[311] Las Cases, tom. i., p. 282. At St. Helena, Napoleon reproached himself for the expulsion of M. Portalis. "I was," he said, "perhaps too severe; I should have checked myself before I ordered him to be gone. He attempted no justification, and therefore the scene should have ended, merely by my saying, it is well. His punishment should have awaited him at home. Anger is always unbecoming in a sovereign. But, perhaps, I was excusable in my council, where I might consider myself in the bosom of my own family; or perhaps, after all, I may be justly condemned for this act. Every one has his fault; nature will exert her sway over us all."—Las Cases, tom. iv., p. 320.
[312] Las Cases, tom. iv., p. 105.
[313] Las Cases, tom. iv., p. 105.
[314] "Your Emperor," is the usual conclusion, "relies upon the zeal which you will display on this business, in order to prove your devotion to his person, and your attachment to the interests of the throne." Each of the prefects amplifies the circular. The warmest expressions and the strongest colours are employed; no figure of rhetoric is forgotten, and the circular is transmitted to the sub-prefects of the department. The sub-prefects in their turn season it with still stronger language, and the mayors improve upon that of the sub-prefects.—Faber, Notices sur l'Intérieur de la France, p. 13.
[315] Faber, Notices, p. 31.
[316] "What litigations would thus have been prevented! On the first examination of a cause, a lawyer would have rejected it, had it been at all doubtful. There would have been little fear that a man, living by his labour, would have undertaken to conduct a lawsuit, from mere motives of vanity; and if he had, he would himself have been the only sufferer in case of failure. But my idea was opposed by a multitude of objections, and as I had no time to lose, I postponed the further consideration of the subject. Yet I am still convinced that the scheme might, with certain modifications, have been turned to the best account."—Napoleon, Las Cases, tom. vii., p. 199.
[317] The intelligent reader will easily be aware, that we mean not to say that every decision of their predecessors is necessarily binding on the judges of the day. Laws themselves become obsolete, and so do the decisions which have maintained and enforced them.—S.
[318] "In the Code Napoleon, and even in the Criminal Code, some good principles remain, derived from the Constituent Assembly; the institution of juries, for instance, the anchor of French hope: but of what value were legal institutions, when extraordinary tribunals, named by the Emperor, special courts, and military commissions, judged all political offences—the very offences on which the unchangeable ægis of the law is most required."—Mad. de Staël, tom. ii., p. 364.
[319] "Agriculture was continually improving during the whole course of the Revolution. Foreigners thought it ruined in France. In 1814, however, the English were compelled to admit, that we had little or nothing to learn from them."—Napoleon, Las Cases, tom. iv., p. 280.
[320] "Foreign trade, which in its results is infinitely inferior to agriculture, was an object of subordinate importance in my mind. Foreign trade is made for agriculture and home industry, and not the two latter for the former. The interests of these three fundamental cases are diverging, and frequently conflicting. I always promoted them in their natural gradation; but I could not and ought not to have ranked them all on an equality. The difficulties, and even the total stagnation of foreign trade during my reign, arose out of the force of circumstances, and the accidents of the time. One brief interval of peace would immediately have restored it to its natural level."—Napoleon, Las Cases, tom. iv., p. 280.