The Emperor said that, for the permanent government, he had chosen, in Cambacérès[Cambacérès] and Lebrun, two distinguished characters; both prudent, moderate, and able, but of completely opposite principles—the one the advocate of abuses, prejudices, old institutions, the revival of honours and distinctions, &c.—the other cold, austere, insensible, contending against all these ideas, yielding to them without illusion, and naturally falling into ideology.
In resuming, he observed that Sieyes might perhaps have contributed to give a different colour, another characteristic, to the imperial administration; but it was observed to him that this variation could not have been otherwise than injurious, for Napoleon’s choice had been much approved of at the time. The men he had selected, it was said, were not liable to be objected to by Europe. They had greatly contributed to conciliate public opinion in France, which ran wholly against Sieyes. His name and the recollections attending it would, in the eyes of many people, have disgraced the acts in which he might have taken part; and there was an anecdote eagerly repeated at the time, which shews all the ill-will that was borne towards him. It was said that, whilst he was talking with the Emperor, at the Tuileries, about Louis XIV. he had suffered the word tyrant to escape him. "M. l’Abbé," the Emperor was said to have replied, “if Louis XVI. had been a tyrant, you would now be saying mass, and I should not be here.” The Emperor smiled at this anecdote, without confirming or denying it. It will hereafter appear that it was false.
FRESH AGGRAVATIONS FROM THE GOVERNOR.—HIS
ABSURDITIES.
Saturday 6th to Monday 8th.—I have not mentioned the Governor for some time. We endeavour to keep him as much as possible out of our thoughts; we now scarcely ever adverted to him. His ill-manners, and the vexations we endure from him oblige me to notice him to-day: they seem to have increased. He has just withheld from us some letters from Europe, although they came open, and in the most ostensible manner—merely because they had not passed through the hands of the Secretary of State; without considering that a want of formality can easily be rectified in England, but that it is irremediable at a distance of two thousand leagues. If, however, in thus rigorously and literally fulfilling his instructions, he had only had the humanity to let us know that he has received these letters, and from whom they come, he might set our minds at ease with regard to those respecting whose health, or whose attention to ourselves, we suffer so much anxiety: but he has the barbarity to make a mystery of the affair. It is not many days since, the Countess Bertrand having written to town, he had the note seized, and sent it back to her as having been written without his permission. He accompanied this insult with an official letter, by which he prohibited us, for the future, from all written or even verbal communication with the inhabitants, without submitting it to his approbation; and what is particularly absurd and incredible is, that he imposed this restriction on our intercourse with people whom he nevertheless permits us to visit at our own pleasure. He accompanied the publication of the act relating to us with commentaries which spread terror amongst the inhabitants; he complains of the excessive expense of the Emperor’s table, and insists on great reductions.—It had not been understood that General Bonaparte would have so many people about him. Ministers, he told us ingenuously, had never doubted that the permission they had sent us to go away would have induced us to quit the Emperor. All this shuffling produced an exchange of pretty sharp notes. To one of the Governor’s communications, in which he said, that if the restrictions imposed on us seemed too hard, we might relieve ourselves from them by going away, the Emperor himself dictated the following addition to the answer we had already written:—"That, having been honoured by him during his prosperity, we considered it our chief pleasure to serve him, now that he could do nothing for us; and if there were persons to whom this conduct was incomprehensible, so much the worse for them."
NEW VEXATIONS.—THE EMPEROR SELDOM STIRS OUT.—TRISTAN.—LA FONTAINE’S FABLES.—THE BELLY RULES THE WORLD.—DIFFICULTY OF JUDGING OF MEN.
Tuesday 9th to Thursday 11th.—The Governor continues to annoy us, and is incessantly aggravating the misery of our situation. He seems resolved to place us in close confinement. He has published a proclamation in the town, ordering that all letters and notes addressed by us to the inhabitants, on any occasion whatever, shall be sent to him within twenty-four hours. He has also forbidden them to visit the Grand Marshal and his wife, who live at the entrance of our enclosure. In the beginning of this blockade of Madame Bertrand[Bertrand], it was so rigorously enforced that some medicines sent hence by the doctor for one of the Grand Marshal’s people, who was dying, could not be delivered; and it was only as an accommodation that the officer at last took upon him to let them pass over the wall.
The Governor, having read in a letter, sent by one of us to Europe, that the writer wanted several articles of clothing, linen, &c., came and told him that he might have most of those articles out of the stores sent by Government for Napoleon: and the individual replying that he preferred purchasing them, being unwilling to incur any obligation, the Governor drily answered that he might pay for them if he had a fancy to do so. To which the other replied, “Excuse me, Sir, I like to choose my shops myself.” In consequence of this, the Governor afterwards sent him word, by the Doctor, that he should complain of him, for having contemptuously refused the gifts of Government. The other instantly replied that he should be much obliged to him; being much happier to give him an opportunity of transmitting refusals than requests, to the ministers he served.
All these petty tricks, the length and interest of our readings, and the continuance of the bad weather, which is dreadful, confine the Emperor more closely than ever to the house, and overwhelm him with melancholy: he now never stirs abroad. His amusement is now limited to going occasionally, about five o’clock, to visit Madame de Montholon, who has not yet gone abroad since her lying-in. We all meet there, and the Emperor converses for half an hour, or three-quarters, before he returns to his own apartment.
To-day he met little Tristan, the eldest son of M. de Montholon, who is only seven or eight years old, and runs about all day. The Emperor placed him between his knees, and tried to make him recite some fables, of which the poor child did not understand two words out of ten. The Emperor laughed heartily, blaming the practice of putting La Fontaine into the hands of children who cannot understand him; and began to explain these fables to Tristan; endeavouring to render their meaning more palpable to him; nor could any thing be more curious than the simplicity, justice, and logic of his illustrations.
Whilst he was explaining the fable of the Wolf and the Lamb, it was extremely laughable to hear the poor child say Sire, and your Majesty, and in speaking of the wolf, and to the Emperor, confuse all his expressions; whilst his ideas were probably in still greater confusion.