“A new state of things required a new line of conduct; but the English Ministers seemed to have no idea of the age, or of the men and things belonging to it. My manner quite disconcerted them. I commenced in diplomacy, as I had already commenced in arms. These are my propositions, said I, to the English Ministry:—we are masters of Holland and Switzerland; but I am ready to resign both, in return for the restitutions that you make to us or our allies. We are also masters of Italy, of which I will surrender one portion and retain the other, for the purpose of guaranteeing the existence of all. These are my bases; build upon them as much as you please; I care not for that; but the object and result must remain as I have specified. I will not yield a hair’s breadth of my determination. My object is not to purchase concessions from you; but to enter into reasonable, honourable, and lasting engagements. This is the circle I have traced out. It appears to me that you have formed no notion of our respective situations or resources. I fear not your refusal, your efforts, or any difficulties you may throw in my way. I have a strong arm, and I only want a weight to lift.
“This unusual language,” continued the Emperor, “produced the desired effect. In the negotiations at Amiens, they had intended merely to divert us; but they now began to treat seriously. Not knowing at what point I was vulnerable, they offered to make me King of France. This was a good idea! King, by the grace of foreigners, when I was already Sovereign by the will of the people!...
“Such was the ascendency I had acquired that, even while the negotiations were pending, I caused the Italians to assign to me the Presidency of their Republic; and this circumstance, which, in the ordinary course of European diplomacy, would naturally have created so many obstacles, occasioned no interruption of the proceedings. Matters were brought to a conclusion; and I gained my point by plain dealing, better than if I had fallen into all the usual diplomatic subtleties. Many libellous pamphlets, and manifestoes of no better character, accused me of perfidy, and of breach of faith in my negotiations; but I never merited these charges, which, on the contrary, might always have been justly applied to the other cabinets of Europe.
“At Amiens, I sincerely thought that the fate of France and Europe, and my own destiny, were permanently fixed; I hoped that war was at an end. However, the English Cabinet again kindled the flame. England is alone responsible for all the miseries by which Europe has since been afflicted. For my part, I intended to have devoted myself wholly to the internal interests of France; and I am confident that I should have wrought miracles. I should have lost nothing in the scale of glory; and I should have gained much in the scale of happiness. I should then have achieved the moral conquest of Europe, which I was afterwards on the point of accomplishing by force of arms. Of how much glory was I thus deprived!
“My enemies always spoke of my love of war; but was I not constantly engaged in self-defence? After every victory I gained, did I not immediately make proposals for peace?
“The truth is that I never was master of my own actions. I never was entirely myself. I might have conceived many plans; but I never had it in my power to execute any. I held the helm with a vigorous hand; but the fury of the waves was greater than any force that I could exert in resisting them; and I prudently yielded, rather than incur the risk of sinking through stubborn opposition. I never was truly my own master; but was always controlled by circumstances. Thus, at the commencement of my rise, during the Consulate, my sincere friends and warm partisans frequently asked me, with the best intentions, and as a guide for their own conduct, what point I was driving at? and I always answered that I did not know. They were surprised, probably dissatisfied, and yet I spoke the truth. Subsequently, during the Empire, when there was less familiarity, many faces seemed to put the same question to me; and I might still have given the same reply. In fact, I was not master of my actions, because I was not fool enough to attempt to twist events into conformity with my system. On the contrary, I moulded my system according to the unforeseen succession of events. This often appeared like unsteadiness and inconsistency, and of these faults I was sometimes unjustly accused.”
After alluding to some other subjects, the Emperor said, “One of my great plans was the re-uniting, the concentration, of those same geographical nations which have been separated and parcelled out by revolution and policy. There are in Europe, dispersed, it is true, upwards of thirty millions of French, fifteen millions of Spaniards, fifteen millions of Italians, and thirty millions of Germans; and it was my intention to incorporate these people each into one nation. It would have been a noble thing to have advanced into posterity with such a train, and attended by the blessings of future ages. I felt myself worthy of this glory!
“After this summary simplification, it would have been possible to indulge the chimera of the beau ideal of civilization. In this state of things, there would have been some chance of establishing, in every country, a unity of codes, principles, opinions, sentiments, views, and interests. Then, perhaps, by the help of the universal diffusion of knowledge, one might have thought of attempting, in the great European family, the application of the American Congress, or the Amphictyons of Greece; and then what a perspective of power, greatness, happiness, and prosperity! What a grand, what a magnificent, spectacle!
“The concentration of the thirty or forty millions of Frenchmen was completed and perfected; and that of the fifteen millions of Spaniards was nearly accomplished; for nothing is more common than to convert accident into principle. Because I did not subdue the Spaniards, it will henceforth be argued that they were invincible. But the fact is that they were actually conquered, and at the very moment when they escaped me, the Cortes of Cadiz were secretly in treaty with me. They were not delivered either by their own resistance or the efforts of the English, but by the reverses which I sustained at distant points; and, above all, by the error I committed in removing with all my whole forces to the distance of a thousand leagues from them, and in having perished there; for nobody can deny that if, as soon as I entered that country, Austria had not declared war against me, but had left me four months longer quietly in Spain,[[6]] the business would have been finished there; the Spanish Government would have been consolidated; the public mind would have been tranquillized; the different parties would have rallied. Three or four years would have restored the Spaniards to profound peace and brilliant prosperity: they would have become a compact nation, and I should have well deserved their gratitude; for I should have saved them from the tyranny by which they are now oppressed, and the terrible agitations that await them.
“With regard to the fifteen millions of Italians, their concentration was already far advanced: it only wanted maturity. The people were daily becoming more firmly established in the unity of principles and legislation; and also in the unity of thought and feeling, that certain and infallible cement of human concentration. The union of Piedmont with France, and the junction of Parma, Tuscany and Rome, were, in my mind, but temporary measures, intended merely to guarantee and promote the national education of the Italians.[[7]] You may judge of the correctness of my views, and of the influence of common laws. The portions of Italy that had been united to France, though that union might have been regarded as the insult of conquest on our part, were, in spite of their Italian patriotism, the very parts that continued by far the most attached to us. Now that they are restored to themselves, they conceive that they have been invaded and disinherited; and so they certainly have been!...