If I felt myself so much hurt by this unexpected treatment, it is because I had already forgotten all the vexations with which I had been overwhelmed by the English authorities, and for more than a year, during which I lived upon the German soil, I was not subjected to such forms; but, on the contrary, I was spoiled by the favour, the interest, the respect, of which I every where saw myself the object, even among those of a contrary opinion; and, besides, on leaving Manheim, I was far from being embarrassed for a new residence. Some friends, in their kind precautions, had sounded some neighbouring governments; I was assured of a favourable reception in several. One of the princes, addressed upon the occasion, answered, with a smile, “Yes, no doubt; he should be well received and well treated. So far from repulsing a man of this character, a prince who understands his own interest should have his courtiers inoculated from him.”
However, in expatiating here so freely upon my successes, I must not disguise my disappointments. Now and then I had also my little mortifications. All was not roses: and, without reckoning the expulsion from Manheim, for example, of which I was speaking, they found great fault, in another place, with the respect shewn to me, being, they said, one of those wretches who had arrested the King of France at Varennes; and who more lately had done, perhaps, still worse. In another place, a Baron who gave a grand evening party, informed his guests that he had at length ascertained who this Count and Councillor of Napoleon’s was whose arrival had made so great a noise in the city. He was, he informed them, nothing but his cook from St. Helena; and that, not having means to pay him his wages at parting, he had, as a compensation, created him a Count and Councillor of State. If the Baron believed what he said, he was assuredly a good easy man, and if his object was only to make his guests believe it, he must have taken them for great simpletons. The pleasant part of the story remains, for we must tell the whole; and it is that, in fact, the cook from Longwood had passed through a few days before: and thus it appears how anecdotes and the biographies of the saloon are engendered and multiply; and the devil himself cannot afterwards eradicate them. I could smile at the wickedness or the stupidity. Their acts and their words were only ridiculous and grotesque; but a circumstance of an important nature presented itself, which would have distressed me excessively, if I did not know how much the mass of error which presses round sovereigns may impair the soundness of their judgment.
I was assured that some one at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, finding himself disposed, in the presence of the Emperor Alexander, to touch upon the frightful situation of Napoleon, and citing the authentic statements produced by me in his support, that Prince answered, “We must not believe all that this man is come to tell us in Europe; he is an intriguer.” How is it that the most enlightened princes are deceived; even those from whom we should expect better? Unless it was here, as with Napoleon, who often used peevish expressions, after his own manner, and not implying harm; and besides, by good fortune, I have still on my side, time, that true crucible of characters. Years have since elapsed, and the unanimous opinion, I dare hope, of all those who have known or followed me, would sufficiently clear me from such an accusation. “An intriguer!” I, who have worn out upon a rock all the vanities of this world! I, who in the clouds of Longwood, have seen all things from so great a height, that they remain small indeed to my eyes! I, who of all people on earth, know nothing to desire! I, in fine, who, no longer considering myself of this world, cannot have, and have not in fact, any other ambition whatever, any other wish, than that of Diogenes—“that they would not stand between me and the sun.”
FROM MY ARRIVAL AT OFFENBACH, UP TO
MY RETURN TO FRANCE.
A Space of more than Two Years.
RESIDENCE AT OFFENBACH.—DETAIL.—ARRIVAL OF MADAME MONTHOLON IN EUROPE.—JOURNEY TO BRUSSELS.—RESIDENCE AT LIEGE, AT CHAUDE-FONTAINE, AT SOHAN, NEAR SPA, AT ANTWERP, AT MALINES.—DEATH OF NAPOLEON.—RETURN TO FRANCE.—CONCLUSION.
Offenbach is a handsome little town in the Grand-Duchy of Darmstadt, situate upon the Maine, two leagues from Frankfort. I settled myself there, according to my custom, in a sort of little hermitage. It was upon the bank of the river, within a step of the town.