ONE evening, while we were at Boulogne, Bonaparte turned the conversation upon literature. Lemercier, the poet, whom Bonaparte liked, had just finished a tragedy, called “Philippe Auguste,” which contained allusions to the First Consul, and had brought the manuscript to him. Bonaparte took it into his head to read this production aloud to me. It was amusing to hear a man, who was always in a hurry when he had nothing to do, trying to read Alexandrine verses, of which he did not know the meter, and pronouncing them so badly that he did not seem to understand what he read. Besides, he no sooner opened any book than he wanted to criticise it. I asked him to give me the manuscript, and I read it out myself. Then he began to talk; he took the play out of my hand, struck out whole passages, made several marginal notes, and found fault with the plot and the characters. He did not run much risk of spoiling the piece, for it was very bad. Singularly enough, when he had done reading, he told me he did not wish the author to know that all these erasures and corrections were made by so important a hand, and he directed me to take them upon myself. I objected to this, as may be supposed. I had great difficulty in convincing him that, as it might be thought strange that even he should thus have meddled with an author’s manuscript, it would be contrary to all the convenances for me to have taken such a liberty. “Well, well,” said he, “perhaps you are right; but on this, as on every other occasion, I own I do not like that vague and levelling phrase, the convenances, which you women are always using. It is a device of fools to raise themselves to the level of people of intellect; a sort of social gag, which obstructs the strong mind and only serves the weak. It may be all very well for women: they have not much to do in this life; but you must be aware that I, for example, can not be bound by the convenances.”

“But,” I replied, “is not the application of these laws to the conduct of life like that of the dramatic unities to the drama? They give order and regularity, and they do not really trammel genius, except when it would, without their control, err against good taste.”

“Ah, good taste! That is another of those classical words which I do not adopt. It is perhaps my own fault, but there are certain rules which mean nothing to me. For example, what is called ‘style,’ good or bad, does not affect me. I care only for the force of the thought. I used to like Ossian, but it was for the same reason which made me delight in the murmur of the winds and waves. In Egypt I tried to read the ‘Iliad’; but I got tired of it. As for French poets, I understand none of them except Corneille. That man understood politics, and if he had been trained to public affairs he would have been a statesman. I think I appreciate him more truly than any one else does, because I exclude all the dramatic sentiments from my view of him. For example, it is only lately I have come to understand the dÉnouement of ‘Cinna.’ At first I regarded it as merely a contrivance for a pathetic fifth act; for really, clemency, properly speaking, is such a poor little virtue, when it is not founded on policy, that to turn Augustus suddenly into a kind-hearted prince appeared to me an unworthy climax. However, I saw Monvel act in the tragedy one night, and the mystery of the great conception was revealed to me. He pronounced the ‘Soyons amis, Cinna,’ in so cunning and subtle a tone, that I saw at once the action was only a feint of the tyrant, and I approved as a calculation what had appeared to me silly as a sentiment. The line should always be so delivered that, of all those who hear it, only Cinna is deceived.

“As for Racine, he pleases me in ‘IphigÉnie.’ That piece, while it lasts, makes one breathe the poetic air of Greece. In ‘Britannicus’ he has been trammeled by Tacitus, against whom I am prejudiced, because he does not sufficiently explain his meaning. The tragedies of Voltaire are passionate, but they do not go deeply into human nature. For instance, his Mahomet is neither a prophet nor an Arab. He is an impostor, who might have been educated at the Ecole Polytechnique, for he uses power as I might use it in an age like the present. And then, the murder of the father by the son is a useless crime. Great men are never cruel except from necessity.

“As for comedy, it interests me about as much as the gossip of your drawing-rooms. I understand your admiration of MoliÈre, but I do not share it; he has placed his personages in situations which have no attractions for me.”

From these observations it is plain that Bonaparte cared only to observe human nature when it was struggling with the great chances of life, and that man in the abstract interested him but little. In conversations of this kind the time I spent at Boulogne with the First Consul was passed, and it was at the close of my sojourn there that I underwent the first experience that inspired me with mistrust of persons among whom I was obliged to live at Court. The officers of the household could not believe that a woman might remain for hours together with their master, simply talking with him on matters of general interest, and they drew conclusions which were injurious to my character. I may now venture to say that the purity of my mind, and my lifelong attachment to my husband, prevented my even conceiving the possibility of such a suspicion as that which was formed in the Consul’s ante-chamber, while I was conversing with him in his salon. When Bonaparte returned to Paris, his aides-de-camp talked about my long interviews with him, and Mme. Bonaparte took fright at their stories; so that when, after a month’s stay at Pont de Briques, my husband was sufficiently recovered to bear the journey, and we returned to Paris, my jealous patroness received me coldly.

I returned full of gratitude toward the First Consul. He had received me so kindly; he had shown such interest in the state of my husband’s health; his attention to me had so much soothed my troubled and anxious mind, and had been so great a resource in that solitary place; and I was so much flattered by the pleasure he seemed to take in my society, that on my return I told every one, with the eager gratitude of one twenty-three years old, of the extreme kindness he had shown me. My friend, who was really attached to me, advised me to be careful of my words, and apprised me of the impression they had made. I remember to this hour that her hint struck like a dagger to my heart. It was the first time I had suffered injustice; my youth and all my feelings revolted against such an accusation. Stern experience only can steel us against the unjust judgments of the world, and perhaps we ought to regret the time when they had the power to wound us deeply. My friend’s warning had, however, explained Mme. Bonaparte’s conduct toward me. One day, when I was more hurt by this than usual, I could not refrain from saying to her, with tears in my eyes, “What, madame! do you suspect me?” As she was very kind and always easily touched by passing emotions, she embraced me, and thenceforth treated me with her former cordiality. But she did not understand my feelings. There was nothing in her mind which corresponded to my just indignation; and, without endeavoring to ascertain whether my relations with her husband at Boulogne had been such as they were represented to her, she was content to conclude that in any case the affair had been merely temporary, since I did not, when under her own eyes, depart from my usual reserve toward Bonaparte. In order to justify herself, she told me that the Bonaparte family had spread injurious reports against me during my absence. “Do you not perceive,” I asked her, “that, rightly or wrongly, it is believed here that my tender attachment to you, madame, makes me clear-sighted to what is going on, and that, feeble as my counsels are, they may help you to act with prudence? Political jealousy spreads suspicion broadcast everywhere, and, insignificant as I am, I do believe they want to make you quarrel with me.” Mme. Bonaparte agreed in the truth of my observation; but she had not the least idea that I could feel aggrieved because it had not occurred to herself in the first instance. She acknowledged that she had reproached her husband about me, and he had evidently amused himself by leaving her in doubt. These occurrences opened my eyes about the people among whom I lived to an extent which alarmed me and upset all my former feelings toward them. I began to feel that the ground which I had trodden until then with all the confidence of ignorance was not firm; I knew that from the kind of annoyance I had just experienced I should never again be free.

The First Consul, on leaving Boulogne, had declared, in the order of the day, that he was pleased with the army; and in the “Moniteur” of November 12, 1803, we read the following: “It was remarked as a presage that, in the course of the excavations for the First Consul’s camp, a war hatchet was found, which probably belonged to the Roman army that invaded Britain. There were also medals of William the Conqueror found at Ambleteuse, where the First Consul’s tent was pitched. It must be admitted that these circumstances are singular, and they appear still more strange when it is borne in mind that when General Bonaparte visited the ruins of Pelusium, in Egypt, he found there a medallion of Julius CÆsar.”

The allusion was not a very fortunate one, for, notwithstanding the medallion of Julius CÆsar, Bonaparte was obliged to leave Egypt; but these little parallels, dictated by the ingenious flattery of M. Maret, pleased his master immensely, and Bonaparte was confident that they were not without effect upon the country.

In the journals every effort was made at that time to excite the popular imagination on the subject of the invasion of England. I do not know whether Bonaparte really believed that such an adventure was possible, but he appeared to do so, and the expense incurred in the construction of flat-bottomed boats was considerable. The war of words between the English newspapers and the “Moniteur” continued. We read in the “Times,” “It is said that the French have made Hanover a desert, and they are now about to abandon it”; to which a note in the “Moniteur” immediately replied, “Yes, when you abandon Malta.” The Bishops issued pastorals, in which they exhorted the nation to arm itself for a just war. “Choose men of good courage,” said the Bishop of Arras, “and go forth to fight Amalek. Bossuet has said, ‘To submit to the public orders is to submit to the orders of God, who establishes empires.’”

This quotation from Bossuet reminds me of a story which M. Bourlier, the Bishop of Evreux, used to tell. It related to the time when the Council was assembled at Paris with a view to inducing the Bishops to oppose the decrees of the Pope. “Sometimes,” said the Bishop of Evreux, “the Emperor would have us all summoned, and would begin a theological discussion with us. He would address himself to the most recalcitrant among us, and say, ‘My religion is that of Bossuet; he is my Father of the Church; he defended our liberties. I want to commence his work and to maintain your dignity. Do you understand me?’ Speaking thus, and pale with anger, he would clap his hand on the hilt of his sword. The ardor with which he was ready to defend us made me tremble, and this singular amalgamation of the name of Bossuet and the word liberty, with his own threatening gestures, would have made me smile if I had not been too heavy-hearted at the prospect of the hard times which I foresaw for the Church.”

I now return to the winter of 1804. This winter passed as the preceding one had done, in balls and fÊtes at Court and in Paris, and in the organization of the new laws which were presented to the Corps LÉgislatif. Mme. Bacciochi, who had a very decided liking for M. de Fontanes, spoke of him so often at that time to her brother, that her influence, added to Bonaparte’s own high opinion of the academician, determined him to make M. de Fontanes President of the Corps LÉgislatif. This selection appeared strange to some people; but a man of letters would do as well as any other President for what Bonaparte intended to make of the Corps LÉgislatif. M. de Fontanes had to deliver harangues to the Emperor under most difficult circumstances, but he always acquitted himself with grace and distinction. He had but little strength of character, but his ability told when he had to speak in public, and his good taste lent him dignity and impressiveness. Perhaps that was not an advantage for Bonaparte. Nothing is so dangerous for sovereigns as to have their abuses of power clothed in the glowing colors of eloquence, when they figure before nations; and this is especially dangerous in France, where forms are held in such high esteem. How often have the Parisians, although in the secret of the farce the Government was acting, lent themselves to the deception with a good grace, simply because the actors did justice to that delicacy of taste which demands that each shall do his best with the rÔle assigned to him?

In the course of the month of January, the “Moniteur” published a selection of articles from the English journals, in which the differences between Bavaria and Austria, and the probabilities of a continental war, were discussed. Paragraphs of this kind were from time to time inserted in the newspapers, without any comment, as if to prepare us for what might happen. These intimations—like the clouds over mountain summits, which fall apart for a moment now and then, and afford a glimpse of what is passing behind—allowed us to have momentary peeps at the important discussions which were taking place in Europe, so that we should not be much surprised when they resulted in a rupture. After each glimpse the clouds would close again, and we would remain in darkness until the storm burst.

I am about to speak of an important epoch, concerning which my memory is full and faithful. It is that of the conspiracy of Georges Cadoudal, and the crime to which it led. With respect to General Moreau, I shall repeat what I have heard said, but shall be careful to affirm nothing. I think it well to preface this narrative by a brief explanation of the state of affairs at that time. Certain persons, somewhat closely connected with politics, were beginning to assert that France felt the necessity of hereditary right in the governing power. Political courtiers, and honest, sincere revolutionists, seeing that the tranquillity of the country depended on one life, were discussing the instability of the Consulate. By degrees the thoughts of all were once more turned to monarchy, and this would have had its advantages if they could have agreed to establish a monarchy tempered by the laws. Revolutions have this great disadvantage, that they divide public opinion into an infinite number of varieties, which are all modified by circumstances. This it is which gives opportunity to that despotism which comes after revolutions. To restrain the power of Bonaparte, it would have been necessary to venture on uttering the word “Liberty”; but as, only a few years before, that word had been used from one end of France to the other as a disguise for the worst kind of slavery, it inspired an unreasonable but fatal repugnance.

The Royalists, finding that day by day Bonaparte was departing more widely from the path they had expected he would take, were much disturbed. The Jacobins, whose opposition the First Consul feared much more, were secretly preparing for action, for they perceived that it was to their antagonists that the Government was giving guarantees. The Concordat, the advances made to the old nobility, the destruction of revolutionary equality, all these things constituted an encroachment upon them. How happy would France have been had Bonaparte contended only against the factions! But, to have done that, he must have been animated solely by the love of justice, and guided by the counsels of a generous mind.

When a sovereign, no matter what his title may be, sides with one or other of the violent parties which stir up civil strife, it is certain that he has hostile intentions against the rights of citizens, who have confided those rights to his keeping. Bonaparte, in order to fix his despotic yoke upon France, found himself obliged to come to terms with the Jacobins; and, unfortunately, there are persons whom no guarantee but that of crime will satisfy. Their ally must involve himself in some of their iniquities. This motive had a great deal to do with the death of the Duc d’Enghien; and I am convinced that all which happened at that time was the result of no violent feeling, of no blind revenge, but simply a Machiavellian policy, resolved to smooth its own path at any cost. Neither was it for the gratification of vanity that Bonaparte wanted to change his title of Consul for that of Emperor. We must not believe that he was always ruled by insatiable passions; he was capable of controlling them by calculation, and, if in the end he allowed himself to be led away, it was because he became intoxicated by success and flattery. The comedy of republican equality, which he was obliged to play so long as he remained Consul, annoyed him, and in reality only deceived those who were willing to be deceived. It resembled the political pretenses of ancient Rome, when the Emperors from time to time had themselves reelected by the Senate. I have heard persons who, having put on the love of liberty like a garment, and yet paid assiduous court to Bonaparte while he was First Consul, declare that they had quite withdrawn their esteem from him so soon as he conferred the title of Emperor upon himself. I never could understand their argument. How was it possible that the authority which he exercised almost from the moment of his entrance into the government did not enlighten them as to his actual position? Might it not rather be said that he gave a proof of sincerity in his assumption of a title whose real powers he exercised?

At the epoch of which I am treating, it became necessary that the First Consul should strengthen his position by some new measure. The English, who had been threatened, were secretly exciting disturbances to act as diversions from the projects formed against themselves; their relations with the Chouans were resumed; and the Royalists regarded the Consular Government as a mere transition state from the Directory to the Monarchy. One man only stood in the way; it became easy to conclude that he must be got rid of.

I remember to have heard Bonaparte say in the summer of that year (1804) that for once events had hurried him, and that he had not intended to establish royalty until two years later. He had placed the police in the hands of the Minister of Justice. This was a sound and moral proceeding, but it was contradicted by his intention that the magistracy should use that police as it had been used when it was a revolutionary institution. I have already said that Bonaparte’s first ideas were generally good and great. To conceive and carry them out was to exercise his power, but to submit to them afterward savored of abdication. He was unable to endure the dominion even of any of his own institutions. Restrained by the slow and regular forms of justice, and also by the feebleness and mediocrity of his Chief Judge, he surrounded himself with innumberable police agents, and by degrees regained confidence in FouchÉ, who was an adept in the art of making himself necessary. FouchÉ, a man of keen and far-seeing intellect, a Jacobin grown rich, and consequently disgusted with some of the principles of that party—with which, however, he still remained connected, so that he might have support should trouble arise—had no objection to invest Bonaparte with royalty. His natural flexibility made him always ready to accept any form of government in which he saw a post for himself. His habits were more revolutionary than his principles, and the only state of things, I believe, which he could not have endured, would have been one which should make an absolute nonenity of him. To make use of him one must thoroughly understand his disposition, and be very cautious in dealing with him, remembering that he needed troublous times for the full display of his capacity; for, as he had no passions and no aversions, he rose at such times superior to the generality of those about him, who were all more or less actuated by either fear or resentment.

FouchÉ has denied that he advised the murder of the Duc d’Enghien. Unless there is complete certainty of the fact, I see no reason for bringing the accusation of a crime against a man who positively denies it. Besides, FouchÉ, who was very far-sighted, must have foreseen that such a deed would give only a temporary guarantee to the party which Bonaparte wanted to win. He knew the First Consul too well to fear that he would think of replacing the King on a throne which he might occupy himself, and there is little doubt that, with the information he possessed, he would have pronounced the murder of the Duc d’Enghien to be a mistake.

M. de Talleyrand’s plans were also served by his advice that Bonaparte should invest himself with royalty. That proceeding would suit M. de Talleyrand to a nicety. His enemies, and even Bonaparte himself, have accused him of having advised the murder of the unhappy prince. But Bonaparte and his enemies are not credible on this point; the well-known character of M. de Talleyrand is against the truth of the statement. He has said to me more than once that Bonaparte informed him and the two Consuls of the arrest of the Duc d’Enghien and of his own unalterable determination at the same time. He added that they all three saw that words were useless, and therefore kept silence. That was indeed a deplorable weakness, but one very common to M. de Talleyrand, who would not think of remonstrating for the sake of conscience only, when he knew that a line of action had been decided upon. Opposition and bold resistance may take effect upon any nature, however resolute. A sovereign of a cruel and sanguinary disposition will sometimes sacrifice his inclination to the force of reason arrayed against it. Bonaparte was not cruel either by inclination or on system; he merely wanted to carry his point by the quickest and surest method. He has himself said that at that time he was obliged to get rid of both Jacobins and Royalists. The imprudence of the latter furnished him with this fatal opportunity. He seized it; and what I shall hereafter have to relate will show that it was with the coolest of calculation, or rather of sophistry, that he shed illustrious and innocent blood.

A few days after the first return of the King, the Duc de Rovigo [General Savary] presented himself at my house one morning. He then tried to clear himself from the accusations that were brought against him. He spoke to me of the death of the Duc d’Enghien. “The Emperor and I,” he said, “were deceived on that occasion. One of the inferior agents in Georges Cadoudal’s conspiracy had been suborned by my police. He came to us, and stated that one night, when all the conspirators were assembled, the secret arrival of an important chief who could not yet be named had been announced to them. A few nights later, a person appeared among them, to whom the others paid great respect. The spy described the unknown so as to give us the impression that he was a prince of the house of Bourbon. About the same time the Duc d’Enghien had established himself at Ettenheim, with the intention, no doubt, of awaiting the result of the conspiracy. The police agents wrote that he sometimes disappeared for several days together. We concluded that at these times he came to Paris, and his arrest was resolved upon. Afterward, when the spy was confronted with the persons who had been arrested, he recognized Pichegru as the important personage of whom he had spoken; and when I told this to Bonaparte he exclaimed, with a stamp of his foot, ‘Ah, the wretch! what has he made me do?’”

To return to the facts. Pichegru arrived in France on the 15th of January, 1804, and from the 25th of January was concealed in Paris. It was known that, in the year 5 of the Republic, General Moreau had denounced him to the Government for keeping up relations with the house of Bourbon. Moreau was supposed to hold Republican opinions; but he had probably then exchanged them for the idea of a constitutional monarchy. I do not know whether his family would now defend him as earnestly as they did then from the accusation of having aided the plans of the Royalists, nor do I know whether implicit confidence is to be placed on confessions made in the reign of Louis XVIII. The conduct of Moreau in 1813, and the honor paid to his memory by our princes, might, however, fairly lead us to believe that they had reason to count on him previously. At the period of which I am now speaking, Moreau was deeply irritated against Bonaparte. It has never been doubted that he visited Pichegru in secret; he certainly kept silence about the conspiracy. Some of the Royalists who were arrested at this time declared that he had merely displayed that prudent hesitation which waits to declare itself for the success of a party. Moreau, it was said, was a feeble and insignificant man, except on the field of battle, and overweighted by his reputation. “There are persons,” said Bonaparte, “who do not know how to wear their fame. The part of Monk suited Moreau perfectly. In his place I should have acted as he did, only more cleverly.”

It is not, however, in order to justify Bonaparte that I mention my doubts. Whatever was Moreau’s character, his fame was real; it ought to have been respected, and an old comrade in arms, grown discontented and embittered, ought to have been excused. A reconciliation with him, even if it had only been a result of that political calculation which Bonaparte discerned in the “Auguste” of Corneille, would still have been the wisest proceeding. But I do not doubt that Bonaparte was sincerely convinced of what he called Moreau’s moral treason, and he held that to be sufficient for the law and for justice, because he always refused to look at the true aspect of anything which was displeasing to himself. He was assured that proofs to justify the condemnation of Moreau were not wanting. He found himself committed to a line of action, and afterward he refused to recognize anything but party spirit in the equity of the tribunals; and, besides, he knew the most injurious thing which could happen to him would be that this interesting prisoner should be declared innocent. When he found himself on the point of being compromised, he would stop at nothing. From this cause arose the deplorable incidents of the famous trial. The conspiracy had been a subject of conversation for several days. On the 17th of February, 1804, I went to the Tuileries in the morning. The Consul was in the room with his wife; I was announced and shown in. Mme. Bonaparte was in great distress; her eyes were red with crying. Bonaparte was sitting near the fireplace, with little Napoleon on his knees. He looked grave, but not agitated, and was playing mechanically with the child.

“Do you know what I have done?” said he. I answered in the negative. “I have just given an order for Moreau’s arrest.” I could not repress a start. “Ah, you are astonished,” said he. “There will be a great fuss about this, will there not? Of course, it will be said that I am jealous of Moreau, that this is revenge, and other petty nonsense of the same kind. I jealous of Moreau! Why, he owes the best part of his reputation to me. It was I who left a fine army with him, and kept only recruits with myself in Italy. I wanted nothing more than to get on well with him. I certainly was not afraid of him; I am not afraid of anybody, and less of Moreau than of other people. I have hindered him from committing himself twenty times over. I warned him that there would be mischief made between us; he knew that as well as I did. But he is weak and conceited; he allows women to lead him, and the various parties have urged him.”

While he was speaking Bonaparte rose, approached his wife, and, taking her by the chin, made her hold up her head. “Ha!” he said, “every one has not got a good wife, like me. You are crying, Josephine. What for, eh? Are you frightened?” “No; but I don’t like to think of what will be said.” “What? How can that be helped?” Then, turning to me, he added, “I am not actuated by any enmity or any desire of vengeance; I have reflected deeply before arresting Moreau. I might have shut my eyes, and given him time to fly, but it would have been said that I did not dare to bring him to trial. I have the means of convicting him. He is guilty; I am the Government; the whole thing is quite simple.”

I can not tell whether the power of my old recollections is still upon me, but I confess that even at this moment I can hardly believe that when Bonaparte spoke thus he was not sincere. I have watched each stage of progress in the art of dissimulation, and I know that at that particular epoch he still retained certain accents of truthfulness, which afterward were no longer to be detected in his voice. Perhaps, however, it was only that at that time I still believed in him.

With the above words he left us, and Mme. Bonaparte told me that he remained up almost the whole of the night, debating whether or not he should have Moreau arrested, weighing the pros and cons of the measure, without any symptom of personal feeling in the matter; that then, toward daybreak, he sent for General Berthier, and after a long interview with him he determined on sending to Grosbois, whither Moreau had retired.

This event gave rise to a great deal of discussion, and opinion was much divided. General Moreau’s brother, a tribune, spoke with great vehemence at the Tribunate, and produced considerable effect. A deputation was sent up by the three representative bodies with an address of congratulation to the First Consul. In Paris, all who represented the liberal portion of the population, a section of the bourgeoisie, lawyers, and men of letters, were warmly in favor of Moreau. It was, of course, plain enough that political opposition formed an element in the interest exhibited on his behalf; his partisans agreed that they would throng the court at which he was to be brought up, and there was even a threatening whisper about what should be done if he were condemned. Bonaparte’s police informed him that there was a plot to break into Moreau’s prison. This irritated him, and his calmness began to give way. Murat, his brother-in-law, who was then Governor of Paris, hated Moreau, and took care to add to Bonaparte’s exasperation by his daily reports to him, he and Dubois, the Prefect of Police, combining together to pursue him with alarming rumors. Events, unhappily, came to the aid of their design. Each day a fresh ramification of the conspiracy was discovered, and each day Parisian society refused more obstinately than on the preceding to believe that there was any conspiracy at all. A war of opinion was being waged between Bonaparte and the Parisians.

On the 29th of February Pichegru’s hiding-place was discovered, and he was arrested, after a gallant struggle with the gendarmes. This event somewhat shook the general incredulity, but public interest still centered in Moreau. His wife’s grief assumed a rather theatrical aspect, and this also had its effect. In the mean time Bonaparte, who was ignorant of the formalities of law, found them much more tedious than he had expected. At the commencement of the affair, the Chief Judge had too readily undertaken to simplify and shorten the procedure, and now only one charge was distinctly made: that Moreau had held secret conferences with Pichegru, and had received his confidence, but without pledging himself positively to anything. This was not sufficient to secure a condemnation, which was becoming a necessity. In short, notwithstanding that great name which is mixed up in the affair, Georges Cadoudal has always been believed to have been, as at the trial he appeared to be, the real leader of the conspiracy.

It would be impossible to describe the excitement that pervaded the palace. Everybody was consulted; the most trifling conversations were repeated. One day Savary took M. de RÉmusat aside, and said, “You have been a magistrate, you know the laws; do you think the details of this affair that we are in possession of are sufficient for the information of the judges?” “No man,” replied my husband, “has ever been condemned merely because he did not reveal projects with which he was made acquainted. No doubt that is a political wrong with respect to the Government, but it is not a crime which ought to involve the penalty of death; and, if that is your sole plea, you will only have furnished Moreau with evidence damaging to yourselves.” “In that case,” said Savary, “the Chief Judge has led us into making a great blunder. It would have been better to have had a military commission.”

From the day of Pichegru’s arrest, the gates of Paris were shut, while search was made for Georges Cadoudal, who eluded pursuit with extraordinary success. FouchÉ, who laid the foundations of his new reputation on this occasion, mercilessly ridiculed the unskillfulness of the police, and his comments enraged Bonaparte, who was already angry enough; so that, when he had incurred a real danger, and saw that the Parisians were disinclined to believe the statement of the facts, he began to wish for revenge. “Judge,” said he, “whether the French can ever be governed by legal and moderate institutions: I have put down a revolutionary but useful department of the ministry, and conspiracies are immediately formed. I have foregone my own personal feelings; I have handed over the punishment of a man who intended to kill me to an authority independent of myself; and, far from giving me any thanks for all this, people laugh at my moderation, and assign corrupt motives to my conduct. I will teach them to belie my intentions. I will lay hold of all my powers again, and prove to them that I alone am made to govern, to decide, and to punish.”

Bonaparte grew more and more angry as he became aware, from moment to moment, that something was amiss with himself. He had thought to rule public opinion, but here was public opinion escaping from his hold. He had been ruled himself by it in the outset of his career, I am certain, and he had gained no credit by that; so he resolved that never again would he be so mistaken. It will seem strange, to those who do not know how utterly the wearing of a uniform destroys the habit of thinking, that not the slightest uneasiness was felt on this occasion with respect to the army. Military men do everything by word of command, and they abstain from opinions which are not prescribed to them. Very few officers remembered then that they had fought and conquered under Moreau, and the bourgeoisie was much more excited about the affair than any other class.

The Polignacs, M. de RiviÈre, and some others were arrested. Then the public began to think there really was some truth in the story of the conspiracy, and that the plot was a Royalist one. Nevertheless, the Republican party still demanded Moreau. The nobility were alarmed and kept very quiet; they condemned the imprudence of the Polignacs, who have since acknowledged that they were not seconded with so much zeal as they had been led to expect. The error into which they fell, and to which the Royalist party was always prone, was that they believed in the existence of what they desired, and acted upon their illusions. This is a mistake common to men who are led by their passions or by their vanity.

I suffered a great deal at this time. At the Tuileries the First Consul was moody and silent, his wife was frequently in tears, his family were angry; his sister exasperated him by her violent way of talking. In society opinions were divided: on the one hand were distrust, suspicion, indignant satisfaction; on the other, regret that the attempt had failed and passionate condemnation. All these contentions distracted and upset me. I shut myself up with my mother and my husband; we questioned one another about all that we heard and everything that we respectively thought. M. de RÉmusat’s steady rectitude of mind was grieved by the errors which were perpetrated; and, as his judgment was quite uninfluenced by passion, he began to dread the future, and imparted to me his sagacious and melancholy prevision of a character which he studied closely and silently. His apprehensions distressed me; the doubts which were springing up in my own mind rendered me very unhappy. Alas! the moment was drawing near when I was to be far more painfully enlightened.

AFTER the arrests which I have already recorded, there appeared in the “Moniteur” certain articles from the “Morning Chronicle,” in which it was stated that the death of Bonaparte and the restoration of Louis XVIII. were imminent. It was added that persons newly arrived from London affirmed that speculation upon these eventualities was rife on the Stock Exchange, and that Georges Cadoudal, Pichegru, and Moreau were named openly there. In the same “Moniteur” appeared a letter from an Englishman to Bonaparte, whom he addressed as “Monsieur Consul.” The purport of this letter was to recommend, as specially applicable to Bonaparte, a pamphlet written in Cromwell’s time, which tended to prove that persons such as Cromwell and himself could not be assassinated, because there was no crime in killing a dangerous animal or a tyrant. “To kill is not to assassinate in such cases,” said the pamphlet; “the difference is great.”

In France, however, addresses from all the towns and from all the regiments, and pastorals by all the Bishops, complimenting the First Consul and congratulating France on the danger which had been escaped, were forwarded to Paris; and these documents were punctually inserted in the “Moniteur.”

At length, on the 29th of March, Georges Cadoudal was arrested in the Place de l’OdÉon. He was in a cabriolet, and, perceiving that he was followed, he urged on his horse. A gendarme bravely caught the animal by the head, and was shot dead by Cadoudal; the cabriolet was, however, stopped, owing to the crowd which instantly collected at the noise of the pistol-shot, and Cadoudal was seized. Between sixty thousand and eighty thousand francs in notes were found on him, and given to the widow of the man whom he had killed. The newspapers stated that he acknowledged he had come to France for no other purpose than to assassinate Bonaparte; but I remember to have heard at the time that the prisoner, whose courage and firmness during the whole of the proceedings were unshaken, and who evinced great devotion to the house of Bourbon, steadily denied that there had ever been any purpose of assassination, while admitting that his intentions had been to attack the carriage of the First Consul, and to carry him off without harming him.

At this time the King of England (George III.) was taken seriously ill, and our Government reckoned upon his death to insure the retirement of Mr. Pitt from the ministry.

On the 21st of March the following appeared in the “Moniteur”: “Prince de CondÉ has addressed a circular to the ÉmigrÉs, with a view to collecting them on the Rhine. A prince of the house of Bourbon is now on the frontier for that purpose.”

Immediately afterward the secret correspondence that had been taken from Mr. Drake, the accredited English Minister in Bavaria, was published. These proved that the English Government was leaving no means untried of creating disturbance in France. M. de Talleyrand was directed to send copies of this correspondence to all the members of the Corps Diplomatique, and they expressed their indignation in letters which were inserted in the “Moniteur.”

Holy Week was approaching. On Passion Sunday, the 18th of March, my week of attendance on Mme. Bonaparte began. I went to the Tuileries in the morning, in time for mass, which was again celebrated with all the former pomp. After mass, Mme. Bonaparte received company in the great drawing-room, and remained for some time, talking to several persons. When we went down to her private apartments, she informed me that we were to pass that week at Malmaison. “I am very glad,” she added; “Paris frightens me just now.” Shortly afterward we set out; Bonaparte was in his own carriage, Mme. Bonaparte and myself in hers. I observed that she was very silent and sad for a part of the way, and I let her see that I was uneasy about her. At first she seemed reluctant to give me any explanation, but at length she said, “I am going to trust you with a great secret. This morning Bonaparte told me that he had sent M. de Caulaincourt to the frontier to seize the Duc d’Enghien. He is to be brought back here.” “Ah, madame,” I exclaimed, “what are they going to do with him?” “I believe,” she answered, “he will have him tried.” I do not think I have ever in my life experienced such a thrill of terror as that which her words sent through me. Mme. Bonaparte thought I was going to faint, and let down all the glasses. “I have done what I could,” she went on, “to induce him to promise me that the prince’s life shall not be taken, but I am greatly afraid his mind is made up.” “What, do you really think he will have him put to death?” “I fear so.” At these words I burst into tears, and then, so soon as I could master my emotion sufficiently to be able to speak, I urged upon her the fatal consequences of such a deed, the indelible stain of the royal blood, whose shedding would satisfy the Jacobin party only, the strong interest with which the prince inspired all the other parties, the great name of CondÉ, the general horror, the bitter animosity which would be aroused, and many other considerations. I urged every side of the question, of which Mme. Bonaparte contemplated one only. The idea of a murder was that which had struck her most strongly; but I succeeded in seriously alarming her, and she promised me that she would endeavor by every means in her power to induce Bonaparte to relinquish his fatal purpose.

We both arrived at Malmaison in the deepest dejection. I took refuge at once in my own room, where I wept bitterly. I was completely overwhelmed by this terrible discovery. I liked and admired Bonaparte; I believed him to be called by an invincible power to the highest of human destinies; I allowed my youthful imagination to run riot concerning him. All in a moment, the veil which hid the truth from my eyes was torn away, and by my own feelings at that instant I could only too accurately divine what would be the general opinion of such an act.

There was no one at Malmaison to whom I could speak freely. My husband was not in waiting, and had remained in Paris. I was obliged to control my agitation, and to make my appearance with an unmoved countenance; for Mme. Bonaparte had earnestly entreated me not to let Bonaparte divine that she had spoken to me of this matter.

On going down to the drawing-room at six o’clock, I found the First Consul playing a game of chess. He appeared quite serene and calm; it made me ill to look at his face. So completely had my mind been upset by all that had passed through it during the last two hours, that I could not regard him with the feelings which his presence usually inspired; it seemed to me that I must see some extraordinary alteration in him. A few officers dined with him. Nothing whatever of any significance occurred. After dinner he withdrew to his cabinet, where he transacted business with his police. That night, when I was leaving Mme. Bonaparte, she again promised me that she would renew her entreaties.

I joined her as early as I could on the following morning, and found her quite in despair. Bonaparte had repelled her at every point. He had told her that women had no concern with such matters; that his policy required this coup d’État; that by it he should acquire the right to exercise clemency hereafter; that, in fact, he was forced to choose between this decisive act and a long series of conspiracies which he would have to punish in detail, as impunity would have encouraged the various parties. He should have to go on prosecuting, exiling, condemning, without end; to revoke his measures of mercy toward the ÉmigrÉs; to place himself in the hands of the Jacobins. The Royalists had more than once compromised him with the revolutionists. The contemplated action would set him free from all parties alike. Besides, the Duc d’Enghien, after all, had joined in the conspiracy of Georges Cadoudal; he was a cause of disturbance to France, and a tool in the hands of England for effecting her purposes of vengeance. The prince’s military reputation might in the future prove a source of trouble in the army; whereas by his death the last link between our soldiers and the Bourbons would be broken. In politics, a death which tranquillizes a nation is not a crime. Finally, he had given his orders—he would not withdraw them; there was an end of the matter.

During this interview, Mme. Bonaparte informed her husband that he was about to aggravate the heinousness of the deed by the selection of M. de Caulaincourt, whose parents had formerly been in the household of the Prince de CondÉ, as the person who was to arrest the Duc d’Enghien. “I did not know that,” replied Bonaparte; “but what does it matter? If Caulaincourt is compromised, there is no great harm in that; indeed, it will only make him serve me all the better, and the opposite party will henceforth forgive him for being a gentleman.” He then added that M. de Caulaincourt, who had been informed of only a portion of his plan, believed that the Duc d’Enghien was to be imprisoned in France.

My heart failed me at these words. M. de Caulaincourt was a friend of mine. It seemed to me that he ought to have refused to undertake such a task as that which had been imposed upon him.

The day passed drearily. I remember that Mme. Bonaparte, who was very fond of trees and flowers, was busy during the morning superintending the transplanting of a cypress to a newly laid-out portion of her garden. She threw a few handfuls of earth on the roots of the tree, so that she might say that she had planted it with her own hands. “Ah, madame,” said I to her, as I observed her doing so, “a cypress is just the tree to suit such a day as this.” I have never passed by that cypress since without a thrill of pain.

My profound emotion distressed Mme. Bonaparte. She had great faith in all Bonaparte’s views, and, owing to her natural levity and fickleness, she excessively disliked painful or lasting impressions. Her feelings were quick, but extraordinarily evanescent. Being convinced that the death of the Duc d’Enghien was inevitable, she wanted to get rid of an unavailing regret; but I would not allow her to do so. I importuned her all day long, without ceasing. She listened to me with extreme gentleness and kindness, but in utter dejection; she knew Bonaparte better than I. I wept while talking to her; I implored her not to allow herself to be put down, and, as I was not without influence over her, I succeeded in inducing her to make a last attempt.

“Mention me to the First Consul, if necessary,” said I. “I am of very little importance, but at least he will be able to judge of the impression he is about to make by the effect upon me, and I am more attached to him than other people are. I, who would ask nothing better than to find excuses for him, can not see even one for what he intends to do.”

We saw very little of Bonaparte during the whole of that second day. The Chief Judge, the Prefect of Police, and Murat all came to Malmaison, and had prolonged audience of the First Consul; I augured ill from their countenances. I remained up a great part of the night; and when at length I fell asleep my dreams were frightful. I fancied that I heard constant movements in the chÂteau, and that a fresh attempt was about to be made upon our lives. I was possessed with a strong desire to go and throw myself at Bonaparte’s feet, and implore him to take pity upon his own fame, which I then believed to be very pure and bright, and I grieved heartily over the tarnishing of it. The hours of that night can never be effaced from my memory.

On the Tuesday morning Mme. Bonaparte said to me, “All is useless. The Duc d’Enghien arrives this evening. He will be taken to Vincennes and tried to-night. Murat has undertaken the whole. He is odious in this matter; it is he who is urging Bonaparte on, by telling him that his clemency will be taken for weakness, that the Jacobins will be furious, and one party is now displeased because the former fame of Moreau has not been taken into consideration, and will ask why a Bourbon should be differently treated. Bonaparte has forbidden me to speak to him again on the subject. He asked me about you,” she added, “and I acknowledged that I had told you everything. He had perceived your distress. Pray try to control yourself.”

At this I lost all self-restraint, and exclaimed, “Let him think what he likes of me. It matters very little to me, madame, I assure you; and if he asks me why I am weeping, I will tell him that I weep for him.” And, in fact, I again burst into tears.

Mme. Bonaparte was thrown into utter consternation by the state I was in—she was almost a stranger to any strong mental emotion; and when she tried to calm me by reassuring words I could only say to her, “Ah, madame, you do not understand me!” After this event, she said, Bonaparte would go on just as he had done before. Alas! it was not the future which was troubling me. I did not doubt his power over himself and others. The anguish that filled my whole being was interior and personal.

Dinner hour came, and she had to go down with a composed face. Mine was quite beyond my control. Again Bonaparte was playing chess: he had taken a fancy to that game. Immediately on perceiving me he called me to him, saying that he wanted to consult me. I was not able to speak. He addressed me in a tone of kindness and interest, which increased my confusion and distress. When dinner was served, he placed me near himself, and asked me a number of questions about the affairs of my family. He seemed bent on bewildering me, and hindering me from thinking. Little Napoleon (the son of Louis and Hortense) Had been brought down from Paris; and his uncle placed the child in the middle of the table, and seemed much amused when he pulled the dishes about, and upset everything within his reach.

After dinner he sat on the floor, playing with the boy, and apparently in very high spirits, but, it seemed to me, assumed. Mme. Bonaparte, who was afraid that he would have been angry at what she had told him about me, looked from him to me, smiling sweetly, as if she would have said, “You see, he is not so bad after all; we may make our minds easy.”

I hardly knew where I was. I felt as though I were dreaming a bad dream; no doubt I looked bewildered. Suddenly, fixing a piercing gaze on me, Bonaparte said, “Why have you no rouge on? You are too pale.” I answered that I had forgotten to put on any. “What!” said he, “a woman forget to put on her rouge?” And then, with a loud laugh, he turned to his wife and added, “That would never happen to you, Josephine.” I was greatly disconcerted, and he completed my discomfiture by remarking, “Two things are very becoming to women—rouge and tears.”

When General Bonaparte was in high spirits, he was equally devoid of taste and moderation, and on such occasions his manners smacked of the barrack-room. He went on for some time jesting with his wife with more freedom than delicacy, and then challenged me to a game of chess. He did not play well, and never would observe the correct “moves.” I allowed him to do as he liked; every one in the room kept silence. Presently he began to mutter some lines of poetry, and then repeated a little louder, “Soyons amis, Cinna,” and Guzman’s lines in Act v. Scene vii. of “Alzire”:

“Des dieux que nous servons connais la diffÉrence:

Les tiens t’ont commandÉ le meurtre et la vengeance:

Et le mien, quand ton bras vient de m’assassiner,

M’ordonne de te plaindre et de te pardonner.”