The eagle, the eaglet and the two grenadiers
L’Aiglon is a highly emotional play by Edmond Rostand. Die beiden Grenadiere is a highly emotional poem by Heinrich Heine (set to music both by Schumann and Wagner). The play is in French, the poem is in German. The poem is about the father, the play is about the son. The father ruled France for many years. The son was Emperor for two weeks. The father once ruled most of Europe. The son did not; but most European statesmen feared that one day he might. The father died on a faraway island in his early fifties, the son died in the Palace of Schönbrunn in his early twenties. The father was said to be the Aigle (“Eagle” in English) and the son L’Aiglon (“The Eaglet” in English).
By now it must be obvious who father and son were. The father was Napoleon, Emperor of France. The son was Napoleon II, King of Rome, Prince of Parma, Duke of Reichstadt. The mother was Marie Louise, second wife of Napoleon.
Now to the historical context. According to many (excluding the English for rather obvious reasons), Napoleon was the greatest military genius who ever lived. He won dozens of battles, big and small. He lost two major ones, Berezina and Waterloo, but that was enough to send him into exile to the island of St Helena.
When her husband was exiled, Marie Louise left him to his fate and took their infant son with her to her native Austria, where her father reigned as the Holy Roman Emperor, a nice title without too many duties. The arrival of the son in Austria caused no little headache to Metternich, the Austrian Chancellor, who was probably the most influential man in Europe at the time. An imaginative man, he was a good century ahead of Stalin in claiming that some people simply did not exist, that in particular Napoleon was never the Emperor of France.
Metternich knew what the problem was. It was France. He had said earlier: “When France sneezes, the rest of Europe catches cold.” And now with France re-emerging (the July Revolution of 1830 and the rise of the tricolour), it was time to face the additional problem of the daily presence of the Eaglet. Could the same thing happen again? Could French armies roam again over Europe? What would the son do? Might he one day want to reclaim his inheritance, the Emperor’s crown? Why not take matters into his own hands before the boy was old enough to pose a danger? Did it ever cross Metternich’s mind that the son should be poisoned? Hitler or Stalin would not have hesitated for a moment. Metternich did not take that route. He chose an alternative, hoping to achieve the same aim by different means: keep a strict eye on the young man’s education and beliefs and watch all his movements in his gilded cage. Sun Tzu would have thought it a good example of his mantra: “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” Today, more simply, we might call it brainwashing.
Rostand’s play (first performed in Paris in 1900 to general acclaim) is set in 1830 in Baden, an Austrian spa, an hour’s ride from Vienna. Everybody who is anybody is there for the season: Marie Louise and her sister the Archduchess, the French and British Ambassadors, titled heads and their wives . Not far into the play, one lady proposes some recitals. Another lady is more specific. She proposes to recite Henie’s Die beiden Grenadiere. Metternich says “Oh, no.” What Metternich says must of course be heeded, but why would he bother? Why would the Chancellor of a German-speaking country oppose the recital of a poem written in eloquent German? Because he knows the poem. He is well aware that the romanticisation of the devotion of simple French soldiers to the Bonapartist cause, the glorification of the Emperor, is not for the ears of the Duke of Reichstadt.
The plot is simple. In spite of all the Cerberuses around him, the Duke manages to learn his origin, he is persuaded to be part of a conspiracy to leave Baden secretly and with a handful of supporters he rides to a meeting place in Wagram, the scene of one of Napoleon’s great battles. He already sees himself as the Emperor of France. He dreams of what he might do. “My father would have made Corneille a prince, I’ll make our Victor Hugo a duke!” And finally: “Oh, my beloved France! – I come.” Alas, he is betrayed and that is the end of the dream. One more act and the Duke dies of tuberculosis to complete the tragedy.
The next question is: why would Heine glorify Napoleon? Geography must have played a significant role. He was a Rhinelander, a province close to France which was sympathetic to the ideas of the French Revolution and which enthusiastically adopted the legal framework of the Code Napoleon. In fact, even after the demise of the Emperor, Napoleonic traditions were held in high regard. Often the people preferred French laws to those of the Prussian authorities, who gained the Rhineland when the French possessions were distributed among the victors after the fall of Napoleon. Let me give a few examples of the radicalism of the people of the Rhineland in the post-Napoleonic era.
The Luddites of Eupen, a city of hand-loom weavers destroyed textile machinery while cheering Napoleon. (This made no sense. Napoleon would not have supported them. What they cheered for were the good old days under the Emperor.) When in 1843 the Prussian government wanted to introduce laws into the Rhineland imposing legal distinctions between the rights of nobles and commoners, abolishing civil marriage and allowing courts to use corporal punishment, public opinion was so incensed that the Prussian authorities had to cancel the introduction of the disputed laws. Instead the Rhineland retained the Code Napoléon, which continued in force until the introduction of the all-German Civil Code in 1900.
Or take the schoolmaster, Michael Braun. At a meeting in 1848 — when there were many mass meetings during the Europe-wide revolutions that extended to most of Germany — he said: “We must have a revolution like the French once had, and overthrow the princes, the state officials and damned priests.”
And finally, what is Heine’s poem about the grenadiers about? It concerns two soldiers from the Grande Armée that invaded Russia in 1812. They were taken prisoner by the Russians. After their release they walked back to France. When they reached Germany they learned that the Emperor had also been captured. They wept. One had been wounded and as he lay dying, he asks his friend to bury him in French soil with all his medals attached and his gun in hand. In his grave he will keep listening out for the roar of cannons, the neighing of the horses and the Emperor riding over his grave. With great loyalty and pathos he proclaims to the other grenadier: “Then I will rise from the grave to protect the Emperor, to protect the Emperor!”
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