Memoirs of Doctor Burney (Vol. 3 of 3) / Arranged from his own manuscripts, from family papers, and from personal recollections by his daughter, Madame d'Arblay

1802 (2)

Dr. Burney received him with open arms, but tearful eyes. He had too much candour to misjudge the nature and the principles of a military character, so as to censure his non-refusal of an offered restoration to his profession, since, at that moment, the peace between the two countries paralysed any possible movement in favour of the Royalists; yet his grief at the circumstance, and his compassion for his dejected daughter, gave a gloom to the transaction that was deeply depressing.

The purchases were soon made, for the re-instated man of arms sunk a considerable sum to be expeditiously accoutred; after which, repelling every drawback of internal reluctance, he was eager not to exceed his furlough; and, pronouncing an agitated farewell, hurried back to Paris; purposing thence to proceed to Brest, whence he was to embark for his destination.

But, inexpressibly anxious not to be misunderstood, nor drawn into the service of Buonaparte beyond the contracted engagement; the day before he left London, M. d’Arblay, with a singleness of integrity that never calculated consequences where he thought his honour and his interest might pull different ways, determined to be unequivocally explicit, and addressed, therefore, the following letter directly to Buonaparte:

“Au Premier Consul.
“General,
“La generositÉ et la grandeur d’ame etant inseparables, ce qui pourroit me perdre avec un autre, va Être ma saufegarde avec vous. Admirateur sincere du bien que vous avez dÉja fait; animÉ par l’Éspoir de celui qui vous reste À faire; je veux et j’Éspere me rendre digne de la maniÈre flatteuse dont vous venez de me traiter. Je pars, et vous pouvez compter sur ma reconnoissance: mais ce seroit vous en donner une preuve indigne de vous que de me rendre coupable d’ingratitude envers un autre. Enthousiaste de la libertÉ, je fas encore plus ami de l’ordre; et restai jusqu’au dernier moment un des serviteurs le plus fidele, et, j’ose le dire, le plus energique, d’un monarque dont plus qu’un autre j’ai connu le patriotisme et les vertus. ForcÉ de fuir, rien n’eut pÛ me faire manquer au serment de ne jamais porter les armes contre ma patrie; determinÉ de mÊme de ne jamais m’armer contre la patrie de mon epouse—contre le pays qui pendant neuf ans nous a nourris. Je vous jure sur tout le reste fidelitÉ et devouement.
“Salut et respect,
“Alexandre Darblay.”

This letter he hurried off by an official express, through Buonaparte’s then minister here, M. Otto; who, after reading, forwarded it under cover to Le Citoyen Ministre de la Guerre, Berthier; to whom, as a former military friend, M. d’Arblay recommended its delivery to Le Premier Consul.[64] This done, M. d’Arblay pursued his own route.

A frightful chasm of all intelligence to Dr. Burney ensued after this critical departure of M. d’Arblay; no tidings came over of his arrival at Brest, his embarkation, or even of his safety, after crossing the channel in the remarkably tempestuous month of February, in 1802.

The causes of this mysterious silence would be too circumstantial for these Memoirs, to which it belongs only to state their result. The First Consul, upon reading the letter of M. d’Arblay, immediately withdrew his military commission; and Berthier, in an official reply, desired that le Citoyen Darblay would consider that commission, and the letter to General Le Cler, as non avenues.

Berthier, nevertheless, in the document which annulled the St. Domingo commission, and which must have been written by the personal command of Buonaparte, since it was in answer to a letter that had been directed immediately to himself, calmly, and without rancour, harshness, or satire, developed the reason of the recall, in simply saying, that since le Citoyen Darblay would not bear arms against the country of his wife, which might always, eventually, bear arms against France, he could not be engaged in the service of the Republic.

Buonaparte, stimulated, it is probable, by M. de Lauriston’s account of the frank and honourable character of M. d’Arblay, contented himself with this simple annulling act; without embittering it by any stigma, or demonstrating any suspicious resentment.

This event, as has been hinted, produced important consequences to Dr. Burney; consequences the most ungenial to his parental affections; though happily, at that period, not foreseen in their melancholy extent, of a ten years’ complete and desperate separation from his daughter d’Arblay.

Unsuspicious, therefore, of that appendent effect of the letter of M. d’Arblay to Buonaparte, the satisfaction of Dr. Burney, at this first moment, that no son-in-law of his would bear arms, through any means, however innocent, and with any intentions, however pure, under the banners of Buonaparte, largely contributed to make the unexpected tidings of this sudden change of situation an epoch of ecstacy, rather than of joy; of adoration, rather than of thankfulness, to his Hermit daughter.

But far different were the sensations to which this turn of affairs gave birth in M. d’Arblay. Consternation seems too tame a word for the bewildered confusion of his feelings, at so abrupt a breaking up of an enterprise, which, though unsolicited and unwished for in its origin, had by degrees, from its recurrence to early habits, become glowingly animated to his ideas and his prospects. Buonaparte had not then blackened his glory by the seizure and sacrifice of the Comte d’Enghein; and M. d’Arblay, in common with several other admirers of the military fame of the First Consul, had conceived a hope, to which he meant honestly to allude in his letter, that the final campaign of that great warrior, would be a voluntary imitation of the final campaign of General Monk.

Little, therefore, as he had intended to constitute Buonaparte, in any way, as his chief, a breach such as this in his own professional career, nearly mastered his faculties with excess of perturbation. To seem dismissed the service!—he could not brook the idea; he was confounded by his own position.

He applied to a generous friend,[65] high in military reputation, to represent his disturbance to the First Consul.

Buonaparte consented to grant an audience on the subject; but almost instantly interrupted the application, by saying, with vivacity, “I know that business! However, let him be tranquil. It shall not hurt him any further. There was a time I might have been capable of acting so myself!—”

And then, after a little pause, and with a look somewhat ironical, but by no means ill-humoured or unpleasant, he added: “Il m’a Écrit un diable de lettre!”—He stopt again, after which, with a smile half gay, half cynical, he said: “However, I ought only to regard in it the husband of Cecilia;” and then abruptly he broke up the conference.

Of the author of Cecilia, of course, he meant.

This certainly was a trait of candour and liberality worthy of a more gentle mind; and which, till the ever unpardonable massacre of the Duke d’Enghein, softened, in some measure, the endurance of the compulsatory stay in France that afterwards ensued to M. d’Arblay.

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