“I have been led on, from the consideration of the mercy which you have granted, to the above details, and I have entered into them because I feared that your Dutch Ministers may impress your Majesty’s mind with false notions.
“I wish you to reflect seriously upon the contents of this letter, and to render the different subjects it treats upon objects of the deliberations of your councils, in order that your Ministers may give a proper direction and tendency to their measures. Under no pretence whatever will France allow Holland to separate herself from the Continental system.
“With respect to these smugglers, since the fault has been committed, it cannot be undone. I advise you, however, not to leave them in the prison of Middelburg; it is too near the spot where the crime was perpetrated: send them to the remotest part of Holland. The present having no other object, &c.
(Signed) “Napoleon.”
During dinner the Emperor asked his groom how his horse was; the groom answered that it was well fed, in good spirits, and in excellent condition. “I hope he does not complain of me,” said the Emperor, “if ever horse led the life of a canon, it is assuredly this.” It is now two or three months since the Emperor was on horseback.
ZEAL FOR WORKING.—IDEAS AND PLANS OF NAPOLEON RESPECTING OUR HISTORY, &C.—ON THE WORKS PUBLISHED, &C.—M. MÉNÉVAL; CURIOUS PARTICULARS.
25th—27th. The Emperor for some days past has been remarkably assiduous. All our mornings have been spent in making researches concerning Egypt, in the works of the ancient authors. We have looked over Herodotus, Pliny, Strabo, &c., together, without any other intermission than that which we required to eat our breakfast, which was served on his small table. The weather continued unfavourable, and the Emperor dictated every day and the whole day.
At dinner he told us that he found himself much better, and we then observed to him that for some time past, however, he had not been out of the house, and was occupied eight, ten, or twelve hours a day. “That is the very reason of my being better,” said he: “occupation is my element; I was born and made for it. I have found the limits beyond which I could not use my legs; I have seen the extent to which I could use my eyes; but I have never known any bounds to my capability of application. I nearly killed poor Ménéval; I was obliged to relieve him for a time from the duties of his situation, and place him for the recovery of his health near the person of Maria Louisa, where his post was a mere sinecure.”
The Emperor added that, if he were in Europe and had leisure, his pleasure would be to write history. He complained of the very indifferent manner in which history was written every where. The researches in which he had lately been engaged had proved this fact to him to a degree beyond any thing he could ever have suspected.
“We have no good history,” observed he, “and we could not have any; and the other nations of Europe are nearly in the same predicament as ourselves. Monks and privileged persons, that is to say, men friendly to abuses and inimical to information and learning, monopolized this branch of writing; they told us what they thought proper, or rather that which favoured their interests, gratified their passions, or agreed with their own views!—He had formed,” he said, “a plan for remedying the evil as much as possible; he intended, for instance, to appoint commissions from the Institute, or learned men whom public opinion might have pointed out to him, to revise, criticize, and re-publish our annals. He wished also to add commentaries to the classic authors which are put in the hands of our youth, to explain them with reference to our modern institutions. With a good programme, competition, and rewards, this end would have been accomplished; every thing,” he said, “can be obtained by such means.”