THE TWO EMPRESSES.—THE PRINCESS PAULINE.—ELOQUENT
EFFUSION OF THE EMPEROR.
On another of these evenings, the Emperor was holding forth against the caprice of women: “Nothing,” said he, “more clearly indicates rank, education, and good breeding among them, than evenness of temper and the constant desire to please.” He added that they were bound by circumstances to appear at all times mistresses of themselves, and to be always attending to their part on the stage. His two wives, he observed, had always been so: they certainly differed greatly in their qualities and dispositions; but they always agreed in this point. Never had he witnessed ill-humour in either the one or the other: to please him had been the constant object with both of them.
Some one ventured to observe, however, that Maria-Louisa had boasted that, whenever she desired any thing, no matter how difficult, she had only to weep. The Emperor laughed, and said, this was new to him. He might have suspected it of Josephine, but he had no idea of it in Maria-Louisa. And then, addressing himself to Mesdames Bertrand and Montholon: “Thus it is with you all, ladies,” said he: “in some points you all agree.”
He continued for a long time to talk about the two Empresses, and repeated, as usual, that one was Innocence, and the other the Graces. He passed from them to his sisters, and dwelt particularly on the charms of the Princess Pauline. It was admitted that she was, without dispute, the handsomest woman in Paris. The Emperor said that the artists were unanimous in considering her a perfect Venus de Medicis. A little pleasantry was hazarded on the influence which the Princess Pauline had exercised, at the Island of Elba, over General Drouot, whose assiduous attentions she attracted in spite of the difference of their ages and the harshness of his countenance. The Princess, it was said, had drawn from him the secret of the intended departure, eight days before it took place. He had repeated the fault of Turenne; and upon this the Emperor said, “Such are women, and such is their dangerous power!” Here Madame Bertrand declared that the Grand Marshal, to a certainty, had not done as much. “Madame,” retorted the Emperor with a smile, “he was only your husband.” Some one having remarked that the Princess Pauline, when at Nice, had set up a post-waggon on the road, by which dresses and fashions arrived from Paris every day, the Emperor said: “If I had been aware of it, that should not have lasted long, she should have been well scolded. But thus it happens: while one is Emperor one knows nothing of these matters.”
After this conversation the Emperor enquired what was the day of the month: it was the 11th of March. “Well!” said he, “it is a year ago to-day, it was a brilliant day; I was at Lyons, I reviewed some troops, I had the Mayor to dine with me, who, by the way, has boasted since that it was the worst dinner he ever made in his life.” The Emperor became animated; he paced the chamber quickly. “I was again become a great power,” he continued: and a sigh escaped him, which he immediately checked with these words, in an accent and with a warmth which it is difficult to describe: “I had founded the finest empire in the world, and I was so necessary to it that, in spite of all the last reverses, here, upon my rock, I seem still to remain the master of France. Look at what is going on there, read the papers, you will find it so in every line. Let me once more set my foot there, they will see what France is, and what I can do!” And then what ideas, what projects, he developed for the glory and happiness of the country! He spoke for a long time, with so much interest, and so unreservedly, that we could have forgotten time, place, and seasons. A part of what he said follows:
“What a fatality,” he said, "that my return from the Island of Elba was not acquiesced in, that every one did not perceive that my reign was desirable and necessary for the balance and repose of Europe! But kings and people both feared me; they were wrong, and may pay dearly for it. I returned a new man; they could not believe it; they could not imagine that a man might have sufficient strength of mind to alter his character, or to bend to the power of circumstances. I had, however, given proofs of this, and some pledges to the same effect. Who is ignorant that I am not a man for half-measures? I should have been as sincerely the monarch of the constitution and of peace, as I had been of absolute sway and great enterprises.
"Let us reason a little upon the fears of kings and people on my account. What could the kings apprehend? Did they still dread my ambition, my conquests, my universal monarchy? But my power and my resources were no longer the same; and, besides, I had only defeated and conquered in my own defence: this is a truth which time will more fully develop every day. Europe never ceased to make war upon France, her principles, and me; and we were compelled to destroy, to save ourselves from destruction. The coalition always existed openly or secretly, avowed or denied; it was permanent; it only rested with the Allies to give us peace; for ourselves, we were worn out; the French dreaded making new conquests. As to myself, is it supposed that I am insensible to the charms of repose and security, when glory and honour do not require it otherwise? With our two Chambers, they might have forbidden me in future to pass the Rhine; and why should I have wished it? For my universal monarchy? But I never gave any convincing proof of insanity; and what is its chief characteristic, but a disproportion between our object and the means of attaining it. If I have been on the point of accomplishing this universal monarchy, it was without any original design, and because I was led on to it step by step. The last efforts wanting to arrive at it seemed so trifling, was it very unreasonable to attempt them? But, on my return from Elba, could a similar idea, a thought so mad, a purpose so unattainable, enter the head of the silliest man in the world? The Sovereigns, then, had nothing to fear from my arms.
"Did they apprehend that I might overwhelm them with anarchical principles? But they knew by experience my opinions on that point. They have all seen me occupy their territories: how often have I been urged to revolutionize their states, give municipal functions to their cities, and excite insurrection among their subjects! However I may have been stigmatized, in their names, as the modern Attila, Robespierre on horseback, &c. they all know better at the bottom of their hearts—let them look there! Had I been so, I might perhaps still have reigned; but they most certainly would have long since ceased to reign. In the great cause of which I saw myself the chief and the arbiter, one of two systems was to be followed: to make kings listen to reason from the people; or to conduct the people to happiness by means of their kings. But it is well known to be no easy matter to check the people when they are once set on: it was more rational to reckon a little upon the wisdom and intelligence of rulers. I had a right always to suppose them possessed of sufficient intellect to see such obvious interests: I was deceived; they never calculated at all, and in their blind fury, they let loose against me that which I withheld when opposed to them. They will see!!!
"Lastly, did the Sovereigns take umbrage at seeing a mere soldier attain a crown? Did they fear the example? The solemnities, the circumstances, that accompanied my elevation, my eagerness to conform to their habits, to identify myself with their existence, to become allied to them by blood and by policy, closed the door sufficiently against new comers. Besides, if there must needs have been the spectacle of an interrupted legitimacy, I maintain that it was much more to their interest that it should take place in my person, one risen from the ranks, than in that of a prince, one of their own family: for thousands of ages will elapse before the circumstances accumulated in my case draw forth another from among the crowd to reproduce the same spectacle; while there is not a Sovereign who has not, at a few paces distance in his palace, cousins, nephews, brothers, and relations, to whom it would be easy to follow such an example if once set.
"On the other side, what was there to alarm the people? Did they fear that I should come to plunder and to impose chains on them?—On the contrary, I came the Messiah of peace and of their rights: this new maxim was my whole strength—to violate it would have been ruin. But even the French mistrusted me; they had the insanity to discuss, when there was nothing to do but to fight; to divide, when they should have united on any terms. And was it not better to run the risk of having me again for master than to expose themselves to that of being subjected to a foreign yoke? Would it not have been easier to rid themselves of a single despot, of one tyrant, than to shake off the chains of all the nations united? And moreover, whence arose this mistrust of me? Because they had already seen me concentrate all efforts in myself, and direct them with a vigorous hand? But do they not learn at the present day, to their cost, how necessary that was? Well! the danger was in any case the same: the contest terrible, and the crisis imminent. In this state of things, was not absolute power necessary, indispensable? The welfare of the country obliged me even to declare it openly on my return from Leipsic. I should have done so again on my return from Elba. I was wanting in consistency, or rather in confidence in the French, because many of them no longer placed any in me, and it was doing me a great wrong. If narrow and vulgar minds only saw, in all my efforts, a care for my own power, ought not those of greater scope to have shewn that, under the circumstances in which we were placed, my power and the country were but one! Did it require such great and incurable mischiefs to enable them to comprehend me? History will do me more justice: it will signalize me as the man of self-denials and disinterestedness. To what temptations was I not exposed in the army of Italy? England offered me the Crown of France at the time of the treaty of Amiens.—I refused peace at Châtillon: I disdained all personal stipulations at Waterloo;—and why? Because all this had no reference to my country, and I had no ambition distinct from her’s—that of her glory, her ascendancy, her majesty. And there is the reason that, in spite of so many calamities, I am still so popular among the French. It is a sort of instinct of after-justice on their part.