Before we set out, we went for one day to Mortefontaine, an estate which had been purchased by Joseph Bonaparte. All the family were assembled there, and a strange occurrence took place. We passed the morning in walking about the gardens, which are beautiful. When dinner hour approached, a question arose about the placing of the guests. The elder Mme. Bonaparte was at Mortefontaine, and Joseph told his brother that he intended to take his mother in to dinner, and to place her on his right hand, while Mme. Bonaparte was to sit on his left. The First Consul took offense at this arrangement, which placed his wife in the second rank, and insisted that his brother should transfer their mother to that position. Joseph refused, and no argument could induce him to give way. When dinner was announced, Joseph took his mother’s hand, and Lucien escorted Mme. Bonaparte. The First Consul, incensed at this opposition to his will, hurriedly crossed the room, took the arm of his wife, passed out before every one, seated her beside himself, and then, turning to me, ordered me to place myself near him. The company were all greatly embarrassed, I even more so than the others; and Mme. Joseph Bonaparte, to whom some politeness was due, found herself at the bottom of the table, as if she were not one of the family.
The stiffness and gloom of that dinner-party may be easily imagined. The brothers were angry, Mme. Bonaparte was wretched, and I was excessively embarrassed by my prominent position. During the dinner Bonaparte did not address a single member of his family; he occupied himself with his wife, talked to me, and chose this opportune occasion to inform me that he had that morning restored to my cousin, the Vicomte de Vergennes, certain forests which had long been sequestrated on account of his emigration, but which had not been sold. I was touched by this mark of his kindness, but it was very vexatious to me that he selected such a moment to tell me of it, because the gratitude which I would otherwise have gladly expressed, and the joy which I really felt, made me appear to the observers of the little scene to be talking freely to him, while I was really in a state of painful constraint. The remainder of the day passed drearily, as may be supposed, and we left Mortefontaine on the morrow.
An accident which happened at the beginning of our journey increased the regard which I was then happy to feel for Bonaparte and his wife. He traveled with her and one of the generals of his guard, and his carriage was preceded by one containing Duroc and three aides-de-camp. A third carriage was occupied by Mme. Talhouet, M. de Rémusat, and myself; two others followed. Shortly after we had left Compiègne, where we visited a military school, on our way to Amiens, our carriage was violently overturned. Mme. Talhouet’s head was badly cut; M. de Rémusat and I were only bruised. With some trouble we were extricated from the carriage. Bonaparte, who was on in front, was told of this accident; he at once alighted from his carriage, and with Mme. Bonaparte, who was much frightened about me, hastened to join us at a cottage, whither we had been taken. I was so terrified that, as soon as I saw Bonaparte, I begged him with tears to send me back to Paris; I already disliked traveling as much as did the pigeon of La Fontaine, and in my distress I cried out that I must return to my mother and my children.
Bonaparte said a few words intended to calm me; but, finding that he could not succeed in doing so, he took my arm in his, gave orders that Mme. Talhouet should be placed in one of the carriages, and, after satisfying himself that M. de Rémusat was none the worse for the accident, led me, frightened as I was, to his own carriage, and made me get in with him. We set off again, and he took pains to cheer up his wife and me, and told us, laughingly, to kiss each other and cry, “because,” he said, “that always does women good.” After a while his animated conversation distracted my thoughts, and my fear of the further journey subsided. Mme. Bonaparte having referred to the grief my mother would feel if any harm happened to me, Bonaparte questioned me about her, and appeared to be well aware of the high esteem in which she was held in society. Indeed, it was largely to this that his attention to me was due. At that period, when so many people still held back from the advances he made to them, he was greatly gratified that my mother had consented to my holding a place in his household. At that time I was in his eyes almost a personage whose example would, he hoped, be followed.
On the evening of the same day we arrived at Amiens, where we were received with enthusiasm impossible to describe. The horses were taken from the carriage, and replaced by the inhabitants, who insisted on drawing it themselves. I was the more affected by this spectacle, as it was absolutely novel to me. Alas! since I had been of an age to observe what was passing around me, I had witnessed only scenes of terror and woe, I had heard only sounds of hate and menace; and the joy of the inhabitants of Amiens, the garlands that decorated our route, the triumphal arches erected in honor of him who was represented on all these devices as the saviour of France, the crowds who fought for a sight of him, the universal blessings which could not have been uttered to order—the whole spectacle, in fact, so affected me that I could not restrain my tears. Mme. Bonaparte wept; I saw even the eyes of Bonaparte himself glisten for a moment.
CHAPTER III
(1803.)
N Bonaparte’s arrival in town, the Prefect of the Palace was directed to summon the various persons in authority, that they might be presented to him. The prefect, the mayor, the bishop, the presidents of the tribunals, would read an address to him, and then, turning to Mme. Bonaparte, make her a little speech also. According to the mood he happened to be in, Bonaparte would listen to these discourses to the end, or interrupt them by questioning the deputation on the nature of their respective functions, or on the district in which they exercised them. He rarely put questions with an appearance of interest, but rather with the air of a man who desires to show his knowledge, and wants to see whether he can be answered. These speeches were addressed to the Republic; but any one who reads them may see that in almost every respect they might have been addressed to a sovereign. Indeed, the mayors of some of the Flemish towns went so far as to urge the Consul to “complete the happiness of the world by exchanging his precarious title for one better suited to the lofty destiny to which he was called.” I was present the first time that happened, and I kept my eyes fixed upon Bonaparte. When these very words were uttered, he had some difficulty in checking the smile that hovered about his lips; but, putting strong control upon himself, he interrupted the orator, and replied, in a tone of feigned anger, that it would be unworthy of him to usurp an authority which must affect the existence of the Republic. Thus, like Cæsar, he repudiated the crown, though perhaps he was not ill pleased that they were beginning to offer it to him. The good people of the provinces we visited were not very far wrong; for the splendor that surrounded us, the sumptuousness of that military yet brilliant court, the strict ceremonial, the imperious tone of the master, the submission of all about him, and, finally, the expectation that homage should be paid the wife of the first magistrate, to whom the Republic certainly owed none—all this strongly resembled the progress of a King.