THE REQUIRED DECLARATION IS SENT TO THE GOVERNOR.—THE EMPEROR REMARKS THAT MANY MODERN BOOKS ARE MERELY BOOKSELLERS‘ SPECULATIONS.—FALSE NOTIONS CREATED BY PARTY SPIRIT.—GENERAL MAISON.
14th.—To-day the Grand Marshal forwarded to the Governor the new declarations which he required us to make. They were all alike, and were as follows:
“I, the undersigned, hereby declare that I wish to remain at St. Helena, and to share the restrictions which are imposed on the Emperor Napoleon personally.”
About one o’clock I went to attend the Emperor in his chamber. I gave him an account of some private commissions. He was reading a work on the government of France. He thought it very indifferent, and observed that, since he had been in the habit of perusing new publications, he had found them, for the most part, to be merely matters of speculation,—things got up for sale by booksellers. The world, he said, was now threatened with a deluge of bad books, and he saw no remedy that could effectually counteract so great an evil.
After having dressed, the Emperor repaired to the drawing-room, where he looked over a few English newspapers, and read some lines of Telemachus. But he felt fatigued and low-spirited, and suspended his reading. We discoursed on several subjects which intimately concerned the Emperor, who closed the conversation by several times repeating,—“Poor human nature!”
During another interval of conversation, Napoleon, taking a review of several well-known individuals, on whom he pronounced his opinion, alluded to one, whom he represented as being a most immoral and base character. I happened to be acquainted with this person, and I observed that I knew him to be quite the reverse of what I had just heard described. I was defending the individual in question with considerable warmth when the Emperor interrupted me, saying: “I give full credit to what you say; but I had heard a different account of him: and though I generally made it a rule to hear things of this kind with suspicion, yet you see I could not always avoid retaining some impression of what I heard. Was this my fault? When I had no particular motive for inquiry, how could I arrive at the knowledge of facts? This,” continued he, “is the inevitable consequence of civil commotions: there are always two reputations between the two parties. What absurdities, what ridiculous stories, are related of the individuals who figured in our Revolution![[33]] The saloons of Paris are full of them. I have had my full share of this kind of scandal. After me who can have any right to complain? Yet I protest that nothing of this sort ever produced any influence on my mind, or occasioned me in any instance to alter my determinations, &c.”
After alluding to several military officers, the Emperor mentioned General Maison. “His manœuvres,” said he, “round Lille, in the crisis of 1814, attracted my attention, and fixed him in my recollection. He was not with us in 1815. What became of him? Where was he at that time?”—I could not answer these questions, as I did not know the General.