Books: Frustrated Novelist

Because of young Benito Mussolini's fleshy romance, The Cardinal's Mistress, and young Adolf Hitler's well-meaning water colors, citizens of the world now have some reason for a nervous interest in the problems of frustrated writers and artists. Ranking with these dictators' grade C works is another novel brought to light by the French literary magazine, Revue des Deux Mondes.

It is Napoleon's Clisson et Eugénie, written shortly before the 26-year-old artillery officer, shabby, suffering from itch and malaria—appreciated only by a few of his colleagues—made his name by smashing a royalist coup in Paris on Oct. 4, 1795. Until now this fragmentary (13-page) romance was known only to bibliophiles through a sketch published by a Polish scholar in 1929.

Inspiration of Clisson et Eugénie was Napoleon's love affair with Désirée Clary, who later married his Marshal, Bernadotte, and became Queen of Sweden. A self-portrait opens the amazingly foresighted story: "Clisson was born for war. . . . He was meditating on the principles of the military art at a time when those of his age were at school and chasing after girls. . . ." Brooding because his greatness of soul escaped general notice, he sometimes "passed whole hours meditating in the depths of the woods . . . deep in reverie, by the light of the silver star of love."

Then he met sweet, unaffected Eugénie, who "was like the song of the nightingale. ..." A fast worker, Clisson "soon imparted to his passion a quality of force and inflexibility which belonged to him." Here a big chunk of the story is missing—probably destroyed by Napoleon for reasons of discretion rather than taste.

When the story resumes, Clisson and Eugénie have a family, are quarreling operatically because Eugénie is jealous. Climax comes when Clisson, heading a victorious army, learns he succeeded too well when he dispatched a handsome young officer to comfort Eugénie. "Adieu," he writes in a last letter. ". . . Kiss my sons —may they not have the ardent soul of their father! They would be, like him, the victims of men, glory, and love!" Then Clisson "flung himself headlong into the mèlée, and expired, pierced with a thousand blows."

What Napoleon thought of this tale is not recorded. But he lugged it around for 20 years, took it with him into exile on Saint Helena.