SUMMARY OF THE THREE MONTHS OF APRIL, MAY, AND JUNE.
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Josephine.
Published for Henry Colburn, March 1836.
MEMOIRS
OF
THE LIFE, EXILE,
AND
CONVERSATIONS,
OF THE
EMPEROR NAPOLEON.
BY
THE COUNT DE LAS CASES.
A NEW EDITION.
WITH PORTRAITS
AND NUMEROUS OTHER EMBELLISHMENTS.
VOL. II.
LONDON:
PUBLISHED FOR HENRY COLBURN,
BY RICHARD BENTLEY; BELL AND BRADFUTE, EDINBURGH; J. CUMMING, DUBLIN;
AND ALL BOOKSELLERS.
ANDOVER:
STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY B. BENSLEY.
THE TWO EMPRESSES.—THE PRINCESS PAULINE.—ELOQUENT
EFFUSION OF THE EMPEROR.
On another of these evenings, the Emperor was holding forth against the caprice of women: “Nothing,” said he, “more clearly indicates rank, education, and good breeding among them, than evenness of temper and the constant desire to please.” He added that they were bound by circumstances to appear at all times mistresses of themselves, and to be always attending to their part on the stage. His two wives, he observed, had always been so: they certainly differed greatly in their qualities and dispositions; but they always agreed in this point. Never had he witnessed ill-humour in either the one or the other: to please him had been the constant object with both of them.
Some one ventured to observe, however, that Maria-Louisa had boasted that, whenever she desired any thing, no matter how difficult, she had only to weep. The Emperor laughed, and said, this was new to him. He might have suspected it of Josephine, but he had no idea of it in Maria-Louisa. And then, addressing himself to Mesdames Bertrand and Montholon: “Thus it is with you all, ladies,” said he: “in some points you all agree.”
He continued for a long time to talk about the two Empresses, and repeated, as usual, that one was Innocence, and the other the Graces. He passed from them to his sisters, and dwelt particularly on the charms of the Princess Pauline. It was admitted that she was, without dispute, the handsomest woman in Paris. The Emperor said that the artists were unanimous in considering her a perfect Venus de Medicis. A little pleasantry was hazarded on the influence which the Princess Pauline had exercised, at the Island of Elba, over General Drouot, whose assiduous attentions she attracted in spite of the difference of their ages and the harshness of his countenance. The Princess, it was said, had drawn from him the secret of the intended departure, eight days before it took place. He had repeated the fault of Turenne; and upon this the Emperor said, “Such are women, and such is their dangerous power!” Here Madame Bertrand declared that the Grand Marshal, to a certainty, had not done as much. “Madame,” retorted the Emperor with a smile, “he was only your husband.” Some one having remarked that the Princess Pauline, when at Nice, had set up a post-waggon on the road, by which dresses and fashions arrived from Paris every day, the Emperor said: “If I had been aware of it, that should not have lasted long, she should have been well scolded. But thus it happens: while one is Emperor one knows nothing of these matters.”
After this conversation the Emperor enquired what was the day of the month: it was the 11th of March. “Well!” said he, “it is a year ago to-day, it was a brilliant day; I was at Lyons, I reviewed some troops, I had the Mayor to dine with me, who, by the way, has boasted since that it was the worst dinner he ever made in his life.” The Emperor became animated; he paced the chamber quickly. “I was again become a great power,” he continued: and a sigh escaped him, which he immediately checked with these words, in an accent and with a warmth which it is difficult to describe: “I had founded the finest empire in the world, and I was so necessary to it that, in spite of all the last reverses, here, upon my rock, I seem still to remain the master of France. Look at what is going on there, read the papers, you will find it so in every line. Let me once more set my foot there, they will see what France is, and what I can do!” And then what ideas, what projects, he developed for the glory and happiness of the country! He spoke for a long time, with so much interest, and so unreservedly, that we could have forgotten time, place, and seasons. A part of what he said follows:
“What a fatality,” he said, "that my return from the Island of Elba was not acquiesced in, that every one did not perceive that my reign was desirable and necessary for the balance and repose of Europe! But kings and people both feared me; they were wrong, and may pay dearly for it. I returned a new man; they could not believe it; they could not imagine that a man might have sufficient strength of mind to alter his character, or to bend to the power of circumstances. I had, however, given proofs of this, and some pledges to the same effect. Who is ignorant that I am not a man for half-measures? I should have been as sincerely the monarch of the constitution and of peace, as I had been of absolute sway and great enterprises.
"Let us reason a little upon the fears of kings and people on my account. What could the kings apprehend? Did they still dread my ambition, my conquests, my universal monarchy? But my power and my resources were no longer the same; and, besides, I had only defeated and conquered in my own defence: this is a truth which time will more fully develop every day. Europe never ceased to make war upon France, her principles, and me; and we were compelled to destroy, to save ourselves from destruction. The coalition always existed openly or secretly, avowed or denied; it was permanent; it only rested with the Allies to give us peace; for ourselves, we were worn out; the French dreaded making new conquests. As to myself, is it supposed that I am insensible to the charms of repose and security, when glory and honour do not require it otherwise? With our two Chambers, they might have forbidden me in future to pass the Rhine; and why should I have wished it? For my universal monarchy? But I never gave any convincing proof of insanity; and what is its chief characteristic, but a disproportion between our object and the means of attaining it. If I have been on the point of accomplishing this universal monarchy, it was without any original design, and because I was led on to it step by step. The last efforts wanting to arrive at it seemed so trifling, was it very unreasonable to attempt them? But, on my return from Elba, could a similar idea, a thought so mad, a purpose so unattainable, enter the head of the silliest man in the world? The Sovereigns, then, had nothing to fear from my arms.
"Did they apprehend that I might overwhelm them with anarchical principles? But they knew by experience my opinions on that point. They have all seen me occupy their territories: how often have I been urged to revolutionize their states, give municipal functions to their cities, and excite insurrection among their subjects! However I may have been stigmatized, in their names, as the modern Attila, Robespierre on horseback, &c. they all know better at the bottom of their hearts—let them look there! Had I been so, I might perhaps still have reigned; but they most certainly would have long since ceased to reign. In the great cause of which I saw myself the chief and the arbiter, one of two systems was to be followed: to make kings listen to reason from the people; or to conduct the people to happiness by means of their kings. But it is well known to be no easy matter to check the people when they are once set on: it was more rational to reckon a little upon the wisdom and intelligence of rulers. I had a right always to suppose them possessed of sufficient intellect to see such obvious interests: I was deceived; they never calculated at all, and in their blind fury, they let loose against me that which I withheld when opposed to them. They will see!!!
"Lastly, did the Sovereigns take umbrage at seeing a mere soldier attain a crown? Did they fear the example? The solemnities, the circumstances, that accompanied my elevation, my eagerness to conform to their habits, to identify myself with their existence, to become allied to them by blood and by policy, closed the door sufficiently against new comers. Besides, if there must needs have been the spectacle of an interrupted legitimacy, I maintain that it was much more to their interest that it should take place in my person, one risen from the ranks, than in that of a prince, one of their own family: for thousands of ages will elapse before the circumstances accumulated in my case draw forth another from among the crowd to reproduce the same spectacle; while there is not a Sovereign who has not, at a few paces distance in his palace, cousins, nephews, brothers, and relations, to whom it would be easy to follow such an example if once set.
"On the other side, what was there to alarm the people? Did they fear that I should come to plunder and to impose chains on them?—On the contrary, I came the Messiah of peace and of their rights: this new maxim was my whole strength—to violate it would have been ruin. But even the French mistrusted me; they had the insanity to discuss, when there was nothing to do but to fight; to divide, when they should have united on any terms. And was it not better to run the risk of having me again for master than to expose themselves to that of being subjected to a foreign yoke? Would it not have been easier to rid themselves of a single despot, of one tyrant, than to shake off the chains of all the nations united? And moreover, whence arose this mistrust of me? Because they had already seen me concentrate all efforts in myself, and direct them with a vigorous hand? But do they not learn at the present day, to their cost, how necessary that was? Well! the danger was in any case the same: the contest terrible, and the crisis imminent. In this state of things, was not absolute power necessary, indispensable? The welfare of the country obliged me even to declare it openly on my return from Leipsic. I should have done so again on my return from Elba. I was wanting in consistency, or rather in confidence in the French, because many of them no longer placed any in me, and it was doing me a great wrong. If narrow and vulgar minds only saw, in all my efforts, a care for my own power, ought not those of greater scope to have shewn that, under the circumstances in which we were placed, my power and the country were but one! Did it require such great and incurable mischiefs to enable them to comprehend me? History will do me more justice: it will signalize me as the man of self-denials and disinterestedness. To what temptations was I not exposed in the army of Italy? England offered me the Crown of France at the time of the treaty of Amiens.—I refused peace at ChÂtillon: I disdained all personal stipulations at Waterloo;—and why? Because all this had no reference to my country, and I had no ambition distinct from her’s—that of her glory, her ascendancy, her majesty. And there is the reason that, in spite of so many calamities, I am still so popular among the French. It is a sort of instinct of after-justice on their part.
"Who in the world ever had greater treasures at his disposal? I have had many hundred millions in my vaults; many other hundreds composed my “Ah! the French people undoubtedly did much for me! more than was ever done before for man! But, at the same time, who ever did so much for them? who ever identified himself with them in the same manner? But to return.—After all, what could be their fears? Were not the Chambers and the new Constitution sufficient guarantees for the future? Those additional Acts, against which so much indignation was expressed, did they not carry in themselves their own corrective—remedies that were infallible? How could I have violated them? I had not myself millions of arms; I was but one man. Public opinion raised me up once more; public opinion might equally put me down again; and, compared with this risk, what had I to gain?”
"But as to surrounding States (I speak particularly as regards England), what could be her fears, her motives, her jealousies? We enquire in vain. With our new Constitution, our two Chambers, had we not adopted her creed for the future? Was not that the sure means of coming to a mutual understanding, to establish in future a community of interest? The caprice, the passions of their rulers, once fettered, the interests of the people move on, without obstacle, in their natural course: look at the merchants of hostile nations; they continue their intercourse, and pursue their business however their governments may wage war. The two nations had arrived at that point.—Thanks to their respective parliaments, each would have become the guarantee for the other: and who can ever tell to what extent the union of the two nations and of their interests might have been carried; what new combinations might have been set to work? It is certain that, on the establishment of our two Chambers and our Constitution, the Ministers of England had in their hands the glory and prosperity of their country,country, the destinies and the welfare of the world. Had I beaten the English army and won my last battle, I should have caused a great and happy astonishment; the following day I would have proposed peace, and, for once, it would have been I who scattered benefits with a prodigal hand. Instead of this, perhaps, the English will one day have to lament that they were victorious at Waterloo.
"I repeat it, the people and the sovereigns were wrong: I had restored thrones and an inoffensive nobility; and thrones and nobility may again find themselves in danger. I had fixed and consecrated the reasonable limits of the people’s rights; vague, peremptory and undefined claims may again arise.
“Had my return, my establishmentestablishment on the throne, my adoption, been freely acquiesced in by the sovereigns, the cause of kings and the people would have been settled; both would have gained. Now they are again to try it; both may lose. They might have concluded every thing; they may have every thing to begin again: they might have secured a long and certain calm, and already begun to enjoy it: and, instead of that, a spark may now be sufficient to re-produce a general conflagration! Poor, weak humanity!”
Attached, as I am, to the words and the opinions which I gathered from Napoleon on his rock of exile, and however perfectly persuaded and convinced of their entire sincerity, I do not the less experience an extreme gratification, whenever a testimony from another quarter confirms the truth of them; and I am bound to say that I have that gratification as often as opportunity occurs of obtaining other evidence.
The reader has just perused the foregoing remarkable passage, in which Napoleon expresses his ideas, his intentions, his sentiments. What a value do not these expressions collected at St. Helena acquire, when we find them re-echoed in Europe, at the distance of 2000 leagues, by a celebrated writer, who, with a shade of difference in his opinions, and at a very different time, had himself received them from the same lips! What a fortunate circumstance for history! I cannot, indeed, forbear bringing forward here this extract from M. Benjamin Constant, as well on account of the intrinsic merit of the expressions, as from the weight they acquire from the distinguished writer who records them; and also from the pleasure I feel in seeing them coincide so exactly with what I have collected myself in another hemisphere. There are the same intentions, the same depth of thought, the same sentiments.
“I went to the Tuileries,” says M. Benjamin Constant in his account; "I found Bonaparte alone. He began the conversation: it was long: I will only give an analysis of it; for I do not propose to make an exhibition of an unfortunate man. I will not amuse my readers at the expense of fallen greatness; I will not give up to malevolent curiosity him whom I have served, whatever might be my motive; and I will not transcribe more of his discourse than is indispensable: but in what I shall transcribe, I will use his own words.
“He did not attempt to deceive me either as to his views, or the state of affairs. He did not present himself as one corrected by the lessons of adversity: he did not desire to take the merit of returning to liberty from inclination; he investigated coolly, as regarded his interest, and, with an impartiality too nearly allied to indifference, what was possible and what was preferable.
“‘The nation,’ said he, ‘has rested for twelve years from all political agitation, and for a year it has been undisturbed by war: this double repose has begotten a necessity for motion. It desires, or fancies it desires, a public rostrum and assemblies; it has not always desired them. It cast itself at my feet when I came to the government; you must remember, you who made trial of its opinion. Where was your support, your power? No where. I took less authority than I was invited to take. Now all is changed. A weak government, opposed to the interests of the nation, has given these interests the habit of taking up the defensive, and of cavilling at authority. The taste for constitutions, debates, harangues, seems to return.... However, it is only the minority that desires it, do not deceive yourself. The people, or if you like it better, the mob, desire me alone; you have not seen them, this mob, crowding after me, rushing from the tops of the mountains, calling me, seeking me, saluting me.[1] On my return hither from Cannes, I did not conquer—I administered.... I am not only, as it has been said, the Emperor of the soldiers; I am the Emperor of the peasants, of the lower ranks in France.... Thus, in spite of all that is past, you see the people return to me—there is a sympathy between us. It is not so with the privileged classes; the nobility have served me, have rushed in crowds into my ante-chambers, there are no offices that they have not accepted, solicited, pressed for. I have had my Montmorencies, my Noailles, my Rohans, my Beauveaus, my Mortemarts. But there was no analogy between us. The steed curvetted, he was well trained, but I felt him quivering under me. With the people it is another thing; the popular fibre responds to mine: I am come from the ranks of the people, my voice has influence over them. Observe these conscripts, these sons of peasants, I did not flatter them, I treated them with severity; they did not the less surround me, they did not the less shout ‘The Emperor for ever!’ It is because between them and me there is an identity of nature; they look to me as their support, their defender against the nobles.... I have but to make a sign, or rather to turn away my eyes, and the nobles will be massacred in all the departments. They have carried on such fine intrigues for these six months!... But I will not be the King of a 13th.—The Emperor sent instructions to the Grand Marshal to write to the Admiral to enquire if a letter which he, Napoleon, should write to the Prince Regent would be sent to him. Towards four o’clock, the Deputy Governor Skelton and his lady desired to pay their respects to the Emperor. He received them, took them to walk in the garden, and afterwards out with him in his carriage. The weather had been extremely foggy all day. Upon its clearing up for a short time we saw, on a sudden, a corvette or frigate very near, and coming in with all sails set.
INSULT TO THE EMPEROR AND THE PRINCE OF WALES.—EXECUTION
OF NEY.—ESCAPE OF LAVALETTE.
14th—15th. We received the Admiral’s answer. After beginning, according to his established form, by saying that he knew no person by the title of ‘Emperor’ at St. Helena, he stated, that he would undoubtedly send the Emperor’s letter to the Prince Regent: but that he should adhere to the tenor of his instructions, which directed him not to allow any paper to be despatched to England, without having first opened it.
This communication, it must be acknowledged, gave us great astonishment: the part of the instructions cited by the Admiral had two objects in view, both of them foreign to the interpretation put upon them by this officer.
The first was, in the case of our making any complaints, that the local authorities might add their observations, and that the government, in England, might do us justice more speedily, without being obliged to send again to the island for farther information. This precaution, then, was entirely for our interest. The second object of this measure was that our correspondence might not be prejudicial to the interests of the government or the policy of England. But we were writing to the Sovereign, to the chief, to the individual in whom these interests and this government centered: and if there was any conspiracy here, it was not on the part of us, who were writing to him, but rather on his who intercepted our letter, or resolved to violate the privacy of it. That they should place jailors about us with all their equipage, though we did not consider it just, still it seemed possible. But that these jailors should cause their functions to react, even upon their Sovereign, was a thing for which we could not find a name! It was to attach to him completely the idea of a King without faculties, or of a Sultan buried in the recesses of his Seraglio! It was really a monstrous phenomenon in our European manners!
For a long time, we had little or no intercourse with the Admiral. One thought that ill humour had perhaps dictated his answer; another supposed that he was fearful the letter might contain some complaints against him. But the Admiral knew the Emperor too well, not to be aware that he would never appeal to any other tribunal than to that of nations. I, who knew what would have been the subject of the letter, felt the most lively indignation at it! The sole intention of the Emperor had been to employ this method, the only one that seemed compatible with his dignity, to write to his wife, and obtain tidings of his son. However, the Grand Marshal replied to the Admiral that he either over-stepped, or misinterpreted his instructions; that his determination could only be regarded as another instance of flagrant vexation; that the condition imposed was too much beneath the dignity of the Emperor, as well as of the Prince Regent, for him to retain any intention of writing.
The frigate that had just arrived was the Spey, bringing the European papers to the 31st December: they contained the execution of the unfortunate Marshal Ney, and the escape of Lavalette.
“Ney,” said the Emperor, “as ill attacked as defended, had been condemned by the Chamber of Peers, in the teeth of a formal capitulation. His execution had been allowed to take place; that was another error—from that moment he became a martyr. That Labedoyere should not have been pardoned, because the clemency extended to him would have seemed only a predilection in favour of the old Aristocracy, might be conceived; but the pardon of Ney would only have been a proof of the strength of the government, and the moderation of the Prince. It will be said, perhaps, that an example was necessary! But the Marshal would become so, much more certainly, by a pardon, after being degraded by a sentence: it was, to him, in fact, a moral death that deprived him of all influence; and nevertheless the object of authority would be obtained, the Sovereign satisfied, the example complete. The refusal of pardon to Lavalette, and his escape, were new grievances equally unpopular,” said the Emperor.
“But the saloons of Paris,” he observed, “exhibited the same passions as the clubs; the nobility were a new version of the Jacobins. Europe, moreover, was in a state of complete anarchy; the code of political immorality was openly followed; whatever fell into the hands of the Sovereigns was turned to the advantage of each of them. At least in my time I was the butt of all the accusations of this kind. The Sovereigns then talked of nothing but principles and virtue; but now,” added he, “that they are victorious and without control, they practise unblushingly all the wrongs which they themselves then reprobated. What resource and what hope were there then left for nations and for morality? Our countrywomen at least,” he observed, “have rendered their sentiments illustrious: Madame Labedoyere was on the point of dying from grief, and these papers shew us that Madame Ney has displayed the most courageous and determined devotion. Madame Lavalette is become the heroine of Europe.”
MESSAGE FOR THE PRINCE REGENT.
16th.—The Emperor had quitted the Encyclopedia Britannica, to take his lessons in English in the Annual Register. He read there the adventure of a Mr. Spencer Smith, arrested at Venice, ordered to be sent to Valenciennes, and who made his escape on the road. “This must be a very simple affair,” said the Emperor, “which the narrator has converted into a statement of importance.” The circumstance was totally unknown to him; it was a police affair of too little consequence, he observed, to have found its way up to him.
About four o’clock the captain of the Spey, just arrived from Europe, and the captain of the Ceylon, about to sail for England, were presented to the Emperor. He was in low spirits—he was unwell: the audience of the first was very short; that of the second would have been the same, had he not roused the Emperor by asking if we had any letters to send to Europe. The Emperor then desired me to ask him if he should see the Prince Regent; on his answering in the affirmative, I was charged to inform him that the Emperor was desirous of writing to the Prince Regent, but that in consequence of the observation of the Admiral, that he would open the letter, he had abstained from it, as being inconsistent with his dignity and with that of the Prince Regent himself: that he had, indeed, heard the laws of England much boasted of, but that he could not discover their benefits anywhere; that he had only now to expect, indeed to desire, an executioner; that the torture they made him endure was inhuman, savage; that it would have been more open and energetic to put him to death. The Emperor made me request of the captain that he would take upon him to deliver these words, and dismissed him: he looked very red and was much embarrassed.
SPIRIT OF THE INHABITANTS OF THE ISLE OF FRANCE.
17th.—An English Colonel, arrived from the Cape on his return from the Isle of France, came in the morning and addressed himself to me, to try to get an introduction to the Emperor. The Admiral had only allowed his vessel to remain two or three hours in the road. Having prevailed on the Emperor to receive him at four o’clock, he assured me that he would rather miss his vessel than lose such an opportunity. The Emperor was not very well, he had passed several hours in his bath; at four he received the Colonel.
The Emperor put many questions to him concerning the Isle of France, lately ceded to the English; it seems that its prosperity and its commerce suffer from its change of sovereignty.
After the departure of the Colonel, being alone with the Emperor in the garden, I told him that his person seemed to have remained very dear to the inhabitants of the Isle of France; that the Colonel had informed me that the name of Napoleon was never pronounced there but with commiseration. It was precisely on the day of a great festival in the colony, that they learned his departure from France and his arrival at Plymouth; the theatre was to be particularly attractive: the news having arrived during the day, in the evening there was not a single colonist, either white or of colour, in the house: there were only some English, who were exceedingly confused and irritated at the circumstance. The Emperor listened to me. “It is quite plain,” said he, after some moments’ silence; “this proves that the inhabitants of the Isle of France have continued French. I am the country; they love it: it has been wounded in my person, they are grieved at it.” I added that the change of dominion restraining their expressions, they durst not propose his health publicly; but that the Colonel said they never neglected it notwithstanding; they drank to him, this word had become consecrated to Napoleon. These details touched him. “Poor Frenchmen!” he said with emphasis—"Poor People! Poor Nation! I deserved all that, I loved thee! But thou, thou surely didst not deserve all the ills that press upon thee! Ah! thou didst merit well that one should devote himself to thee! But what infamy, what baseness, what degradation, it must be confessed, I had about me!" And, addressing himself to me, he added: “I do not speak here of your friends of the Fauxbourg-Saint-Germain; for with respect to them it is another matter.”
There frequently reached us incidents and expressions which, like those from the Isle of France, were calculated to excite emotion in the heart. The Island of Ascension, in our neighbourhood, had always been desert and abandoned; since we have been here, the English have thought proper to form an establishment there. The captain who went to take possession of it told us, on his return, that he was much astonished on landing to find upon the beach, May the great Napoleon live for ever!
In the last papers that reached us, among many good-natured sallies, it was remarked, in several languages, that Paris would never be happy till his Helen should be restored to him: these were a few drops of honey in our cup of wormwood.
HIS INTENTIONS RESPECTING ROME.—HORRIBLE
FOOD.—BRITANNICUS.
18th—19th. The Emperor was on horseback by eight o’clock. He had abstained from it for a long time: want of space to ride over was the cause. His health suffers visibly in consequence, and it is astonishing that the want of exercise is not still more hurtful to him, who was in the daily habit of taking it to a violent degree. On our return, the Emperor breakfasted out of doors; he detained us all. After breakfast, the conversation fell on Herculaneum and Pompeii; the phenomenon and epoch of their destruction, the time and the accident of their modern discovery, the monuments and the curiosities, which they have since afforded us. The Emperor said that if Rome had remained under his dominion, she would have risen again from her ruins: he intended to have cleared away all the rubbish; to have restored as much as possible. He did not doubt that, the same spirit extending through all the vicinity, it might have been in some degree the same with Herculaneum and Pompeii.
Breakfast being concluded, the Emperor sent my son to bring the volume of Crevier which contains this event; and he read it to us, as well as the death and character of Pliny. He retired about noon to take some rest. Towards six o’clock we took our usual round in the carriage. The Emperor took with him Mr. and Mrs. Skelton, who were come to visit him.
On our return, the Emperor, driven from the garden by the damp, went to see General Gourgaud, who was recovering rapidly. After dinner, on leaving the table and returning to the drawing-room, we could not help reverting to the meal we had just made;—literally nothing was fit to eat: the bread bad, the wine not drinkable, the meat disgusting and unwholesome: we are frequently obliged to send it back again. They continue in spite of our remonstrances, to send it to us dead, because by that method they can put us off with such animals as have died naturally.
The Emperor, shocked at this representation, could not refrain from saying, with warmth: “No doubt there are people whose physical situation is still worse; but that circumstance does not deprive us of the right of giving an opinion on our own condition, or on the infamous manner in which we are treated. The injustice of the English government, not content with sending us hither, has extended to the selection of the individuals to whom our persons and the supply of our wants are intrusted! For my part, I should suffer less if I were sure that it would one day be divulged to the whole world in such a way as to brand with infamy those who are guilty of it. But let us talk of something else,” said he—“what is the day of the month?” He was told it was the 19th of March: “What!” he exclaimed, “the eve of the 20th of March!” And a few seconds afterwards: “But let us talk of something else.” He sent for a volume of Racine, and at first began to read the comedy of the 20TH OF MARCH.—THE ACCOUCHEMENT OF THE EMPRESS.
20th.—After dinner one of us observed to the Emperor that he had been less solitary, less quiet, that day twelve-month at the same hour. “I was sitting down to table at the Tuileries,” said the Emperor. “I had found it difficult to get thither: the dangers I went through in that attempt were at least equal to those of a battle.” In fact he had been seized, on his arrival, by thousands of officers and citizens; one party had snatched him from another; he had been carried to the palace, and, amidst a tumult like that of a mob about to tear a man to pieces, instead of the orderly and respectful attendance of a multitude intent on shewing their veneration for an individual. But we ought to look at the sentiment and intention in this case: it was enthusiasm, and love, carried to a pitch that resembled rage or madness.
The Emperor added that in all probability more than one person in Europe would talk of him that evening; and that, in spite of all observation, many a bottle would be emptied on his account.
The conversation then turned on the King of Rome; that day was the anniversary of his birth; the Emperor reckoned that he must be five years old. He then spoke of the accouchement of the Empress, and seemed to take some pleasure in boasting that he had proved himself, on that occasion, as good a husband as any in the world. He assisted the Empress to walk about all night. We who were of the household knew something of the matter; we had all been called together at the palace at ten in the evening; we passed the night there; and the cries of the Empress sometimes reached our ears. Towards morning the accoucheur having told the Emperor that the pains had ceased, and that the labour might yet be tedious, the Emperor went to the bath, and sent us away, desiring us, however, not to go from home. The Emperor had not been long in the bath, when the pains came on again; and the accoucheur ran to him, almost out of his wits, saying he was the most unfortunate of men; that out of a thousand labours in Paris there was not one more difficult. The Emperor, dressing himself again as fast as he could, encouraged him, saying that a man who understood his business ought never to lose his presence of mind; that there was nothing in this case that he ought to be uneasy about; that he had only to fancy he was delivering a citizen’s wife of the Rue Saint-Denis: that nature had but one law; that he was sure he would act for the best; and, above all, that he need not fear any reproach. It was then represented to the Emperor that there was great danger either for the mother or the child. “If the mother lives,” said he, without hesitation, "I shall have another child. Act in this case as if you were attending the birth of a cobbler’scobbler’s son."
When he reached the Empress she really was in danger; the child presented itself in an unfavourable posture, and there was every reason to fear that it would be stifled.[2]
The Emperor asked Dubois why he did not deliver her. He excused himself, being unwilling to do it, he said, except in the presence of Corvisart, who had not yet arrived. “But what can he tell you?” said the Emperor. “If it is a witness, or a justification, you want to secure, here am I.” Then Dubois, taking off his coat, commenced the operation. When the Empress saw the instruments, she cried out in a piteous manner, exclaiming that they were going to kill her. She was firmly held by the Emperor, Madame de Montesquiou, Corvisart, who had just come in, &c. Madame de Montesquiou dexterously took an opportunity to encourage her, by declaring that she herself had more than once been in the same situation.
The Empress, however, still persuaded herself that she was treated differently from other women, and often repeated, “Am I to be sacrificed because I am an Empress?” She declared, afterwards, to the Emperor, that she really had entertained this fear. At length she was delivered. The danger had been so imminent, said the Emperor, that all the etiquette which had been studied and ordered was disregarded, and the child put on one side, on the floor, whilst every one was occupied about the mother only. The infant remained some moments in this situation, and it was thought he was dead: it was Corvisart who took him up, chafed him, and brought him to utter a cry.[3]
CATILINE’S CONSPIRACY.—THE GRACCHI.—HISTORIANS.—SLEEP DURING A BATTLE.—CÆSAR AND HIS COMMENTARIES OF DIFFERENT MILITARY SYSTEMS.
21st—22nd. The Emperor rode out very early: we made the tour of our limits in several directions. It is during these rides that the Emperor now takes his lessons in English. I walk by his side; he speaks a few sentences in English, which I translate, word by word, as he pronounces them; by which method he perceives when he is understood, or is enabled to correct his mistakes. When he has finished a sentence, I repeat it to him in English, so that he may understand it well himself: this helps to form his ear.
The Emperor was reading to-day, in the Roman History, of Catiline’s conspiracy; he could not comprehend it in the way in which it is described. “However great a villain Catiline might be,” observed he, “he must have had some object in view: it could not be that of governing in Rome, since he is accused of having intended to set fire to the four quarters of the city.” The Emperor conceived it to be much more probable that it was some new faction similar to those of Marius and Sylla, which having failed, all the accusations calculated to excite the horror of patriots, were, as usual in such cases, heaped on the head of its leader. It was then observed to the Emperor that the same thing would infallibly have happened to himself, had he been overpowered in Vendemiaire, Fructidor, or Brumaire, before he had illumined with such radiant brilliancy an horizon cleared of clouds.
The Gracchi gave rise to doubts and suspicions of a very different sort in his mind, which, he said, became almost certainties to those who had been engaged in the politics of our times. “History,” said he, "presents these Gracchi, in the aggregate, as seditious people, revolutionists, criminals; and, nevertheless, allows it to appear, in detail, that they had virtues; that they were gentle, disinterested, moral men; and, besides, they were the sons of the illustrious Cornelia, which, to great minds, ought to be a strong primary presumption in their favour. How then can such a contrast be accounted for? It is thus: the Gracchi generously devoted themselves in behalf of the rights of the oppressed people, against a tyrannical senate; and their great talents and noble character endangered a ferocious aristocracy, which triumphed, murdered, and calumniated them. The historians of a party have transmitted their characters in the same spirit. Under the Emperors it was necessary to continue in the same manner; the bare mention of the rights of the people, under a despotic master, was a blasphemy, a downright crime. Afterwards, the case was the same under the feudal system, which was so fruitful in petty despots. Such, no doubt, is the fatality which has attended the memory of the Gracchi. Throughout succeeding ages their virtues have never ceased to be considered crimes; but at this day, when, possessed of better information, we have thought it expedient to reason, the Gracchi may and ought to find favour in our eyes.
“In that terrible struggle between the aristocracy and democracy, which has been renewed in our times—in that exasperation of ancient landed property against modern industry, which still ferments throughout Europe, there is no doubt that if the aristocracy should triumph by force, it would point out many Gracchi in all directions, and treat them as mercifully as its predecessors did the Gracchi of Rome.”
The Emperor added that it was, moreover, easy to see that there was a hiatus in the ancient authors at this period of history; that all which the moderns now presented to us on this subject was mere gleaning. He then reverted to the charges already made against honest Rollin and his pupil Crevier: they were both devoid of talent, system, or colouring. It was to be allowed that the ancients were far superior to us in this point; and that because, amongst them, statesmen were literary men, and men of letters statesmen; they combined professions, whilst we divide them in an absolute manner. This famous division of labour, which in our times produces such a perfection in mechanical arts, is quite fatal to excellence in mental productions: every work of genius is superior in proportion to the universality of the mind whence it emanates. We owe to the Emperor the attempt to establish this principle by frequently employing on various objects men wholly unconnected with each other;—it was his system. He once appointed, of his own accord, one of his chamberlains to go into Illyria to liquidate the Austrian debt: this was a matter of importance, and extremely complicated. The chamberlain, who had previously been a total stranger to public business, was alarmed; and the minister, who had been deprived of this appointment, being dissatisfied with it, ventured to represent to the Emperor that, his nomination having fallen on a man entirely new to such matters, it might be feared that he would not acquit himself satisfactorily. “I have a lucky hand, sir,” was his answer: “those on whom I lay it are fit for every thing.”
The Emperor, proceeding in his criticism, also censured severely what he called historical fooleries, ridiculously exalted by translators and commentators. “Such things prove, in the first place,” said he, “that the historians formed erroneous judgments of men and circumstances. They are wrong, for instance,” said Napoleon, “when they applaud so highly the continence of Scipio, and fall into ecstasies at the calmness of Alexander, CÆsar, and others, for having been able to sleep on the eve of a battle. It could only be a monk, debarred from women, whose face brightens up at the very name—who neighs behind his bars at their approach, who could give Scipio much credit for forbearing to violate the female whom chance threw into his power, while he had so many others entirely at his disposal. A famished man might as well praise the hero for having quietly passed by a table covered with victuals, without greedily snatching at them.” As to sleeping just before a battle, there was not, he assured us, one of our soldiers or generals who had not twenty times performed that miracle; their heroism was chiefly produced by the fatigue of the day before.
Here the Grand Marshal added that he could safely say he had seen Napoleon sleep, not only on the eve of an engagement, but even during the battle. “I was obliged to do so,” said Napoleon, “when I fought battles that lasted three days; Nature was also to have her due: I took advantage of the smallest intervals, and slept where and when I could.” He slept on the field of battle at Wagram, and at Bautzen, even during the action, and completely within the range of the enemy’s balls. On this subject, he said that, independently of the necessity of obeying nature, these slumbers afforded a general, commanding a very large army, the important advantage of enabling him to await, calmly, the reports and combinations of all his divisions, instead of, perhaps, being hurried away by the only event which he himself could witness.
The Emperor farther said that he found in Rollin, and even CÆsar, circumstances of the Gallic war which he could not understand. He could not by any means comprehend the invasion of the Helvetii; the road they took; the object ascribed to them; the time they spent in crossing the Saone; the diligence of CÆsar, who found time to go into Italy, as far as Aquileia, in quest of reinforcements, and who overtook the invaders before they had passed the Saone, &c.; that it was equally difficult to comprehend what was meant by establishing winter-quarters that extended from Treves to Vannes. And as we expressed our surprise at the immense works which the generals got performed by their soldiers, the ditches, walls, great towers, galleries, &c., the Emperor observed that in those times all efforts were directed to construction on the spot, whereas in ours they were employed in conveyance. He also thought the ancient soldiers laboured, in fact, more than ours. He had thoughts of dictating something on that subject. “Ancient history, however,” said he, “embraces a long period, and the system of war often changed. In our days it was no longer that of the times of Turenne and Vauban: field-works were growing useless; even the system of our fortresses had become problematical or inefficient; the enormous quantity of bombs and howitzers changed every thing. It was no longer against the horizontal attack that defence was requisite, but also against the curve and the reflected lines. None of the ancient fortresses were henceforth safe; they ceased to be tenable; no country was rich enough to maintain them. The revenue of France would be insufficient for her lines in Flanders, for the exterior fortifications were now not above a fourth or fifth of the necessary expense. Casements, magazines, places of shelter secure from the effects of bombs, were now indispensably requisite, and these were too expensive.” The Emperor complained particularly of the weakness of modern masonry: the engineer department is radically defective in this point; it had cost him immense sums, wholly thrown away.
Struck with these novel truths, the Emperor had invented a system altogether at variance with the axioms hitherto established; it was to have metal of an extraordinary calibre, to advance beyond the principal line towards the enemy; and to have that principal line itself, on the contrary, defended by a great quantity of small moveable artillery: hence the enemy would be stopped short in his sudden advance; he would have only weak pieces to attack powerful ones with; he would be commanded by this superior calibre, round which the resources of the fortress, the small pieces, would form in groups, or even advance to a distance, as skirmishers, and might follow all the movements of the enemy by means of their lightness and mobility. The enemy would then stand in need of battering-cannon; he would be obliged to open trenches: time would be gained, and the true object of fortification accomplished. The Emperor employed this method with great success, and to the great astonishment of the engineers, in the defence of Vienna, and in that of Dresden; he intended to use it in that of Paris, which city could not, he thought, be defended by any other means; but of the success of this method he had no doubt.
DAYS AT LONGWOOD.—TRIAL OF DROUOT.—MILITARY CHARACTERS.—SOULT.—MASSENA.—THE EMPEROR’S COMRADES IN THE ARTILLERY—HIS NAME THOUGHT BY HIM TO BE UNKNOWN TO SOME PEOPLE, EVEN IN PARIS.
23rd—26th. The weather was very unfavourable during the greater part of these mornings, on account of the heavy rains, which scarcely allowed us to stir out of doors. The Emperor read a work by a Miss Williams, on the return from the Isle of Elba; it had just reached us from England. He was much disgusted with it, and with good reason: this production is quite calumnious and false; it is the echo and collection of all the reports invented at the time in certain malevolent Parisian societies.
As to our evenings, the weather was almost indifferent to us; whether it rained, or the moon shone brightly, we literally made ourselves prisoners. Towards nine o’clock we were surrounded by sentinels; to meet them would have been painful. It is true that both the Emperor and ourselves might have gone out at a later hour, accompanied by an officer; but this would have been rather a punishment than a pleasure to us, although the officer never could conceive this feeling. He gave us reason to conclude, at first, that he imagined this seclusion to be merely the effect of ill-humour, and thought it would not last long. I know not what he may subsequently have thought of our perseverance.
The Emperor, as I believe I have already mentioned, sat down to table pretty regularly at eight o’clock; he never remained there above half an hour; sometimes scarcely a quarter of an hour. When he returned to the drawing-room, if he happened to be unwell or taciturn, we had the greatest difficulty in the world to get on till half-past nine or ten o’clock; indeed, we could not effect it without the assistance of reading. But when he was cheerful, and entered into conversation with spirit, we were presently surprised to find it eleven o’clock, and later: these were our pleasant evenings. He would then retire, with a kind of satisfaction, at having, as he expressed it, conquered time. And it was precisely on those days, when the remark applied with least force, that he used to observe that it must require our utmost courage to endure such a life.
On one of these evenings, the conversation turned upon the military trials, which are now taking place in France. The Emperor thought that General Drouot could not be condemned for coming in the suite of one acknowledged sovereign to make war upon another. On this it was remarked that what was now mentioned as his justification would be his greatest danger at the tribunal of legitimacy.
The Emperor acknowledged, in fact, that there was nothing to be said to the doctrines brought forward at this day: but, on the other hand, that, in condemning General Drouot, they would condemn emigration, and legitimize the condemnation of the emigrants. Whomsoever was found in arms against France, the Republican doctrines punished with death; it was not so with the Royal doctrine. If they should in this instance adopt the Republican doctrine, the emigrant and royal party would condemn themselves.
The case of Drouot, however, in a general point of view, was very different even from that of Ney; and besides, Ney had evinced an unfortunate vacillation of which Drouot had never been guilty. Thus the interest which Ney had excited was wholly founded on opinion; whilst that which was felt for Drouot was personal.
The Emperor dilated on the dangers and difficulties which the tribunals and ministers of justice must experience, throughout the affairs connected with his return from the Isle of Elba. Above all, he was extremely struck by a particular circumstance relating to Soult, who, we were told, was to be brought to trial. He (Napoleon) knew, he said, how innocent Soult was; and yet, were it not for that circumstance, and were he an individual and juror in Soult’s case, he had no doubt he should declare him guilty, so strongly were appearances combined against him. Ney, in the course of his defence, through some sentiment which it is difficult to account for, stated, contrary to the truth, that the Emperor had said Soult was in intelligence with him. Now, every circumstance of Soult’s conduct during his administration, the confidence which the Emperor placed in him after his return, &c., agreed with that deposition: who, then, would not have condemned him? “Yet Soult is innocent,” said the Emperor, “he even acknowledged to me that he had taken a real liking to the King. The authority he enjoyed under him,” he said, “so different from that of my ministers, was a very agreeable thing, and had quite gained him over.”
Massena (whose proscription was also announced to us by the papers) was, the Emperor said, another person whom they would perhaps condemn as guilty of treason. All Marseilles was against him; appearances were overwhelming; and yet he had fulfilled his duty up to the very moment of declaring himself openly. On his return to Paris, he had even been far from claiming any credit with the Emperor, when the latter asked him whether he might have reckoned upon him. “The truth is,” continued the Emperor, "that all the commanders did their duty; but they could not withstand the torrent of opinion, and no one had sufficiently calculated the sentiments of the mass of the people and the national impetuosity. Carnot, FouchÉ, Maret, and Cambaceres, confessed to me, at Paris, that they had been greatly deceived on thisthis point. And no one understands it well; even now.
“Had the King remained longer in France,” continued he, “he would probably have lost his life in some insurrection; but, had he fallen into my hands, I should have thought myself strong enough to have allowed him every enjoyment in some retreat of his own selection; as Ferdinand was treated at Valency.”
Immediately before this conversation, the Emperor was playing at chess, and his king having fallen, he cried out—"Ah! my poor king, you are down!" Some one having picked it up, and restored it to him in a mutilated state—"Horrid!" he exclaimed; “I certainly do not accept the omen, and I am far from wishing any such thing: my enmity does not extend so far.”
I would not, on any account, have omitted this circumstance, trifling as it may appear, because it is in many respects characteristic. We ourselves, when the Emperor had retired, reverted to the incident. What cheerfulness, what freedom of mind in such dreadful circumstances! we said. What serenity in the heart! what absence of malice, irritation, or hatred! Who could discover in him the man whom enmity and falsehood have depicted as such a monster! Even amongst his own followers, who is there that has well understood him, or taken sufficient pains to make him known?
On another evening, the Emperor was speaking of his early years, when he was in the artillery, and of his companions at the mess: he always delighted in reverting to those days. One of his messmates was mentioned, who, having been Prefect of the same department under Napoleon and under the King, had not been able to retain his place on the return of Napoleon. The Emperor, when he recollected him, said that this person had, at a certain period, missed the opportunity of making his fortune through him. When Napoleon obtained the command of the army of the Interior, he loaded this person with favours, made him his aide-de-camp, and intended to place great confidence in him; but this favoured aide-de-camp had behaved very ill to him at the time of his departure for the Army of Italy: he then abandoned his General for the Directory. “Nevertheless,” said the Emperor, "when once I was seated on the throne, he might have done much with me, if he had known how to set about it. He had the claim of early friendship, which never loses its influence; I should certainly never have withstood an unexpected overture in a hunting-party, for instance, or half an hour’s conversation on old times at any other opportunity. I should have forgotten his conduct: it was no longer important whether he had been on my side or not: I had united all parties. Those who had an insight into my character were well aware of this: they knew that, with me, however I might have felt disposed towards them, it was like the game of prison-bars; when once the point was touched, the game was won. In fact, if I wished to withstand them, I had no resource but that of refusing to see them."
He mentioned another old comrade, who, with intelligence and the requisite qualifications, might have done any thing with him. He also said that a third would never have been removed from him, had he been less rapacious.
We disputed amongst ourselves whether these people ever suspected the secret, or their own chances; and whether the elevated station and the Imperial splendour of Napoleon, had fairly allowed them to avail themselves of his favourable disposition towards them.
With respect to the splendour of the Imperial power, the Grand Marshal said that, however great and magnificent the Emperor had appeared to him on the throne, he had never made on him a superior, perhaps an equal, impression, to that which his situation at the head of the Army of Italy had stamped on his memory. He explained and justified this idea very successfully, and the Emperor heard him with some complacency.—But, we observed, what great events took place afterwards! what elevation! what grandeur! what renown throughout the world! The Emperor had listened. “For all that,” said he, “Paris is so extensive, and contains so many people of all sorts, and some so eccentric, that I can conceive there may be some who never saw me, and others who never even heard my name mentioned. Do not you think so?” And it was curious to see with what whimsical ingenuity he himself maintained this assertion, which he knew to be untenable. We all insisted loudly that, as to his name, there was not a town or village in Europe, perhaps even in the world, where it had not been pronounced. One person in company added—"Sire, before I returned to France at the treaty of Amiens, your Majesty being then only First Consul, I determined to make a tour in Wales, as one of the most extraordinary parts of Great Britain. I climbed the wildest mountains, some of which are of prodigious height; I visited cabins that seemed to me to belong to another world. As I entered one of these secluded dwellings, I observed, to my fellow-traveller, that, in this spot, one would expect to find repose, and escape the din of revolution. The cottager, suspecting us to be French, on account of our accent, immediately enquired the news from France, and what Bonaparte, the First Consul, was about."
“Sire,” said another, "we had the curiosity to ask the Chinese officers whether our European affairs had been heard of in their Empire. ‘Certainly,’ they replied; ‘in a confused manner, to be sure, because we are totally uninterested in those matters; but the name of your Emperor is famous there, and connected with grand ideas of conquest and revolution:’ exactly as the names of those who have changed the face of that part of the world have arrived in ours, such as Gengis Khan, Tamerlane," &c.
