PLAN OF A HISTORY OF EUROPE.—SELIM III.—FORCES OF A TURKISH SULTAN.—THE MAMELUKES.—ON THE REGENCY.
5th.—The Emperor did not go out until after five o’clock. He was in pain, and had taken a bath, where he remained too long, in consequence of the arrival of Sir H. Lowe, as he would not leave it until the Governor was gone.
The Emperor had been reading, while in the bath, the Ottoman History, in two volumes. He had conceived the idea, and regretted that he had been unable to execute it, of having all the histories of Europe, from the time of Louis XIV., composed from the documents belonging to our office for Foreign Affairs, where the regular official reports of all the ambassadors are deposited.
“My reign,” he observed, “would have been a perfect epoch for that object. The superiority of France, its independence, and regeneration, enabled the then government to publish such matters without inconvenience. It would have been like publishing ancient history. Nothing could have been more valuable.”
He next adverted to Sultan Selim III., to whom, he said, he once wrote: “Sultan, come forth from thy seraglio; place thyself at the head of thy troops, and renew the glorious days of thy monarchy.”
“Selim, the Louis XVI. of the Turks,” said the Emperor, “who was very much attached and very favourable to us, contented himself with answering, that the advice would have been excellent for the first Princes of his dynasty; but that the manners of those times were very different; and that such a conduct would, at present, be unseasonable, and altogether useless.”[useless.”]
The Emperor added, however, that nobody knew how to calculate, with certainty, the energy of the sudden burst, which might be produced by a Sultan of Constantinople, who was capable of placing himself at the head of his people, of infusing new spirit into them, and of exciting that fanatical multitude to action. At a later period, he observed, that, for his own part, if he had been able to unite the Mamelukes with his French, he should have considered himself the master of the world. “With that chosen handful, and the rabble,” he added, with a smile, “recruited on the spot, to be expended in the hour of need, I know nothing that could have resisted me. Algiers trembled at it.
“‘But should your Sultan,’ said, one day, the Dey of Algiers to the French Consul, ‘ever take it into his head to pay us a visit, what safety could we hope for? For he has defeated the Mamelukes.’ The Mamelukes,” observed the Emperor, “were, in fact, objects of veneration and terror throughout the East; they were looked upon as invincible until our time.”
The Emperor, while waiting for dinner in the midst of us, opened a book, which lay at his side on the couch; it was the Regency. He stigmatized it as one of the most abominable eras of our annals: and was vexed that it had been described with the levity of the age, and not with the severity of history. It had been strewed with the flowers of fashionable life, and set off with the colouring of the Graces, instead of having been treated with rigorous justice. The Regency, he observed, had been, in reality, the reign of the depravity of the heart, of the libertinism of the mind, and of the most radical immorality of every species. It was such, he said, that he believed all the horrors and abominations with which the manners of the Regent were reproached in the bosom of his own family; while he did not give credit to the stories told of Louis XV., who, although plunged in the foulest and most frightful debauchery, afforded, however, no grounds to justify his belief in such shocking and monstrous indulgencies; and he vindicated him very satisfactorily from certain imputations, which would have seriously affected the person of one of his (Napoleon’s) former aides-de-camp. He considered the epoch of the Regent to have been the overthrow of every kind of property, the destruction of public morals. Nothing had been held sacred either in manners or in principles. The Regent was personally overwhelmed with infamy. In the affair of the legitimate Princes, he had exhibited the most abject baseness, and committed a great abuse of authority. The King alone could authorize such a decision, and he, the Regent, had felt pleasure in gratuitously dishonouring himself in the person of his wife, the natural daughter of Louis XIV., whom he had found it his interest, however, to marry, while that King was on the throne.
6th.—As we wished to try the tent, which was just finished, the table was laid there, and we invited the English officers, who had superintended the work, to breakfast with us.
The Emperor sent for me to his apartment; he dressed himself, and, when he went out, I accompanied him to the bottom of the wood, where we walked for some time. He entered into the discussion of some important subjects.
The Emperor returned to the calash for the purpose of ordering it to be in readiness, and we resumed our walk, until it took us up. On our return, the Emperor visited the tent, and said a few words, expressive of his satisfaction to the officer and seamen who were employed in putting the last hand to it.
CAMPAIGNS OF ITALY, &C.—EPOCH OF 1815, &C.—GUSTAVUS III.—GUSTAVUS IV.—BERNADOTTE.—PAUL I.
7th.—After breakfasting in the tent, the Emperor took a fancy to review some chapters of the Campaigns in Italy: he sent for my son, whose foot was at length mending, and whose eyes were much better. He finished the chapters of Pavia and Leghorn. He afterwards walked towards the bottom of the wood, having ordered the carriage to follow. On the way, the Emperor said that he considered the Campaigns of Italy and Egypt as completely finished, and in a fit state to be given to the public, and it would, no doubt, he remarked, be a very agreeable present to the French and Italians; it was the record of their glory and their rights. He did not think, however, that he ought to put his name to it; and he repeated that the different epochs of his memoirs would perpetuate those of his faithful companions.
On the arrival of the calash, the conversation, continuing on the same subject, he was earnestly pressed to finish 1815; and its importance, interest, and results, were warmly canvassed. “Very well!” said he, with a smile, “I must give myself up to it entirely; it is a pleasure to be encouraged; but it is also requisite to go to work with a proper temper. We are surfeited here with disgust and trickery; we seem to be envied the air we breathe.”
He returned to his apartment, and I followed him, when a conversation peculiarly interesting and remarkable took place. It related to Gustavus III., to Sweden, to Russia, to Gustavus IV., to Bernadotte, to Paul I., &c.
I have said that, at Aix-la-Chapelle, Gustavus III. lived among us as a private individual under the name of Count de Haga. He constituted the charm of society, by the vivacity of his wit and the interest he imparted to his conversation. I had heard from his own mouth his famous Revolution of 1772, and I was in the happiest situation to obtain a thorough knowledge of that epoch of the history of Sweden. I was, at the same time, very well acquainted with a Baron de Sprengporten, who, after having displayed great zeal for Gustavus, had the misfortune to remove to Russia, and to return at the head of foreigners to fight against his country. The consequence was that sentence of death had been passed upon him in Sweden. He was also at Aix-la-Chapelle at the moment, and had banished himself from it, out of courtesy, he said, on the arrival of Gustavus. He had not, however, removed farther off than half a league, so that all I heard the King say in the evening was controverted, modified, or confirmed for me the next morning at breakfast by the Baron. He had enjoyed a very considerable share of that Prince’s confidence, and he communicated the most numerous and minute particulars, as positive facts, respecting the romance of the birth of Gustavus IV., who had been represented as altogether unconnected by blood with Gustavus III., according to his full knowledge and his own desire.
The Emperor observed that this same Sprengporten had been actually sent to him as envoy by Paul, at the time of his Consulate. With respect to Gustavus IV., he said that that Prince had, on his appearance in the world, announced himself as a hero, and had terminated his career merely as a madman, and that he had distinguished himself in his early days by some very remarkable traits. While yet a boy, he had insulted Catharine by the refusal of her grand-daughter, at the moment even when that great Empress[Empress] seated on her throne, and surrounded by her Court, waited only for him to celebrate the marriage ceremony.
At a later period, he had insulted Alexander, in no less marked a manner, by refusing, after Paul’s catastrophe, to suffer one of the new Emperor’s officers to enter his dominions, and by answering, to the official complaints addressed to him on this subject, that Alexander ought not to be displeased that he, Gustavus, who still mourned the assassination of his father, should shut the entrance of his States against one of those, accused by the public voice of having immolated his (Alexander’s).
“On my accession to the sovereignty,” said the Emperor, “he declared himself my great antagonist; it might have been supposed that nothing short of renewing the exploits of the great Gustavus Adolphus would have satisfied him. He ran over the whole of Germany, for the purpose of stirring up enemies against me. At the time of the catastrophe of the Duke d’Enghien, he swore to avenge it in person; and at a later period, he insolently sent back the black eagle to the King of Prussia, because the latter had accepted my legion of honour.
“His fatal moment at length arrived; a conspiracy, of no common kind, tore him from the throne and banished him from his country. The unanimity evinced against him is, no doubt, a proof of the blunders which he had committed. I am ready to admit that he was inexcusable and even mad, but it is, notwithstanding, extraordinary and unexampled that, in that crisis, not a single sword was drawn in his defence, whether from affection, from gratitude, from virtuous feeling, or even from stupidity, if you please; and truly, it is a circumstance which does little honour to the atmosphere of Kings.”
This Prince, tossed about and deceived by the English, who wished to make him their instrument, and repulsed by his relatives, seemed determined to renounce the world, and, as if he had felt his existence disgraced by his contempt of mankind and his disgust at things, he voluntarily lost himself altogether in the crowd.
The Emperor said that, after the battle of Leipsic, he had been informed on the part of Gustavus, that he had no doubt been his enemy a long time; but that, for a long time, he (Napoleon) was of all others the sovereign of whom he had the least to complain, and that, for a long time also, his only sentiments with regard to him were those of admiration and sympathy; that his actual misfortunes permitted him to express his feelings without restraint; that he offered to be his Aide-de-camp, and requested an asylum in France.[[6]] “I was affected,” observed the Emperor; “but I soon reflected that if I received him, my dignity would be pledged to make exertions in his favour. Besides, I no longer ruled the world, and then common minds would not fail to discover in the interest I took for him, an impotent hatred against Bernadotte; finally, Gustavus had been dethroned by the voice of the people, and it was the voice of the people by which I had been elevated. In taking up his cause, I should have been guilty of inconsistency in my own conduct, and have acted upon discordant principles. In short, I dreaded lest I should render affairs more complicated than they were, and silenced my feelings of generosity. I caused him to be answered that I appreciated what he offered me, and that I was sensible of it, but that the political interest of France did not allow me to indulge in my private feelings, and that it even imposed upon me the painful task of refusing, for the moment, the asylum which he asked; that he would, however, greatly deceive himself, if he supposed me to entertain any other sentiments than those of extreme good will and sincere wishes for his happiness, &c.
“Some time after the expulsion of Gustavus, while the succession to the Crown was vacant, the Swedes, desirous of recommending themselves to me and securing the protection of France, asked me to give them a King. My attention was, for an instant, turned to the Viceroy; but it would have been necessary for him to change his religion, which I deemed beneath my dignity and that of all those who belonged to me. Besides, I did not think the political result sufficiently important to excuse an action so contrary to our manners. I attached, however, too much value to the idea of seeing the throne of Sweden in possession of a Frenchman. It was, in my situation, a puerile sentiment. The real King, according to my political system and the true interests of France, would have been the King of Denmark, because I should then have governed Sweden by the influence of my simple contact with the Danish provinces. Bernadotte was elected, and he was indebted for his elevation to his wife, the sister-in-law of my brother Joseph, who then reigned at Madrid.
“Bernadotte, affecting great dependence on me, came to ask my approbation, protesting, with too visible an anxiety, that he would not accept the Crown, unless it was agreeable to me.[me.]
“I, the elected Monarch of the people, had to answer that I could not set myself against the elections of other nations. It was what I told Bernadotte, whose whole attitude betrayed the anxiety excited by the expectation of my answer. I added that he had only to take advantage of the good-will of which he had been the object; that I wished to be considered as having had no weight in his election, but that it had my approbation and my best wishes. I felt, however, shall I say it, a secret instinct, which made the thing disagreeable and painful. Bernadotte was, in fact, the serpent which I nourished in my bosom; he had scarcely left us before he attached himself to the system of our enemies, and we were obliged to watch and dread him. At a later period, he was one of the great active causes of our calamities; it was he who gave to our enemies the key of our political system and communicated the tactics of our armies; it was he who pointed out to them the way to the sacred soil! In vain would he excuse himself by saying that, in accepting the Crown of Sweden, he was thenceforth bound to be a Swede only; pitiful excuse, valid only with those of the populace and the vulgar that are ambitious! In taking a wife, a man does not renounce his mother, still less is he bound to transfix her bosom and tear out her entrails. It is said that he afterwards repented, that is to say, when it was no longer time, and when the mischief was done. The fact is that, in finding himself once more among us, he perceived that opinion exacted justice of him; he felt himself struck with death. Then the film fell from his eyes; for it is not known to what dreams his presumption and his vanity might have incited him in his blindness.”[blindness.”]
At[At] the end of this and many other things besides, I presumed to observe to him, as a very fantastical and extraordinary matter of chance, that Bernadotte, the soldier, elevated to a Crown, for which Protestantism was a necessary qualification, was actually born a Protestant, and that his son, destined, on that account, to reign over the Scandinavians, presented himself in the midst of them precisely with the national name of Oscar. “My dear Las Cases,” replied the Emperor, “it is because that chance, so often cited, of which the ancients made a deity, which astonishes us every day and strikes us every instant, does not, after all, appear so singular, so capricious, so extraordinary, but in consequence of our ignorance of the secret and altogether natural causes, by which it is produced; and yet this single combination is sufficient to create the marvellous and give birth to mysteries. Here, for instance, with respect to the first point, that of having been born a Protestant, let not the honour of that circumstance be assigned to chance; blot that out. With regard to the second, the name of Oscar; I was his godfather, and, when I gave him the name, I doted upon Ossian; it presented itself, of course, very naturally. You now see how simple that is which so greatly astonished you.”
At the end of this conversation, the Emperor returned to Paul; he talked of the passionate fits brought upon him by the perfidy of the English ministry. He had been promised Malta, the moment it was taken possession of, and accordingly, he was in great haste to get himself nominated Grand Master. Malta reduced, the English ministers denied that they had promised it to him. It is confidently stated that, on the reading of this shameful falsehood, Paul felt so indignant that, seizing the dispatch in full Council, he ran his sword through it, and ordered it to be sent back in that condition, by way of answer. “If it be a folly,” said the Emperor, “it must be allowed that it is the folly of a noble soul; it is the indignation of virtue, which was incapable, until then, of suspecting such baseness.”
At the same time, the English ministers, treating with us for the exchange of prisoners, refused to include, on the same scale, the Russian prisoners taken in Holland, who were in the actual service and fought for the sole cause of the English. “I had,” said the Emperor, “hit upon the bent of Paul’s character. I seized time by the forelock; I collected these Russians; I clothed them and sent them back to him without any expense. From that instant, his generous heart was altogether devoted to me; and, as I had no interest in opposition to Russia, and should never have spoken or acted but with justice, there was no doubt that I should be able, for the future, to have had the Cabinet of St. Petersburgh at my disposal. Our enemies were sensible of the danger, and it has been thought that this good-will of Paul proved fatal to him. That might have been the case; for there are Cabinets with whom nothing is sacred.”
It has been already mentioned that the Emperor complained that the Prince of Ponte-Corvo (Bernadotte) was scarcely in Sweden before he had occasion to distrust and counteract his schemes. The following letter is a decisive proof of this assertion, and also contains an important exposition of the continental system.
“Tuileries, August 8, 1811.
“Monsieur, the Prince Royal of Sweden, your private correspondence has reached me; I have appreciated, as a proof of the sentiments of friendship you entertain for me, and as a testimony of the loyalty of your character, the communications which you make to me. There is no political reason which prevents me from answering you.
“You appreciate, without doubt, the motives of my decree of the 21st of November, 1806. It prescribes no laws to Europe. It merely traces the steps that are to be followed, to reach the same end; the treaties, which I have signed, constitute the remainder. The right of blockade, which England has arrogated to herself, is as injurious to the commerce of Sweden and as hostile to the honour of her flag, as it is prejudicial to the commerce of the French Empire and to the dignity of its power. I will even assert that the domineering pretensions of England are still more offensive with regard to Sweden; for your commerce is more maritime than continental; the real strength of the kingdom of Sweden consists as much in the existence of its navy as in the existence of its army.
“The development of the forces of France is altogether continental. I have been enabled to create, within my states, an internal trade, which diffuses subsistence and money, from the extremities to the centre of the empire, by the impulse given to agricultural and manufacturing industry, and by the rigorous prohibition of foreign productions. This state of things is such that it is impossible for me to decide whether French commerce would gain much by peace with England.
“The maintenance, observance, or adoption of the decree of Berlin is, therefore, I venture to say, more for the interest of Sweden and of Europe, than for the particular interest of France.
“Such are the reasons which my ostensible policy may set up against the ostensible policy of England. The secret reasons that influence England are the following: She does not desire peace; she has rejected all the overtures which I have caused to be made to her; her commerce and her territory are enlarged by war; she is apprehensive of restitutions; she will not consolidate the new system by a treaty; she does not wish that France should be powerful. I wish for peace, I wish for it in its perfect state, because peace alone can give solidity to new interests, and States created by conquest. I think, that on this point, your Royal Highness ought not to differ in opinion from me.
“I have a great number of ships; I have no seamen: I cannot carry on the contest with England for the purpose of compelling her to make peace; nothing but the continental system can prove successful. In this respect, I experience no obstacle on the part of Russia and Prussia; their commerce can only be a gainer by the prohibitive system.
“Your cabinet is composed of enlightened men. There is dignity and patriotism in the Swedish nation. The influence of your Royal Highness in the Government is generally approved: you will experience few impediments in withdrawing your people from a mercantile submission to a foreign nation. Do not suffer yourself to be caught by the too tempting baits which England may hold out to you. The future will prove to you that, whatever may be the revolutions which time must produce, the Sovereigns of Europe will establish prohibitive laws, which will leave them masters in their own dominions.
“The third article of the treaty of the 21st of February, 1802, corrects the incomplete stipulations of the treaty of Fredericsham. It must be rigorously observed in every point which relates to colonial commodities. You tell me that you cannot do without these commodities, and that, from the want of their introduction, the produce of your customs is diminished. I will give you twenty millions worth of colonial produce, which I have at Hamburgh; you will give me twenty millions worth of iron. You will have no specie to export from Sweden. Give up these productions to merchants; they will pay the import duties; you will get rid of your iron; this will answer my purpose. I am in want of iron at Antwerp, and I know not what to do with the English commodities.
“Be faithful to the treaty of the 24th of February: drive the English smugglers from the roads of Gottenburg; drive them from the coasts, where they carry on an open trade: I give you my word that I will, on my part, scrupulously observe the conditions of that treaty. I shall oppose the attempts of your neighbours to appropriate to themselves your continental possessions. If you fail in your engagements, I shall consider myself released from mine.
“It is my wish to be always on an amicable understanding with your Royal Highness; I shall hear with pleasure your communication of this answer to his Swedish Majesty, whose good intentions I have constantly appreciated.
“My Minister for Foreign Affairs will return an official answer to the last note, which the Comte d’Essen has submitted for my perusal.
“This letter having no other end, &c.
Napoleon.”
HOUSE IN WHICH NAPOLEON WAS BORN,
AT AJACCIO, IN CORSICA.
London: Published for Henry Colburn, Feb. 1836.
NAPOLEON’S PATRIMONIAL VINEYARD, &C.—HIS NURSE—HIS PATERNAL HOME.—TEARS OF JOSEPHINE DURING WURMSER’S SKIRMISHES IN THE ENVIRONS OF MANTUA.
8th.—I went to the Emperor’s apartment about eleven o’clock. He was dressing himself, and looking over, with his valet, some samples of perfumery and scents, received from England. He enquired about them all,
did not know one of them, and laughed heartily at his gross ignorance, as he called it. He wished to breakfast in the tent, and we all assembled there.
He complained of the bad quality of the wine; and appealed to his maître-d’hôtel, Cipriani, who is a Corsican, whether he had not much better in their country. He said that he had received, as part of his patrimony, the best vineyard in the island, extensive and productive, called l’Esposata, and he felt it his duty, he said, not to mention it but with gratitude. It was to that vineyard that he was indebted, in his youth, for his visits to Paris; it was that which supplied the expenses of his vacations. We asked him what had become of it. He told us, that he had long ago given it to his nurse, to whom, he was sure he must have given at least one hundred and twenty thousand francs in lands and houses in the island. He had even resolved, he said, to give her his patrimonial house; but finding it too much above her situation, he had made a present of it to the Romalino family, his nearest relatives by his mother’s side, on condition that they should transfer their habitation to his nurse.[[7]]
In short, he had, he said, made a great lady of her. She had come to Paris at the time of the coronation, and had an audience of the Pope for upwards of an hour and a half. “Poor Pope,” exclaimed the Emperor, “he must have had a good deal of spare time! She was, however, extremely devout. Her husband was a coasting trader of the island. She gave great pleasure at the Tuileries, and enchanted the family by the vivacity of her language and her gestures. The empress Josephine made her a present of some diamonds.”
After breakfast, the Emperor, adhering to his resolution of yesterday, proceeded with his work. He finished the chapter of Castiglione, and then went to the wood, with the intention of waiting for the calash. In continuance of the conversation, which had been brought on by the chapter, he related that Josephine had left Brescia with him, and had thus commenced the campaign against Wurmser. Arrived at Verona, she had witnessed the first shots that were fired. When she returned to Castel-Nuovo, and saw the wounded as they passed, she was desirous of reaching Brescia; but she found herself stopped by the enemy, who was already at Ponte-Marco. In the anxiety and agitation of the moment, she was seized with fear, and wept a great deal, on quitting her husband, who exclaimed, when embracing her, and with a kind of inspiration: “Wurmser shall pay dearly for those tears which he causes thee!” She was obliged to pass in her carriage very close to the fortifications of Mantua. She was fired upon from the place, and one of her suite was even wounded. She traversed the Po, Bologna, Ferrara, and stopped at Lucca, attended by dread and the unfavourable reports, which were usually spread around our patriotic armies; but she was internally supported by her extreme confidence in her husband’s good fortune.
Such was, however, already the opinion of Italy, observed the Emperor, and the sentiments impressed by the French General, that, in spite of the crisis of the moment, and of all the false reports which accompanied him, his wife was received at Lucca by the Senate, and treated with the same respect as the greatest princess. It came to compliment her, and presented her with the oils of honour. It had reason to applaud itself for that conduct. A short time afterwards the couriers brought intelligence of the prodigious achievements of her husband, and the annihilation of Wurmser.
The Emperor returned to the saloon for the first time since the fire. It is gradually furnished with articles sent expressly from London, which make it a little more tolerable. After dinner, the Emperor began with reading Turcaret, with which, he said, notwithstanding all its wit, he felt himself disgusted, in consequence of its vulgarity; but it bore, he remarked, the impression of Le Sage. He then took up l’Avocat Patelin, and was much amused with its genuine humour.
9th.—The Emperor breakfasted in the tent, and revised the chapter of the Brenta. At three o’clock, he took an airing in the calash. The Governor called during our ride. It was understood that he wished to speak to the Emperor on the celebration of the Prince Regent’s birthday, which is to take place next Monday, the 12th inst., and to give him notice of the salutes and volleys that are to be fired on the occasion at the camp, situated so closely to us. It is said, on the other hand, that he has given directions for supplying the Emperor’s table only, and that each of us is to be put upon a particular allowance, as he finds the expense very much beyond his credit. At any rate, we shall see.
CATHERINE II.—IMPERIAL GUARDS.—PAUL I. &C.—PROJECTS
ON INDIA, &C.
10th.—The Emperor was indisposed and took a bath. At three he walked out and called for the carriage. He had just read the history of Catherine. “She was,” he said, “a commanding woman; she was worthy of having a beard upon her chin. The catastrophe of Peter and that of Paul were seraglio revolutions, the work of janissaries. These palace-soldiers are terrible, and dangerous in proportion as the Sovereign is absolute. My imperial guard might also have become fatal under any other but myself.”
The Emperor said that he and Paul had been on the best terms together. At the time of his murder, in which the public spared neither his relations nor his allies, he had concerted a plan with him, at that very moment, for an expedition to India, and he would have certainly prevailed upon him to carry it into execution. Paul wrote to him very often, and at great length. His first communication was curious and original. “Citizen First Consul,” (he had written to him with his own hand,) “I do not discuss the merits of the rights of man; but, when a nation places at its head a man of distinguished merit and worthy of esteem, it has a government, and France has, henceforth, one in my eyes.”
On our return, we found the Admiral and his lady; the Emperor took them in the calash and made another tour. He afterwards walked for some time with Lady Malcolm, to whom he behaved in a most gracious manner.
After dinner, the Emperor turned over the leaves of two volumes of the Théâtre Français, without being able to find any thing capable of fixing his attention.
THE EMPEROR BISHOP, &C.
11th.—After our breakfast in the tent and a few turns in the garden, the Emperor read, for the last time, the chapter of Arcole.
During our ride in the calash, somebody observed that it was Sunday. “We should have mass,” said the Emperor, “if we were in a Christian country, if we had a priest; and that would have been a pastime for us during the day. I have been always fond of the sound of the bells in the country. We should,” he added in a gay tone, “resolve upon choosing a priest among us;—the curate of St. Helena.”—But how ordain him, it was said, without a bishop?—“And am I not one,” replied the Emperor, “have I not been anointed with the same oil, consecrated in the same manner? Were not Clovis and his successors anointed, at the time, with the formula of Rex Christique sacerdos? Were they not, in fact, real bishops? Was not the subsequent suppression of that formula caused by the jealousy and policy of the bishops and popes?”
I did not eat at dinner, the Emperor wished to know the cause. I had a violent pain in my stomach, a complaint to which I said I was very subject. “I am more fortunate than you,” he observed. “In all my life, I never had either the head-ache or a pain in my stomach”[stomach”] The Emperor often repeated what he had said, and he has pronounced these same words perhaps ten, twenty, or thirty times, in the midst of us at different moments.[[8]]
CAMPAIGN OF 1809, &C.
12th.—The Emperor passed the morning in his bath, reading the Journals des Debats of March and April, received yesterday by way of the Cape. The Emperor was very much occupied with them; they produced a great degree of agitation in his system.
In general, since the Emperor had received books, and particularly the Moniteur, he continued much more at home; he scarcely ever went abroad; he no longer used a horse, nor even the calash; he hardly took the air for a few moments in the garden; he was not the better for it, his features and his health underwent a visible alteration.
I found him to-day reading Les Croisades by Michaud, which he left to run over Les Memoires de Bezenval. He stopped at the duel between the Comte d’Artois and the Duc de Bourbon. He found the details curious, but they seemed to be very remote from us. “It is difficult,” he observed, “to reconcile times so close to us with manners so different.”
In the course of this day’s conversations, the Emperor happened to repeat, what I have mentioned elsewhere, that his finest manœuvre had been at Eckmuhl, without, however, specifying it any further.
ON THE WAR WITH RUSSIA.—FATALITIES, &C.—M. DE TALLEYRAND, &C.—MADAME DE STAEL’S CORINNE.—M. NECKER, &C.
13th. At an early hour in the morning, I accompanied the Emperor very far into the wood; he conversed for upwards of an hour, on the situation of France, and then reverted to the persons who had betrayed him, and the numerous fatalities which had hurried him along; to the perfidious security caused by his marriage with Austria; to the infatuation of the Turks, who made peace precisely when they ought to have made war; to that of Bernadotte, who was actuated by his self-love and his resentment, rather than by his real grandeur and stability; to a season severe beyond measure, and even to the superiority of talent, evinced by M. de Narbonne, who, discovering the designs of Austria, compelled her to take active measures. Finally, he reverted to the successes of Lutzen and Bautzen, which, by bringing back the king of Saxony to Dresden, put him, Napoleon, in possession of the hostile signatures of Austria, and deprived her of all further subterfuge. “What an unhappy concurrence!” he exclaimed in a most expressive tone, “and yet,” he continued, “the day after the battle of Dresden, Francis had already sent a person to treat. It was necessary, that Vandamme’s disaster should happen at a given moment, to second, as it were, the decree of fate.”
M. de Talleyrand, to whose conduct the Emperor frequently alluded, for the purpose of discovering, he said, when he had really begun to betray him, had strongly urged him to make peace, on his return from Leipsic. “I must,” he observed, “do him that justice. He found fault with my speech to the Senate, but warmly approved of that which I made to the Legislative Body. He uniformly maintained, that I deceived myself with respect to the energy of the nation; that it would not second mine, and that it was requisite for me to arrange my affairs by every possible sacrifice. It appears that he was then sincere. I never, from my own experience, found Talleyrand eloquent or persuasive. He dwelt a great deal, and a long time, on the same idea. Perhaps also, as our acquaintance was of old date, he behaved in a peculiar manner to me. He was, however, so skilful in his evasions and ramblings that, after conversations which lasted several hours, he has gone away, frequently avoiding the explanations and objects I expected to obtain from him on his coming.”
With regard to the affairs of the moment and to the contents of the last journals which described France in a constantly increasing agitation, the result was that the chances of the future seemed indefinite, multiplied, and inexhaustible for all Europe, and that there existed, at that instant, an incontrovertible fact, communicated to us from all quarters, that nobody in Europe considered himself in a permanent situation. Every one seemed to apprehend or to foresee new events.
The Emperor kept me to breakfast with him in the tent. He afterwards sent for Madame de Staël’s Corinne, and read some chapters of it. He said that he could not get through it. Madame de Staël had drawn so complete a likeness of herself in her heroine, that she had succeeded in convincing him that it was herself. “I see her,” said he, “I hear her, I feel her, I wish to avoid her, and I throw away the book. I had a better impression of this work on my memory, than what I feel at present. Perhaps it is because, at the time, I read it with my thumb, as M. l’Abbé de Pradt ingeniously says, and not without some truth. I shall, however, persevere; I am determined to see the end of it; I still think that it was not destitute of some interest. Yet I cannot forgive Madame de Staël for having undervalued the French in her romance. The family of Madame de Staël is unquestionably a very singular one—her father, her mother and herself, all three on their knees, in constant adoration of each other, regaling one another with reciprocal incense, for the better edification and mystification of the public. Madame de Staël may, nevertheless, exult in surpassing her noble parents, when she presumed to write, that her sentiments for her father were such that she detected herself in being jealous of her mother.
“Madame de Staël,” he continued, “was ardent in her passions, vehement and extravagant in her expressions. This is what was discovered by the police, while she was under its superintendence. ‘I am far from you;’ (she was probably writing to her husband,) ‘come instantly;—I command;—I insist upon it; I am on my knees; I beseech you, come.—My hand grasps a dagger. If you hesitate, I shall kill myself; and you alone will be guilty of my destruction’[destruction’]” This was Corinne.
She had, said the Emperor, combined all her efforts and all her means to make an impression on the General of the army of Italy; without any knowledge of him, she wrote to him, when far off; she tormented him when present. If she was to be believed, the union of genius with a little insignificant Creole, incapable of appreciating or comprehending him, was a monstrosity. Unfortunately the General’s only answer was an indifference which women never forgive, and which, indeed, he remarked with a smile, is hardly to be forgiven.
On his arrival at Paris, he was followed with the same eagerness, but he maintained, on his part, the same reserve, the same silence. Madame de Staël resolved, however, to extract some words from him and to struggle with the conqueror of Italy, attacked him face to face, at the grand entertainment given by M. de Talleyrand, Minister for Foreign Affairs, to the victorious General. She challenged him in the middle of a numerous circle, to tell her who was the greatest woman in the world, whether dead or living. “She, who has had most children,” answered Napoleon, with great simplicity. Madame de Staël was, at first, a little disconcerted, and endeavoured to recover herself by observing that it was reported that he was not very fond of women. “Pardon me, Madam,” again replied Napoleon, “I am very fond of my wife.”
The General of the army of Italy, said the Emperor, might, no doubt, have excited the enthusiasm of the Genevese Corinna to its highest pitch; but he dreaded her politic perfidy and her thirst of celebrity; he was, perhaps, in the wrong. The heroine had, however, been too eager in her pursuit and too often discouraged, not to become a violent enemy. “She instigated the person, who was then a under her influence, and he,” observed the Emperor, “did not enter upon the business in a very honourable manner. On the appointment of the Tribunate, he employed the most pressing solicitations with the First Consul to be nominated a member. At eleven o’clock at night, he was supplicating with all his might; but at twelve, when the favour was granted, he was already erect and almost in an insulting attitude. The first meeting of the Tribunes was a splendid occasion for his invectives against me. At night, Madame de Staël’s hotel was illuminated. She crowned her Benjamin amidst a brilliant assembly, and proclaimed him a second Mirabeau. This farce, which was ridiculous enough, was followed by more dangerous plans. At the time of the Concordat, against which Madame de Staël was quite furious, she united at once against me the aristocrats and the republicans. ‘You have,’ she exclaimed, ‘but[‘but] a single moment left; to-morrow the tyrant will have forty thousand priests at his disposal.’”
“Madame de Staël,” said Napoleon, “having at length tired out my patience, was sent into exile. Her father had seriously offended me before, at the time of the campaign of Marengo. I wished to see him on my way, and he struck me merely as a dull bloated college tutor. Shortly afterwards, and with the hope, no doubt, of again appearing, by my help, in public life, he published a pamphlet[pamphlet], in which he proved that France could neither be a republic nor a monarchy. What it might be,” remarked the Emperor, “was not sufficiently evident. In that work, he called the First Consul, the necessary man, &c. Lebrun replied to him, in a letter of four pages, in his admirable style, and with all his powers of sarcasm; he asked him whether he had not done sufficient mischief to France, and whether his pretensions to govern her again were not exhausted by his experiment of the Constituent Assembly.
“Madame de Staël, in her disgrace, carried on hostilities with the one hand, and supplicated with the other. She was informed, on the part of the First Consul, that he left her the universe for the theatre of her achievements; that he resigned the rest of the world to her, and only reserved Paris for himself, which he forbade her to approach. But Paris was precisely the object of Madame de Staël’s wishes. No matter; the Consul was inflexible. Madame de Staël, however, occasionally renewed her attempts. Under the empire, she wished to be a lady of the palace. Yes or no might certainly be pronounced; but by what means could Madame de Staël be kept quiet in a palace?” &c.
After dinner, the Emperor read the Horatii, and was frequently interrupted by our bursts of admiration. Never did Corneille appear to us grander, more noble, more nervous, than on our rock.
SHOOTING PARTY AT ST. HELENA, &c.—EVE OF THE
15TH OF AUGUST, &C.
14th. The Emperor went out early. He sent for me before nine o’clock. His intention was to mount his horse, and endeavour to get a shot at some partridges, which we saw every time we were in the carriage; but which never let any one with a fowling-piece come near them. The Emperor walked on for the purpose of placing himself in a convenient situation, but the partridges were no longer to be found. He was soon fatigued, and got on horseback, observing that our shooting party was not exactly after the fashion of those of Rambouillet and Fontainebleau. We breakfasted, on our return, in the tent. The Emperor placed little Tristan, whom he saw crossing the meadow, at table, and was much amused with him during the whole of the repast.
After breakfast, the Emperor had the chapter of Rivoli read over again to him, and finished it. We had gone through three-fourths of it, when the Governor being announced, we made a precipitate retreat from the tent, and each of us took refuge in his den. The Emperor was less inclined than any other person to let himself be seen: his conversations with the Governor are by far too disagreeable and painful to him. “I am determined,” he said, “to have no more to do with him. Harsh remarks escape me, which affect my character and my dignity; nothing should fall from my lips but what is kind and complimentary.” He found himself fatigued with his exercise in the morning, and took a bath.
About five o’clock, he took a turn in the calash, the weather was delicious.
The Governor had expressed an earnest desire to see the Emperor; he wished, he said, to speak with him on business. It is suspected that it was to tell him that he had no more money, that he had exhausted all, and that he no longer knew how to act; a matter of perfect indifference to the Emperor, who would not have failed, once more, to entreat to be let alone.
The Emperor played at chess, before dinner, in the saloon; he had taken some punch. It was late when I arrived; he told me, on entering, to take my share of the punch; but it was observed that there were no more glasses. “O yes,” said he, handing me his, “and he will drink out of it, I am sure.” He then added, “This is the English fashion; is it not? In our country one seldom drinks after any one but one’s mistress.“
It was remarked, during dinner, that it was the eve of the 15th of August; the Emperor then observed; “Many healths will be drunk to-morrow, in Europe, to St. Helena. There are certainly some sentiments, some wishes, that will traverse the ocean.” He had entertained the same thought in the morning when on horseback, and had said the same things to me.
After dinner, Cinna;—Corneille appears to us divine.