ON THE OFFICERS OF THE EMPEROR’S HOUSEHOLD IN
1814.—PLAN OF ADDRESS TO THE KING.

17th.—The Emperor asked me some questions to-day relative to the officers of his household. With the exception of two or three, at the most, who had drawn upon themselves the contempt of the very party to which they had gone over, nothing could be said against them: the majority had even evinced an ardent devotion to the Emperor’s interests. The Emperor then made enquiries respecting some of these individuals in particular, calling them by their names; and I could not but express my approbation of them all. “What do you tell me?” said he, interrupting me hastily while I was speaking of one of them; “and yet I gave him so bad a reception at the Tuileries on my return! Ah! I fear I have committed some involuntary acts of injustice! This comes of being obliged to take for granted the first story that is told, and of not having a single moment to spare for verification! I fear too that I have left many debts of gratitude in arrear! How unfortunate it is to be incapable of doing every thing one’s self!”

I replied—“Sire, it is true that, if blame be attached to the officers of your household, it must be shared equally by all; a fact, however, which must humble us strangely in the eyes of foreign nations. As soon as the King appeared, all hastened to him, not as to the sovereign whom your abdication had left us, but as to one who had never ceased to be our sovereign; not with the dignity of men proud of having always fulfilled their duties, but with the equivocal embarrassment of unskilful courtiers. Each sought only to justify himself: your Majesty was from that instant disavowed and abjured; the title of Emperor was dropped. The Ministers, the Nobles, the intimate friends of your Majesty, styled you simply 'Buonaparte,’ and blushed not for themselves or their nation. They excused themselves by saying that they had been compelled to serve; that they could not do otherwise, through dread of the treatment they might have experienced.” The Emperor here recognised a true picture of our national character. He said we were still the same people as our ancestors the Gauls: that we still retained the same levity, the same inconstancy, and, above all, the same vanity. “When shall we,” said he, “exchange this vanity for a little pride?”

“The officers of your Majesty’s household,” said I, “neglected a noble opportunity of acquiring both honour and popularity. There were above one hundred and fifty officers of the household; a great number of them belonged to the first families, and were men of independent fortune. It was for them to set an example, which, being followed by others, might have given another impulse to the national attitude, and afforded us a claim on public esteem.”[[24]]—“Yes,” said the Emperor, “if all the upper classes had acted in that way, affairs might have turned out very differently. The old editors of the public journals would not then have indulged in their chimeras of the good old times; we should not then have been annoyed with their dissertations on the straight line and the curve line; the King would have adhered honestly to his charter; I should never have dreamed of quitting the Island of Elba; the head of the nation would have been recorded in history with greater honour and dignity; and we should all have been gainers.”

THE EMPEROR’S IDEA OF RESERVING CORSICA.—HIS OPINION OF ROBESPIERRE.—HIS IDEAS RESPECTING PUBLIC OPINION.—EXPIATORY INTENTION OF THE EMPEROR WITH REGARD TO THE VICTIMS OF THE REVOLUTION.

18th.—After the accustomed occupation of the day, I accompanied the Emperor to the garden about four o’clock. He had just completed his dictation on the subject of Corsica. Having concluded every thing he had to say relative to that island, and to Paoli, he adverted to the interest which he himself excited there, while yet so young, at the time of his separation from Paoli. He added that latterly he might to a certainty have united in his favour the wishes, the sentiments, and the efforts of the whole population of Corsica; and that, had he retired to that island on quitting Paris, he would have been beyond the reach of any foreign power whatever. He had an idea of doing so when he abdicated in favour of his son. He was on the point of reserving to himself the possession of Corsica during his life. No obstacle at sea would have obstructed his passage thither. But he abandoned that design for the sake of rendering his abdication the more sincere and the more advantageous to France. His residence in the centre of the Mediterranean, in the bosom of Europe, so near France and Italy, might have furnished a lasting pretext to the Allies. He even preferred America to England, from the same motive and the same idea. It is true that, in the sincerity of his own measures, he neither did, nor could foresee, his unjust and violent banishment to St. Helena.

The Emperor, next proceeding to take a review of different points of the Revolution, dwelt particularly on Robespierre, whom he did not know, but whom he believed to be destitute of talent, energy, or system. He considered him, notwithstanding, merely as the scapegoat of the Revolution, sacrificed as soon as he endeavoured to arrest it in its course:—the common fate, he observed, of all who, before himself (Napoleon) had ventured to take that step. The Terrorists and their doctrine survived Robespierre; and if their excesses were not continued, it was because they were obliged to bow to public opinion. They threw all the blame on Robespierre; but the latter declared shortly before his death, that he was a stranger to the recent executions, and that he had not appeared in the Committees for six weeks previously. Napoleon confessed that, while he was with the army of Nice, he had seen some long letters addressed by Robespierre to his brother, condemning the horrors of the Commissioners of the Convention, who, as he expressed it, were ruining the Revolution by their tyranny and atrocities. “Cambaceres, who,” observed the Emperor, “must be a good authority on subjects relating to that period, answered an enquiry which I one day addressed to him respecting the condemnation of Robespierre, in these remarkable words: ‘Sire, that was a sentence without a trial;’ adding that Robespierre had more foresight and conception than was generally imagined; and that his intention was, after subduing the unbridled factions which he had to oppose, to restore a system of order and moderation. ‘Some time previously to his fall,’ added Cambaceres, ‘he delivered a most admirable speech on this subject; it was not thought proper to insert it in the Moniteur, and all trace of it is now lost.’”

This is not the first instance I have heard of omissions and want of accuracy in the Moniteur. In the reports inserted in that journal relative to the proceedings of the Assembly, there must be a period remarkable for incorrectness; as the minutes of those proceedings were for a time arbitrarily drawn up by one of the Committees.

Those who are induced to believe that Robespierre was at once wearied, satiated, and alarmed by the Revolution, and had resolved on checking it, affirm that he would not take any decided step until after he had read his famous speech. He considered it so fine that he had no doubt of its effect on the Assembly. If this be true, his mistake or his vanity cost him dear. Those who think differently assert that Danton and Camille-des-Moulins had precisely the same views; and yet that Robespierre sacrificed them. To these it is replied that Robespierre sacrificed them to preserve his popularity, because he judged that the decisive moment had not yet arrived; or because he did not wish to resign to them the glory of the enterprise.

Be this as it may, it is certain that the nearer we approach to the instruments and the agents in that catastrophe, the greater obscurity and mystery we find; and this uncertainty will but increase with time. Thus the page of history will, on this point as on many others, become the record, not so much of the events which really occurred, as of the statements which are given of them.