“Precisely! That is what I have taken the great liberty to tell Mr. Joseph, and what I now repeat to the Citizen Lucien,—begging him at the same time to give me his opinion about it, without taking into consideration his paternal tenderness for his diplomatic conquest.” Then, not satisfied with irony, he continued in a tone of exasperating contempt: “And now, gentlemen, think of it what you will; but both of you go into mourning about this affair,—you, Lucien, for the sale itself; you, Joseph, because I shall do without the consent of any one whomsoever. Do you understand?”
At this Joseph came close to the bath, and rejoined in a vehement tone: “And you will do well, my dear brother, not to expose your project to parliamentary discussion; for I declare to you that if necessary I will put myself first at the head of the opposition which will not fail to be made against you.”
The First Consul burst into a peal of forced laughter, while Joseph, crimson with anger and almost stammering his words, went on: “Laugh, laugh, laugh, then! I will act up to my promise; and though I am not fond of mounting the tribune, this time you will see me there!”
Napoleon, half rising from the bath, rejoined in a serious tone: “You will have no need to lead the opposition, for I repeat that there will be no debate, for the reason that the project which has not the fortune to meet your approval, conceived by me, negotiated by me, shall be ratified and executed by me alone, do you comprehend?—by me, who laugh at your opposition!”
Hereupon Joseph wholly lost his self-control, and with flashing eyes shouted: “Good! I tell you, General, that you, I, and all of us, if you do what you threaten, may prepare ourselves soon to go and join the poor innocent devils whom you so legally, humanely, and especially with such justice, have transported to Sinnamary.”
At this terrible rejoinder Napoleon half started up, crying out: “You are insolent! I ought—” then threw himself violently back in the bath with a force which sent a mass of perfumed water into Joseph’s flushed face, drenching him and Lucien, who had the wit to quote, in a theatrical tone, the words which Virgil put into the mouth of Neptune reproving the waves,—
“Quos ego....”
Between the water and the wit the three Bonapartes recovered their tempers, while the valet who was present, overcome by fear, fainted and fell on the floor. Joseph went home to change his clothes, while Lucien remained to pass through another scene almost equally amusing. A long conversation followed after the First Consul’s toilet was finished. Napoleon spoke of St. Domingo. “Do you want me to tell you the truth?” said he. “I am to-day more sorry than I like to confess for the expedition to St. Domingo. Our national glory will never come from our marine.” He justified what he called, in jest at Lucien, his “Louisianicide,” by the same reasons he gave to Marbois and Talleyrand, but especially by the necessity of providing funds for the war not yet declared. Lucien combated his arguments as Joseph had done, until at last he reached the same point. “If, like Joseph, I thought that this alienation of Louisiana without the assent of the Chambers might be fatal to me,—to me alone,—I would consent to run all risks in order to prove the devotion you doubt; but it is really too unconstitutional and—”
“Ah, indeed!” burst out Napoleon with another prolonged, forced laugh of derisive anger. “You lay it on handsomely! Unconstitutional is droll from you. Come now, let me alone! How have I hurt your Constitution? Answer!” Lucien replied that the intent to alienate any portion whatever of territory belonging to the Republic without the consent of the Chambers was an unconstitutional project. “In a word, the Constitution—”
“Go about your business!” broke in the guardian of the Constitution and of the national territory. Then he quickly and vehemently went on: “Constitution! unconstitutional! republic! national sovereignty!—big words! great phrases! Do you think yourself still in the club of St. Maximin? We are no longer there, mind that! Ah, it becomes you well, Sir Knight of the Constitution, to talk so to me! You had not the same respect for the Chambers on the 18th Brumaire!”