On the 29th of November the contents of a letter which had arrived from London by way of Sweden were communicated to me. This letter was dated the 3d of November, and contained some particulars respecting the Comte de Lille's arrival in England. That Prince had arrived at Yarmouth on the 31st of October 1807, and it was stated that the King was obliged to wait some time in the port until certain difficulties respecting his landing and the continuance of his journey should be removed. It moreover appeared from this letter that the King of England thought proper to refuse the Comte de Lille permission to go to London or its neighbourhood. The palace of Holyrood in Edinburgh was assigned as his place of residence; and Mr. Ross, secretary to Mr. Canning, conveyed the determination of the King of England to Louis XVIII., at Yarmouth.
The precaution of the English Ministry in not permitting the refugee King to go near London appeared to me remarkable, considering the relative position of the Governments of France and England, and I regarded it as a corroboration of what the Prince Wittgenstein had told me respecting Mr. Canning's inclination for an amicable arrangement. But the moment was approaching when the affairs of Spain were to raise an invincible obstacle to peace, to complicate more than ever the interests of the powers of Europe, and open to Napoleon that vast career of ambition which proved his ruin. He did not allow the hopes of the emigrants to remain chimerical, and the year 1814 witnessed the realization of the prophetic remark made by M. Lemereier, in a conversation with Bonaparte a few days before the foundation of the Empire: "If you get into the bed of the Bourbons, General, you will not lie in it ten year." Napoleon occupied it for nine years and nine months.
Fouche, the grand investigator of the secrets of Europe, did not fail, on the first report of the agitations in Spain, to address to me question on question respecting the Comte de Rechteren, the Spanish Minister at Hamburg, who, however, had left that city, with the permission of his Court, four months after I had entered on my functions. This was going back very far to seek information respecting the affairs of the day. At the very moment when I transmitted a reply to Fouche which was not calculated to please him, because it afforded no ground for suspicion as to the personal conduct of M. de Rechteren, I received from the amiable Josephine a new mark of her remembrance. She sent me the following note:
"M. Milon, who is now in Hamburg, wishes me, my dear Bourrienne, to request that you will use your interest in his favour. I feel the more pleasure in making this request as it affords me an opportunity of renewing the assurance of my regard for you."
Josephine's letter was dated from Fontainebleau, whither the Emperor used to make journeys in imitation of the old Court of France. During these excursions he sometimes partook of the pleasures of the chase, but merely for the sake of reviving an old custom, for in that exercise he found as little amusement as Montaigne did in the game of chess,
At Fontainebleau, as everywhere else, his mind was engaged with the means of augmenting his greatness, but, unfortunately, the exactions he imposed on distant countries were calculated to alienate the affections of the people. Thus, for example, I received an order emanating from him, and transmitted to me by M. Daru, the Intendant-General of the army, that the pay of all the French troops stationed in the Hanse Towns should be defrayed by these towns. I lamented the necessity of making such a communication to the Senates of Bremen, Lubeck, and Hamburg; but my duty compelled me to do so, and I had long been accustomed to fulfil duties even more painful than this. I tried every possible means with the three States, not collectively but separately, to induce them to comply with the measure, in the hope that the assent of one would help me to obtain that of the two others. But, as if they, had been all agreed, I only received evasive expressions of regret.
Knowing as I did, and I may say better than any one else, the hopes and designs of Bonaparte respecting the north of Germany, it was not without pain, nor even without alarm, that I saw him doing everything calculated to convert into enemies the inhabitants of a country which would always have remained quiet had it only been permitted to preserve its neutrality. Among the orders I received were often many which could only have been the result of the profoundest ignorance. For example, I was one day directed to press 3000 seamen in the Hanse Towns. Three thousand seamen out of a population of 200,000! It was as absurd as to think of raising 500,000 sailors in France. This project being impossible, it was of course not executed; but I had some difficulty in persuading the Emperor that a sixth of the number demanded was the utmost the Hanse Towns could supply. Five hundred seamen were accordingly furnished, but to make up that number it was necessary to include many men who were totally unfit for war service.
CHAPTER—XIV.
1808.
Departure of the Prince of Ponte-Corvo—Prediction and superstition —Stoppage of letters addressed to the Spanish troops—La Romana and Romanillos—Illegible notifications—Eagerness of the German Princes to join the Confederation of the Rhine—Attack upon me on account of M. Hue—Bernadotte's successor in Hamburg—Exactions and tyrannical conduct of General Dupas—Disturbance in Hamburg—Plates broken in a fit of rage—My letter to Bernadotte—His reply—Bernadotte's return to Hamburg, and departure of Dupas for Lubeck—Noble conduct of the 'aide de camp' Barrel.