POLITICAL EXAMINATION OF CONSCIENCE.—FAITHFUL STATEMENT OF THE CONDITION AND PROSPERITY OF THE EMPIRE.—LIBERAL IDEAS OF THE EMPEROR ON THE INDIFFERENCE OF PARTIES.—MARMONT.—MURAT.—BERTHIER.
27th.—This day the Emperor was walking in the garden with the Grand Marshal and me. The conversation led us to make our political self-examination.
The Emperor said that he had been very warm and sincere at the commencement of the Revolution; that he had cooled by degrees, in proportion as he acquired more just and solid ideas. His patriotism had sunk under the political absurdities and monstrous domestic excesses of our legislatures. Finally, his republican faith had vanished on the violation of the choice of the people, by the Directory, at the time of the battle of Aboukir.
The Grand Marshal said that, for his part, he had never been a republican; but a very warm constitutionalist until the 10th of August, the horrors of which day had cured him of all illusion. He had very nearly been massacred in defending the King at the Tuileries.
As for me, it was notorious that I had begun my career as a pure and most ardent royalist. “Why, then, it seems, gentlemen,” humorously observed the Emperor, “that I am the only one amongst us who has been a republican.”—"And something more, Sire," Bertrand and I both replied.—"Yes," repeated the Emperor, “republican and patriot.”—"And I have been a patriot, Sire," replied one of us, “notwithstanding my royalism; but, what is still more extraordinary, I did not become so till the period of the Imperial reign.”—"How! rogue!—are you compelled to own that you did not always love your country?"—"Sire, we are making our political self-examination, are we not? I confess my sins. When I returned to Paris, by virtue of your amnesty, could I at first look upon myself as a Frenchman, when every law, every decree, every ordinance that covered the walls, constantly added the most opprobrious epithets to my unlucky denomination of Emigrant. Nor did I think of remaining, when I first arrived. I had been attracted by curiosity, yielding to the invincible influence of one’s native land, and the desire of breathing the air of one’s country. I now possessed nothing there: in order to be allowed only to see France once more, I had been compelled, at the frontier, to swear to the relinquishment of my patrimony, to accede to the laws which decreed its loss; and I looked on myself as a mere traveller in that country once mine. I was a true foreigner, discontented and even malevolent. The empire came; it was a great event. Now," said I, “my manners, prejudices, and principles triumph; the only difference is in the person of the sovereign. When the campaign of Austerlitz opened, my heart, with surprise, found itself once more French. My situation was painful; I felt as if torn limb from limb; I was divided between blind passion and national sentiment: the triumphs of the French army and their general displeased me; yet their defeat would have humbled me. At length, the prodigies of Ulm, and the splendour of Austerlitz, put an end to my embarrassment. I was vanquished by glory.—I admired, I acknowledged, I loved Napoleon; and from that moment I became French to enthusiasm. Henceforth I have had no other thoughts, spoken no other language, felt no other sentiments; and here I am by your side.”
The Emperor then asked innumerable questions relative to the Emigrants, their numbers, and disposition. I related many curious facts respecting our princes, the Duke of Brunswick, and the King of Prussia. I made him laugh at the extravagance of our presumption, our unbounded confidence of success, the disorder of our affairs, the incapacity of our leaders. “Men,” said I, “really were not at that time what they have since been. Fortunately, those with whom we had to contend were, at first, only our equals in strength. Above all, we thought, and repeated to one another, that an immense majority of the French nation was on our side; and, for my part, I firmly believed it. I soon had, however, an opportunity of being undeceived; when our parties having arrived at Verdun, and beyond it, not a single person came to join us; on the contrary, every one fled at our approach. Nevertheless I still believed it, even after my return from England; so greatly did we deceive ourselves afterwards with the absurdities that we related to each other. We said that the government was vested in a handful of people; that it was maintained by force alone; that it was detested by the nation; and there must be some who have never ceased to think so. I am persuaded that, amongst those who now talk in that manner in the Legislative Body, there are some who speak as they think; so perfectly do I recognise the spirit, the ideas, and the expressions of Coblentz.”—“But at what period were you undeceived?” said the Emperor.—“Very late, Sire. Even when I rallied, and came to your Court, I was led much more by admiration and sentiment, than by conviction of your strength and stability. However, when I came into your Council of State, seeing the freedom with which the most decisive decrees were voted, without a single thought of the slightest resistance; seeing around me nothing but conviction and entire persuasion, it then appeared to me that your power, and the state of affairs, gained strength with a rapidity that I could not account for. By pondering on the cause of this change, I at length made a great and important discovery; namely, that matters had long stood thus, but that I had neither known, nor been willing to perceive, it; I had hid my head under the bushel, lest the light should reach my eyes. Now that I found myself forced into the midst of its brightness, I was dazzled by it. From that moment, all my prejudices fell to the ground; the film was taken from my eyes.
“Being afterwards sent by your Majesty on a mission, and having traversed more than sixty departments, I employed the most scrupulous attention and the most perfect sincerity in ascertaining the truth of which I had so long doubted. I interrogated the prefects, the inferior authorities; I caused documents and registers to be produced to me; I questioned private individuals without being known to them; I employed all possible means of trying the truth of my conclusions, and I remained fully convinced that the government was completely national, and founded in the will of the people; that France had, at no period of her history, been more powerful, more flourishing, better governed, or more happy; the roads had never been better maintained; agriculture had increased by a tenth, a ninth, perhaps an eighth in its productions.[[4]] A restlessness, a general ardour animated all minds to exertion, and inspired them to aim at a daily personal improvement. Indigo was gained; sugar would inevitably be so. Never, at any period, had internal commerce and industry of every species, been carried to such a pitch; instead of four millions of livres in cotton, which were used at the Revolution, more than thirty millions were now manufactured, although we could obtain none by sea, and received it over-land from the distance of Constantinople. Rouen was become quite a prodigy in production. The taxes were everywhere paid; the Conscription was nationalized; France, instead of being exhausted, contained a more numerous population than before, and was daily increasing.
“When I again appeared amongst my former acquaintance with these data, there was an absolute insurrection against me. They laughed in my face, and almost hooted me. Yet there were some sensible people amongst them, and I now possessed strong grounds of argument; I staggered many, and convinced a few; thus I too have had my victories.”
The Emperor said it must be agreed that our being assembled at St. Helena from political causes was certainly a most extraordinary circumstance: that we had come to a common centre by roads originally leading in very different directions[directions]. However, we had travelled through them with sincerity. Nothing more clearly proved the sort of chance, the uncertainty, and the fatality which usually, in the labyrinth of revolutions, direct upright and honest hearts.
Nor can any thing more clearly prove, continued he, how necessary indulgence and intelligent views are to recompose society after long disorders. It was these dispositions and these principles which had made him, he said, the most fit man for the circumstances of the month of Brumaire; and it was those which still rendered him without doubt the fittest in the actual state of France. On this point he had neither mistrust, nor prejudice, nor passion; he had constantly employed men of all classes, of all parties, without ever looking back, without enquiring what they had done, what they had said, what they had thought; only requiring, he said, that they should pursue in future and with sincerity the common object—the welfare and the glory of all—that they should shew themselves true and good Frenchmen. Above all, he had never made overtures to leaders in order to gain over parties; but, on the contrary, he had attacked the mass of the parties, that he might be in a situation to despise their leaders. Such had ever been the uniform system of his internal policy; and, in spite of the last events, he was far from repenting it; if he had to begin again he should pursue the same course. “It is totally without reason,” he said, “that I have been reproached with employing nobles and emigrants—a perfectly trite and vulgar imputation! The fact is that under me there only existed individual opinions and sentiments. It is not the nobles and the emigrants who have brought about the restoration, but rather the restoration that has again raised the nobles and the emigrants. They have not contributed more particularly to our ruin than others: those really in fault are the intriguers of all parties and all opinions. Fouché was not a noble; Talleyrand was not an emigrant; Augereau and Marmont were neither. To conclude, do you desire a final proof of the injustice of blaming whole classes, when a revolution like ours has operated in the midst of them? Reckon yourselves here: among four, you find two nobles, one of whom was even an emigrant. The excellent M. de Ségur, in spite of his age, at my departure, offered to follow me. I could multiply examples without end.—It is with as little reason,” he continued, "that I have been blamed for having neglected certain persons of influence; I was too powerful not to despise with impunity the intrigues, and the known immorality, of the greater part of them. None of these causes have therefore contributed to my downfall; but only unforeseen and unheard-of catastrophes; compulsory circumstances; 500,000 men at the gates of the capital; a revolution still recent; a crisis too powerful for French heads; and, above all, a dynasty not sufficiently ancient. I should have risen again even from the foot of the Pyrenees, could I but have been my own grandson.
"And, moreover, what a fascination there is respecting past times! It is most certain that I was chosen by the French: their new worship was their own work. Well! immediately upon the return of their old forms, see with what facility they have returned to their idols.
"And, after all, how could another line of policy have prevented that which ruined me? I have been betrayed by M—— whom I might call my son, my offspring, my own work; him to whom I had committed my destinies, by sending him to Paris, at the very moment that he was putting the finishing hand to his treason and my ruin. I have been betrayed by Murat, whom I had raised from a soldier to a king; who was my sister’s husband. I have been betrayed by Berthier, a mere goose, whom I had converted into a kind of eagle. I have been betrayed in the senate, by those very men of the national party who owe every thing to me. All that, then, did not in any way depend upon my system of internal policy. Undoubtedly I should have been exposed to the charge of too readily employing old enemies, whether nobles or emigrants, if a Macdonald, a Valence,[[5]] a Montesquiou had betrayed me; but they were faithful: let them object to me the stupidity of Murat, I can oppose to it the intelligence of Marmont. I have, then, no cause to repent of my system of internal policy."
Map
—of the—
Island of Saint Helena.
Drawn for the
Memorial de Sainte Hélène,
By an Engineer formerly of
Napoleon’s Cabinet from the information
contained in the work itself, and from
particulars furnished by
Messrs. Marchand, St Denis, Pierron,
and others in Napoleon’s service.
CHANCE OF DANGER IN BATTLE, &C.—THE BULLETINS
VERY CORRECT.
28th.—The Emperor during dinner was speaking of the probability of danger in the Chinese ships, of which one in thirty perished, according to the accounts he had received from some captains. This led him to the chances of danger in battle, which he said were less than that. Wagram was pointed out to him as a destructive battle; he did not estimate the killed at more than 3,000, which was only a fiftieth: we were there 160,000. At Essling they were about 4000, we were 40,000: this was a tenth; but it was one of the most severe battles. The others were incomparably lower.
This brought on a conversation on the bulletins. The Emperor declared them to be very correct: assured us that, excepting what the proximity of the enemy compelled him to disguise, that when they came into their hands they might not derive any information prejudicial to him from them, all the remainder was very exact. At Vienna and throughout Germany they did them more justice than among us. If they had acquired a bad character in our armies—if it was a common saying, as false as a bulletin, it was personal rivalships, party spirit, that had established it: it was the wounded self-love of those who were not mentioned in them, and who had, or fancied they had, a right to a place there: and still more than all, our ridiculous national defect of having no greater enemies to our successes and our glory than ourselves.
The Emperor after dinner played some games at chess. The day had been very rainy: he was unwell and retired early.