“The farmer now enjoys benefits to which he was formerly a stranger. He is enabled to purchase such land as suits him at the highest price; his food and clothing are better, and more abundant than before; and his dwelling is more substantial and convenient.
“Improvements in agriculture, manufactures, and the useful arts, are no longer rejected merely because they are new. Experiments are made in every branch of labour, and the methods that prove to be most advantageous are substituted for old ones. Artificial meadows are multiplied; the system of fallows is abandoned; the succession of crops is better understood, and improved plans of cultivation augment the produce of the soil. Cattle are multiplied, and the different breeds improved. The very labourer finds means to purchase, at a high price, Spanish rams and stallions of the finest breed. They are now sufficiently enlightened to know their real interests, and they do not scruple to make these valuable purchases. Thus the demands of our manufacturers, our agriculturists, and our armies, are every day better supplied.
“This high degree of prosperity is to be attributed to the liberal laws by which this great Empire is ruled, to the suppression of feudalism, tithes, mortmains, and monastic orders; measures which have created or set at liberty numerous private estates, which are now the free patrimony of a multitude of families, formerly mere paupers. It is also to be ascribed to the more equal division of wealth, to the clearness and simplification of the laws relative to landed property and mortgages, and to the promptitude observed in the decision of law-suits, which are now daily decreasing in number. To these same causes, and to the influence of vaccination, must be attributed the increase of the population. It may even be said that the conscription, which annually enrols under our banner the flower of the French youth, has had some share in contributing to this increase, by multiplying the number of marriages; because marriage fixes for ever the fate of the young Frenchman, who has once served in obedience to the law.”
Official statement of the expenditure in public works, from Napoleon’s accession to the imperial throne; presented, together with the vouchers, to the Legislative Body, by the Minister of the Interior.
| Francs. | |
| Imperial palaces and buildings, belonging to the crown. | 62,000,000 |
| Fortifications | 144,000,000 |
| Sea Ports | 117,000,000 |
| Roads, highways, &c. | 277,000,000 |
| Bridges in Paris and the departments | 31,000,000 |
| Canals, navigation and draining | 123,000,000 |
| Works in Paris | 102,000,000 |
| Public buildings of the departments and great towns | 149,000,000 |
| Total | 1,005,000,000 |
THE EMPEROR INDISPOSED AND MELANCHOLY.—AMUSING
ANECDOTES.—TWO AIDES-DE-CAMP.—MALLET’S
PLOT.
3rd.—The Emperor still continued to seclude himself like a hermit. Towards evening he sent for me:—he informed me that he was somewhat relieved of his tooth-ache, though he was not better in other respects. He said that he felt extremely weak and depressed in spirits, and that, during the whole day, his mind had been possessed with gloomy ideas. He was taking the bath, and, after a few moments’ silence, he said, as if making an effort to rouse himself, “Come, my Dinarzade, if you are not too drowsy, tell me one of your stories. It is long since you have told me any thing about your friends of the Faubourg St. Germain.”—“Sire,” I replied, “I have related so much on that subject that I fancy I have exhausted my whole stock of tales, whether true or false. Only the scandalous stories now remain untold, and in these your Majesty knows that you yourself were never spared. However, a droll anecdote just now occurs to me. One day, M. de T—— on leaving home to attend to his ministerial duties, informed his wife that he should bring back M. Denon with him to dinner. He wished the distinguished traveller to be treated with the utmost attention; and he told Madame de T—— that the best thing she could do would be to look over his work, so that she might be enabled to pay some handsome compliments to the author; at the same time informing her in what particular part of the library the book was to be found. Madame de T—— set about her task—she found the book exceedingly interesting, and was delighted at the thought of speedily being introduced to the hero. No sooner were the company seated at table, than she informed M. Denon, whom she had taken care to place beside her, that she had been reading his work, and that she had been very much pleased with it. M. Denon bowed, and the lady proceeded to remark on the singular countries he had visited, and the hardships he had endured, at the same time taking pains to assure him how deeply she sympathized in his troubles. M. Denon bowed again; and all went on very smoothly until Madame de T—— still addressing herself to M. Denon, declared how very much delighted she had been when his faithful Friday came to share his solitude. “Have you him still,” she asked. On hearing this, M. Denon started, and, turning to the person who sat on his other hand, he said: Is it possible that she can take me for Robinson Crusoe? The fact is, or I should more properly say, as the story goes, poor Madame de T—— had been reading the Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, instead of Denon’s Travels in Egypt.” The Emperor laughed heartily, and afterwards several times related the anecdote himself.
The conversation turned on the inventive malignity of Parisian society, and the fine story that was got up about the cabinet-maker, who awkwardly discovered to B—— the concealed drawer of a bureau, which happened to contain many secrets connected with his own family: the violent anger of B—— against Ventre de Biche, the sympathy expressed for him by Madame de V——, and the singular consolation she afforded him,—all were described. The Emperor was much amused by these details, most of which were new to him, and he expressed his belief that the story was not entirely an invention. He once more repeated his censure of the saloons of Paris, which, he said, might truly be styled the infernal regions. He observed that they kept up a constant system of slander and calumny, and that, therefore, they might with justice have engaged the constant attention of all the tribunals of correctional police in the capital.
The Emperor had now become animated, and he conversed for a considerable time. He happened to mention an officer whom, he said, he had not treated very well; and I ventured to observe that I believed he had, notwithstanding, been Aide-de-camp to a distinguished General. “What signifies that?” resumed the Emperor. “Don’t you know,” continued he, smiling, “that a general frequently has two aides-de-camp: one for the field and one for the household?”
He said a great deal respecting the national inaptitude of the French to close a revolution, or to adhere to any fixed order of things; and he alluded to the celebrated affair of Mallet, which he jokingly said might be called a miniature or a caricature of his own return from the Isle of Elba. “Mallet’s absurd plot,” said he, “might have been truly regarded as a hoax. A prisoner of state, an obscure individual, effected his own liberation, and, in his turn, imprisoned the Prefect and even the Minister of Police, those keepers of dungeons and detectors of plots, who suffered themselves to be caught in the snare like so many sheep. A Prefect of Paris, the born sponsor of his department, and moreover a very devoted subject, readily lent himself to every plan for assembling a government that had no existence. Ministers, appointed by the conspirators, were engaged in making their round of visits, when those who nominated them were again safely lodged in prison. Finally, the inhabitants of the capital learned in the morning the sort of political debauch that had taken place during the night, without having been in the least disturbed by it. Such an extravagant attempt,” said the Emperor, “could never have produced any result. Even had it succeeded, it must have fallen, of itself, in the space of a few hours; and the victorious conspirators would have thought only of hiding themselves amidst their success. I was, therefore, far less incensed at the attempt of the criminal than at the facility with which those who appeared most attached to me had been prevailed on to become his accomplices. On my arrival, each candidly related to me the details that concerned himself, and which served to criminate all! they frankly avowed that they had been caught, and had, for a moment, placed full faith in my overthrow. They did not deny that, in the delirium of the moment, they had entered into the designs of the conspirators; and they rejoiced with me at their happy escape. Not one of them mentioned the slightest resistance, or the least effort made to defend and perpetuate the existing government. This seemed never to have entered their heads: so accustomed were they to changes and revolutions, that all were perfectly resigned to the establishment of a new order of things. All therefore changed countenance, and manifested the utmost embarrassment; when, in a resolute tone of voice, I said, ‘Well, Gentlemen, it appears you thought my reign at an end; to that I have nothing to say. But where were your oaths to the King of Rome? What became of your principles and doctrines? You make me tremble for the future.’ I found it necessary to make an example, were it only for the sake of putting weak men on their guard for the future; and judgment fell upon poor Frochot, the Prefect of Police, who, I am sure, was attached to me. Yet, at the mere request of one of these mountebank conspirators, instead of making the resistance which his duty required; instead of manifesting a firm determination to perish at his post rather than yield; he very contentedly issued orders for preparing a place for the sitting of the new Government!—Indeed,” said the Emperor, “the readiness with which the French people accommodate themselves to change is calculated to prolong vicissitudes, which no other nation but themselves could endure. Thus, individuals of every party seem to be convinced that all is not yet settled; and Europe shares this opinion, which is founded not less on our natural inconstancy and volatility than on the mass of events that have occurred during the last thirty years.”