I have related how my successful play Henri III. had launched me in the world and the curiosity there was excited over its author. Barras was among the number of those who wanted to be introduced to me. The name which I inherited from my father was of special historic significance to the Man of the Convention, the Directoire, 9 thermidor and 13 vendémiaire.
The history of Barras is known by heart. He was the son of an ancient Provençal family, and he had entered the army early; he had been sent to the isle of France and to India, where he had valiantly taken part in the defence of Pondicherry. He left the service with the rank of captain, and had come to Paris, where he had led an extremely dissipated life. Taken from this life of pleasure by his fellow-citizens of Var, who made him their député, in 1792, he had been a member of the Convention amongst the Montagnards; was charged with a mission, the following year, to suppress both the Federalist and Royalist movement which was agitating the South; had assisted at the recapture of Toulon from the English; and here had become acquainted with Major Bonaparte, thus being able to judge the advantage such a man would be to any party. On 9 thermidor, he was made commander of the armed forces of Paris: he it was who seized Robespierre and gave him up to the scaffold. Some days later, he was himself attacked by the Sections (called by the Convention instead of my father, who could not, as we have seen, respond to the appeal because of his absence); he pushed Bonaparte forward, who was on his side on 13 vendémiaire and against him on 18 brumaire. It was said at that time (but this, I think, is one of the calumniating statements that conquerors are only too willing to make, concerning the vanquished, with respect to their victories, when not fairly won) that Barras was carrying on negotiations for the return of the Bourbons and twelve millions were promised to this new General Monk as the price of their restoration.
The events on 18 brumaire having squashed the Bourbon counter-revolution, Barras, being proscribed by his former protector, retired to Brussels and then to Rome. He only returned to France in 1816; settling down at Chaillot, where he had since dwelt, and where, thanks to an income of 200,000 livres which he had saved out of the various shipwrecks of his political career, he kept a charming and very luxurious household, waited on by a large retinue of servants. I specially refer to the number of servants, because Barras always had at his sumptuous table as many servants as guests, and several times I have dined there when there were twenty to twenty-five guests.
I was introduced to the old dictator by one of my oldest and best friends, a man whom I was always delighted to see when I was well and still more pleased to see if I were ill, namely, Doctor Cabarrus, son of the handsome Madame Tallien. Cabarrus was then, and indeed still is, a fine strongly built man, with a sympathetic face and a character to accord. Endowed with a charming nature, sound learning and untiring observation, Cabarrus had, less by his social position than by his own personal work, been thrown into the midst of all the aristocratic circles—the aristocracies of birth, talent and science. No one could tell a story better than he, or, rarer gift still, be a better listener than he: he had a fine, delicate smiling mouth, and showed a lovely set of teeth when he laughed, which lit up his face. Barras was very fond of him, which was not astonishing, because everybody who knew Cabarrus liked him.
So it was Cabarrus who took me, one Wednesday morning, to Barras's house. I had been warned that the old dictator was always addressed as Citizen-general; there was no compulsion in the matter, of course, but that was the title which pleased him best.
Barras received us seated in a great arm-chair, which he vacated as rarely during the last years of his life as Louis XVIII. left his. He remembered my father perfectly well and the accident that had prevented his taking command of the armed forces on 13 vendémiaire, and I recollect that several times that day he repeated over to me this sentence which I give word for word:—
"Young man, do not forget what an old Republican says to you: I have but two regrets, I ought rather to call them remorses, which will be the only ones present at my bedside when I come to die. I have the two-edged remorse of having, overthrown Robespierre by the 9 thermidor, and of having raised Bonaparte to power by the 13 vendémiaire."
It will be observed that I have not forgotten what Barras said to me, although on one of the two points (I will leave my reader to guess which) I am not entirely of his opinion.
Wednesday was Barras's reception day. Cabarrus had chosen it hoping that the "Citizen-general" would keep me to dinner, where I should meet with various representatives of the end of the last century and of the early days of the present one—representatives who, by the way, whatever they might be, when inside Barras's house, became subdued to the Republican spirit, and were simply citizens, whether male or female. Cabarrus was not disappointed: the old dictator invited us to stay dinner and, if we did not wish to return to Paris, offered us the use of a carriage to take us a drive in the woods until the dinner-hour came. Cabarrus had his business to attend to, and I had mine; so we accepted the invitation to dinner, but declined the carriage, and took leave of Barras.
In 1829, Barras was an extremely fine-looking old man of seventy-four. I can see him now in his arm-chair on wheels, his head and hands seeming to be the only portions of him which were still alive, but these appeared to contain vitality enough for his whole body: he wore a cap which never left his head and which he never took off for anybody. From time to time, this moral life, if one may use such a phrase, this artificial life, replete with will-power, deserted him and then he looked like a dying person.