NAPOLEON.
Bonaparte was taken completely by surprise. The “man of the people” had outgeneralled the “conqueror of Italy.”
Though he could not outwardly express his dissatisfaction, his displeasure was made very evident. Virginie La Fayette says:—
“The Premier Consul received this news with a very bad grace. He would have wished my father to remain in Holland, and to solicit like everybody else permission to enter France. The ministers declared that my father must return to Utrecht, there to wait till his name should be effaced from the list of émigrés. Those of our friends who approached the Premier Consul assured us that nobody dared for the present say a word to him on the subject. My mother went to see him and was graciously received. She explained to General Bonaparte my father’s peculiar situation, and the effect his return would produce on the mind of every honest patriot. The general was struck with the nobleness, prudence, and tact of her language. ‘I am charmed, Madame,’ he said, ‘to make your acquaintance; vous avez beaucoup d’esprit, mais vous n’entendez pas les affaires.’ Nevertheless, it was decided that my father should remain openly in France without asking for any permission, and that he should go to the country, there to remain during the legal term of his proscription.
“My sister and her husband arrived from Holland. My brother had already joined my father, and we established ourselves first at Fontenay, then at La Grange, one of my grandmother’s estates which had fallen to my mother.
“One of the objects my father had in view on re-entering France was to facilitate the return of his companions in exile. Many difficulties were to be conquered. This task was entrusted to my mother. She was obliged to go constantly to Paris in order to plead the cause of those faithful friends. She succeeded; there is not one amongst them, I believe, who does not owe his radiation to her personal exertions.
“The remainder of this precious life was consecrated to us. Repose would have best suited my father even under Bonaparte’s consular magistracy, but under Napoleon’s imperial despotism honor prescribed retirement. The dearest wish of my mother’s heart was to lead a private life. If, after so many fatigues and sufferings, quiet had not been necessary, the possibility of peacefully consecrating herself to the affections which filled her soul, to the one especially which surpassed them all, was the only happiness she could desire. She felt too deeply, too passionately, I may say, the emotions of family life to wish for any other. Neither the grandeur of her former position, nor even the lustre of her misfortunes, had given birth in her mind to that restless pride which cannot bear to return to a homely life. Though her devoted courage had arisen above the greatest trials, still the feelings and easy duties of an obscure destiny would have sufficed to satisfy her heart. Love filled her whole being.
“God permitted her to enjoy, during the last years of her life, greater happiness than she had ever ventured to hope for. My mother’s health was greatly impaired, but her natural and simple courage acted as a charm to deceive us. We beheld her always serene and tender, taking the liveliest part in the happiness caused by the birth of her three eldest grandchildren. She bore with gentle fortitude the anxieties of which my brother and my husband were the objects during the campaigns of 1805 and 1806. She heard with joy of George’s good fortune when he saved his general’s life at the battle of Eylau. The peace which followed brought on for her a period of unmingled happiness. At the end of the spring of 1807, it seemed that God had accomplished all my mother’s desires in this world. A few days after the return of my brother and of my husband, in August, my mother was taken with violent pains and strong fever. On the 11th of October she heard mass for the last time in the chapel of La Grange. The disorder attacked her brain in a most fearful manner. My mother’s delirium was peculiar and entirely in keeping with her character; she was completely absorbed by her affection for those she loved; in her wanderings she would mistake herself on our situations, never on our characters: she knew us to the last. One day she called my sister to her and said: ‘Have you an idea of what maternal feeling is? Are you like me? Do you know all its joys? Is there anything sweeter, deeper, stronger? Do you feel, like me, the want of loving and of being loved?’
“Her love for God and for my father occupied almost exclusively her last moments. What she was for my father in the midst of this delirium is not to be conceived. The effect his presence produced on her, the choice of the words she used to express her love, with more confidence than she had ever shown before; how, with complete incoherence in her ideas, she followed up interests which, though imaginary, were in keeping with her character and her opinions; the charm with which she spoke to him of God and of religion,—all this cannot be expressed by words, and such a delirium could only be hers. ‘God owed her the reward,’ M. de Grammont said to my father, ‘of permitting her thus to reveal to you the depth of her tenderness.’