Joseph Roth - The Hundred Days

He rode considerably ahead of his retinue; the magnificently uniformed generals and ministers followed at a respectful distance.

The cheery early sunlight was filtering through the fresh, light-green crowns of the trees along the edges of the avenues and in the gardens of Paris. The people did not wish to believe the sinister rumors that came from many corners of the country. For days now there had been talk of revolts against the Emperor by those still loyal to the King. It was also said that the powerful ones of the world had decided to destroy the Emperor and France along with him. Fortified and terrible, the enemy waited at all the borders of the land. The Empress was in Vienna at the house of her father, the Austrian Emperor. She did not come home; they would not let her return to France. The Emperor’s son was also being held captive in Vienna. Death was lying in wait at all the French frontiers. Yet on this bright day the people were willing to forget about the sinister rumors, the war waiting at the frontiers and lurking death. They preferred to believe the happy news that the papers printed. And when they saw the Emperor riding through the city, looking just as they had always imagined him, mighty and serene, clever and great and bold, the Lord of Battles, riding in the young spring of the Parisian streets, it seemed obvious to them that the heavens were on their side, the Emperor’s side, and they released themselves to the comforting melody of this joyous day and their joyful hearts.

The Emperor was riding to Saint-Germain, as it was Parade Day. The Emperor halted. He removed his hat. He saluted the assembled people of Saint-Germain, the workers and soldiers. He knew that the simple folk liked his smooth black hair and the smooth curl that fell over his forehead of its own will and yet obediently. He looked perfectly poor and simple to those poor and simple people when he appeared before them bareheaded. The sun was nearing its zenith and beat hotly upon his uncovered head. He did not move. He forced his horse and himself to uphold that statuesque stillness, the powerful effects of which he had known for years. From the midst of the crowd, in which flamed hundreds of women’s red scarves, came the familiar sour and greasy odor of sweat, the unpleasant smell of the poor on holiday, the scent of their jubilant excitement. Emotion gripped the Emperor. He sat, hat in hand. He did not love the people. He distrusted their enthusiasm and their smell. But he smiled anyway from his white horse, the rigid sweetheart of the crowd, an Emperor and a monument.

In rigid squares stood the soldiers, his old soldiers. How alike they looked, the sergeants, the corporals, and the privates, all of whom death had spared and who had been reabsorbed into the harsh poverty of peasant life. One name after another occurred to the Emperor. There were some whom he remembered well and whom he could have called out. His heart was silent. He was ashamed. They loved him, and he was ashamed that they loved him because he could feel only sympathy for them. He sat on his sunlit and doubly luminous white horse, his head uncovered, hemmed and pressed by the jubilation. Inside the squares the old soldiers now began to beat their drums. How well they drummed! Now he waved his hat, and loosening the reins a bit and easing the pressure of his knees so that the horse understood and started to frisk, the Emperor began to speak — and it seemed to the people in the crowd as if the drums that they had just heard at this point were bestowed with a human voice, an Imperial voice. “My comrades,” began the Emperor, “connoisseurs of my battles and my victories, witnesses to my fortunes and misfortunes. .”

The white horse perked its ears and gently pawed with its front hoof in time with the Emperor’s words.

The sun stood at its zenith and glowed, youthful and mild.

The Emperor put on his hat and dismounted.

He approached the crowd. Their adoration hit him with their every breath, it shone from their faces as brightly as the sun from the heavens, and he suddenly felt that he had always been one of them. At that moment the Emperor saw himself as his devotees saw him, on thousands of pictures on plates, knives, and walls; already a legend, yet still living.

During his long months in exile, he had missed these people. They were the people of France; he knew them. They were ready to love or hate in an instant. They were solemn and derisive, easily inspired but difficult to persuade, proud in squalor, generous in good fortune, devout and thoughtless in victory, bitter and vengeful in defeat, playful and childlike in peace, merciless and irresistible in battle, easily disappointed, trusting and distrusting at the same time, forgetful and quickly appeased by the right word, always ready for thrills, yet ever loving of moderation. These were the people of Gaul, the French people, and the Emperor liked them.

He no longer felt mistrust. They surrounded him. They shouted at him “Long live the Emperor!” as he stood in their midst, and it was as if they wished to prove to him that even when he stood among them, they could not forget he was their Emperor. He was their child and their Emperor.

He embraced one of the older non-commissioned officers. The man had a somber, sallow, bold, and bony face, a long, flowing, thick, and neatly combed graying mustache, and he towered a full head above the Emperor. During their embrace it looked as though the Emperor was under the protection of the thin, bony soldier. The man leaned forward clumsily, a bit comically, hindered by his own awkward height and the corpulent shortness of His Majesty, and allowed himself to receive a kiss on the right cheek. The Emperor tasted the smell of his sallow skin, the sharp vinegar that the man had rubbed on his freshly shaved cheeks, the tiny beads of sweat that dripped from his forehead, and also the tobacco on his breath. There was an intimate familiarity to the entire crowd. Yes, this was the odor of the people from whom the soldiers had sprung, the wonderful soldiers of the country of France; this was the very scent of loyalty, the loyalty of the soldiers — sweat, tobacco, blood, and vinegar. When he embraced one of them, he embraced all of them, the whole of his great army, all its dead and all its living descendants. And the people who saw the short, chubby Emperor in the protective arms of the tall, thin soldier felt as if they too were being embraced by the Emperor, as if they themselves held him. Tears filled the spectators’ eyes, and with hoarse voices they cried out: “Long live the Emperor!” but the lustful desire to cry stifled their cheering throats. The Emperor relaxed his arms. The man took three steps backward. The old soldier stiffened. Under his bushy, bristling eyebrows his small black eyes lit up with the dangerous yet obedient fire of loyalty.

“Where have you fought?” asked the Emperor.

“At Jena, Austerlitz, Eylau, and Moscow, my Emperor!” replied the sergeant.

“What is your name?”

“Lavernoile, Pierre Antoine!” thundered the soldier.

“I thank you,” cried the Emperor loudly enough so that all could hear him. “I thank you, Lieutenant Pierre Antoine Lavernoile!”

The newly minted lieutenant stiffened again. He took another step backward, raised his lean brown hand, waved it like a flag, and cried in a choked-up voice: “Long live the Emperor!” He stepped back into the ranks of his comrades from which the Emperor had summoned him and said softly to all those who gathered around him: “Just think, he recognized me instantly! ‘You were,’ he said, ‘at Jena, Austerlitz, Eylau, and Moscow, my dear Lavernoile! You have no decorations. You will. I promote you to lieutenant.’”

“He knows us all,” said one of the non-commissioned officers.