“His Majesty has ordered me to transmit to you this note, and these instructions, in order that you may make them the subjects of conversation with the foreign ministers, who may be at Warsaw or Dresden.
“The Emperor has ordered notes to be forwarded to the Ministers of War and Foreign Affairs, of the Grand Duchy. Should pecuniary resources be wanted, his Majesty will assist the Polish treasury by assignments on the extraordinary domains, which he still possesses in Poland and Hanover.”
THE EMPEROR INDISPOSED.—ANECDOTES OF THE INTERIOR
OF THE TUILERIES.
26th.—I was informed that the Emperor was very unwell, and that he desired I would attend him. I found him in his chamber, with a handkerchief bound round his head; he was seated in an arm-chair, beside a great fire, which he had ordered to be kindled. “What,” said he, “is the severest disorder, the most acute pain, to which human nature is subject?” I replied, “That the pain of the present moment always appeared to be the most severe.”—“Then it is the tooth-ache,” said he. He had a violent secretion of saliva, and his right cheek was much swelled and inflamed. I was alone in attendance on him, and I alternately warmed a flannel and a napkin, which he kept constantly applied to the part affected, and he said he felt greatly relieved by it. He was also affected by a severe nervous cough, and occasional yawning and shivering, which denoted approaching fever.
“What a miserable thing is man!” said he, “the smallest fibre in his body, assailed by disease, is sufficient to derange his whole system! On the other hand, in spite of all the maladies to which he is subject, it is sometimes necessary to employ the executioner to put an end to him. What a curious machine is this earthly clothing! And, perhaps, I may be confined in it for thirty years longer!”
He attributed his tooth-ache to his late drive, as he had felt singularly affected by being out in the open air. “Nature is always the best counsellor,” said he; “I went out in spite of my inclination, and only in obedience to reason.”
The Doctor arrived, and he found that his patient manifested symptoms of fever. The Emperor spent the remainder of the day in his chamber, occasionally suffering severely from the tooth-ache. At intervals, when the pain abated, he walked up and down, between his armchair and the sofa, and conversed on different subjects.
At one time, he alluded to the base conduct of some of the persons who had been about him, during his power. A family, who were established in the interior of the palace, who had been loaded with benefits, and who, it may be added, behaved most disgracefully at the period of the catastrophe, were one day detected in some offence or other by the Emperor himself. He merely reproached them with their misconduct, instead of punishing them for it. “But what was the consequence?” said he, “this only served to irritate them, without affording a just example. When things are done by halves, they will always prove ineffectual. The fault must not be seen; or if seen, it must be punished,” &c.
He next mentioned a woman, who, together with her husband, held a very lucrative situation, and who was constantly complaining to him of her poverty. “She often wrote to me,” said the Emperor, “to ask for money, as though she had claims upon me; just as Madame Bertrand, or any of you might do, on your return from St. Helena.”
Alluding to a person who had behaved very ill to him in 1814, he said: “Probably you will suppose that he fled on my return? No such thing; on the contrary, I was beset by him. He very coolly acknowledged that he had felt a transient attachment for the Bourbons, for which, however, he assured me he had been severely punished. But this, he said, had served only to revive the natural affection which all so justly entertained for me. I spurned him from me; and I have good reason to believe, that he is now at the feet of the Royal family, relating all sorts of horrors about me. Poor human nature, always and everywhere alike!”