CAMPAIGN OF ITALY.—THE EMPEROR’S OPINION OF GENERAL
DROUOT.—ON THE BATTLE OF HOHENLINDEN.
26th.—The Emperor sent for me and my son, and set us to look over the Moniteur, for the purpose of comparing and completing the manuscript of the Campaigns of Italy.
The Emperor, though he had announced his intention of doing so, had not yet resumed his dictations, and I rejoiced at a circumstance which promised at length to excite renewed interest.
Our business was to select from the Moniteur all the reports and official letters, for the purpose of vouchers. The Emperor wished them to be properly classed, and desired us to make an estimate of their extent, in order that he might be able to calculate at once the space they would occupy when printed, reminding me at the same time that these were henceforth my own affairs; that I should only be serving myself for the future. Delightful words, to which the tone of his voice, his familiar air, and his whole expression, imparted even more value than was conveyed in their meaning!
To-day, during dinner, the Emperor again reviewed the character of his Generals. He passed an eulogium on several of them, the greater number of whom are now no more. He bestowed the highest praise on the talents of General Drouot. Every thing in life is a problem, said he; it is only by what is known that we can come at what is unknown. He observed that he knew to a certainty that General Drouot possessed every quality necessary to make a great General. He had sufficient reasons for supposing him superior to many of his Marshals. He had no hesitation in believing him capable of commanding 100,000 men. “And perhaps,” added he, “he was far from thinking so himself, which, after all, can only be regarded as an additional good quality.”
He again alluded to the prodigious valour of Murat and Ney, whose courage, he said, so often outstripped their judgment. Such is the enigma, said he, of certain actions in certain individuals: the inequality between disposition and understanding explains all.
The conversation turned on the battle of Hohenlinden. The Emperor remarked that “it was one of those great triumphs that are brought about by chance, and obtained without plan. Moreau, he repeated, was destitute of invention; he was not sufficiently decided; and, therefore, he was most fit to be employed on the defensive. Hohenlinden was a confused sort of affair; the enemy had been unexpectedly attacked amidst his own operations, and was conquered by troops whom he had already broken and nearly destroyed. The merit rested chiefly with the troops and generals of the partial corps, who had been most exposed to danger, and who had fought like heroes.”
When speaking of the campaigns of Italy, we observed to the Emperor that the rapid succession of his daily victories, which filled the mouth of fame, must have been a source of great delight to him.—"By no means," replied he. “At least they were supposed to have been so by those who were at a distance from the scene of conflict.”—"That may be; those who were at a distance knew only our success; they knew nothing of our situation. If those victories could have procured me pleasure, I should have enjoyed repose. But I had always the aspect of danger before me, and the victory of to-day was speedily forgotten through the obligation of gaining another to-morrow."
I recollect having heard a distinguished General (Lamarque) deliver a very characteristic opinion of Moreau. Lamarque had been much attached to Moreau, and had for a long time served under him. He was endeavouring to make me understand the different tactics of Moreau and Napoleon. He said:—"Had their two armies been in presence, and there had been sufficient time to move, I would have entered the ranks of Moreau, which were sure to be managed with the utmost regularity, precision, and calculation. On these points, it was impossible to excel, or even to equal, Moreau. But if the two armies had to approach from points a hundred leagues distant from each other, the Emperor would have routed his adversary three, four, or five times over, before the latter could have had time to look about him."
ANNOYANCE FROM RATS.—LORD CASTLEREAGH’S IMPOSTURES.—FRENCH
HEIRESSES.
Thursday, 27th.—We had nearly gone without our breakfast: an incursion of the rats, which had entered our kitchen from several points, during the night, had deprived us of every thing eatable. We are much infested with these vermin; they are of enormous size, and very daring and mischievous; it took them very little time to penetrate our walls and floors. Attracted by the smell of the victuals, they even made their way into our drawing-room whilst we were at dinner. We were several times obliged to give them battle after the dessert; and one evening, when the Emperor wished to retire, and his hat was handed to him, a rat of the largest size jumped out of it. Our grooms had tried to rear some poultry, but they were compelled to abandon the attempt, because the rats devoured all the fowls. They would even seize them in the night on their perches.
The Emperor was this day translating some review or journal, in which it was mentioned that Lord Castlereagh had asserted at a public meeting that Napoleon, even since his fall, had not hesitated to declare that, so long as he should have reigned, he would have continued to make war against England, having never had any object but that of her destruction.
The Emperor could not help feeling provoked by these words. “Lord Castlereagh,” said he, with indignation, “must be much accustomed to lying, and must place great dependence on the credulity of his auditors. Can their own good sense allow them to believe that I could ever make such a foolish speech, even if I had had such intentions!”
It was afterwards stated that Lord Castlereagh had said, in parliament, that the reason why the French army was so much attached to Bonaparte was that he made a kind of conscription of all the heiresses of the empire, and then distributed them amongst his generals. “Here again,” observed the Emperor, “Lord Castlereagh tells a wilful falsehood. He came amongst us; he had an opportunity of seeing our manners and laws, and of knowing the truth; he must be certain that such a thing was quite impracticable and out of my power. What does he take our nation for? The French were never capable of submitting to such tyranny. I have, no doubt, made a great number of matches; and I would gladly have made thousands more; it was one of the most effectual methods of amalgamating and uniting irreconcileable factions. If I had had more time to myself, I would have taken great pains to extend these unions to the provinces, and even to the Confederation of the Rhine, in order to strengthen the connection of those distant portions of the empire with France; but in such proceedings, I exerted only my influence, and never my authority. Lord Castlereagh disregards such distinctions; it is important to his policy to render me odious; he is not scrupulous about the means; he does not shrink from any calumny; he has every advantage over me. I am in chains; he has taken all possible precautions for keeping my mouth shut, and preventing the possibility of my making any reply, and I am a thousand leagues from the scene of action; his position is commanding; nothing stands in his way. But certainly this conduct is the ne plus ultra of impudence, baseness, and cowardice.”
I shall now introduce an instance which may serve to prove the truth of the foregoing assertion of Napoleon with respect to French heiresses. I had the account from the lips of the person chiefly interested.
M. d’Aligre had a daughter who was heiress to immense property: the Emperor conceived the idea of marrying her to M. de Caulaincourt, Duke of Vicenza, for whom he had such a particular regard that he was looked upon as a kind of favourite. His personal qualities, not less than his high official employment, rendered him one of the first personages in the empire. The Emperor, therefore, never imagined that there could be the slightest impediment to this union. He sent for M. d’Aligre, who often came to Court, and made his request; but M. d’Aligre had other views, and declined the alliance. Napoleon urged it in every possible way, but M. d’Aligre remained immoveable. From his manner of relating the affair to me, it was evident that he thought he had shewn great courage, and, in fact, he deserved the credit of having done so, for he imagined, like all of us, that it was very dangerous to thwart the Emperor’s inclinations. We were, however, all mistaken; we did not know Napoleon. I am now convinced that the justice due to individuals, and to family rights in particular, are sacred to him; and I never heard that M. d’Aligre suffered any inconvenience whatever through his refusal.
After dinner, the Emperor tried some of Pigault Le Brun’s romances and others of the same kind, but in vain: after turning over a few pages of each, he rejected them all, saying that they were all in very bad taste.
THE GOVERNOR’S STATEMENTS RESPECTING THE
EXPENSES AT LONGWOOD, &C.
Friday, 28th.—Towards one o’clock, the Emperor sent for me and my son. We carried him the first chapter of the Campaigns of Italy, with our last work completing it. He detained us until almost six o’clock.
The Governor had paid a visit to the Grand Marshal, and in a vague manner given him reason to expect some reductions at Longwood. He had stated, with some simplicity, that it had been expected at London that the permission which had been offered us to return to Europe would have greatly diminished the Emperor’s domestic circle. He had also said, without being well understood by the Grand Marshal, that, if we had any private property, we might avail ourselves of our own money, by drawing upon our own funds, as I had already done. His government, he said, had never intended to allow the Emperor more than a table for four persons daily at most, and company to dine once a-week. What a statement! Is it possible that he meant to insinuate that, with respect to us, we ought to pay for our maintenance, and contribute, for the future, to the expenses of the establishment? Let it not be thought incredible: we daily learn here to believe that there is nothing impossible.
The Emperor, afterwards, reverting to a book which he had been reading, and in which there was a story of an Irish lady, respecting whom Goldsmith had abused him violently, recollected well, he said, that, being at Bayonne at the chateau de Marrach, when the city of Bourdeaux gave him a fête, he saw, by the side of the Empress Josephine, a charming face of the most perfect beauty, with which he was forcibly struck. The impression she had made did not pass unperceived. It had been anticipated and brought about designedly. “God knows,” said the Emperor, “with what intention. She was a Miss ——, afterwards Madame ——, a new reader to the Empress Josephine, whom she attended to the chateau de Marrach, and might very possibly have had great success. She already occupied my thoughts, when M. de Lavalette, who was at the head of the secret department of the post-office, destroyed the charm. He sent, direct to me, a letter addressed to this young lady. It was from her mother, or her aunt, an Irishwoman, and contained minute directions for the part she was to play, and particularly urged her by all means to contrive to secure such a living pledge as might prolong her empire, or at least secure her great influence. On reading this,” said the Emperor, “all illusion vanished. The coarseness of the intrigue, the turpitude of the details, the style, the hand which had written the letter; but, above all, her being a foreigner, produced immediate disgust; and the pretty little Irish girl was, in fact, as Goldsmith says, put into a post-chaise and suddenly packed off to Paris. And here I find,” continued Napoleon, “a libel imputing this to me as a crime, when, in fact, it was much rather a virtue in me; an act of continence, of which I might, perhaps, boast with much more reason than the famous Scipio. But this is the way in which history is written.”
After dinner, when we were debating what we should read, the Emperor said that, since we confessed we had not wit enough to relate each his tale or story, we ought at least to be condemned to choose, by turns, our evening’s reading; and he began by naming for his part, the poem De la Pitié, by the Abbé Delille. He thought the verses good, the language pure, the ideas pleasing; nevertheless, he observed, it was destitute of imagination or warmth. It was, undoubtedly, superior in versification to Voltaire; but still far beneath our other great masters.
Saturday, 29th.—The Emperor breakfasted in the garden, and invited us all. After breakfast he took an airing in the calash. He was in good spirits, and rallied us all in our turns. One he complimented on the beauty and elegance of his apartments, another on the sums which the Governor had paid for him, and which would soon be increased by a handsome stock of child-bed linen; me he congratulated on the taste which the Governor seemed to have for my bills of exchange, which had induced his Excellency to wish the rest to draw bills likewise. He laughed, and was highly amused with our remarks on each other. The weather suddenly changed and obliged him to return home.
After dinner, the Emperor read some passages of Milton, translated by the Abbé Delille. He thought the versification very inferior to the poem De la Pitié; and, in fact, it was a work prescribed to the author, written during his emigration, whilst at London, and published by subscription.
During the whole of our morning’s ride, the conversation turned on our kings and their mistresses: Mesdames de Montespan, de Pompadour, Dubarry, &c. The principle was warmly discussed, opinions differed, and were obstinately defended. The Emperor amused himself with fluctuating alternately from one opinion to another. He concluded, however, by deciding in favour of morality.