Remarking on the certainty of the ultimate triumph of modern principles, the Emperor said: “They cannot but triumph. Mark the train of events: even oppression now-a-days turns to the disadvantage of the oppressor.”
On a certain occasion, it was observed to the Emperor that he was not fond of putting forward his own merits; “That is,” replied he, “because with me morality and generosity are not in my mouth, but in my nerves. My iron hand was not at the extremity of my arm, it was immediately connected with my head. I did not receive it from nature; calculation alone has enabled me to employ it.”
Speaking of the ill humour and discontent frequently evinced by the inhabitants of Paris, the Emperor asked what he was expected to do after all he had accomplished. “Sire,” said some one present, “it was wished that your Majesty should stop your horse.” “Stop my horse!” resumed Napoleon, “that was easily said. My arm was strong enough, it is true, to stop, with a single check, all the horses of the continent. But I could not bridle the English fleets: and there lay all the mischief. Had not the people sense enough to see this?”
One day, when the Emperor was reproaching a person for not correcting the vices which he knew he possessed, “Sir,” said he, “when a man knows his moral infirmity, he may cure his mind, just as he would cure his arm or his leg.”
The Emperor, speaking of the nobility which he had created, regretted that he had been so ill understood. It was, he said, one of his grandest and happiest ideas. He had in view three objects of the highest importance, and all three would have been accomplished: 1st, to reconcile France with Europe, and to restore harmony, by seeming to adopt European customs: 2nd, by the same means to bring about a complete reconciliation and union between old and new France; and 3d, to banish feudal nobility, the only kind that is offensive, oppressive, and unnatural. “By my plan,” said the Emperor, “I should soon have succeeded in substituting positive and meritorious qualities for antiquated and odious prejudices. My national titles would have exactly restored that equality which feudal nobility proscribed. They were conferred as the reward of merit of every kind. For genealogical parchments I substituted noble actions, and for private interests, the interests of the country. Family pride would no longer have been founded on obscure and imaginary circumstances, but would have rested on the noblest pages of our history. Finally, I would have banished the odious pretension of blood; an absurd idea, a theory that has no real existence; for we all know very well that there is but one race of men, and that one is not born with boots on his legs, and another with a packsaddle on his back.
“All the nobility in Europe, those who really govern it, were pleased with my plan. They unanimously applauded an institution the novelty of which enhanced its pre-eminence; and yet this very novelty would have sapped its foundation and infallibly destroyed it. Why did that opinion, to which I had secured a triumph, precisely serve the purpose of its enemies? But I have suffered this misfortune oftener than once.”
ON THE DIFFICULTIES WHICH HISTORY PRESENTS.—GEORGES,
PICHEGRU, MOREAU, THE DUKE D’ENGHIEN.
20th.—“It must be admitted, my dear Las Cases,” said the Emperor to me to-day, “that it is most difficult to obtain absolute certainties for the purposes of history. Fortunately it is, in general, more a matter of mere curiosity than of real importance. There are so many kinds of truths! The truth which Fouché, or other intriguers of his stamp will tell, for instance; even that which many very honest people may tell, will, in some cases, differ essentially from the truth which I may relate. The historic truth, so much in request, to which every body eagerly appeals, is too often but a term. At the time of the events, during the heat of conflicting passions, it cannot exist; and if, at a later period, all parties are agreed respecting it, it is because those persons who were interested in the events, those who might be able to contradict what is asserted, are no more. What then is, generally speaking, the truth of history? A concerted fable, as it has been very ingeniously remarked. There are, in these matters, two essential points, very distinct from each other: the positive facts, and the moral intentions. With respect to the positive facts, it would seem that they ought to be incontrovertible; yet you will not find two accounts agreeing together in relating the same fact: some have remained contested points to this day, and will ever remain so. With regard to moral intentions, how shall we judge of them, even admitting the candour of those who relate events? And what will be the case if the narrators are not sincere, or if they should be actuated by interest or passion? I have given an order, but who was able to read my thoughts, my real intentions? Yet every one will take up that order, and measure it according to his own scale, or adapt it to his own plans or system. See the different colourings that will be given to it by the intriguer, whose plans it disturbs or favours: see how he will distort it. The man who assumes importance, to whom the ministers or the sovereign may have hinted something in confidence on the subject, will do the same thing; as will the numerous idlers of the palace, who, having nothing better to do than to listen at doors, and invent when they can not hear. And each person will be so certain of what he tells! and the inferior classes of people, who have received their information from these privileged mouths, will be so certain, in their turn, of its correctness! and then memoirs are digested, memorandums are written, witticisms and anecdotes are circulated; and of such materials is history composed!
“I[“I] have seen the plan of my own battle, the intention of my own orders, disputed with me, and opinion decide against me! Is not that the creature giving the lie to its creator? Nevertheless, my opponent, who contradicts me, will have his adherents. This it is which has prevented me from writing my own private memoirs, from disclosing my individual feelings, which would, naturally, have exhibited the shades of my private character. I could not condescend to write confessions, after the manner of Jean Jaques Rousseau, which every body might have attacked; and, therefore, I have thought proper to confine the subjects of my dictations here to public acts. I am aware that even these relations may be contested: for where is the man in this world, whatever be his right, and the strength and power of that right, who may not be attacked and contradicted by an adverse party? But, in the opinion of those men who are wise and impartial, of those who reflect and are reasonable, my voice, after all, will be as good as another’s; and I have little fear for the final decision. So much light has been diffused in our days that I rely upon the splendour which will remain after passions shall have subsided and clouds passed away. But, in the mean time, how many errors will arise! People will often give me credit for a great deal of depth and sagacity on occasions which were, perhaps, most simple in themselves; I shall be suspected of plans which I never formed.[[18]] It will be inquired whether I did or did not aspire, in reality, to universal dominion. The question will be argued, at length, whether my absolute sway and my arbitrary acts were the result of my character or of my calculations; whether they were determined by my own inclination or by the influence of circumstances; whether I was led into the wars in which I was constantly engaged, by my own inclination, or against my will; whether my insatiable ambition, which has been so much deprecated, was kindled by the thirst for dominion and glory, or by my love of order and my concern for the general welfare; for that ambition will deserve to be considered under all those different aspects. People will canvass the motives which guided me in the catastrophe of the Duke d’Enghien,[[19]] and so on with respect to many other events. Sometimes they will distort what was perfectly straight, and refine upon what was quite natural. It was not for me to treat of all those subjects here: it would have appeared as if I were pleading my cause—and that I disdain to do. If the rectitude and the sagacity of historians can enable them to form, from what I have dictated on general matters, a correct opinion and just notions respecting those things which I have not mentioned, so much the better. But, along with the faint ray thus afforded, how many false lights will appear to them—from the fables and falsehoods of the great intriguers (who all had their views, their plots, their private negotiations, which, being mixed up with the main objects, tend to render the whole an inextricable chaos), to the disclosures, the portfolios, and even the assertions of my ministers, who, with the best intentions, will have to state not so much what really existed as what they believe to have existed; for which of them ever possessed the entire general conception of my mind? Their share of it was, most frequently, one of the elements of a great whole, which they did not know. They will, therefore, only have seen that side of the prism which concerned them; and, even then, how will they have seen it? Did it reach them entire? Was it not already broken? And yet probably every one of them, judging from what he has seen, will give the fantastical result of his own combinations as my true system; and here again we have the admitted fable, which will be called history. Nor can it be otherwise. It is true that, as there are many, they will be far from agreeing together. However, in their positive assertions they would have the advantage over me: for I should very frequently have found it most difficult to affirm confidently what had been my whole and entire thoughts on any given subject. It is well known that I did not strive to subject circumstances to my ideas; but that I in general suffered myself on the contrary to be led by them; and who can calculate beforehand the chances of accidental circumstances or unexpected events? I have, therefore, often found it necessary to alter essentially my plan of proceeding, and have acted through life upon general principles, rather than according to fixed plans. The mass of the general interests of mankind, what I considered to be the advantage of the greater number, such were the anchors on which I relied, but around which I most frequently floated at the caprice of chance,” &c.
After these memorable expressions, the present is the best opportunity of returning to an historical point which in an early part of this work I promised to treat of, and which ought to have found a place long before this; I allude to the conspiracy of Georges and Pichegru, and the trial of the Duke d’Enghien. I shall presently state the true reasons of this transposition, and of the long delay that has occurred.