When the Emperor went into his closet in the morning, he found bundles of papers already arranged and prepared for him by Ménéval, who had been there before him. If the Emperor sometimes allowed twenty-four hours, or two days, to elapse without going into it, his Secretary would remind him of it, and tell him that he would suffer himself to be overwhelmed with the mass of papers that were accumulating, and that the closet would soon be full of them. To this the Emperor usually answered good-humouredly: “Do not alarm yourself, it will soon be cleared;” and so indeed it was, for in a few hours the Emperor had despatched all the answers, and was even with the current business. It is true that he got through a great deal by not answering many things, and throwing away all that he considered useless, even when coming from his Ministers. To this they were accustomed; and when no answer appeared they knew what it meant. He himself read all letters that were addressed to him; to some he answered by writing a few words in the margin, and to others he dictated an answer. Those that were of great importance were always put by, read a second time, and not answered until some time had elapsed. When leaving his closet, he generally recapitulated those affairs that were of the greatest consequence, and fixed the hour at which they must be ready for him, which was always punctually attended to. If at that hour the Emperor did not come, M. Ménéval followed him about from place to place through the palace to remind him of it. On some of these occasions the Emperor would go and settle the affair, at other times he would say, “To-morrow; night is a good adviser.” This was his usual phrase; and he often said that he had indeed worked much harder at night than during the day; not that thoughts of business prevented him from sleeping, but because he slept at intervals, according as he wanted rest, and a little sufficed for him.
It often happened that the Emperor, in the course of his campaigns, was roused suddenly upon some emergency; he would then immediately get up, and it would have been impossible to guess from the appearance of his eyes that he had just been asleep. He then gave his decision, or dictated his answer, with as much clearness, and with his mind as free and unembarrassed, as at any other moment. This he called the after-midnight presence of mind; and he possessed it in a most extraordinary degree. It has sometimes happened that he has been perhaps called up as often as ten times in the same night, and each time he was always found to have fallen asleep again, not having as yet taken his quantum of rest.
Boasting one day to one of his ministers (General Clarke) of the faculty which he possessed of sleeping almost at pleasure and how little rest he required, Clarke answered in a jocular tone, “Yes, Sire, and that is a source of torment to us, for it is often at our expense; we come in for our share of it sometimes.”
The Emperor did every thing himself and through the medium of his Cabinet. He appointed to all vacant situations, and most frequently substituted new names to those of the persons proposed to him. He read the plans of his Ministers, adopted, rejected, or modified them. He even indited the notes of his Minister for Foreign Affairs, which he dictated to Ménéval, from whom he kept no secret. It was through Ménéval also that he wrote to the different sovereigns; in addressing whom he observed a formula which he had had drawn up from the reports of former times, and to the strict observance of which he attached great importance. All the Ministers transacted business with the Emperor together on one day of the week, appointed for that purpose, unless something occurred to prevent it. The business of each Minister was transacted in the presence of all the others, who were allowed to give their opinions respecting it, and each of them thus emptied his portfolio. A register was kept of the deliberations, of which there must be many volumes. Those documents that had been decided on were left to have the signature affixed to them, which was done through the medium of the Minister Secretary of State, who countersigned them. Sometimes some of these papers, after they had been thus decided on, were still sent to the Emperor’s cabinet to be revised and modified before the signature was put to them. The Minister for Foreign Affairs was the only one who, independently of his share in the general business transacted by the other Ministers, had besides, from the secret nature of his functions, other business to despatch in private with the Emperor.
One of the favourite aides-de-camp of the Emperor was entrusted with all that related to the personnel of the war-department. For a long time Duroc occupied this confidential post; afterwards Bertrand and Lauriston; Count Lobau was the last who filled it.
M. Ménéval, being in a very indifferent state of health, worn down by fatigue from application, and requiring some interval of repose, the Emperor gave him a situation in the household of the Empress Maria Louisa, which was, he said, quite a sinecure. However, the Emperor only parted with him on condition that he should come back to him as soon as he was well; and he never failed to remind him of it every time he saw him.
After Ménéval’s retirement, the business of the Emperor’s cabinet ceased to be conducted by one person only; Ménéval had a great many successors at the same moment, and the cabinet became a kind of office, in which several persons were employed. One of these persons, whom the Emperor had taken on the recommendation of others who had thought they could answer for him as for themselves, received an order, at the time of the disasters of 1814, to burn the documents that were in the closet; but, instead of obeying this order, he so far forgot his duty as to take them away with him: and, after the King’s restoration, he wrote to one of his Ministers to offer them to him. The Emperor found the proof of his treachery amongst the papers left at the Tuileries at the period of the 20th of March; and one morning having gone into his closet before any body was come, he wrote several times on a piece of paper, as if he had been trying his pen, Such a one (naming him) is a traitor—Such a one is a traitor; and laid it on the table where sat one of those who had recommended him, and who was himself, said the Emperor, a man on whose zeal and fidelity every reliance could be placed. This was the only reproach he ever addressed to him, and the only revenge he ever exercised on the offender.
Several traces may therefore still be found, and several documents must exist, of the business transacted in the Emperor’s cabinet. Some of these documents have been alluded to in the debates of the British Parliament; but Napoleon solemnly declared, on his return at the period of the 20th of March last, that these documents had been falsified. And they are not the only documents that are left of that ever-memorable administration.
There must be twenty or thirty folio volumes, and as many in quarto, containing the correspondence of the campaigns of Italy and of Egypt, collected and regularly classed.
There must be also about sixty or eighty folio volumes of the deliberations of the Council Ministers, collected by the Secretaries of State, the Duke of Bassano and Count Daru; and lastly, the minutes of the sittings of the[the] Council of State, written and arranged by M. Locré.