“They wish to know what I desire?” said he; “I demand my liberty or death. Report these words to your Prince Regent. I no longer ask to hear from my son, since they have had the barbarity to leave my first request unanswered.... I was not your prisoner. Savages would have had more respect for my situation. Your Ministers have basely violated in my person the sacred rights of hospitality; they have for ever dishonoured England!”
Captain Hamilton having ventured to observe that Napoleon was not the prisoner of England alone, but of all the Allied Powers, the Emperor warmly resumed; “I did not deliver myself up to Russia, there I should doubtless have been well received; I did not surrender myself to Austria, there I should have been equally well treated; but I delivered myself up, of my own free will and choice, to England, because I had confidence in her laws and her public morals. I have been cruelly deceived! But Heaven will avenge my wrongs; and, sooner or later you will meet the punishment of a deed for which mankind already reproaches you!——Repeat all this to the Prince Regent, sir.” He accompanied these last words with a motion of his hand, and dismissed the Captain.
We walked about for a few minutes, and on the return of the Grand Marshal, who had accompanied Captain Hamilton a short distance, we thought that it would be proper to leave him alone with the Emperor; but I had scarcely entered my room when he sent for me. He was alone, in his own apartment; he asked me whether I had not had enough of retirement during the day. I told him that a feeling of respect and discretion had alone induced me to leave him. To this he answered that there was no occasion for it, as nothing had passed that he wished to make a secret of. “Besides,” added he, “a certain degree of freedom and ease is not without its charm.” These words, which fell carelessly from Napoleon’s lips, may better serve to show his character than hundreds of pages.
We then perused an English publication, containing the official documents found in his portfolio, which was taken at Waterloo. The Emperor was astonished himself at the number of orders which he had issued almost at the same moment, and the countless details which he had directed in every quarter of the empire. “This publication,” said he, “can do me no harm, after all. It will at least satisfy every one that its contents are not the production of a sluggard. They will compare me with the legitimate Sovereigns, and I shall not suffer by the comparison.”
After dinner, the Emperor conversed on several unconnected subjects. In speaking of his Ambassadors, he said that he considered M. de Narbonne as the only one who had fully deserved that title, and had really fulfilled the duties of his office. “And that,” said he, “by the peculiar advantages, not only of his talents, but of his old-fashioned morals, his manners, and his name. When an Ambassador has merely to prescribe, any one may fill the post; one person is just as good as another; perhaps an aide-de-camp is the best man that can be chosen.[chosen.] But when it is necessary to negotiate, the affair is widely different. In that case it is indispensable to present to the old aristocracy of the Courts of Europe, only the elements of that aristocracy, which, in fact, constitutes a sort of free-masonry. If an Otto or an Andreossi were to enter the saloons of Vienna, there would be a stop to the interchange of opinion; habitual manners would cease. They would be regarded as intruders and profaners, and the mysteries of diplomacy would be suspended. But how different would it be with a Narbonne, possessing the advantages of affinity, sympathy, and identity! A lady of the old nobility would perhaps resign her person to a plebeian, though she would not discover to him the secrets of the aristocracy.”
The Emperor was much attached to M. de Narbonne, and regretted him deeply. He had made him his aide-de-camp, he observed, only because Maria Louisa, through the intrigues of the persons composing her suite, had refused to let him be appointed her gentleman of honour; a post for which he was perfectly adapted. “Until the period of his embassy,” continued the Emperor, “we had been duped by Austria. In less than a fortnight, M. de Narbonne penetrated all the secrets of the cabinet of Vienna, and M. de Metternich was deeply mortified at the appointment. However, by a singular fatality, perhaps, even the success of M. de Narbonne thwarted my views. I found that his talent was no less fatal than useful. Austria, supposing that her designs were guessed, threw aside the mask, and took precipitate steps. Had less penetration been shewn on our part, she would have acted with greater reserve and deliberation. She would have prolonged her natural indecision, and in the interim other chances might have risen up.”
Some one present having alluded to the embassies of Dresden and Berlin, and being apparently inclined to attach blame to our diplomatic agents in those courts, at the period of the return from Moscow, the Emperor replied that, at that period, the fault was not to be attributed to persons, but to things; that with a single glance any one might have foreseen what would happen; and that, for his part, he had not been deceived for a moment. He added that if he had not in person conducted the army back to Wilna, and into Germany, it was through the fear of not being able himself to reach France. He wished, he said, to obviate this imminent danger by the boldness of his movements in crossing Germany rapidly and alone. He was, however, on the point of being taken in Silesia: “but luckily,” said he, "the Prussians were deliberating at the moment when they ought to have been acting. Their conduct in this respect was like that which the Saxons observed towards Charles XII., who said, when he quitted Dresden on a similar occasion;—‘You[‘You] will see that they will hold a consultation to-morrow upon the expediency of having detained me to-day.’”[to-day.’”]
Before dinner the Emperor called me into his closet to go over some English exercises with him. He told me that he had just been calculating the expenses of his toilet, and that it cost him about four napoleons per month. We laughed at the immensity of the budget. He talked of ordering some clothes, shoes, boots, &c. from the tradesmen in Europe who had his measures. I thought that this would be attended with serious inconvenience, and, after some consideration, we were convinced that it would never be permitted.
“It is, however,” observed the Emperor, “extremely vexatious to be thus deprived of money; and I wish to come to some settlement on this point. As soon as the bill, which is to determine our situation here, shall be notified to me, I intend to make arrangements for receiving an annual loan of seven or eight millions of napoleons from Eugene. He cannot refuse me. He has received from me perhaps upwards of forty-millions; and it would be an insult to his sentiments to doubt his readiness to serve me. Besides, we have long accounts to settle together. I am sure, if I had appointed a committee of my Councillors of State to draw up a report on this subject, they would have presented me with a balance of at least ten or twelve millions against Eugene.”
At dinner the Emperor asked us some questions respecting the sum necessary to enable a bachelor to live in a European capital, or for the support of a plain family establishment, or the maintenance of a family in a style of elegance. He is fond of these questions and calculations; he treats them with great shrewdness, and enters into the most curious details.