Austria, and Prussia. And there he killed a lot. In Russia there was the emperor Alexander, who decided to restore order in Europe and therefore made war with Napoleon. But in the year seven, he suddenly made friends with him, then in the year eleven quarreled again, and again they started killing a lot of people. And Napoleon brought six hundred thousand men to Russia and captured Moscow; then he suddenly ran away from Moscow, and then the emperor Alexander, helped by the advice of Stein and others, united Europe to take up arms against the disturber of its peace. All Napoleon’s allies suddenly became his enemies; and this armed force marched against Napoleon, who had gathered new forces. The allies defeated Napoleon, entered Paris, made Napoleon abdicate, and exiled him to the island of Elba, not depriving him of the dignity of emperor and showing him every respect, though five years earlier and one year later everybody considered him a bandit and outlaw. And so began the reign of Louis XVIII, whom until then both the French and the allies had only laughed at. Napoleon, pouring out tears before his old guard, abdicated and went into exile. Then skillful statesmen and diplomats (in particular Talleyrand, who managed to sit in a certain chair before anyone else and thereby extended the borders of France)1 talked in Vienna, and with these talks made people happy or unhappy. Suddenly the diplomats and monarchs nearly quarreled; they were already prepared to order their troops to kill each other again; but at that moment Napoleon arrived in France with a battalion, and the French, who hated him, all submitted to him at once. But the allied monarchs were angered by that and again went to war with the French. And the genius Napoleon was defeated and taken to the island of St. Helena, having suddenly been recognized as a bandit. And there the exile, separated from those dear to his heart and from his beloved France, died a slow death on the rock and bequeathed his great deeds to posterity. But in Europe there was the reaction, and the sovereigns all started mistreating their own people again.”
It would be wrong to think that this is a mockery, a caricature, of historical descriptions. On the contrary, it is the mildest expression of those answers, contradictory and answering no questions, which are given by all history, from the composers of memoirs and histories of separate states to general histories and the new genre of histories of the culture of that time.
The strangeness and comicality of these answers come from the fact that modern history is like a deaf man, answering questions that no one has asked him.
If the aim of history is to describe the movements of mankind and of peoples, then the first question, without answering which the rest will remain incomprehensible, is the following: what force moves peoples? To this question, modern history anxiously tells us either that Napoleon was a great genius, or that Louis XIV was very proud, or else that the writers so-and-so wrote such-and-such books.
All that may very well be, and mankind is ready to agree with it; but it is not asking about that. All that might be interesting, if we recognized the divine power, based on itself and always the same, that governs its peoples through Napoleons, Louis, and writers; but we do not recognize that power, and therefore, before talking about Napoleons, Louis, and writers, we must show the existing connection between these persons and the movement of peoples.
If in place of divine power there stands another force, then what this force consists in must be explained, for the whole interest of history is contained precisely in that force.
History seems to suppose that this force goes without saying and is known to everyone. But, despite all the desire to take this new force as a known thing, anyone who reads through very many historical works will involuntarily doubt that this new force, variously understood by the historians themselves, is well known to everyone.
II
What force moves peoples?
Specialized biographical historians