POLITICAL REFLECTIONS.
24th.—The Emperor went out only to take an airing in the calash. We drove for nearly an hour and a half, proceeding at a slow pace, and lengthened our airing by going twice over the limits of our usual ride. The Emperor conversed on politics. The newspapers, which we had received three days ago, furnished the subject of discussion.
In France, he observed, the patriots were emigrating rapidly; and there seemed to be a wish to encourage their emigration, from the circumstance of their property not having been confiscated, &c.
The Emperor thought he could perceive from the debates in the English Parliament, that there was a reserved idea respecting the partition of France; this was a severe shock to his feelings. “Every one possessing a true French heart,” said he, “must now be overwhelmed with despair. An immense majority of the population of France must be plunged in the deepest sorrow. Ah!” he exclaimed, “why am I not placed in some remote sphere, on a soil truly free and independent, where no external influence could be dreaded! how would I astonish the universe! I would address a proclamation to the French; I would say to them;—You are lost if you are not united. The odious, the insolent foreigner is about to parcel you out and to annihilate you. Frenchmen arise; make common cause, at all hazards,—rally, if it must be so, even around the Bourbons! Let the existence, the safety of France, take place of every other consideration!...”
He thought, however, that Russia must oppose this division, as she would thereby have to fear the growing strength and consolidation of Germany against her. Some one present remarked that Austria must oppose it also, from the apprehension of wanting the necessary support in case of any attempts on the part of Russia. It was moreover observed that, in such a case, Austria might probably serve the cause of the King of Rome, by putting him forward. “Yes,” replied the Emperor, "as an instrument of menace, perhaps; but never as the object of her good wishes. Austria must have too much cause to dread him. The King of Rome will be the man of the people; he will be the champion of Italy. Thus it will be the policy of Austria to take his life. This will not probably be attempted during the reign of his grandfather, who is a good man;—but the Emperor Francis cannot live for ever. If, however, the manners of the present age should preclude the possibility of an attempt to murder him, they will endeavour to brutalize his faculties. Or finally, if he should escape both physical and moral assassination,—if his mother’s cares and his own natural endowments should rescue him from all those dangers, then—then—" (he repeated several times, as if absorbed in reflection) “why then—But who can calculate on the destinies of any one here below!”
The Emperor then turned the conversation to England, by remarking that she alone was interested in the destruction of France; and in the plenitude and versatility of his fancy, he touched on all the various plans which she was likely to adopt for that purpose. She could not increase the power of Belgium, he said, otherwise Antwerp would become as formidable to her as it had been under his reign. She must, he observed, leave the Bourbons in the centre, with only eight or ten millions of inhabitants, and surround them with Princes, Dukes, or Kings of Normandy, Brittany, Aquitaine, and Provence; so that Cherbourg, Brest, the Garonne, and the Mediterranean would be in the possession of different sovereigns. This, he said, would make the French monarchy retrograde several ages, would restore it to its situation under the first Capets, and would provide for the Bourbons a few centuries of new and laborious efforts.—"But, fortunately," observed the Emperor, "before England can arrive at this point, she will have to surmount almost invincible obstacles,—the uniformity of the division of the territory into departments, the similitude of language, the identity of manners, the universality of the code, the generality of my lyceums, and the glory and splendour which I have left behind me; these are so many indissoluble knots and truly national institutions.
"A great nation like France cannot easily be parcelled out, or, if it should, it will be constantly re-uniting and seeking to recover its importance; like Ariosto’s giant, who runs after his limbs and even his head, as they are lopped off, and after putting them on begins to fight again." “But Sire,” said some one present, “the power of the giant depended on the plucking out of a single hair; and, in like manner, Napoleon may be said to be the hair on which depended the existence of France.” “No,” resumed the Emperor, “my memory and my ideas would still survive.—But,” continued he, “England, on the contrary, would in course of time have become a mere appendage to France, had the latter continued under my dominion. England was by nature intended to be one of our Islands, as well as Oleron or Corsica. On what trifles does the fate of Empires depend! How petty and insignificant are our revolutions in the grand organization of the universe! If, instead of entering upon the Egyptian expedition, I had invaded Ireland; if some slight derangement of my plans had not thrown obstacles in the way of my Boulogne enterprise; what would England have been to-day? What would have been the situation of the continent and of the whole political world?”