—[Lord Wellington gave Massena a beating at Fuentes d'Onore on the
5th of May 1811. It was soon after this battle that Napoleon sent
Marmont to succeed Massena. Advancing on the southern frontier of
Portugal the skillful Soult contrived to take Badajoz from a
wavering Spanish garrison. About this time, however, General
Graham, with his British corps, sallied out of Cadiz, and beat the
French on the heights of Barrosa, which lie in front of Cadiz, which
city the French were then besieging. Encouraged by the successes of
our regular armies, the Spanish Guerillas became more and more
numerous and daring. By the end of 1811 Joseph Bonaparte found so
many thorns in his usurped crown that he implored his brother to put
it on some other head. Napoleon would not then listen to his
prayer. In the course of 1811 a plan was laid for liberating
Ferdinand from his prison in France and placing him at the head of
affairs in Spain, but was detected by the emissaries of Bonaparte's
police. Ferdinand's sister, the ex-Queen of Etruria, had also
planned an escape to England. Her agents were betrayed, tried by a
military commission, and shot—the Princess herself was condemned to
close confinement in a Roman convent.—Editor of 1836 edition.]—
The Continental system was the cause, if not of the eventual fall, at least of the rapid fall of Napoleon. This cannot be doubted if we consider for a moment the brilliant situation of the Empire in 1811, and the effect simultaneously produced throughout Europe by that system, which undermined the most powerful throne which ever existed. It was the Continental system that Napoleon upheld in Spain, for he had persuaded himself that this system, rigorously enforced, would strike a death blow to the commerce of England; and Duroc besides informed me of a circumstance which is of great weight in this question. Napoleon one day said to him, "I am no longer anxious that Joseph should be King of Spain; and he himself is indifferent about it. I would give the crown to the first comer who would shut his ports against the English."
Murat had come to Paris on the occasion of the Empress' accouchement, and I saw him several times during his stay, for we had always been on the best terms; and I must do him the justice to say that he never assumed the King but to his courtiers, and those who had known him only as a monarch. Eight or ten days after the birth of the King of Rome, as I was one morning walking in the Champs Elysees, I met Murat. He was alone, and dressed in a long blue overcoat. We were exactly opposite the gardens of his sister-in-law, the Princess Borghese. "Well, Bourrienne," said Murat, after we had exchanged the usual courtesies, "well, what are you about now?" I informed him how I had been treated by Napoleon, who, that I might not be in Hamburg when the decree of union arrived there, had recalled me to Paris under a show of confidence. I think I still see the handsome and expressive countenance of Joachim when, having addressed him by the titles of Sire and Your Majesty, he said to me, "Pshaw! Bourrienne, are we not old comrades? The Emperor has treated you unjustly; and to whom has he not been unjust? His displeasure is preferable to his favour, which costs so dear! He says that he made us Kings; but did we not make him an Emperor? To you, my friend, whom I have known long and intimately, I can make my profession of faith. My sword, my blood, my life belong to the Emperor. When he calls me to the field to combat his enemies and the enemies of France I am no longer a King, I resume the rank of a Marshal of the Empire; but let him require no more. At Naples I will be King of Naples, and I will not sacrifice to his false calculations the life, the well-being, and the interests of my subjects. Let him not imagine that he can treat me as he has treated Louis! For I am ready to defend, even against him, if it must be so, the rights of the people over whom he has appointed me to rule. Am I then an advance-guard King?" These last words appeared to me peculiarly appropriate in the mouth of Murat, who had always served in the advance-guard of our armies, and I thought expressed in a very happy manner the similarity of his situation as a king and a soldier.
I walked with Murat about half an hour. In the course of our conversation he informed me that his greatest cause of complaint against the Emperor was his having first put him forward and then abandoned him. "Before I arrived in Naples," continued he, "it was intimated to me that there was a design of assassinating me. What did I do? I entered that city alone, in full daylight, in an open carriage, for I would rather have been assassinated at once than have lived in the constant fear of being so. I afterwards made a descent on the Isle of Capri, which succeeded. I attempted one against Sicily, and am curtain it would have also been successful had the Emperor fulfilled his promise of sending the Toulon fleet to second my operations; but he issued contrary orders: he enacted Mazarin, and unshed me to play the part of the adventurous Duke of Guise. But I see through his designs. Now that he has a son, on whom he has bestowed the title of King of Rome, he merely wishes the crown of Naples to be considered as a deposit in my hands. He regards Naples as a future annexation to the Kingdom of Rome, to which I foresee it is his design to unite the whole of Italy. But let him not urge me too far, for I will oppose him, and conquer, or perish in the attempt, sword in hand."
I had the discretion not to inform Murat how correctly he had divined the plans of the Emperor and his projects as to Italy, but in regard to the Continental system, which, perhaps, the reader will be inclined to call my great stalking-horse, I spoke of it as I had done to the Prince of Sweden, and I perceived that he was fully disposed to follow my advice, as experience has sufficiently proved. It was in fact the Continental system which separated the interests of Murat from those of the Emperor, and which compelled the new King of Naples to form alliances amongst the Princes at war with France. Different opinions have been entertained on this Subject; mine is, that the Marshal of the Empire was wrong, but the King of Naples right.
The Princes and Dukes of the Empire must pardon me for so often designating them by their Republican names. The Marshals set less value on their titles of nobility than the Dukes and Counts selected from among the civilians. Of all the sons of the Republic Regnault de St. Jean d'Angély was the most gratified at being a Count, whilst, among the fathers of the Revolution no one could regard with greater disdain than Fouché his title of Duke of Otranto; he congratulated himself upon its possession only once, and that was after the fall of the Empire.
I have expressed my dislike of Fouché; and the reason of that feeling was, that I could not endure his system of making the police a government within a government. He had left Paris before my return thither, but I had frequent occasion to speak of that famous personage to Savary, whom, for the reason above assigned, I do not always term Duc de Rovigo. Savary knew better than any one the fallacious measures of Fouché's administration, since he was his successor. Fouché, under pretence of encouraging men of letters, though well aware that the Emperor was hostile to them, intended only to bring them into contempt by making them write verses at command. It was easily seen that Napoleon nourished a profound dislike of literary men, though we must not conclude that he wished the public to be aware of that dislike. Those, besides, who devoted their pens to blazon his glory and his power were sure to be received by him with distinction. On the other hand, as Charlemagne and Louis XIV. owed a portion of the splendour of their reigns to the lustre reflected on them by literature, he wished to appear to patronise authors, provided that they never discussed questions relating to philosophy, the independence of mankind, and civil and political rights. With regard to men of science it was wholly different; those he held in real estimation; but men of letters, properly so called, were considered by him merely as a sprig in his Imperial crown.
The marriage of the Emperor with an Archduchess of Austria had set all the Court poets to work, and in this contest of praise and flattery it must be confessed that the false gods were vanquished by the true God; for, in spite of their fulsome verses, not one of the disciples of Apollo could exceed the extravagance of the Bishops in their pastoral letters. At a time when so many were striving to force themselves into notice there still existed a feeling of esteem in the public mind for men of superior talent who remained independent amidst the general corruption; such was M. Lemercier, such was M. de Chateaubriand. I was in Paris in the spring of 1811, at the period of Chenier's death, when the numerous friends whom Chateaubriand possessed in the second class of the Institute looked to him as the successor of Chenier. This was more than a mere literary question, not only on account of the high literary reputation M. de Chateaubriand already possessed, but of the recollection of his noble conduct at the period of Duc d'Enghien's death, which was yet fresh in the memory of every one; and, besides, no person could be ignorant of the immeasurable difference of opinion between Chenier and M. de Chateaubriand.
M. de Chateaubriand obtained a great majority of votes, and was elected a Member of the Institute. This opened a wide field for conjecture in Paris. Every one was anxious to see how the author of the Genie du Christianisme, the faithful defender of the Bourbons, would bend his eloquence to pronounce the eulogium of a regicide. The time for the admission of the new Member of the Institute arrived, but in his discourse, copies of which were circulated in Paris, he had ventured to allude to the death of Louis XVI., and to raise his voice against the regicides. This did not displease Napoleon; but M. de Chateaubriand also made a profession of faith in favour of liberty, which, he said, found refuge amongst men of letters when banished from the politic body. This was great boldness for the time; for though Bonaparte was secretly gratified at seeing the judges of Louis XVI. scourged by an heroic pen, yet those men held the highest situations under the Government. Cambacérès filled the second place in the Empire, although at a great distance from the first; Merlin de Douai was also in power; and it is known how much liberty was stifled and hidden beneath the dazzling illusion of what is termed glory. A commission was named to examine the discourse of Chateaubriand. MM. Suard, de Segur, de Fontanes, and two or three other members of the same class of the Institute whose names I cannot recollect, were of opinion that the discourse should be read; but it was opposed by the majority.
When Napoleon was informed of what had passed he demanded a sight of the address, which was presented to him by M. Daru. After having perused it he exclaimed; "Had this discourse been delivered I would have shut the gates of the Institute, and thrown M. de Chateaubriand into a dungeon for life." The storm long raged; at length means of conciliation were tried. The Emperor required M. de Chateaubriand to prepare another discourse, which the latter refused to do, in spite of every menace. Madame Gay applied to Madame Regnault de St. Jean d'Angély, who interested her husband in favour of the author of the Genie du Christianisme. M. de Montalivet and Savary also acted on this occasion in the most praiseworthy manner, and succeeded in appeasing the first transports of the Emperor's rage. But the name of Chateaubriand constantly called to mind the circumstances which had occasioned him to give in his resignation; and, besides, Napoleon had another complaint against him. He had published in the 'Merceure' an article on a work of M. Alexandre de Laborde. In that article, which was eagerly read in Paris, and which caused the suppression of the 'Merceure', occurred the famous phrase which has been since so often repeated: "In vain a Nero triumphs: Tacitus is already born in his Empire." This quotation leads me to repeat an observation, which, I believe, I have already made, viz. that it is a manifest misconception to compare Bonaparte to Nero. Napoleon's ambition might blind his vision to political crimes, but in private life no man could evince less disposition to cruelty or bloodshed. A proof that he bore little resemblance to Nero is that his anger against the author of the article in question vented itself in mere words. "What!" exclaimed he, "does Chateaubriand think I am a fool, and that I do not know what he means? If he goes on this way I will have him sabred on the steps of the Tuileries." This language is quite characteristic of Bonaparte, but it was uttered in the first ebullition of his wrath. Napoleon merely threatened, but Nero would have made good his threat; and in such a case there is surely some difference between words and deeds.