout: “Slow down! Go slowly!” But they had already reached the first lanes; he could already sense the proximity of the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. He wanted to ask what time it was, for he was puzzled at the darkness of the streets; it seemed to be well past midnight. According to his calculations, however, it could hardly be so late. All the shops were already closed. All the houses were lifeless. Their windows grinned with an empty darkness. He leaned out of the carriage window but could not tell who was now riding alongside. He had wished to ask what time it was, but it came out as: “What day is it?”

“The 20th of June, Your Majesty,” cried an officer next to the carriage.

The nagging pain in the small of his back grew stronger and the Emperor leaned back. He did not know whether he had asked incorrectly or whether the man outside had misunderstood him. “The 20th of June!” It was on the 20th of March that he had come to this capital, just like his pain and related to it, his old superstition returned and terrified him. On the 20th! What a date! His son had been born on the 20th, the Duke of Enghien had been executed at his order on the 20th, and he had returned home for the first time on the 20th! Yes, today was the 20th of June! It was three months, exactly three months! Then — Oh, he remembered very clearly — it was an ominous evening, a cold and spiteful drizzle fell from the heavens, but the people of France, the people of the Emperor, warmed the city with their very breath. They cried: “Long live the Emperor!” Torches and lanterns seemed to be as bright and eternal as the stars that were stubbornly denied by the heavens and the melody of the “Marseillaise” that rose up to him seemed powerful enough to send the clouds fleeing from the sky. A thousand pale bare hands reached out for the Emperor and each hand was like a face; it had been necessary for him to shut his eyes at such sheer triumph, light, and devotion. Now even the windows were black in Paris; it was a fine summer night, calm and silvery blue. The acacias’ scent was overpoweringly strong. The stars glittered doubly bright since the streets were unlit. Pleasant was the night now that he, the Emperor, was defeated! It had been grim then, on the night of his triumph! Cruel was the inscrutable God who so spitefully mocked the Emperor Napoleon!

When the coach stopped, there were no cheering cries — only a hatefully peaceful, a terrifyingly peaceful summer night. The Emperor heard the shriek of a screech owl coming from deep within the palace park. So great was his back pain, it was almost as if he himself had howled as the steps were let down and he prepared to descend. He noticed his old friend, the Minister Caulaincourt. The good man was waiting alone on the white stone steps under the silver-blue glow of the night sky. Behind him was the golden reflection of the light that streamed out of the windows of the Elysée. The Emperor recognized him immediately. He embraced him. It seemed that the Minister had been waiting an eternity there on the steps, waiting alone for the unhappy and pitifully defeated Emperor. The Minister had decided to receive the returning Emperor with one clearly consoling phrase: “Your Majesty,” he had wanted to say, “it is not over yet!” But as the Emperor stepped out of the coach this oft-practiced phrase died upon Caulaincourt’s tongue. When the Emperor embraced him, Caulaincourt began to weep hard and fast, tears that fell audibly upon the thick dust that had collected for days on the shoulders of the Emperor’s cloak. His tears were like candle wax dripping on the Emperor’s shoulders. The Emperor released himself quickly from the embrace, hurried through the door and to the stairs. As if to reward the loyalty of this Minister, whom at this moment he loved more than any of those who had been with him on the battlefield, he explained rapidly and humbly why the battle had been lost. Yet at the same time, he realized what a miserable and melancholy favor he was granting his friend — and he suddenly fell silent.

“What do you say?” he asked when they were in his room.

“I say, Your Majesty,” replied the Minister, and he tried to make his voice loud and clear, and to halt the tears that were already mounting in his eyes and choking his throat, “that it would have been better if you had not returned.”

“I have no soldiers,” said the Emperor. “I have no guns. I offered myself to Death. It rejected me.” He was lying on the sofa. He raised himself suddenly, sat up with a foolish deceptive hope that seemed to promise deliverance. “A bath!” he ordered. “A hot bath!” He stretched his arms. “A bath! And hurry!” he repeated. Water, he thought, boiling hot water! — he could think of nothing else. All at once he believed that hot steaming water had the ability to solve all puzzles, to purify the mind, and to cleanse the heart.

As he entered the bathroom, followed by his Minister Caulaincourt, the first sight that met his eyes was his loyal servant standing at attention beside the steaming water, as if on guard over the treacherous element that might perhaps betray the Emperor — as a general and his own wife had betrayed him. Through the second door, which led from the bathroom to the servants’ corridor, he saw one of the female attendants leaving at that very moment. He suddenly felt an obligation to say a kind word to her, probably one of the lowest members of his household, a word of farewell perhaps. He gave his servant the signal to bring her back. She turned and stood before him. Then she fell down and began to sob loudly. She did not even cover her face. She remained on her knees and lifted her face up toward him, tears streaming down from her eyes, creating a hot wet veil. The Emperor bent down slightly toward her. He recognized her. He looked at her meager freckled face and remembered her from the evening in the park, and at the same time he could see once again the visage of her son, the little drummer boy.

“Stand up!” he ordered. She rose obediently. He ran his hand quickly and gently over her cap. “You have a little son, right? Where is he?” asked the Emperor.