War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [18]
“No,” he said, growing more and more inspired, “Napoleon is great, because he stood above the revolution, put an end to its abuses, and kept all that was good—the equality of citizens and freedom of speech and of the press—and that is the only reason why he gained power.”
“Yes, if he had taken that power and, without using it for murder, given it to the lawful king,” said the viscount, “then I would call him a great man.”
“He couldn’t do that. The people gave him power only so that he could deliver them from the Bourbons, and because the people saw a great man in him. The revolution was a great thing,” M’sieur Pierre went on, showing by this desperate and provocative parenthetical phrase his great youth and desire to speak everything out all the sooner.
“Revolution and regicide a great thing?…After that…wouldn’t you like to move to that table?” Anna Pavlovna repeated.
“Contrat social,”*59 17 the viscount said with a meek smile.
“I’m not talking about regicide. I’m talking about ideas.”
“Yes, the ideas of pillage, murder, and regicide,” an ironic voice interrupted again.
“Those were extremes, to be sure, but the whole meaning wasn’t in them, the meaning was in the rights of man, emancipation from prejudice, the equality of citizens; and Napoleon kept all these ideas in all their force.”
“Liberty and equality,” the viscount said scornfully, as if finally deciding to prove seriously to this young man all the stupidity of his talk, “these are resounding words that have long been compromised. Who doesn’t love liberty and equality? Our Savior already preached liberty and equality. Did people become happier after the revolution? On the contrary. We wanted liberty, but Bonaparte destroyed it.”
Prince Andrei kept glancing with a smile now at Pierre, now at the viscount, now at the hostess. For the first moment of Pierre’s outburst, Anna Pavlovna was horrified, accustomed though she was to society; but when she saw that despite the blasphemous speeches uttered by Pierre, the viscount did not lose his temper, and when she became certain that it was now impossible to suppress these speeches, she gathered her forces and, joining the viscount, attacked the orator.
“Mais, mon cher monsieur Pierre,” said Anna Pavlovna, “how do you explain a great man who could execute a duke, or, finally, any simple man, without a trial and without guilt?”
“I’d like to ask,” said the viscount, “how monsieur explains the eighteenth Brumaire.18 Was that not a deception? C’est un escamotage, qui ne ressemble nullement à la manière d’agir d’un grand homme.”†60
“And the prisoners he killed in Africa?”19 said the little princess. “It’s terrible!” And she shrugged her shoulders.
“C’est un roturier, vous aurez beau dire,”*61 said Prince Ippolit.
M’sieur Pierre did not know whom to answer, looked around at them all, and smiled. His smile was not like that of other people, blending into a non-smile. With him, on the contrary, when a smile came, his serious and even somewhat sullen face vanished suddenly, instantly, and another appeared—childish, kind, even slightly stupid, and as if apologetic.
To the viscount, who was meeting him for the first time, it was clear that this Jacobin was not at all as frightening as his words. Everyone fell silent.
“Do you want him to answer everybody at once?” asked Prince Andrei. “Besides, in the acts of a statesman one must distinguish among the acts of the private person, the military leader, and the emperor. So it seems to me.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Pierre picked up, gladdened by the arrival of unexpected help.
“It’s impossible not to admit,” Prince Andrei went on, “that Napoleon was a great man on the bridge of Arcole, and in the Jaffa hospital, when he shook hands with the plague victims,20 but…there are other acts which are hard to justify.”
Prince Andrei, who evidently wanted to soften the awkwardness of Pierre’s speech, got up, intending to leave and making a sign to his wife.
Suddenly Prince Ippolit rose and, gesturing for everyone to stay and sit