These conquests, gained by decrees and senatorial decisions, had at least the advantage of being effected without bloodshed. All these things were carefully communicated to me by the Ministers with whom I corresponded, for my situation at Hamburg had acquired such importance that it was necessary I should know everything.
At this period I observed among the news which I received from different places a singular coincidence of dates, worthy of being noted by the authors of ephemrides. On the same day-namely, the 1st of February Paris, Lisbon, and Rome were the scenes of events of different kinds, but, as they all happened on one day, affording a striking example of the rapidity of movement which marked the reign of Bonaparte. At Paris the niece of Josephine, Mademoiselle de Tascher, whom Napoleon had lately exalted to the rank of Princess, was married to the reigning Prince of Ahremberg, while at the same time Junot declared to Portugal that the house of Braganza had ceased to reign, and French troops were, under the command of General Miollis, occupying Rome. This occupation was the commencement of prolonged struggles, during which Pins VII. expiated the condescension he had shown in going to Paris to crown Napoleon.
Looking over my notes, I see it was the day after these three events occurred that Bonaparte gave to his brother-in-law, Prince Borghese, the Governorship-General of the departments beyond the Alps which he had just founded; and of which he made the eighth Grand Dignitary of the Empire. General Menou, whom I had not seen since Egypt, was obliged by this appointment to leave Turin, where he had always remained. Bonaparte, not wishing to permit him to come to Paris, sent Menou to preside over the Junta of Tuscany, of which he soon afterwards made another General- Governorship, which he entrusted to the care of his sister Elisa.
—[Prince Camille Philippe Louis Borghese (1755-1832), an Italian, had married, 6th November 1808, Pauline Bonaparte, the sister of Napoleon, and the widow of General Leclerc. He had been made Prince and Duke of Guastalla when that duchy was given to his wife, 30th Marsh 1806. He separated from his wife after a few years. Indeed Pauline was impossible as a wife if half of the stories about her are true. It was she who, finding that a lady was surprised at her having sat naked while a statue of her was being modelled for Canova, believed she had satisfactorily explained matters by saying, "but there was a fire in the room.">[—
My correspondence relative to what passed in the south of France and of Europe presented to me, if I may so express myself, merely an anecdotal interest. Not so the news which came from the north. At Hamburg I was like the sentinel of an advanced post, always on the alert. I frequently informed the Government of what would take place before the event actually happened. I was one of the first to hear of the plans of Russia relative to Sweden. The courier whom I sent to Paris arrived there at the very moment when Russia made the declaration of war. About the end of February the Russian troops entered Swedish Finland, and occupied also the capital of that province, which had at all times been coveted by the Russian Government. It has been said that at the interview at Erfurt Bonaparte consented to the usurpation of that province by Alexander in return for the complaisance of the latter in acknowledging Joseph as King of Spain and the Indies.
The removal of Joseph from the throne of Naples to the throne of Madrid belongs, indeed, to that period respecting which I am now throwing together a few recollections. Murat had succeeded Joseph at Naples, and this accession of the brother-in-law of Napoleon to one of the thrones of the House of Bourbon gave Bonaparte another junior in the college of kings, of which he would have infallibly become the senior if he had gone on as he began.
I will relate a little circumstance which now occurs to me respecting the kings manufactured by Napoleon. I recollect that during the King of Etruria's stay in Paris—the First Consul went with that Prince to the Comedie Francaise, where Voltaire's 'OEdipus' was performed. This piece, I may observe, Bonaparte liked better than anything Voltaire ever wrote. I was in the theatre, but not in the First Consul's box, and I observed, as all present must have done, the eagerness with which the audience applied to Napoleon and the King of Etruria the line in which Philoctetes says—
"J'ai fait des souverains et n'ai pas voulu l'etre."
["I have made sovereigns, but have not wished to be one myself.">[
The application was so marked that it could not fail to become the subject of conversation between the First Consul and me. "You remarked it, Bourrienne?" . . . "Yes, General." . . "The fools! . . . They shall see! They shall see! "We did indeed see. Not content with making kings, Bonaparte, when his brow was encircled by a double crown, after creating princes at length realised the object he had long contemplated, namely, to found a new nobility endowed with hereditary rights. It was at the commencement of March 1808 that he accomplished this project; and I saw in the 'Moniteur' a long list of princes, dukes, counts, barons, and knights of the Empire; there were wanting only viscounts and marquises.