Some years before our disasters, the Emperor, reading one day some fragments of this author’s works, expressed his surprise that he was not a member of the Institute. These words acted as a powerful recommendation in favour of M. de Chateaubriand, who hastened to put himself in the list as a candidate, and was almost unanimously chosen.
According to one of the invariable rules of the Institute, the candidate newly chosen was to make a speech in praise of the member to whom he was then succeeding; but M. de Chateaubriand, persuaded, that for a man who had once occupied the attention of the public, the surest way to acquire celebrity was to leave the beaten track, and strike into a new path to fame, reversed this custom by devoting part of his speech to stigmatise the political principles of M. Chenier his predecessor, and proscribe him as a regicide. His speech was a complete political argument, discussing the restoration of monarchy and the judgment and death of Louis XVI.; the whole Institute was in an uproar, some of the members refusing to listen to a speech which appeared to them indecorous, and others, on the contrary, insisting upon its being read. From the Institute the dispute spread rapidly through the different circles of Paris, which were full of the debate, and divided in opinion on the subject; and at last reached the ears of the Emperor, to whom every thing was carried, and who wished to be informed of every thing. He ordered the speech to be shown to him, pronounced it to be extravagant in the extreme, and instantly forbade its publication. It so happened that one of the members of the Institute, who had taken a lively part in the discussion, and voted for the reading of the speech, was also one of the great officers of the Emperor’s household; and the Emperor took advantage of this circumstance to manifest his opinion, by addressing him in the following manner at one of his couchers:—"How long is it, sir," said he, with the utmost severity, "since the Institute has presumed to take the character of a political assembly? The province of the Institute is to produce poetry and to censure faults of language; let it beware how it forsakes the domain of literature, or I shall take measures to bring it back within its proper limits. And is it possible that you, sir, have sanctioned such an intemperate harangue by your approbation? If M. de Chateaubriand is insane, or disposed to malevolence, a mad-house may cure him, or punishment correct him; yet it may be that the opinions he has pronounced are conscientiously his own, and he is not obliged to surrender them to my policy, which is unknown to him; but with you the case is totally different—you are constantly near my person, you are acquainted with all my acts, you know my will; there may be an excuse in M. de Chateaubriand’s favour, there can be none in yours. Sir, I hold you guilty, I consider your conduct as criminal: it tends to bring us back to the days of disorder and confusion, anarchy and bloodshed. Are we then banditti? And am I but an usurper? Sir, I did not ascend the throne by hurling another from it; I found the crown; I picked it up out of the kennel, and the nation placed it on my head: respect the nation’s act. To submit facts that have so recently occurred to public discussion in the present circumstances, is to court fresh convulsions, and be an enemy to the public tranquillity. The restoration of monarchy is veiled in mystery, and must remain so; wherefore then, I pray, this new proposed proscription of conventionalists and regicides? Why are subjects of so delicate a nature again brought to light? To God alone it must belong to pronounce upon what is no longer within the reach of the judgment of men! Are you to be more scrupulous than the Empress? Her interests are as dear as yours can be in this question, and much more direct, yet she has asked no questions, she has made no enquiries; take example from her moderation.
"Have I then lost the fruit of all my labours? have all my efforts been of so little avail that, as soon as my presence no longer restrains you, you are ready to cut one another’s throats?" And, in speaking thus, he paced the room with rapid strides, and, striking his forehead with his hand, exclaimed: "Alas! poor France, long yet must thou need the care of a guardian.
“I have done all in my power,” continued he, "to quell all your dissensions; to unite all parties has been the constant object of my solicitude. I have made all meet under the same roof, sit at the same board, and drink of the same cup. I have a right to expect that you will second my endeavours.
"Since I have taken the reins of government, have I ever inquired into the lives, actions, opinions, or writings of any one?—Imitate my forbearance.
“I have never had but one aim, never asked but this one question; will you sincerely assist me in promoting the true interest of France? and all those who have answered affirmatively have been placed by me in a defile of granite and without outlet on either side, through which I have urged them on to the other extremity, where my finger pointed to the honour, the glory, and the splendour of France.”
This reprimand was so severe that the person to whom it was addressed, a man of honour and delicate feelings, determined upon asking an audience the next day, in order to tender his resignation. He was admitted to the presence of the Emperor, who immediately said to him: “My dear sir, you are come on account of the conversation of yesterday; you felt hurt on the occasion, and I have felt not less so; but it was a piece of advice which I thought it right to give to more than one person; if it has the desired effect of producing some public good, we must neither of us regret the circumstance; think no more about it.” And he spoke of something else.
Thus would the Emperor often censure whole bodies in the person of one single individual; and, in order to strike with greater awe, he did it in a most solemn and imposing manner. But the anger which he sometimes shewed in public, and of which so much has been said, was only feigned, and put on for the moment. The Emperor affirmed that by such means he had often deterred many from the commission of a fault, and spared himself the necessity of punishing.
One day, at one of his grand audiences, he attacked a Colonel with the utmost vehemence, and quite in a tone of anger, upon some slight disorders of which his regiment had been guilty towards the inhabitants of the countries they had passed through, in returning to France. During the reprimand, the Colonel, thinking the punishment out of all proportion to the fault of which he was accused, repeatedly endeavoured to excuse himself; but the Emperor, without interrupting his speech, said to him in an under-tone, “Very well, but hold your tongue; I believe you: but say nothing:” and when he afterwards saw him in private, he said to him: “When I thus addressed you, I was chastising, in your person, certain Generals whom I saw near you, and who, had I spoken to them direct, would have been found deserving of the lowest degradation, and perhaps of something worse.”
But it sometimes happened, also, that the Emperor was publicly appealed to: I have witnessed several instances of this kind.