Every determination taken by the Emperor, from the greatest to the least, seems partly founded on the lion’s reason in La Fontaine’s fable—“Because my name is Lion.”
“The Prussians are surprised at the briskness of our pursuit; they are probably accustomed to the manœuvres of the Seven Years’ War.” And when they asked for three days’ truce, in order to bury their dead—“Think of the living,” replied the Emperor, “and leave to us the care of burying the dead. That needs no truce.”
The Emperor reached Potsdam on the 24th of October. As may be supposed, he visited Sans-Souci, and reminiscences of Frederick the Great are to be found in the bulletins. “The handsome Emperor (the Czar) and the lovely Queen” received fresh insults in these documents, from which we gathered that a war with Russia would follow the Prussian war. Paris was thrown into consternation; the news from the seat of war was read publicly at the theatres, but the only applause that greeted it was hired. “War, nothing but war, is all that is left to us.” Such words as these, uttered with more or less of wrath or grief, struck ominously on the ear of the adherents of the Emperor, yet they could not contradict them.
On the same day, the 25th of October, the fortress of Spandau capitulated.
To all these accounts of the war was added a letter supposed to be written by a private soldier from a town in the duchy of Brunswick. It contained enthusiastic praise of French valor, which it attributed to the military system adopted in our army. “It is also certain,” continues the writer, “that any soldier who can say to himself, ‘It is not impossible for me to become a Marshal of the Empire, a Prince, or a Duke, as it has happened to others,’ must be greatly encouraged by that thought. It was quite another thing at Rossbach. The French army was commanded then by gentlemen who owed their military rank only to their birth, or to the patronage of a Pompadour; and the troops were of so-called soldiers, on whose track, after their defeat, were found nothing but pigtails and powdering-bags.”
When the Emperor made his entry into Berlin on the 26th of October, in the midst of acclamations, he vented his displeasure on those among the Prussian nobles who were presented to him. “My brother the King of Prussia,” he said, “ceased to be King from the day on which he failed to have Prince Louis hanged, when he dared to go and break his Minister’s windows.” And to Count Nesch he said roughly, “I will bring the nobles of this Court down so low that they shall be obliged to beg their bread.”
By violent speeches of this kind, which were published, the Emperor not only gratified his anger against the instigators of the war, but imagined that he fulfilled obligations toward our Revolution. Although he was a determined counter-revolutionist, he was obliged from time to time to render some homage to the ideas which, by a fatal deviation, had produced his own accession. A mistaken longing for equality, a noble desire for liberty, were the causes of our civil discord; but in his thirst for power he gave us no encouragement toward that freedom which, if we succeed in obtaining it, will be the most glorious conquest of our times, but limited himself, in his bargain with the age, to advancing equality only. The love of liberty is an unselfish sentiment, which a generous ruler ought at the present day to foster in his people; but Bonaparte only sought to aggrandize his own power. Sometimes, with entire forgetfulness of his own origin, he spoke and acted as if he were a king by the grace of God, and then every word of his became, as it were, feudal; while at other times he affected a sort of Jacobinism, and then he would abuse legitimate royalty, treat our old memories with disdain, and denounce the nobility to the plebeians of every country. Never did he seek to establish the true rights of nations; and the unostentatious aristocracy of letters and of a noble civilization was far more displeasing to him, in reality, than that of titles and privileges, which he could make use of as he pleased.
On the 29th of October M. de Talleyrand left Mayence to join the Emperor, who had sent for him. M. de Rémusat felt much regret at his departure. He had found his society a great resource; the somewhat solemn idleness of court life made them necessary to each other. M. de Talleyrand, having recognized both the trustworthiness and the superior abilities of my husband, would throw aside this habitual reserve in his company, and would confide to him his views on passing events and his opinion of their common master. An aristocrat by taste, by conviction, and by birth, M. de Talleyrand approved of Bonaparte’s repression of what he regarded as the excesses of the Revolution; but he would have wished that a headstrong temper and a determined will had not led the Emperor aside from a course in which his own prudent counsels might have guided him aright. He was thoroughly conversant with the European political situation, and better versed in the law of nations than in their true rights, and he propounded with accuracy the diplomatic course that he would have had the Emperor follow. He was alarmed at the possible preponderance of Russia in Europe, and was in favor of founding an independent power between us and the Russians. For this reason he encouraged the ardent, though vague, desires of the Poles. “A kingdom of Poland,” he used to say, “ought to be established. It would be the bulwark of our independence; but it ought not to be done by halves.” With his head full of this plan, he started to join the Emperor, resolving on advising him to turn his brilliant success to good account.
After M. de Talleyrand’s departure, M. de Rémusat wrote me that the dullness of his life was extreme. The Court at Mayence was monotonously regular. There, as elsewhere and in all places, the Empress was gentle, quiet, idle, and averse to take anything on herself, because, whether far or near, she dreaded the displeasure of her husband. Her daughter, who was delighted to escape from her wretched home, spent her time in diversions of a nature somewhat too childish for her rank and position. Hortense rejoiced with her mother over the promising qualities of her little son, then full of life and beauty, and very forward for his years.
The German princes came to pay their court at Mayence; great banquets were given; elegant costumes were worn; there was much walking and driving about, and great eagerness for news. The Court wanted to return to Paris; the Empress wanted to go to Berlin; and there, as elsewhere, all was dependent on the will of one man.