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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.

MDCCCXXXVI.

ANDOVER:

STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY B. BENSLEY.

MEMOIRS

OF

THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON.

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 domaine de l’extraordinaire: all these were my own. What is become of them?—They were poured out in the distresses of the country. Let them contemplate me here: I live destitute upon my rock. My fortune was wholly in that of France. In the extraordinary situation to which fate had raised me, my treasures were her’s: I had identified myself completely with her destinies. What other calculation was consistent with the height to which I had risen? Was I ever seen occupied about my personal interests? I never knew any other enjoyment, any other riches, than those of the public;—so much so, that when Josephine, who had a taste for the Arts, succeeded under the sanction of my name in acquiring some master-pieces, though they were in my palace, under my eyes, in my family apartments, they offended me, I thought myself robbed: they were not in the Museum.

“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 establishment[establishment] 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 Jacquerie. If there are any means of governing with a Constitution, well and good..... I wished for the empire of the world; and, to insure it, unlimited power was necessary to me. To govern France only, a Constitution may be better.... I wished for the empire of the world, and who in my situation would not have wished for it? The world invited me to govern it: sovereigns and subjects vied with each other in hastening beneath my sceptre. I have rarely found any opposition in France; but I have, however, met with more from some obscure unarmed Frenchmen, than from all those kings, so vain at present of no longer having a popular man for their equal.... Consider, then, what seems to you to be possible. Give me your ideas. Free elections, public discussions, responsible ministers, liberty, all this is my wish.... The liberty of the press in particular: to stifle it is absurd—I am satisfied upon this point.... I am the man of the people, if the people sincerely wish for liberty: I owe it to them. I have recognised their sovereignty; I am bound to lend an ear to their desires, even to their caprices. I never desired to oppress them for my own gratification. I had great designs, fate has decided them; I am no longer a conqueror, I can no more become so. I know what is possible and what is not; I have now but once charge—to relieve France, and to give her a government that is suited to her.... I am not inimical to liberty: I set it aside when it obstructed my road; but I comprehend it, I have been educated in its principles.... At the same time, the work of fifteen years is destroyed; it cannot begin again. It would require twenty years, and the sacrifice of two millions of men.... Besides I am desirous of peace, and I shall obtain it only by dint of victories. I will not hold out false hopes to you; I cause reports to be circulated that negotiations are on foot; but there are none. I foresee a difficult contest, a long war. To maintain it, the nation must support me; but in return, it will require liberty,—and it shall have it.... The situation is new. I desire no better than to receive information; I grow old; a man is no longer at forty-five what he was at thirty. The repose of a constitutional monarch may be well suited to me. It will assuredly be still more suitable to my son.’”

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.”