“I observed that it was out of my power at the time to act in the way described, whatever might have been my inclination. As the commander of a legion of the National Guard, I had contracted obligations from which no consideration on earth could free me, &c. I sent my letter to the deputy Chabaud-Latour, one of the proprietors of the Journal des Debats, a man for whom I entertained a great esteem. He declined publishing my letter, purely from good intentions towards me. I then addressed it to the editor; but he refused to insert it on account of difference of opinion.
“Meanwhile, the state of the public mind indicated an inevitable and speedy catastrophe. Every thing foreboded that the Bourbons would share the fate of the Stuarts. My wife and I used every evening to amuse ourselves in reading Hume’s History of England. We began at Charles I., and your Majesty arrived before we had got to James II.” (Here the Emperor could not repress a laugh.)
“Your Majesty’s advance and arrival,” continued I, “were to us a subject of the greatest astonishment and anxiety. I was far from foreseeing the honourable voluntary exile which it would gain for me in the end; for I was then little known to your Majesty; and circumstances arising out of that event alone brought me here. Had I filled the most trivial post under the King; had I even been a frequent attendant at the Tuileries, which would have been very natural and consistent with propriety, I should not have appeared for a length of time in your Majesty’s presence. Not, indeed, that I should have had any thing to reproach myself with, or that my attachment to you would have been the less sincere; but because I should not have wished to pass for a piece of court furniture, or to seem always ready to offer incense at the shrine of power. I should have awaited an appointment, instead of pressing forward to solicit one. But as it was, I felt myself so much at liberty, every thing about me was in such perfect harmony, that I seemed to form a part of the great event. I therefore eagerly hastened to meet the first glance of your Majesty; I felt as though I had claims on your kindness and favour. On your return from Waterloo, the same sentiments brought me immediately and spontaneously near your person, which I have never since quitted. If I was then attracted by your public glory, I am now attached by your private virtues; and if it be true that the gratification of my feelings then cost me some sacrifice, I now find myself repaid a hundred-fold, by the happiness I enjoy in being able to tell you so.
“It would however be difficult to describe the extreme disgust I felt at every thing during the ten months of your absence. I felt an utter contempt for mankind and worldly vanities. Every illusion was destroyed, all interest had vanished. Every thing appeared to be at an end, or to be undeserving of the smallest value. During my emigration, I had received the cross of St. Louis; an ordinance decreed that it was to be legitimated by a new brevet. I had not spirit to put in my claim. Another ordinance directed that the titles bestowed by your Majesty should be sent in to be confirmed; but I felt indifferent with regard to compromising those which I had obtained during the Empire. In fine, I received a letter from the Marine department, informing me that my captain’s commission had just been forwarded thither, and there it still remains.
“Your Majesty’s absence was to me a widowhood, the affliction and grief of which I concealed from no one. But on your return I was repaid for all by the testimony borne by those who surrounded you, and to whom I had previously been scarcely known. At your Majesty’s first levee, the individual who was ad interim at the head of the department of foreign affairs, coming from the presence, took me aside to a window, and told me to go home and prepare, as I should probably have to set out on a journey. He had just, he said, proposed me to your Majesty, adding that he had represented me as a madman, but mad for love of you. I wished to know whither I was to be sent; but that, he said, he neither would nor could tell me. I never heard any thing more of the matter.
“M. Regnault de Saint-Jean d’Angeli placed me on the list of the Imperial Commissioners whom your Majesty sent to the departments, I assured him that I was ready to do any thing; but I observed that I was a noble and an emigrant, and that these two words pronounced by the first comer would be sufficient to annihilate me, in case of necessity, at any time or in any place. He acknowledged the justice of my observation, and relinquished his intention.
“A Senator next solicited that your Majesty would appoint me to the prefecture of Metz, his native town. He requested me to make this sacrifice for only three months, in order, as he said, to conciliate the popular mind, and set things to rights. At length Decrés and the Duke of Bassano proposed me as a Councillor of State; and, the third day after your arrival, your Majesty signed my appointment.”
23rd.—The Emperor was still indisposed: he confined himself to his room, and would see nobody. He sent for me at 9 o’clock in the evening. I found him very low-spirited and melancholy. He scarcely spoke to me, and I did not dare to say anything to him. If I regarded his illness as merely physical, it grieved me sincerely:—if he laboured under mental affliction, how much more was I grieved that I could not employ all the resources of consolation with which the heart naturally overflows for those whom we truly love. The Emperor dismissed me in about half an hour.
24th.—The Emperor continued indisposed, and still declined seeing any body. He sent for me to dine with him at a late hour. Dinner was served on a little table beside the sofa on which he was lying. He ate heartily. He said that he stood in need of some sudden revulsion of the constitution, which he should soon obtain; so well did he understand his own temperament. After dinner he took up the Memoirs of Marshal de Villars, which amused him. He read aloud many passages, which revived former recollections, and gave rise to many anecdotes.