M. de Talleyrand, who was urging Bonaparte to surround himself with all the prestige of royalty, advised him to gratify the vanity and pretension of those whom he wished to allure; and in France the nobility can be satisfied only by being placed in the front. Those distinctions to which they thought themselves entitled had to be dangled before their eyes; the Montmorencys, the Montesquious, etc., were secured by the promise that, from the day they cast in their lot with Bonaparte, they should resume all their former importance. In fact, it could not be otherwise, when the Emperor had once resolved on forming a regular Court.
Some persons have thought that Bonaparte would have done more wisely had he retained some of the simplicity and austerity in externals which disappeared with the Consulate when he adopted the new title of Emperor. A constitutional government and a limited Court, displaying no luxury, and significant of the change which successive revolutions had wrought in people’s ideas, might perhaps have been less pleasing to the national vanity, but it would have commanded more real respect. At the time of which I am speaking, the dignities to be conferred on those persons surrounding the new sovereign were much discussed. Duroc requested M. de Rémusat to give his ideas on the subject in writing. He drew up a wise and moderate plan, but which was too simple for those secret projects which no one had then divined. “There is not sufficient display in it,” said Bonaparte, as he read it; “all that would not throw dust in people’s eyes.” His project was to decoy, in order to deceive more effectually.
As he refused to give a free constitution to the French, he had to conciliate and fascinate them by every possible means; and, there being always some littleness in pride, supreme power was not enough for him—he must have the appearance of it too; he must have etiquette, chamberlains, and so forth, which he believed would disguise the parvenu. He liked display; he leaned toward a feudal system quite alien to the age in which he lived, but which nevertheless he intended to establish. It would, however, in all probability, have only lasted for the duration of his own reign.
It would be impossible to record all his notions on this subject. The following were some of them: “The French Empire,” he would say, “will become the mother country of the other sovereignties of Europe. I intend that each of the kings shall be obliged to build a big palace for his own use in Paris; and that, on the coronation of the Emperor of the French, these kings shall come to Paris, and grace by their presence that imposing ceremony to which they will render homage.” What did this project mean, except that he hoped to revive the feudal system, and to resuscitate a Charlemagne who, for his own advantage only, and to strengthen his own power, should avail himself of the despotic notions of a former era and also of the experience of modern times?
Bonaparte frequently declared that he alone was the whole Revolution, and he at length persuaded himself that in his own person he preserved all of it which it would not be well to destroy.
A fever of etiquette seemed to have seized on all the inhabitants of the Imperial palace of Saint Cloud. The ponderous regulations of Louis XIV. were taken down from the shelves in the library, and extracts were commenced from them, in order that a code might be drawn up for the use of the new Court. Mme. Bonaparte sent for Mme. Campan, who had been First Bedchamber Woman to Marie Antoinette. She was a clever woman, and kept a school, where, as I have already mentioned, nearly all the young girls who appeared at Bonaparte’s Court had been educated. She was questioned in detail as to the manners and customs of the last Queen of France, and I was appointed to write everything that she related from her dictation. Bonaparte added the very voluminous memoranda which resulted from this to those which were brought to him from all sides. M. de Talleyrand was consulted about everything. There was a continual coming and going; people were living in a kind of uncertainty which had its pleasing side, because every one hoped to rise higher. I must candidly confess that we all felt ourselves more or less elevated. Vanity is ingenious in its expectations, and ours were unlimited.
Sometimes it was disenchanting, for a moment, to observe the almost ridiculous effect that this agitation produced upon certain classes of society. Those who had nothing to do with our brand-new dignities said with Montaigne, “Vengeons-nous par en médire.” Jests more or less witty, and calembours more or less ingenious, were lavished on these new-made princes, and somewhat disturbed our brilliant visions; but the number of those who dare to censure success is small, and flattery was much more common than criticism, at any rate in the circle under our observation.
Such was, then, the position of affairs at the close of the era which terminates here. The narrative of the second epoch will show what progress we all made (when I say “we all,” I mean France and Europe) in this course of brilliant errors, which was destined to lead to the loss of our liberties and the obscuration of our true greatness for a long period.
In the April of that year Bonaparte made his brother Louis a member of the Council of State, and Joseph colonel of the 4th Regiment of Infantry. “You must both belong to the civil and military service by turns,” he said. “You must not be strangers to anything that concerns the interests of the country.”