M. de Talleyrand was almost the only one among the ministers who did not flatter Bonaparte, and who really served both the First Consul and the Emperor. When Bonaparte said to M. de Talleyrand, "Write so and so, and send it off by a special courier," that minister was never in a hurry to obey the order, because he knew the character of the First Consul well enough to distinguish between what his passion dictated and what his reason would approve: in short, he appealed from Philip drunk to Philip sober. When it happened that M. de Talleyrand suspended the execution of an order, Bonaparte never evinced the least displeasure. When, the day after he had received any hasty and angry order, M. de Talleyrand presented himself to the First Consul, the latter would say, "Well, did you send off the courier?"—"No," the minister would reply, "I took care not to do so before I showed you my letter." Then the First Consul would usually add, "Upon second thoughts I think it would be best not to send it." This was the way to deal with Bonaparte. When M. de Talleyrand postponed sending off despatches, or when I myself have delayed the execution of an order which I knew had been dictated by anger, and had emanated neither from his heart nor his understanding, I have heard him say a hundred times, "It was right, quite right. You understand me: Talleyrand understands me also. This is the way to serve me: the others do not leave me time for reflection: they are too precipitate." Fouche also was one of those who did not on all occasions blindly obey Bonaparte's commands. His other ministers, on the other hand, when told to send off a courier the next morning, would have more probably sent him off the same evening. This was from zeal, but was not the First Consul right in saying that such zeal was unfortunate?
Of Talleyrand and Fouche, in their connections with the First Consul, it might be said that the one represented the Constituent Assembly, with a slight perfume of the old regime, and the other the Convention in all its brutality. Bonaparte regarded Fouche as a complete personification of the Revolution. With him, therefore, Fouche's influence was merely the influence of the Revolution. That great event was one of those which had made the most forcible impression on Bonaparte's ardent mind, and he imagined he still beheld it in a visible form as long as Fouche continued at the head of his police. I am now of opinion that Bonaparte was in some degree misled as to the value of Fouche's services as a minister. No doubt the circumstance of Fouche being in office conciliated those of the Revolutionary party who were his friends. But Fouche cherished an undue partiality for them, because he knew that it was through them he held his place. He was like one of the old Condottieri, who were made friends of lest they should become enemies, and who owed all their power to the soldiers enrolled under their banners.
Such was Fouche, and Bonaparte perfectly understood his situation. He kept the chief in his service until he could find an opportunity of disbanding his undisciplined followers. But there was one circumstance which confirmed his reliance on Fouche. He who had voted the death of the King of France, and had influenced the minds of those who had voted with him, offered Bonaparte the best guarantee against the attempts of the Royalists for raising up in favour of the Bourbons the throne which the First Consul himself had determined to ascend. Thus, for different reasons, Bonaparte and Fouche had common interests against the House of Bourbon, and the master's ambition derived encouragement from the supposed terror of the servant.
The First Consul was aware of the existence in Paris of a Royalist committee, formed for the purpose of corresponding with Louis XVIII. This committee consisted of men who must not be confounded with those wretched intriguers who were of no service to their employers, and were not unfrequently in the pay of both Bonaparte and the Bourbons. The Royalist committee, properly so called, was a very different thing. It consisted of men professing rational principles of liberty, such as the Marquis de Clermont Gallerande, the Abbe de Montesqiou, M. Becquet, and M. Royer Collard. This committee had been of long standing; the respectable individuals whose names I have just quoted acted upon a system hostile to the despotism of Bonaparte, and favourable to what they conceived to be the interests of France. Knowing the superior wisdom of Louis XVIII., and the opinions which he had avowed and maintained in the Assembly of the Notables, they wished to separate that Prince from the emigrants, and to point him out to the nation as a suitable head of a reasonable Constitutional Government. Bonaparte, whom I have often heard speak on the subject, dreaded nothing so much as these ideas of liberty, in conjunction with a monarchy. He regarded them as reveries, called the members of the committee idle dreamers, but nevertheless feared the triumph of their ideas. He confessed to me that it was to counteract the possible influence of the Royalist committee that he showed himself so indulgent to those of the emigrants whose monarchical prejudices he knew were incompatible with liberal opinions. By the presence of emigrants who acknowledged nothing short of absolute power, he thought he might paralyse the influence of the Royalists of the interior; he therefore granted all such emigrants permission to return.
About this time I recollect having read a document, which had been signed, purporting to be a declaration of the principles of Louis XVIII. It was signed by M. d'Andre, who bore evidence to its authenticity. The principles contained in the declaration were in almost all points conformable to the principles which formed the basis of the charter. Even so early as 1792, and consequently previous to the fatal 21st of January, Louis XVI., who knew the opinions of M. de Clermont Gallerande, sent him on a mission to Coblentz to inform the Princes from him, and the Queen, that they would be ruined by their emigration. I am accurately informed, and I state this fact with the utmost confidence. I can also add with equal certainty that the circumstance was mentioned by M. de Clermont Gallerande in his Memoirs, and that the passage relative to his mission to Coblentz was cancelled before the manuscript was sent to press.
During the Consular Government the object of the Royalist committee was to seduce rather than to conspire. It was round Madame Bonaparte in particular that their batteries were raised, and they did not prove ineffectual. The female friends of Josephine filled her mind with ideas of the splendour and distinction she would enjoy if the powerful hand which had chained the Revolution should raise up the subverted throne. I must confess that I was myself, unconsciously, an accomplice of the friends of the throne; for what they wished for the interest of the Bourbons I then ardently wished for the interest of Bonaparte.
While endeavours were thus made to gain over Madame Bonaparte to the interest of the royal family, brilliant offers were held out for the purpose of dazzling the First Consul. It was wished to retemper for him the sword of the constable Duguesclin; and it was hoped that a statue erected to his honour would at once attest to posterity his spotless glory and the gratitude of the Bourbons. But when these offers reached the ears of Bonaparte he treated them with indifference, and placed no faith in their sincerity. Conversing on the subject one day with M. de La Fayette he said, "They offer me a statue, but I must look to the pedestal. They may make it my prison." I did not hear Bonaparte utter these words; but they were reported to me from a source, the authenticity of which may be relied on.
About this time, when so much was said in the Royalist circles and in the Faubourg St. Germain, of which the Hotel de Luynes was the headquarters, about the possible return of the Bourbons, the publication of a popular book contributed not a little to direct the attention of the public to the most brilliant period of the reign of Louis XIV. The book was the historical romance of Madame de la Valloire, by Madame de Genlis, who had recently returned to France. Bonaparte read it, and I have since understood that he was very well pleased with it, but he said nothing to me about it. It was not until some time after that he complained of the effect which was produced in Paris by this publication, and especially by engravings representing scenes in the life of Louis XIV., and which were exhibited in the shop-windows. The police received orders to suppress these prints; and the order was implicitly obeyed; but it was not Fouche's police. Fouche saw the absurdity of interfering with trifles. I recollect that immediately after the creation of the Legion of Honour, it being summer, the young men of Paris indulged in the whim of wearing a carnation in a button-hole, which at a distance had rather a deceptive effect. Bonaparte took this very seriously. He sent for Fouche, and desired him to arrest those who presumed thus to turn the new order into ridicule. Fouche merely replied that he would wait till the autumn; and the First Consul understood that trifles were often rendered matters of importance by being honoured with too much attention.
But though Bonaparte was piqued at the interest excited by the engravings of Madame de Genlis' romance he manifested no displeasure against that celebrated woman, who had been recommended to him by MM. de Fontanes and Fievee and who addressed several letters to him. As this sort of correspondence did not come within the routine of my business I did not see the letters; but I heard from Madame Bonaparte that they contained a prodigious number of proper names, and I have reason to believe that they contributed not a little to magnify, in the eyes of the First Consul, the importance of the Faubourg St. Germain, which, in spite of all his courage, was a scarecrow to him.
Bonaparte regarded the Faubourg St. Germain as representing the whole mass of Royalist opinion; and he saw clearly that the numerous erasures from the emigrant list had necessarily increased dissatisfaction among the Royalists, since the property of the emigrants had not been restored to its old possessors, even in those cases in which it had not been sold. It was the fashion in a certain class to ridicule the unpolished manners of the great men of the Republic compared with the manners of the nobility of the old Court. The wives of certain generals had several times committed themselves by their awkwardness. In many circles there was an affectation of treating with contempt what are called the parvenus; those people who, to use M. de Talleyrand's expression, do not know how to walk upon a carpet. All this gave rise to complaints against the Faubourg St. Germain; while, on the other hand, Bonaparte's brothers spared no endeavours to irritate him against everything that was calculated to revive the recollection of the Bourbons.