The Emperor began by refusing to listen to us, and complaining that we were putting him in for all the difficulty of a position which would give him the appearance of cruelty. “I will not see this woman,” he said to me. “I can not grant a pardon. You do not see that this Royalist party is full of young fools, who will begin again with this kind of thing, and keep on at it, if they are not kept within bounds by a severe lesson. The Bourbons are credulous; they believe the assurances which they get from schemers who deceive them respecting the real state of the public mind of France, and they will send a lot of victims over here.”
This answer did not stop me; I was extremely excited, partly by the event itself, and perhaps also by the slight risk I was running of displeasing my formidable master. I would not be so cowardly in my own eyes as to retreat before any personal consideration, and that feeling made me bold and tenacious. I insisted so strongly, and entreated with such earnestness, that the Emperor, who was walking hurriedly about the room while I was speaking, suddenly paused opposite to me, and, fixing a piercing gaze on me, said: “What personal interest do you take in these people? You are not excusable except they are your relatives.”
“Sire,” I answered, with all the firmness I could summon up, “I do not know them, and until yesterday I had never seen Mme. de Polignac.” “What! And you thus plead the cause of people who came here to assassinate me?” “No, Sire; I plead the cause of an unfortunate woman who is in despair, and—I must say it—I plead your own cause too.” And then, quite carried away by my feelings, I repeated all that I had said to the Empress. She was as much affected as myself, and warmly seconded all I said. But we could obtain nothing from the Emperor at that moment; he went angrily away, telling us not to “worry” him any more.
A few minutes afterward I was informed that Mme. de Polignac had arrived. The Empress received her in a private room, and promised that she would do everything in her power to obtain a pardon for the Duc de Polignac. During the course of that morning, certainly one of the most agitating I have ever lived through, the Empress went twice into her husband’s cabinet, and twice had to leave it, repulsed. Each time she returned to me, quite disheartened, and I was losing hope and beginning to tremble at the prospect of having to take a refusal to Mme. de Polignac as the final answer. At length we learned that M. de Talleyrand was with the Emperor, and I besought the Empress to make one last attempt, thinking that, if M. de Talleyrand were a witness to it, he would endeavor to persuade Bonaparte. And, in fact, he did second the Empress at once and strongly; and at length Bonaparte, vanquished by their supplications, consented to allow Mme. de Polignac to appear before him. This was promising everything; it would have been impossible to utter a cruel “No!” in such a presence. Mme. de Polignac was ushered into the cabinet, and fell fainting at the Emperor’s feet. The Empress was in tears; the pardon of the Duc de Polignac was granted, and an article written by M. de Talleyrand gave a charming account of the scene, in what was then called the “Journal de l’Empire,” on the following day.
M. de Talleyrand, on leaving the Emperor’s cabinet, found me in the Empress’s boudoir, and related to me all that had occurred. He made me cry afresh, and he was far from being unmoved himself; but, nevertheless, he also made me laugh by his recital of an absurd little circumstance which had not escaped his keen perception of the ridiculous. Poor Mme. Daudlau, who had accompanied her niece, and wanted to produce her own particular little effect, kept on repeating, in the midst of her efforts to revive Mme. de Polignac—who was restored to consciousness with great difficulty—“Sire, I am the daughter of Helvétius!”
The Duc de Polignac’s sentence was commuted to four years’ imprisonment, to be followed by banishment He was sent to join his brother, and, after having been confined in a fortress, they were removed to a civil prison, whence they escaped during the campaign of 1814. The Duc de Rovigo (Fouché), who was then Minister of Police, was suspected of having connived at their escape, in order to curry favor with the party whose approaching triumph he foresaw.
I have no desire to make more of myself on this occasion than I strictly deserve, but I think it will be admitted that circumstances so fell out as to permit me to render a very substantial service to the Polignac family—one of which it would seem natural that they should have preserved some recollection. Since the return of the King to France, I have, however, been taught by experience how effectually party spirit, especially among courtiers, effaces all sentiments of which it disapproves, no matter how just they may be.
After the incident which I have just related, I received a few visits from Mme. de Polignac, who doubtless held herself bound to so much recognition of me; but, by degrees, as we lived in different circles, we lost sight of each other for some years, until the Restoration. At that epoch the Duc de Polignac, having been sent by the King to Malmaison to thank the Empress Josephine in his Majesty’s name for her zealous efforts to save the life of the Duc d’Enghien, took advantage of the opportunity to express his own gratitude to her at the same time. The Empress informed me of this visit, and said that no doubt the Duke would also call on me; and I confess that I expected some polite recognition from him. I did not receive any; and, as it was not according to my notions to endeavor to arouse by any words of mine gratitude which could only be valuable by being voluntary, I remained quietly at home, and made no reference to an event which the persons concerned in it seemed to wish to forget, or at least to ignore.
One evening chance brought me in contact with Mme. de Polignac. It was at a reception at the house of the Duc d’Orléans, and in the midst of a great crowd. The Palais Royal was splendidly decorated, all the French nobility were assembled there, and the grands seigneurs and high-born gentlemen to whom the Restoration at first seemed to mean the restoration of their former rights, accosted each other with the easy, secure, and satisfied manner so readily resumed with success. Amid this brillant crowd I perceived the Duchesse de Polignac. After long years I found her again, restored to her rank, receiving all those congratulations which were due to her, surrounded by an adulatory crowd. I recalled the day on which I first saw her, the state she was then in, her tears, her terror, the way in which she came toward me when she entered my room, and almost fell at my feet. I was deeply moved by this contrast, and, being only a few paces from her, the interest with which she inspired me led me to approach her. I addressed her in a tone of voice which, no doubt, fully conveyed the really tender feeling of the moment, and congratulated her on the very different circumstances under which we met again. All I would have asked of her was a word of remembrance, which would have responded to the emotion I felt on her account. This feeling was speedily chilled by the indifference and constraint with which she listened to what I said. She either did not recognize me, or she affected not to do so; I had to give my name. Her embarrassment increased. On perceiving this I immediately turned away, and with very painful feelings; for those which her presence had caused, and which I had thought at first she would share, were rudely dispelled.
The Empress’s goodness in obtaining a remission of the capital sentence for M. de Polignac made a great sensation in Paris, and gave rise to renewed praise of her kindness of heart, which had obtained almost universal recognition. The wives, or mothers, or sisters of the other political offenders immediately besieged the palace of Saint Cloud, and endeavored to obtain audience of the Empress, hoping to enlist her sympathy. Applications were also made to her daughter, and they both obtained further pardons or commutations of sentence. The Emperor felt that a dark shadow would be cast on his accession to the throne by so many executions, and showed himself accessible to the petitions addressed to him.