“You seem to think it improbable,” said Liebeau. “I, Antoine Liebeau, I have more prospect of being an Emperor than Napoleon Bonaparte had ten years ago, when he was only a colonel, and was arrested as a terrorist. And am I not a Frenchman? And is he not a foreigner? Come, shake hands with me; as soon as I am Emperor, depend upon it you shall be a general, and a grand officer of the Legion of Honour.”
“Ah! my jewel,” interrupted Madame Liebeau, “how happy will France then be. You are such a friend of peace. We will then have no wars, no contributions; all the English milords may then come here and spend their money, nobody cares about where or how. Will you not, then, my sweet love, make all the gentlemen here your chamberlains, and permit me to accept all the ladies of the company for my Maids of Honour or ladies-in-waiting?”
“Softly, softly,” cried Frial, who now began to be as intoxicated and as ambitious as the general; “whenever Napoleon dies, I have more hope, more: claim, and more right than you to the throne. I am in actual service; and had not Bonaparte been the same, he might have still remained upon the half-pay, obscure and despised. Were not most of the Field-marshals and generals under him now, above him ten years ago? May I not, ten years hence, if I am satisfied with you, General Liebeau, make you also a Field-marshal, or my Minister of War; and you, Madame Liebeau, a lady of my wife’s wardrobe, as soon as I am married? I, too, have my plans and my views, and perhaps one day you will recollect this conversation, and not be sorry for my acquaintance.”
“What! you a colonel, an Emperor, before me, who have so long been a general?” howled Liebeau, who was no longer able to speak. “I would sooner knock your brains out with this bottle than suffer such a precedence; and my wife a lady of your wardrobe! she who has possessed from her birth the soul of an Empress! No, sir! never will I take the oath to you, nor suffer anybody else to take it.”
“Then I will punish you as a rebel,” retorted Frial; “and as sure as you stand here you shall be shot.”
Liebeau then rose up to fetch his sword, but the company interfered, and the dispute about the priority of claim to the throne of France between the ci-devant drummer and ci-devant jockey was left undecided. From the words and looks of several of the captains present, I think that they seemed, in their own opinions, to have as much prospect and expectation to reign over the French Empire as either General Liebeau or Colonel Frial.
As soon as I returned home I wrote down this curious conversation and this debate about supremacy. To what a degradation is the highest rank in my unfortunate country reduced when two such personages seriously contend about it! I collected more subjects for meditation and melancholy in this low company (where, by the bye, I witnessed more vulgarity and more indecencies than I had before seen during my life) than from all former scenes of humiliation and disgust since my return here. When I the next day mentioned it to General de M———, whom you have known as an emigrant officer in your service, but whom policy has since ranged under the colours of Bonaparte, he assured me that these discussions about the Imperial throne are very frequent among the superior officers, and have caused many bloody scenes; and that hardly any of our generals of any talent exist who have not the same ‘arriere pensee of some day or other. Napoleon cannot, therefore, well be ignorant of the many other dynasties here now rivalling that of the Bonapartes, and who wait only for his exit to tear his Senatus Consultum, his will, and his family, as well as each other, to pieces.
LETTER X.
PARIS, September, 1805.