ETIQUETTE OF THE EMPEROR’S COURT.—CIRCUMSTANCE THAT TOOK PLACE AT TARARE.—OFFICERS OF STATE.—CHAMBERLAINS.—UNEQUALLED SPLENDOUR OF THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES.—ADMIRABLE REGULATION OF THE PALACE.—THE EMPEROR’S LEVEES.—DINING IN STATE.—THE COURT AND THE CITY.
5th.—To-day the Emperor conversed a great deal about this Court and the etiquette observed in it. The following is the substance of what fell from him on this subject.
At the period of the Revolution, the Courts of Spain and Naples still imitated the ceremony and grandeur of Louis XIV., mingled with the pomp and exaggeration of the Castilians and Moors. They were insipid and ridiculous. The court of St. Petersburg had assumed the tone and forms of the drawing-room; that of Vienna had become quite citizen-like; and there no longer remained any vestige of the wit, the grace, and the good taste of the Court of Versailles.
When, therefore, Napoleon attained the sovereign power, he found a clear road before him, and he had an opportunity of forming a Court according to his own taste. He was desirous of adopting a rational medium by accommodating the dignity of the throne to modern customs, and, particularly, by making the creation of a Court contribute to improve the manners of the great, and promote the industry of the mass of the people. It certainly was no easy matter to re-construct a throne on the very spot where a reigning monarch had been judicially executed, and where the people had constitutionally sworn hatred to kings. It was not easy to restore dignities, titles, and decorations, among a people who for the space of fifteen years had waged a war of proscription against them. Napoleon, however, who seemed always to possess the power of effecting what he wished, perhaps because he had the art of wishing for what was just and proper, after a great struggle, surmounted all these difficulties. When he became Emperor, he created a class of nobility, and formed a Court. Victory seemed all on a sudden to do her utmost to consolidate and shed a lustre over this new order of things. All Europe acknowledged the Emperor; and at one period it might have been said that all the Courts of the Continent had flocked to Paris to add to the splendour of the Tuileries, which was the most brilliant and numerous Court ever seen. There was a continued series of parties, balls, and entertainments; and the Court was always distinguished for extraordinary magnificence and grandeur. The person of the sovereign was alone remarkable for extreme simplicity, which, indeed, was a characteristic that served to distinguish him amidst the surrounding splendour. He encouraged all this magnificence, he said, from motives of policy, and not because it accorded with his own taste. It was calculated to encourage manufactures and national industry. The ceremonies and festivities which took place on the marriage of the Empress and the birth of the King of Rome, far surpassed any which had preceded them, and probably will never again be equalled.
The Emperor endeavoured to establish, in his foreign relations, every thing that was calculated to place him in harmony with the other Courts of Europe; but at home he constantly tried to adapt old forms to new manners.
He established the levers and couchers of the old kings of France; but with him they were merely nominal, and did not exist in reality, as in former times. Instead of being occupied in the most minute and indelicate details of the toilet, these hours under the Emperor were, in fact, appropriated to receiving in the morning and dismissing in the evening, such persons of his household as had to receive orders directly from him, and who were privileged to pay their court to him at those times.
The Emperor also established special presentations to his person and admission to his Court: but instead of making noble birth the only means of securing these honours, the title for obtaining them was founded solely on the combined bases of fortune, influence, and public services.
Napoleon, moreover, created titles, the qualifications for which were nearly similar to those of the old feudal system. These titles, however, possessed no real value, and were established for an object purely national. Those which were unaccompanied by any prerogatives or privileges might be enjoyed by persons of any rank or profession, and were bestowed as rewards for all kinds of services. The Emperor observed that abroad they had the useful effect of appearing to be an approximation to the old manners of Europe, while at the same time they served as a toy for amusing the vanities of many individuals at home; “for,” said he, “how many superior men are children oftener than once a day!”
The Emperor revived decorations of honour, and distributed crosses and ribands. But instead of confining them to particular and exclusive classes, he extended them to society in general as rewards for every kind of talent and public service. By a happy privilege, perhaps peculiar to Napoleon, it happened that the value of these honours was enhanced in proportion to the number distributed. He estimated that he had conferred about 25,000 decorations of the Legion of Honour; and the desire to obtain the honour, he said, increased until it became a kind of mania.
After the battle of Wagram, he sent the decoration of the Legion of Honour to the Archduke Charles, and, by a refinement in compliment, peculiar to Napoleon, he sent him merely the silver cross, which was worn by the private soldiers.
The Emperor said that it was only by acting strictly and voluntarily in conformity with these maxims that he had become the real national monarch; and an adherence to the same course would have rendered the fourth dynasty the truly constitutional one. Of these facts, said he, the people of the lowest rank frequently evinced an instinctive knowledge.
The Emperor related the following anecdote:—On returning from his coronation in Italy, as he approached the environs of Lyons, he found all the population assembled on the roads to see him pass, and he took a fancy to ascend the hill of Tarare alone. He gave orders that nobody should follow him, and, mingling with the crowd, he accosted an old woman, and asked what all the bustle was about. She replied, that the Emperor was expected. After some little conversation he said to her: “My good woman, formerly you had the tyrant Capet; now you have the tyrant Napoleon; what have you gained by the change?” The force of this argument disconcerted the old woman for a moment; but she immediately recollected herself, and replied, “Pardon me, sir, there is a great difference. We ourselves chose this one; but we got the other by chance.” “The old woman was right,” said the Emperor, “and she exhibited more instinctive good sense than many men who are possessed of great information and talent.”
The Emperor surrounded himself with great Crown officers. He established a numerous household of chamberlains, equerries, &c. He selected persons to fill these offices indiscriminately from among those whom the Revolution had elevated, and from the ancient families which it had ruined. The former considered themselves as standing on ground which they had acquired; the latter on that which they thought they had recovered. The Emperor had in view, by this mixture of persons, the extinction of hatred and the amalgamation of parties. He observed, however, that it was easy to perceive a variety of manners. The individuals belonging to the ancient families performed their duties with the greatest courtesy and assiduity. A Madame de Montmorency would have stooped down to tie the Empress’s shoes; a lady of the new school would have hesitated to do this, lest she should be taken for a real waiting-woman; but Madame de Montmorency had no such apprehension. These posts of honour were for the most part without emolument; they were even attended with expense. But they brought the individuals who filled them daily under the eye of the Sovereign—of an all-powerful Sovereign, the source of honour and emoluments; and who had declared that he would not have the lowest officer in his household solicit a favour from any one but himself.
At the time of his marriage with the Empress Maria-Louisa, the Emperor made an extensive recruit of chamberlains from among the highest ranks of the old aristocracy; this he did with the view of proving to Europe that there existed but one party in France, and rallying round the Empress those individuals whose names must have been familiar to her. It is understood that the Emperor even hesitated whether or not to select the lady of honour from that class; but his fear lest the Empress, with whose character he was unacquainted, might be imbued with prejudices respecting birth, that might too much elate the old party, induced him to make another choice.
From this moment until the period of our disasters, the most ancient and illustrious families eagerly solicited places in the household of the Emperor; and how could it be otherwise? The Emperor governed the world: he had raised France and the French people above the level of other nations. Power, glory, constituted his retinue. Happy were they who inhaled the atmosphere of the Imperial Court. To be immediately connected with the Emperor’s person, furnished, both abroad and at home, a title to consideration, homage, and respect.
Upon the Restoration, a royalist, who had preserved himself pure, and in whose sight I had found grace, said to me, in the most serious tone, (for, what a difference in ideas does not difference of party produce!) that with my name, and the openness of conduct I had maintained, I ought not to despair of still obtaining a situation near the King, or in the household of some of the Princes or Princesses. How greatly was he astonished when I replied:—“My friend, I have rendered that impossible: I have served the most powerful master upon earth: I cannot in future, without degradation, stand in the same relation to any other. Know, that when we conveyed the orders of the Emperor to a distance, into foreign Courts, wearing his uniform, we considered ourselves, and were every where treated, as upon an equality with princes. He has presented to us the spectacle of not fewer than seven Kings waiting in his saloons, in the midst of us, and with us. On his marriage, four Queens bore the robe of the Empress, of whom, moreover, one of us was the Gentleman Usher, another the Equerry. Believe then, my friend, that a noble ambition is perfectly satisfied with such honours.”
Besides, the magnificence and splendour that composed this unexampled Court, rested on a system and a regularity of administration that has excited the astonishment and admiration of those who have searched amid its wrecks. The Emperor himself inspected the accounts several times in the course of the year. All his mansions were found to be repaired and decorated: they contained nearly forty millions in household furniture, besides four millions in plate. If he had enjoyed a few years of peace, imagination can scarcely fix limits, he said, to what he would have accomplished.
The Emperor said he had conceived an excellent idea, which he was much grieved at not having put in execution: it was to have commissioned some persons to collect the most important petitions. “They should have named, every day,” said he, “three or four individuals from the provinces, who would have been admitted to my levee, and have explained their business to me in person; I would have discussed it with them immediately, and administered justice to them without delay.”
I observed to the Emperor that the Commission he had created at a very early period, under the name of “Commission of Petitions,” came very near the idea in question, and was, in fact, productive of much good. I was President of it on his return from Elba, and in the first month I had already done justice to more than four thousand petitions. “It is true,” I observed, “that circumstances originally, and custom afterwards, had never allowed this establishment to enjoy the most valuable prerogative with which its organization had been endowed, that which would undoubtedly have produced the greatest effect on public opinion; namely to present to him officially, at his great audience on Sunday, the result of the week’s labours.” But the nature of things, the constant expeditions of the Emperor, and, above all, the jealousy of the Ministers, had concurred to deprive the Commission of this high privilege.
The Emperor said, also, he was sorry he had not established it as part of the etiquette of the Court that all persons who had been presented, females particularly, who had any claim to obtain an audience of him, should have the unquestioned right of entering the ante-chamber. The Emperor, passing through it several times in the day, might have taken the opportunity to satisfy some of their requests; and might in this manner have spared the refusal of audiences, or the loss of time occasioned by them. The Emperor had hesitated for some time, he said, about re-establishing the grand couvert of the kings of France, that is, the dining in public, every Sunday, of the whole Imperial family. He asked our opinion of it. We differed. Some approved of it, represented this family spectacle as beneficial to public morals, and fitted to produce the best[best] effects on public spirit; besides, said they, it afforded means for every individual to see his Sovereign. Others opposed it, objecting that this ceremony involved something of divine right and feudality, of ignorance and servility, which had no place in our habits or the modern dignity of them. They might go to see the Sovereign at the church or the theatre: there they joined at least in the performance of his religious duties, or took part in his pleasures; but to go to see him eat was only to bring ridicule on both parties. The sovereignty having now become, as the Emperor had so well said, a magistracy, should only be seen in full activity; conferring favours, redressing injuries, transacting business, reviewing armies, and above all, divested of the infirmities and the wants of human nature, &c.... Its utility, its benefits, should form its new charm: the image of the sovereign should be present continually and unlooked-for, like Providence. Such was the new school:—such had been ours.
“Well,” said the Emperor, “it may be true that the circumstances of the time should have limited this ceremony to the Imperial heir, and only during his youth; for he was the child of the whole nation; he ought to become thenceforth the object of the sentiments and the sight of all.”
On his return from Elba, the Emperor said he had an idea of dining every Sunday in the Galerie de Diane[Galerie de Diane] with four or five hundred guests: this, said he, would undoubtedly have produced a great effect on the public, particularly at the time of the Champ de Mai, on the assembling of the Deputies from the departments at Paris; but the rapidity and the importance of business prevented it. Besides, he was apprehensive, perhaps, that there might have been observed in this measure too great an affectation of popularity, and that his enemies abroad might give it the semblance of fear on his part.
It is the custom, said the Emperor, to talk of the influence of the tone and manners of the Court upon those of a nation; he was far from having brought about any such result; but it was the fault of circumstances and of several unperceived combinations: he had reflected much on the subject, and he thought that it would have been accomplished in time.
“The Court,” he continued, “taken collectively, does not exert this influence; it is only because its elements, those who compose it, go to communicate, each in his own sphere of action, that which they have collected from the common source; the tone of the Court, then, is not infused into a whole nation, but through intermediate societies. Now, we had no such societies, nor could we yet have them. Those delightful assemblies, where one enjoys so fully the advantages of civilization, suddenly disappear at the approach of revolutions, and are re-established but slowly, when the tempests dissipate. The indispensable bases of society are indolence and luxury; but we were all still in a state of agitation, and great fortunes were not yet firmly established. A great number of theatres, a multitude of public establishments, moreover, presented pleasures more ready, less constrained, and more exciting. The women of the day, taken collectively, were young; they liked better to be out, and to shew themselves in public, than to remain at home and compose a narrower circle. But they would have grown old, and with a little time and tranquillity, every[every] thing would have fallen into its natural course. And then again,” he observed, “it would perhaps be an error to judge of a modern Court by the remembrance of the old ones. The power certainly resided in the old Courts; they said, the Court and the City;—at the present day, if we desired to speak correctly, we were obliged to say the City and the Court. The feudal lords, since they have lost their power, seek to make themselves amends in their enjoyments. Sovereigns themselves seemed to be, for the future, subjected to this law: the throne, with our liberal ideas, insensibly ceased to be a signory, and became purely a magistracy; the Prince having only a simple practical character to sustain, always sufficiently dull and tedious in the long run, must seek to withdraw from it, to come as a mere citizen, and take his share in the pleasures of society.”
Among a great number of new measures projected by the Emperor for a more tranquil futurity, his favourite idea had been, peace being obtained and repose secured, to devote his life to purifying the administration and to local meliorations; to be occupied in perpetual tours in the departments: he would have visited, not hurried over; sojourned, not posted through: he would have used his own horses, would have been surrounded by the Empress, the King of Rome, his whole Court. At the same time he wished this great equipage not to be burdensome to any, but rather a benefit to all: a suite of tapestry hangings and all the other appendages, following the train, would have furnished and decorated his places of rest. The other persons of the Court, he said, would have been quartered on the citizens, who would have looked upon their guests as a benefit rather than a burden, because they would always have been the sure means of their acquiring some advantage or some favours. “It is thus,” he continued, “that I should have been able in every place to prevent frauds, punish misappropriations, direct edifices, bridges, roads; drain marshes, fertilize lands, &c.—If Heaven had then,” he continued, “granted me a few years, I would certainly have made Paris the capital of the world, and all France a real fairy-land.” He often repeated these last words: how many people have already said this, or will repeat it after him!
SET OF CHESSMEN FROM CHINA.—PRESENTATION OF
THE CAPTAINS OF THE CHINA FLEET.
6th.—The Emperor mounted his horse at seven o’clock: he told me to call my son to accompany us; this was a great favour. During our ride the Emperor dismounted five or six times to observe, with the help of a glass, some vessels that were in sight: he ascertained one to be a Dutchman; the three colours are always, with us, an object of lively emotion. On one of these occasions, the most mettlesome horse in the company got loose, and occasioned a long pursuit; my son came up with him, brought him back in triumph, and the Emperor observed that in a tournament this would be a victory.
On our return, the Emperor breakfasted within doors: he detained us all.
Before and after breakfast, the Emperor conversed with me in private on serious matters which I cannot trust to paper.
The heat was become excessive: he retired. It was half-past four when he sent for me again; he was finishing dressing. The Doctor brought him a set of chessmen, which he had been buying on board the vessels from China; the Emperor had wished to have one. For this he had paid thirty Napoleons: it was an object of great admiration with the worthy Doctor; and, at the same time, nothing seemed more ridiculous to the Emperor. All the pieces, instead of resembling ours, were coarse and clumsy images of the figures indicated by the names: thus, a knight was armed at all points, and the castle rested on an enormous elephant, &c. The Emperor could not make use of them, saying, pleasantly, that every piece would require a crane to move it.
In the mean time many officers and others employed in the China fleet were sauntering in the garden. Their curiosity had led them some hours before to our dwelling; we had been literally invaded in our chambers. One said, the pride of his life would be to have seen Napoleon: another, that he durst not appear in his wife’s presence in England, if he could not tell her that he had been fortunate enough to behold his features; another, that he would willingly forego all the profits of his voyage for a single glance, &c.
The Emperor caused them to be admitted: it would be difficult to describe their satisfaction and joy: they had not ventured to expect or to hope for so much. The Emperor, according to custom, proposed many questions to them concerning China, its commerce, its inhabitants: their revenues, their manners; the missionaries, &c. He detained them above half an hour, before he dismissed them. At their departure we described to him the enthusiasm we had witnessed in these officers, and repeated all that had fallen from them relative to him. “I believe it,” said he; “you do not perceive that they are our friends. All that you have observed in them belongs to the commonalty of England—the natural enemies, perhaps without giving themselves credit for it, of their old and insolent Aristocracy.”
At dinner the Emperor ate little; he was unwell: after coffee, he attempted a game at chess, but he was too much inclined to sleep, and retired almost immediately.