Here I find that I am compelled to speak of myself, which I have done as little as possible in the course of these memoirs, and I think this is a justice which all my readers will do me; but what I have to say is too intimately connected with the last days I passed with the Emperor, and concerns my personal honor too nearly, for me to suppose that I can be reproached for so doing. I was, as may well be supposed, very anxious as to the fate of my family, of whom I had received no news for a long while; and, at the same time, the cruel disease from which I had long suffered had made frightful progress, owing to the fatigue of the last campaign. Nevertheless, the mental suffering to which I saw the Emperor a victim so entirely absorbed all my thoughts, that I took no precautions against the physical suffering which I endured; and I had not even thought of asking for a safeguard for the country-house I possessed in the environs of Fontainebleau. A free corps having seized it, had established themselves there, after having pillaged and destroyed everything, even the little flock of merino sheep which I owed to the kindness of the Empress Josephine. The Emperor, having been informed of it by others than myself, said to me one morning at his toilet, "Constant, I owe you indemnity."—"Sire?"—"Yes, my child, I know that your place has been pillaged, I know that you have incurred considerable losses in the Russian campaign; I have given an order that fifty thousand francs should be handed you to cover the whole." I thanked his Majesty, who more than indemnified me for my losses.
This occurred during the first days of our last stay at Fontainebleau. At the same period the Emperor's removal to the Island of Elba having been already discussed, the grand marshal of the palace asked me if I would follow his Majesty to this residence. God is my witness that I had no other wish than to consecrate all my life to the service of the Emperor; therefore I did not need a moment's reflection to reply that this could not be a matter of doubt; and I occupied myself almost immediately with preparations for the sojourn, which proved to be not a long one, but the duration of which no human intelligence could then have been able to foretell.
Meanwhile, in the retirement of his chamber, the Emperor became each day more sad and careworn; and when I saw him alone, which often occurred, for I tried to be near him as much as possible, I remarked the extreme agitation which the reading of the dispatches he received from Paris caused him; this agitation was many times so great that I noticed he had torn his leg with his nails until the blood flowed, without being aware of it. I then took the liberty of informing him of the fact as gently as possible, with the hope of putting an end to this intense preoccupation, which cut me to the heart. Several times also the Emperor asked Roustan for his pistols; fortunately I had taken the precaution, seeing his Majesty so unnerved, to recommend him not to give them to him, however much the Emperor might insist. I thought it my duty to give an account of all this to the Duke of Vicenza, who entirely approved of my conduct. One morning, I do not recall whether it was the 10th or 11th of April, but it was certainly on one of those days, the Emperor, who had said nothing to me in the morning, had me called during the day. I had hardly entered his room when he said to me, in a tone of most winning kindness, "My dear Constant, there is a hundred thousand francs waiting for you at Peyrache's; if your wife arrives before our departure, you will give them to her; if she should not, put them in the corner of your country-place, note the exact location of the spot, which you will send to her by some safe person. When one has served me well he should not be in want. Your wife will build a farm, in which she will invest this money; she will live with your mother and sister, and you will not have the fear of leaving her in need." Even more moved by the provident kindness of the Emperor, who thus deigned to consider the interests of my family affairs, than delighted with the great value of the present he had made me, I could hardly find words to express to him my gratitude; and such was, besides, my carelessness of the future, so far from me had been the thought that this great Empire could come to an end, that this was the first time I had really considered the embarrassed condition in which I would have left my family, if the Emperor had not thus generously provided for them. I had, in fact, no fortune, and possessed in all the world only my pillaged house, and the fifty thousand francs destined to repair it.
Under these circumstances, not knowing when I should see my wife again, I made arrangements to follow the advice his Majesty had been kind enough to give me; converted my hundred thousand francs into gold, which I put into five bags; and taking with me the wardrobe boy Denis, whose honesty was above suspicion, we followed the road through the forest to avoid being seen by any of the persons who occupied my house. We cautiously entered a little inclosure belonging to me, the gate of which could not be seen on account of the trees, although they were now without foliage; and with the aid of Denis I succeeded in burying my treasure, after taking an exact note of the place, and then returned to the palace, being certainly very far from foreseeing how much chagrin and tribulation those hundred thousand francs would cause me, as we shall see in the succeeding chapters.
CHAPTER XXVII.
Here more than ever I must beg the indulgence of my readers as to the order in which I relate the events I witnessed during the Emperor's stay at Fontainebleau, and those connected with them which did not come to my knowledge until later. I must also apologize for any inaccuracy in dates of which I may be guilty, though I remember collectively, so to speak, all that occurred during the unhappy twenty days which ensued between the occupation of Paris and the departure of his Majesty for the Island of Elba; for I was so completely absorbed in the unhappy condition of my good master that all my faculties hardly sufficed for the sensations I experienced every moment. We suffered in the Emperor's sufferings; it occurred to none of us to imprint on his memory the recollection of so much agony, for we lived, so to speak, only provisionally.
During the first days of our stay at Fontainebleau the idea that the Emperor would soon cease to reign over France was very far from entering the minds of any of those around him, for every one was possessed with the conviction that the Emperor of Austria would not consent that his son-in-law, daughter, and grandson should be dethroned; in this they were strangely mistaken. I remarked during these first days that even more petitions than usual were addressed to his Majesty; but I am ignorant whether he responded favorably, or even if he replied at all. The Emperor often took up the daily papers, but after casting his eyes over them threw them down angrily; and if we recall the shameless abuse in which those writers indulged who had so often lavished fulsome praises on him, it may well be understood that such a transition would naturally excite his Majesty's disgust. The Emperor usually remained alone; and the person whom he saw most frequently was the Duke of Bassano, the only one of his ministers then at Fontainebleau; for the Duke of Vicenza, being charged continually with missions, was, so to speak, constantly on the wing, especially as long as his Majesty retained the hope of seeing a regency in favor of his son succeed him in the government. In seeking to recall the varied feelings whose impress I remarked on his Majesty's countenance, I think I may affirm that he was even more deeply affected by being compelled to renounce the throne for his son than in resigning it for himself. When the marshals or the Duke of Vicenza spoke to his Majesty of arrangements relating to his person, it was easy to see that he forced himself to listen to them only with the greatest repugnance. One day when they spoke of the Island of Elba, and I do not know what sum per year, I heard his Majesty reply vehemently: "That is too much, much too much for me. If I am no longer anything more than a common soldier, I do not need more than one louis per day."
Nevertheless, the time arrived when, pressed on every side, his Majesty submitted to sign the act of abdication pure and simple, which was demanded of him. This memorable act was conceived in these terms:
"The allied powers having proclaimed that the Emperor Napoleon is the only obstacle to the re-establishment of peace in Europe, the Emperor Napoleon, faithful to his oath, declares that he renounces for himself and his heirs the thrones of France and Italy, and that there is no personal sacrifice, even his life, which he is not willing to make for the interests of France. "Done at the palace of Fontainebleau, 11th of April, 1814. "NAPOLEON."