PROPHETIC REMARKS.—LORD HOLLAND.—THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE OF WALES.—CONVERSATION RELATING TO MYSELF.
21st.—The Emperor took a walk in the garden attended by his suite. The conversation turned on the possibility of our returning to Europe and seeing France once more. “My dear friends,” said he, in a tone of sincere feeling, and with an expression which it is impossible to describe, “you will return!”—"Not without you," we all exclaimed with one voice. This led us once more to analyze the probable chances of our quitting St. Helena, and all yielded to the necessity of admitting that our removal could only take place through the intervention of the English. But the Emperor could not imagine how this intervention was likely to be brought about. “The impression is made,” said he; “it has taken too deep a root; they will everlastingly fear me. Pitt told them, There can be no safety for you, with a man who has a whole invasion in his single head.” “But,” observed some one present, “suppose new interests should arise in England; suppose a truly constitutional and liberal ministry should be established, would the English government find no advantage in fixing through you, Sire, liberal principles in France, and thereby propagating them throughout Europe?” “Certainly,” replied the Emperor, “I admit all this.” “Well then,” continued the individual who had first spoken, “would not this constitutional administration find a guarantee in these liberal principles and in your own interests?” “I admit this also,” replied the Emperor. "I can suppose Lord Holland, as Prime Minister of England, writing to me at Paris: If you do so and so I shall be ruined; or the Princess Charlotte of Wales, whom we will suppose to have removed me hence, saying to me: If you act thus, I shall be hated and shall be looked upon as the scourge of my country. At these words I should stop short:—they would arrest me in my career more effectually than armies.
“And after all, what is there to fear? That I should wage war? I am now too old for that. Is it feared that I should resume my pursuit of glory? I have enjoyed glory even to satiety. I have wallowed in it; and it may be said to be a thing which I have henceforth rendered at once common and difficult. Is it supposed that I would recommence my conquests? I did not persevere in them through mania; they were the result of a great plan, and I may even say that I was urged to them by necessity. They were reasonable at the moment when I pursued them; but they would now be impossible. They were practicable once; but now it would be madness to attempt them. And besides, the convulsions and misfortunes to which France has been subjected will henceforth produce so many difficulties, that to remove them will be a sufficient source of glory without seeking for any other.”
Two of the gentlemen of the Emperor’s suite had been to the town to see the persons who had newly arrived at the Island, and to hear the news of the day. The account which they delivered on their return occupied the Emperor’s attention for some minutes in the garden. About six o’clock he proceeded to his closet, desiring me to follow him; and by chance a conversation was introduced, which to me was in the highest degree interesting and valuable. Though the subject of this conversation relates to myself personally, yet I cannot pass it over in silence; it develops so many characteristic traits of the Emperor, that these would furnish a sufficient apology for my laying it before the reader, were any apology necessary.
The persons who had arrived by the Newcastle had spoken much of my Historical Atlas, which led the Emperor again to remark on the extraordinary celebrity of the work, and to express his surprise that he should not sooner have become thoroughly acquainted with it.
“How happened it,” said he, “that none of your friends should have given me a correct idea of it? I never saw it until I was on board the Northumberland, and now I find it is known to every body. How came you never to call my attention to it yourself? I should have appreciated your merits, and should have made your fortune. I had formed a confused and indifferent idea of your work, which perhaps influenced my mind unfavourably with respect to yourself. Such is the misfortune of Sovereigns; for doubtless no one entertained better intentions than myself. Those who filled posts about my person might easily have brought me to render full justice to the merit of your work; for it was a thing that I could myself judge of, and I asked nothing more. Since I have become acquainted with your tables, and am enabled to form a correct notion of their valuable classification, and the indelible impression which they are calculated to make on the memory, with regard to dates, places, and collateral relations, I regret not having established a kind of Normal School, in which the students should have been uniformly instructed by the help of the Historical Atlas. Our Lyceums would have been inundated with your work, or parts of it, and I would have ensured to it the utmost degree of celebrity. Why, I say again, did you not call my attention to it? It is painful to confess the secret; but it is nevertheless true, that a little intrigue is indispensable to those who wish to gain the favour of Sovereigns; modest merit is almost always neglected. But, perhaps, after all, Clarke, Decrès, Montalivet, M. de Montesquiou, or even Barbier, my librarian, might have withheld the hints which you intended they should throw out to me; for it is another mortifying truth, that favours are sometimes more attainable through the medium of the valet-de-chambre than by a higher channel! And how happened it, that your friend Madame de S.... did not speak to me of your work? We frequently rode in the same carriage together; and she might have secured to you all the advantages she could have wished, by describing your real merits to me.”—"Yes, Sire," I replied, “but at that time I....” “I understand you. You did not then perhaps seek favours?” “Sire, my hour had not yet arrived.” Then ensued a very long explanation respecting my first introduction to the Emperor, the missions to which he had appointed me, the opinion which he had formed of me, and which, according to custom, had remained permanently fixed in his mind.
All this time I was standing near the writing-table in the second chamber, while the Emperor walked backward and forward through the whole length of both rooms. The subject of the conversation was to me most interesting. But, to form a just conception of my feelings at this moment, it would be necessary to look back to the time of Napoleon’s power, to that period when no one dared hope to know his thoughts, or ever to suppose the possibility of conversing familiarly and confidentially with him. Such a happy circumstance would then have appeared to me a dream: and now I almost regard it as a conversation in the Elysian Fields.
“I had no correct idea of you,” said the Emperor, "I had no precise knowledge of anything that concerned you. You had no friend near me to commend you to my notice, and you neglected to put yourself forward. Some of those persons on whom perhaps you thought you could rely even acted in a way prejudicial to your interest. I knew nothing of your work; if I had, it would have been a powerful circumstance in your favour. I was not aware that you had, like myself, attended the military school at Paris; that would have been another claim to my notice.
“You had been an emigrant, you would therefore never have enjoyed my full confidence. I knew that you had been much attached to the Bourbons; you would therefore never have been initiated in the great secrets of my government.”—"But Sire," I replied, “your Majesty permitted me to approach your person, you made me a Councillor of State, and entrusted me with various missions.”—"That was because I conceived you to be an honest man; and besides, I am not of a distrustful disposition. Without knowing why, I considered you to be a man of pure integrity in all that regarded pecuniary matters. If you had only mentioned a single word to me about your affair of the commercial licenses with P....[——?], I would have instantly rendered you justice. But, I say again, I should never have employed you in any political affair."—"Then, Sire," said I, “what risk did I not run, when in Paris and Holland! The English were then situated with respect to us, as we now are with respect to them, and, influenced by my old connections, I ventured in spite of your regulations to forward their letters, when they appeared to me to contain nothing objectionable. To what danger should I not have been exposed had my conduct led to any accusation on the part of the Minister of Police! And yet I conceived that I was only making a very natural and discretionary use of the powers with which Your Majesty had entrusted me, and the confidence which you had reposed in me. I felt so satisfied in my own conscience, and was so convinced of the propriety of my intentions, that I thought myself exempt from the observance of regulations which seemed not to have been made for me.”—"Well," observed the Emperor, “I could have conceived all this, I should readily have given you credit for such an explanation of your conduct; for no one is more ready to listen to reason than I. This was precisely the manner in which I wished duty to be performed; and yet it is certain that you would have been condemned had your conduct been the subject of enquiry, because all would have raised their voices against you. Such was the fatality of circumstances and the misfortune of my situation. Besides, when once I conceived a prejudice, I retained it: this again was the misfortune of my situation and my circumstances. But how could it be otherwise? I had no time for details. I could only take into consideration summaries and abstracts. I was very sure that I might sometimes be deceived; but where was my alternative? Few sovereigns have done better than I.”
“Sire,” said I, “I experienced deep mortification, at finding that your Majesty never addressed a word to me at your Court circles and levees. And yet you never failed to speak of me to my wife when I happened to be absent: I sometimes thought that I was not well known to you, or feared, particularly during later times, that your Majesty had some cause to be displeased with me.”—"By no means," resumed the Emperor; “if I spoke of you when absent, it was because I made it a rule always to speak to ladies about their husbands when the latter were sent on missions. If I neglected you when present, it was because I attached too little value to you. It was the same with many other individuals; you were confounded with the mass, you held only an ordinary rank in my regard. You were permitted to approach me, and yet you did not turn this privilege to good account; you were sent on missions, and yet you neglected to reap the benefit of these appointments on your return home. It is a great fault to keep in the back-ground at court. To my eyes you were in fact a mere blank. Nevertheless, I recollect that I sometimes entertained thoughts of employing you. The person connected with the ministry, on whom you in some measure depended, who declared himself to be your friend, and who had it in his power to serve you, diverted my attention from you, and contributed to keep up my indifference towards you. He knew you well, and perhaps feared you; and it is well known that in all cases I went rapidly to work.”—"Sire," I replied, “my situation was the more painful, since my friends were constantly congratulating me on the favours which I received at Court, and predicting the brilliant fortune that awaited me. Reports were continually raised of my having been appointed to all sorts of posts:—sometimes it was asserted that I had been created Maritime Prefect of Brest, Toulon, or Antwerp; that I had been made Minister of the Interior or of the Marine; or that I had received an important trust connected with the education of the King of Rome, &c.”—"Well," said the Emperor, “now that you call the matter to my recollection, some of these reports were not entirely destitute of foundation. I certainly did entertain the idea of employing you to assist in the education of the King of Rome; and I also intended, on your return to Holland, to appoint you to be Maritime Prefect of Toulon, which at that time I regarded as a sort of ministry. There were five-and-twenty ships of the line in the roads, and I wished to augment their number. In this instance, your friend, the Minister, turned my attention from you. You belonged to the old navy, he observed; your prejudices and those of the new officers must inevitably clash together. This appeared to me a decided objection to your appointment, and I thought no more about you; but now, since I have come to know you, I find that you were precisely the man I wanted. I think, too, that I entertained some other ideas respecting your advancement; but I must again repeat that you neglected your own interests. You retreated when you ought to have advanced. Need I tell you that, with the best intentions on my part, the chance against procuring an appointment to an important post was as great as that of winning a prize in the lottery. An idea occurred to me, and I formed my decision; but if that decision were not immediately carried into effect, it escaped my recollection; for I had so much business on my hands. A luckier candidate was then proposed, and he was installed in office.—But I interrupt you....”
“Sire,” continued I, "being ignorant of your Majesty’s kind intentions respecting me, I was placed in a situation truly ridiculous, amidst the numerous congratulations that I received. I endeavoured to extricate myself from all this embarrassment with the best possible grace; but the more efforts I made for this purpose, the more I was blamed for my modesty. I never asked your Majesty for more than one thing, and that was the situation of Master of Requests, which was immediately granted to me. Clarke reproached me with having lowered my dignity by making such a solicitation. He said that I should have asked to be made a Councillor of State; and that your Majesty would have granted my request."—"No," replied the Emperor, “I did not know you well enough for that. I should have looked upon such a request as the result of silly ambition.”—" Sire," I observed, “I had sufficient tact to guess what your opinion would be.”—"Well,“ continued the Emperor, that was odd enough. But perhaps Clarke was right after all. The solicitation of the inferior post of Master of Requests might have injured you in my opinion; that is to say, it might have tended to fix you in the rank in which I had classed you. I was very well pleased to see my chamberlains have something to do; but Master of Requests was too trivial a post. It is curious,” continued he, “how my memory revives, now that I am speaking on this subject. You had performed detached services, which had rapidly escaped my recollection, because my attention had never been directed to them. If they had been presented to my notice all in a mass, they must have given me a very different opinion of you. You served as a volunteer at Flushing. I knew this; and what I should have regarded as a mere matter of course in any other individual, forcibly struck me in an emigrant, who had for this purpose quitted his family, and who was not without fortune.”—"Sire, I received the most gratifying reward on my return. Your Majesty spoke to me on the subject."—"But," said he, “you suffered this to be lost in the flood of oblivion. You addressed several written communications to me. All these things occur to my recollection by degrees. You transmitted to me some plans respecting the Adriatic Sea, with which I was much pleased. The suggestion was to get possession of the Adriatic, and to establish a fleet there. Ships could have been built at no vast expense, with the wood produced in the immense forests of Croatia. I submitted the whole to the Minister, who never more mentioned the subject to me. But you presented some other things to my notice.”—"Sire, you probably allude to the ideas respecting the system of maritime warfare to be adopted against England, accompanied by an explanatory map."—"Yes, I recollect. The map lay for several days on the desk in my closet. I expressed a wish to see you; but you were absent on a mission."
“Sire, about the same time I had the honour to address to you a plan for transforming the Champ-de-Mars into a Naumachia, which would have been an ornament to the palace of the King of Rome. I proposed that the basin should be dug sufficiently deep to admit the launching of small corvettes, which might have been built, rigged, manned and worked by the pupils of the naval school, which, according to my plan, was to be established at the military school. All the Princes of the Imperial house might have been required to devote themselves to these naval exercises for the space of two years, whatever might have been their ultimate destination. Your Majesty might have induced the distinguished families of the empire thus to procure for their sons a knowledge of naval affairs. I doubted not that all these circumstances combined, and the spectacle presented to the capital, would infallibly have rendered the navy at once popular and national in France.”—"Ah! I was not aware of the extent of your plan," said the Emperor, in whose mind every idea immediately became magnified. “This design would have pleased me. It might have produced immense results. From this plan there was but a step to that of rendering the Seine navigable, and cutting a canal from Paris to the sea. This could not have been regarded as too stupendous an enterprise; for more was done by the Romans in ancient times, and more has already been effected by the Chinese of the present day. It would have afforded a pastime to the army in time of peace. I had conceived many plans of the same kind. But our enemies kept me chained to war. Of what glory have they robbed me!... But continue.”—
"Sire, I also submitted to your Majesty’s consideration some ideas respecting the completion of the naval schools."—"Did I adopt them in the schools which I established?" inquired the Emperor. “Did your opinions coincide with mine?” “Sire, the plans for your schools were already determined on; I merely suggested a few hints for their completion.”—"Oh, now I recollect something of the matter. But I think your ideas were a little too democratic; were they not?"—"No, Sire, I set out from the principle that your Majesty had provided for the exclusive competition of the intermediate class, and I proposed to add below it all the chances that might be presented by the competition of seamen; and above it, all the chances that might arise out of the competition of individuals connected with the Court."—"Yes, I recollect," said the Emperor, "your ideas were novel and singular, and they attracted my attention. I submitted the plan to the Minister, who either kept it for his own use, or turned it into ridicule. I also remember that, in the correspondence relative to your mission to Holland, which I ordered to be laid before me, there was mentioned a plan for removing our ships from the German Ocean to the Baltic, by means of canals, which should unite the Elbe, the Oder, and the Vistula. This idea pleased me; it was after my own taste. And on your return, seeing you at my levee, I was about to propose to you some measure for the execution of your plan. But you did not seem to comprehend my questions, or you gave me unsatisfactory and undecided answers. I concluded that the ideas had probably been suggested by some one else, and that you were taking credit for them. I therefore left you, and turned to speak to your neighbour. I was to blame for acting thus precipitately; but I could not help it.
"When I call to mind all these circumstances, I find that I had so many motives for bestowing attention on you, that I am astonished I should have neglected you: and I cannot help thinking that you must have manœuvred admirably, before you could have succeeded in withdrawing yourself so completely from my notice. It is very certain that all these facts have but just now occurred to me: and at the period of our departure, and some time afterwards, you were, with the exception of your name and person, a stranger to me. I looked upon you as one of whom I knew nothing. How do you account for this? You cannot perhaps explain it; but it is nevertheless true.
“I ask again, why you did not avail yourself of the good offices of your friends; or why you did not appeal to me in person?”—"Sire, those who enjoyed the privilege of approaching nearest to your person were intent only on advancing their own interests. Their friendship did not extend beyond mere good wishes. To speak a word for another was what they called using their influence; and that was reserved solely for their own advantage. Besides, even though I had had the opportunity of speaking for myself, I should always have preferred others to speak for me. You, Sire, had but little leisure, your arrangements were very uncertain, it was necessary to explain every thing to you in few words. At the same time, I had so little confidence in myself, and was so fearful of creating an unfavourable impression, that I preferred withdrawing myself from your notice. For it was not sufficient to enter into intrigue; it was necessary that the intrigue should be brought to a result."—"Perhaps it was as well after all," said the Emperor. “You have judged the matter rightly; for, even had I known as much of you as I now do, your reserve and timidity would perhaps have ruined you. I now recollect a circumstance, which probably operated to your prejudice. When M. de Montesquiou proposed you as Chamberlain, he represented you as being possessed of vast fortune; but I soon learned the contrary. I do not mean to say that this circumstance was in any way injurious to you, or that it afforded any ground of objection to you personally; but other individuals, who wished to be appointed Chamberlains, complained of not having been preferred on account of their superior fortune, or quoted your example, if they thought themselves neglected on the score of their poverty. This is the way at Court.”
“It appears evident, Sire, that, with my character, I was destined never to be known to your Majesty.”—"Yes,“ said the Emperor and it had nearly happened so. But yet, on my return, did I not appoint you a Chamberlain? and their number was very limited. Did I not immediately create you a Councillor of State? You had been a member of the old aristocracy, you had been an emigrant, and you had undergone great trials; all these were powerful recommendations to me. Besides, at that time, so many voices were raised in praise of your conduct that, sooner or later, I must have known you thoroughly.”
ARRIVAL OF THE LIBRARY.—HORNEMANN’S TESTIMONY
IN FAVOUR OF GENERAL BONAPARTE.
22nd.—To-day the weather was very bad. The Emperor sent for me about three o’clock. He was in the topographical cabinet, surrounded by all the persons of his suite, who were engaged in unpacking some boxes of books which had arrived by the Newcastle. The Emperor himself helped to unpack, and seemed to be highly amused with the occupation. Men naturally adapt themselves to their circumstances: their enjoyments are trivial in proportion as their sufferings are severe. On seeing the file of Moniteurs, which had been so long expected, he expressed unfeigned delight: he took it up and began eagerly to peruse it.
After dinner the Emperor looked over Park’s and Hornemann’s Travels in Africa, and he traced their course on my Atlas. In these narratives, Hornemann, and the African Society of London, bore ample testimony to the generous assistance they had received from the General-in-chief of the army of Egypt (Napoleon), who had seized every opportunity of promoting their discoveries. The polite and handsome manner in which these facts were mentioned was very gratifying to the Emperor, who had been long accustomed to find his name connected with insulting epithets.
ON MEMORY.—TRADE.—NAPOLEON’S IDEAS AND PLANS
ON SEVERAL POINTS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.
23rd.—I attended the Emperor about three o’clock. He had been so delighted at the receipt of his new books that he had passed the whole night in reading and dictating notes to Marchand. He was very much fatigued; but my visit afforded him a little respite. He dressed and went out to walk in the garden.
During dinner the Emperor alluded to his immense reading in his youth; and he found, from all the books he had perused relative to Egypt, that he had scarcely any thing to correct in what he had dictated on Egypt: he had stated many facts which he had not read, but which, on reference to these books, he found to be correct.
The conversation turned on the subject of memory. The Emperor remarked that a head without memory was like a garrison without fortifications. His he said was a useful kind of memory. It was not general and absolute; but relative, faithful, and only retentive of what was necessary. Some one present observed that his own memory was like his sight, that it became confused by the distance of places and objects, as he removed from one situation to another; upon which the Emperor replied that, for his part, his memory was like his heart, that it preserved a faithful impression of all that ever had been dear to him.
A-propos of good memory and fond recollections, I must here note down a remark of the Emperor’s, which I omitted to mention at the time it was made. One day at dinner, while describing one of his engagements in Egypt, he named numerically the eight or ten demi-brigades which had been engaged. On hearing this, Madame Bertrand could not refrain from asking how, after so long a time, he could possibly recollect all these numbers. "Madame, this is a lover’s recollection of his former mistresses," was Napoleon’s reply.
After dinner, the Emperor ordered my Atlas to be brought to him, for the purpose of verifying the particulars which he had collected in his books on Africa, and he was astonished to find every thing correspond so accurately.
He then began to converse on trade, and the principles and systems which he had introduced. He opposed the principles of economists, which he said were correct in theory, though erroneous in their application. The political constitution of different states, continued he, must render these principles defective; local circumstances continually call for deviations from their uniformity. Duties, he said, which were so severely condemned by political economists, should not, it is true, be an object to the exchequer: they should be the guarantee and protection of a nation, and should correspond with the nature and the objects of its trade. Holland, which is destitute of productions and manufactures, and which has a trade only of transit and commission, should be free from all fetters and barriers. France, on the contrary, which is rich in every sort of production and manufactures, should incessantly guard against the importations of a rival, who might still continue superior to her, and also against the cupidity, egotism, and indifference of mere brokers.
“I have not fallen into the error of modern systematizers,” said the Emperor, "who imagine that all the wisdom of nations is centered in themselves. Experience is the true wisdom of nations. And what does all the reasoning of economists amount to? They incessantly extol the prosperity of England, and hold her up as our model; but the Custom-House system is more burthensome and arbitrary in England than in any other country. They also condemn prohibitions; yet it was England that set the example of prohibitions, and they are in fact necessary with regard to certain objects. Duties cannot adequately supply the place of prohibitions: there will always be found means to defeat the object of the legislator. In France we are still very far behind on these delicate points, which are still unperceived or ill-understood by the mass of society. Yet what advancement have we not made! What correctness of ideas has been introduced by my gradual classification of agriculture, industry, and trade; objects so distinct in themselves, and which present so great and positive a graduation!
"1st.—Agriculture; the soul, the first basis of the empire.
"2nd.—Industry; the comfort and happiness of the population.
"3rd.—Foreign trade; the superabundance, the proper application of the surplus of agriculture and industry.
"Agriculture was continually improving during the whole course of the Revolution. Foreigners thought it ruined in France. In 1814, however, the English were compelled to admit that we had little or nothing to learn from them.
"Industry or manufactures, and internal trade, made immense progress during my reign. The application of chemistry to the manufactures caused them to advance with giant strides. I gave an impulse, the effects of which extended throughout Europe.
"Foreign trade, which in its results is infinitely inferior to agriculture, was an object of subordinate importance in my mind. Foreign trade is made for agriculture and home industry, and not the two latter for the former. The interests of these three fundamental bases are diverging and frequently conflicting. I always promoted them in their natural gradation; but I could not, and ought not to have ranked them all on an equality. Time will unfold what I have done, the national resources which I created, and the emancipation from the English which I brought about. We have now the secret of the commercial treaty of 1783. France still exclaims against its author; but the English demanded it on pain of resuming the war. They wished to do the same after the treaty of Amiens; but I was then all-powerful; I was a hundred cubits high. I replied that if they were in possession of the heights of Montmartre I would still refuse to sign the treaty. These words were echoed through Europe.
The English will now impose some such treaty on France, at least if popular clamour, and the opposition of the mass of the nation, do not force them to draw back. This thraldom would be an additional disgrace in the eyes of that nation, which is now beginning to acquire a just perception of her own interests.
"When I came to the head of the government, the American ships, which were permitted to enter our ports on the score of their neutrality, brought us raw materials, and had the impudence to sail from France without freight, for the purpose of taking in cargoes of English goods in London. They moreover had the insolence to make their payments, when they had any to make, by giving bills on persons in London. Hence the vast profits reaped by the English manufacturers and brokers, entirely to our prejudice. I made a law that no American should import goods to any amount, without immediately exporting their exact equivalent. A loud outcry was raised against this: it was said that I had ruined trade. But what was the consequence? Notwithstanding the closing of my ports, and in spite of the English who ruled the seas, the Americans returned and submitted to my regulations. What might I not have done under more favourable circumstances?
"Thus I naturalized in France the manufacture of cotton, which includes:—
"1st. Spun-cotton.—We did not previously spin it ourselves; the English supplied us with it as a sort of favour.
"2nd. The woven-stuff.—We did not yet make it; it came to us from abroad.
"3rd. The printing.—This was the only part of the manufacture that we performed ourselves. I wished to naturalize the two first branches; and I proposed to the Council of State that their importation should be prohibited. This excited great alarm. I sent for Oberkamp, and I conversed with him a long time. I learned from him that this prohibition would doubtless produce a shock, but that, after a year or two of perseverance, it would prove a triumph, from which we should derive immense advantages. Then I issued my decree in spite of all; this was a true piece of statesmanship.
"I at first confined myself merely to prohibiting wove-cottons; then I extended the prohibition to spun cotton; and we now possess within ourselves the three branches of the cotton manufacture, to the great benefit of our population, and the injury and regret of the English:—which proves that, in civil government as well as in war, decision of character is often indispensable to success. I offered a million of francs as a reward for the discovery of a method of spinning flax like cotton, and this discovery would undoubtedly have been made,[[24]] but for our unfortunate circumstances. I should then have prohibited cotton, if I could not have naturalized it on the continent.
"The encouragement of the production of silk was an object that equally claimed my attention. As Emperor of France and King of Italy I calculated on receiving an annual revenue of 120 millions from the production of silk.
"The system of commercial licenses was no doubt mischievous! Heaven forbid that I should have laid it down as a principle. It was the invention of the English; with me it was only a momentary resource. Even the continental system, in its extent and rigour, was by me regarded merely as a measure occasioned by the war and temporary circumstances.
“The difficulties, and even the total stagnation, of foreign trade during my reign arose out of the force of circumstances and the accidents of the time. One brief interval of peace would immediately have restored it to its natural level.”