Memoirs of the Empress Josephine, Vol. 2 of 2

by Madame de Rémusat

N the first volume of these Memoirs I attempted to retrace the chief events of my grandmother’s life, and I also narrated the circumstances which induced her to rewrite the manuscript unhappily destroyed in 1815. I considered it necessary to a right comprehension and appreciation of her views that the reader should learn how she had been brought up, what were the position and circumstances of her parents, for what reasons she accepted a place at Bonaparte’s Court, through what phases of enthusiasm, hope, and disenchantment she passed, how by degrees liberal opinions gained a hold upon her, and what influence her son, when he began to make a figure both in society and in political life, exercised over her.

However strong may be his confidence in the success of a publication, it is the duty of an editor to avail himself of every aid, and to make sure, or nearly so, that the author shall in everything be understood. This was all the more necessary in the present instance, because the editor, brought up to entertain the same sentiments, and accustomed to hear the same opinions and the same anecdotes repeated around him, might well be afraid of deceiving himself respecting the worth or the success of these reminiscences. Relatives are seldom good judges either of the intellectual or physical attributes of their kin. Family beauties or prodigies, admired by the fireside or in select coteries, are frequently found to be insignificant personages on a larger stage, and when seen in broader daylight. I therefore thought it well to relate all that might be needed for the instruction of the reader, and, by introducing him into the private life of the author, to account for a mixture of admiration and severity in these Memoirs which sometimes appears contradictory. I should have been excused for adding my own comments upon the ability of the writer and the character of her hero; indeed, such comments would have furnished the subject of a preface, of the kind that we are told ought to precede every work of serious importance. But I carefully avoided writing any such preface, because I had one to offer which would enhance the value of the book to the public, as it enhances it to myself—a preface written by my father more than twenty years ago. I may print that preface now, for success has justified his previsions and our hopes.

When my father wrote the pages that I am about to lay before the reader, the Second Empire was still in existence, and to all appearance secure. Nothing short of a persistent trust in the undeviating principles of justice and liberty could have led any one to believe that its fall was possible or probable. Since then the fullness of time has come, and events have marched with a rapidity which could not have been foreseen. Similar errors have brought about similar reverses; the moody and wavering mind of Napoleon III. has led him to adopt the same course which ruined the brilliant and resolute genius of the great Emperor. My father for the third time beheld the foreigner in France, and vanquished France seeking in liberty a consolation for defeat. He suffered by our misfortunes, as he had suffered by them fifty years earlier, and he had the melancholy honor of repairing a portion of those misfortunes, of hastening the day of the final deliverance of our soil. He contributed to the foundation of a liberal and popular Government on a heap of ruins. The last years of the Empire, the War, the Commune, the difficult accession of the Republic through so many perils, had no power to change his convictions; and he would think to-day just what he wrote twenty-two years ago of the vices of absolute power, of the necessity for teaching nations what conquerors cost them, of the right of his mother to set down her impressions, and of the duty of his son to publish them.

Paul de Rémusat.

II

Laffitte, November, 1857.

“I have once more taken up, after a long lapse of time, the manuscript of these Memoirs, which my mother composed nearly forty years ago; and, having attentively reperused it, I now leave it to my sons and to their children, with an injunction to publish it. I believe that it will prove a useful historical testimony, and, combined with her correspondence, will be a most interesting monument to the intellect and the heart of a gifted and good woman. This work will perpetuate the memory of my mother.

“At whatever epoch these Memoirs may appear, I foresee that they will not find the public ready to receive them entirely without protest, and with satisfaction complete at all points. Even should the Imperial restoration which we now witness not be destined to a prolonged future—should it not be, as I hope it may not be, the final government of the France of the Revolution—I suspect that, whether through pride, weakness, or imagination, France, as a whole, will continue to entertain a tolerably exalted opinion of Napoleon, which it will be reluctant to submit to the free examination of politics and philosophy. He was one of those great men who are placed from the beginning in the sphere of fancy rather than in that of reason, and in his case poetry has taken the lead of history. A somewhat puerile sympathy, a somewhat weak generosity, has almost always made the nation refuse to impute to Bonaparte those awful ills which he brought down upon France. The nation has pitied him the most for its own misfortunes, and thought of him as the noblest victim of the calamities of which he was the author. I know that the sentiments which have led France to make this strange mistake are excusable and even praiseworthy; but I also know that national vanity, the lack of seriousness of mind, levity which takes little heed of reason and justice, are the sources of this patriotic error. Let us lay aside the question of principle—since the nation chooses to resolve that question differently at different times, and glories in despising liberty at intervals—and let us speak only the language of national independence. How can he be in the eyes of the people the hero of that independence who twice brought the foreign conqueror into the capital of France, and whose government is the only one which, for five hundred years, since the time of the mad King Charles VI., left French territory smaller than it found it? Even Louis XV. and Charles X. did better than that. Nevertheless, I am convinced the multitude will abide in its error, and non auferetur ab ea.

“It is, then, very unlikely that the spirit in which my mother has written will ever be popular, or that all her readers will be convinced. I am prepared for this, but I also think that among thoughtful people the truth will make its way. Infatuation will not have an endless duration, and, notwithstanding certain obstinate prejudices, public opinion—especially if liberty be at length restored to us and remain with us—will be enlightened, and will never again sacrifice the rights of reason and those of the public conscience to glory. Will my mother appear sufficiently impartial to these more impartial judges? I believe she will, if they take account of the time at which she wrote, and also of the sentiments and ideas which inspired her; and so I have no hesitation in delivering up her Memoirs to the judgment of the world.

“ ‘The further I go,’ wrote my mother to me, ‘the more I am resolved that, until my death, you shall be my only reader, and that is enough for me.’ And again: ‘Your father says he knows no one to whom I could show what I am writing. He says nobody carries so far as I do “the talent of being true.” That is his expression. Well, then, I do write for no one, but one day you will find this among my effects, and you may do with it what you will.’ She was not without some apprehensions. ‘There is a thought which sometimes troubles me. I say to myself, “If one day my son should publish all this, what will be thought of me!” The idea that I may be supposed to be evil-minded, or, at least, ill-natured, makes me uneasy. I exhaust myself with the effort to find something to praise, but this man was such an exterminator (assommateur) of worth, and we were brought so low, that I grow utterly disheartened, and the cry of truth utters itself irresistibly. I know no one but you to whom I would intrust such confidences.’