War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [736]
On his return from Italy, he finds the government in Paris in that process of decomposition in which the people who happen to be in this government are inevitably wiped out and obliterated. And a way out of this dangerous situation appears to him of itself, consisting in a senseless, groundless expedition to Africa. Again the same so-called chances accompany him. Impregnable Malta surrenders without a shot fired; the most imprudent orders are crowned with success. The enemy fleet, which afterwards will not let a single boat pass, lets pass a whole army.3 In Africa a whole series of villainies is committed upon the all-but-unarmed inhabitants. And the people who commit these villainies, and in particular their leader, assure themselves that this is beautiful, that this is glory, that this is like Caesar and Alexander the Great, and that this is good.
That ideal of glory and greatness which consists not only in considering nothing that one does as bad, but in being proud of one’s every crime, ascribing some incomprehensible supernatural meaning to it—that ideal, which was to guide this man and the people connected with him, is freely developed in Africa. Everything he does succeeds. The plague leaves him untouched. The cruel murder of prisoners is not imputed to him in fault. His childishly imprudent, groundless, and ignoble departure from Africa, leaving his comrades in trouble, is set to his credit, and again the enemy fleet misses him twice. At the time when, already completely intoxicated by the successful crimes he has committed, prepared for his role, he arrives in Paris without any aim, the decomposition of the republican government, which could have destroyed him a year earlier, has reached the ultimate degree, and his presence, clear of any parties, can now only elevate him.
He has no plan at all; he is afraid of everything; but the parties seize upon him and demand his participation.
He alone, with his ideal of glory and greatness worked out in Italy and Egypt, with his insane self-adoration, with his boldness in crime, with his sincerity in lying—he alone can justify what is to be performed.
He is needed for the place that awaits him, and therefore, almost independently of his will, and despite his irresolution, his lack of a plan, all the mistakes he makes, he is drawn into a conspiracy the purpose of which is the seizure of power, and the conspiracy is crowned with success.
He is pushed into a meeting of the rulers. Frightened, he wants to flee, considering himself lost; he pretends to faint; he says senseless things, which should have been his ruin. But the rulers of France, once sharp-witted and proud, now, sensing that their role has been played out, are still more confused than he is, and do not say the words that needed to be said in order to hold on to power and destroy him.
Chance, millions of chances, give him power, and all people, as if by arrangement, contribute to the strengthening of that power. Chance makes the characters of the then rulers of France submissive to him; chance makes the character of Paul I, who recognizes his power; chance makes a conspiracy against him which not only does not harm him, but strengthens his power. Chance sends d’Enghien into his hands and accidentally forces him to kill him,4 thereby convincing the mob more forcefully than by any other means that he has the right, because he has the power. Chance makes it so that he strains all