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SIR HUDSON LOWE.
Published for Henry Colburn, March 1836.

MEMOIRS
OF
THE LIFE, EXILE,
AND
CONVERSATIONS,
OF THE
EMPEROR NAPOLEON.

BY

THE COUNT DE LAS CASES.

A NEW EDITION.

WITH PORTRAITS

AND NUMEROUS OTHER EMBELLISHMENTS.

VOL. III.

LONDON:

PUBLISHED FOR HENRY COLBURN,

BY RICHARD BENTLEY; BELL AND BRADFUTE, EDINBURGH; J. CUMMING, DUBLIN;

AND ALL BOOKSELLERS.

DCCCXXXVI.

ANDOVER: STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY B. BENSLEY.

MEMOIRS

OF

THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON.

THE BILL RESPECTING OUR EXILE.—BEAUMARCHAIS.—THE
WORKS OF CHERBOURG.

July 15, 1816. About ten o’clock, the Emperor entered my apartment: he came unawares, as he wished to take a walk. I followed him, and he walked for some time towards the wood, where we were taken up by the calash. A considerable interval had elapsed since he made use of it. I was the only person with him, and the Bill, which related to him, and with the nature of which we were unacquainted, was, during the whole time, the subject of our conversation.

Upon our return, the Emperor, after some hesitation whether he should breakfast under the trees, determined to go in, and remained at home the whole of the day. He dined alone.

He sent for me after dinner; I found him engaged in reading some Mercures or old newspapers. He found in them various anecdotes and circumstances respecting Beaumarchais, whom the Emperor, during his Consulate, had, notwithstanding all his wit, uniformly discountenanced, on account of his bad character and his gross immorality. The difference of manners imparted a poignancy to the anecdotes, although the difference of times was so trifling. He found an account of Louis the Sixteenth’s visit to Cherbourg, on which he dwelt for some time. He next adverted to the works of Cherbourg, and took a rapid review of them, with the clearness, precision, and lively manner that characterized every thing he said.

Cherbourg is situated at the bottom of a semicircular bay, the two extremities of which are the Pelée Island on the right, and Point Querqueville on the left. The line, by which these two points are connected, forms the chord or the diameter, and runs East and West.

Opposite to the North, and at a very small distance, about 20 leagues, is the famous Portsmouth, the grand arsenal of the English. The remainder of their coast runs nearly parallel opposite to ours. Nature has done every thing for our rivals; nothing for us. Their shores are safe and clear themselves daily from obstructions. They abound in deep soundings, in the means of shelter, in harbours and excellent ports; ours are, on the contrary, full of rocks, the water is shallow, and they are every day choking up. We have not in these parts a single real port of large dimensions, and it might be said that the English are, at the same moment, both at home and on our coast, since it is not requisite for their squadrons, at anchor in Portsmouth, to put to sea to molest us. A few light vessels are sufficient to convey intelligence of our movements, and, in an instant, without trouble or danger, they are ready to pounce upon their prey.

If, on the contrary, our squadrons are daring enough to appear in the British Channel, which ought, in reality, to be called the French Sea, they are exposed to perpetual danger; their total destruction may be effected by the hurricane or the superiority of the enemy, because in both these cases there is no shelter for them. This is what happened at the famous battle of La Hogue, where Tourville might have united the glory of a skilful retreat with that of a hard fought and unequal contest, had there been a port for him to take shelter in.

In this state of things, men of great sagacity and anxious for the welfare of their country, prevailed upon government, by dint of projects and memorials, to seek, by the assistance of art, those resources of which we had been deprived by nature; and, after a great deal of hesitation, the bay of Cherbourg was selected, and it was determined to protect it by an immense dike, projecting into the sea. In that way we were to acquire, even close to the enemy, an artificial road, whence our ships might be able, in all times and in all weathers, to attack his, or to escape his pursuit.

“It was,” said the Emperor, “a magnificent and glorious undertaking, very difficult with respect to the execution and to the finances of that period. The dike was to be formed by immense cones constructed empty in the port and towed afterwards to the spot, where they were sunk by the weight of the stones with which they were filled.[^[1]] There certainly was great ingenuity in the invention. Louis XVI. honoured these operations with his presence. His departure from Versailles was a great event. In those times, a king never left his residence, his excursions did not extend beyond the limits of a hunting party; they did not hurry about as at present, and I really believe that I contributed not a little to the rapidity of their movements.

“However, as it was absolutely necessary that things should be impressed with the character of the age, the eternal rivalry between the land and sea, that question which can never be decided, continued to be carried on. It might have been said in that respect, that there were two kings in France, or that he who reigned had two interests, and ought to have two wills, which proved rather that he had none at all. Here the sea was the only subject for consideration, yet the question was decided in favour of the land, not by superiority of argument, but by priority of right. Where the fate of the empire was at stake, a point of precedence was substituted, and thus the grand object, the magnificent enterprise, failed of success. The land-party established itself at Pelée Island and at fort Querqueville; it was employed there merely to lend an auxiliary hand to the construction of the dike, which was itself the chief object; but instead of that, it began by establishing its own predominance, and afterwards compelled the dike to become the instrument of its convenience, and subservient to its plans and discretion. What was the result? The harbour, which was forming and which was intended to contain the mass of our navy, whether designed to strike at the heart of the enemy’s power, or to take occasional shelter, could only accommodate fifteen sail at most, while we wanted anchorage for more than a hundred, which might have been effected without more labour and with little more expense, had the works been carried more forward into the sea, merely beyond the limits which the land-party had appropriated to itself.

“Another blunder highly characteristic, and scarcely conceivable, took place. All the principal measures for completing the harbour were fixed upon; the dike commenced; one of the channels, that to the eastward, finished, and the other to the westward was on the point of being formed, without an exact and precise knowledge of all the soundings. This oversight was so great that the channel already formed, that to the eastward, five hundred fathoms broad, having been carried too close to the fort, did not, without inconvenience, admit vessels at low water, and that the other, which was about to be constructed to the westward, would have been impracticable, or at least very dangerous, but for the individual zeal of one officer (M. de Chavagnac), who made that important discovery in time, and caused the works on the left extremity of the dike to be stopped at the distance of twelve hundred fathoms from fort Querqueville, by which it was to be defended. This seems to me, and is, in fact, too great a distance.[^[2]]

“The system adopted in the works of the dike, which is more than a league from the shore, and more than 1900 fathoms long by 90 feet broad, was also subjected to numerous changes, suggested, however, by experience. The cones, which, according to the established principle, ought to have touched each other at their bases, were, in that respect, either separated by accident or with a view to economy. They were damaged by storms, eaten by worms, or rotted with age. They were at length altogether neglected, with the exception of stones thrown at random into the sea; and when it was observed that these were scattered by the rolling of the waves, recourse was had to enormous blocks, which finally answered every expectation.

“The works were continued, without interruption, under Louis XVI. An encreased degree of activity was imparted to them by our legislative assemblies; but in consequence of the commotions which soon followed, they were completely abandoned, and at the time of the Consulate, not a trace of that famous dike was to be seen. Every thing had been destroyed for several feet under low water level, by the original imperfection of the plan, by the length of time, and the violence of the waves.

“The moment, however, I took the helm of affairs, one of the first things I did was to turn my attention to so important a point. I ordered commissions of inquiry; I had the subject discussed in my presence; I made myself acquainted with the local circumstances; and I decided that the dike should be run up with all possible expedition, and that two solid fortifications should, in the course of time, be constructed at the two extremities; but that measures should be immediately taken for the establishment of a considerable provisional battery. I had then to encounter, on all sides, the inconveniencies, the objections, the particular views, the fondness which attaches itself to individual opinions, &c. Several maintained that the thing certainly could not be done; I continued steady, I insisted, I commanded, and the thing was done. In less than two years, a real island was seen rising as it were, by magic, from the sea, on which was erected a battery of large calibre. Until that moment, our labours had almost constantly been the sport of the English; they had, they said, been convinced, from their origin, that they would prove fruitless; they had foretold that the cones would destroy themselves, that the small stones would be swept away by the waves, and above all, they relied upon our lassitude and our inconstancy. But here things were completely altered, and they made a shew of molesting our operations; they were, however, too late; I was already prepared for them. The western channel naturally continued very wide, and the two extreme fortifications, which defended, each its peculiar passage, being incapable of maintaining a cross-fire, it was probable that an enterprising enemy might be enabled to force the western channel, come to an anchor within the dike, and there renew the disaster of Aboukir. But I had already guarded against this with my central provisional battery. However, as I am for permanent establishments, I ordered within the dike, in the centre, by way of support, and which in its turn might serve as an envelope, an enormous elliptical paté to be constructed, commanding the central battery, and mounted itself in two casemated stories, bomb-proof, with 50 pieces of large calibre and 20 mortars of an extensive range, as well as barracks, powder-magazine, cistern, &c.

“I have the satisfaction of having left this noble work in a finished state.

“Having provided for the defensive, my only business was to prepare offensive measures, which consisted in the means of collecting the mass of our fleets at Cherbourg. The harbour, however, could contain but fifteen sail. For the purpose of increasing the number, I caused a new port to be dug; the Romans never undertook a more important, a more difficult task, or one which promised a more lasting duration! It was sunk into the granite to the depth of 50 feet, and I caused the opening of it to be celebrated by the presence of Maria Louisa, while I myself was on the fields of battle in Saxony. By this means I procured anchorage for 25 sail more. Still that number was not sufficient, and I therefore relied upon very different means of augmenting my naval strength. I was resolved to renew the wonders of Egypt at Cherbourg. I had already erected my pyramid in the sea; I would also have my lake Mœris. My great object was to be enabled to concentrate all our maritime force, and in time, it would have been immense and adequate to strike a fatal blow against the enemy. I was preparing my scene of action in such a way, that the two nations, in their totality, might have been enabled to grapple with each other, man to man, and the issue could not be doubtful, for we should have been more than 40 millions of French against 15 millions of English. I should have wound up the war, with a battle of Actium, and afterwards what did I want of England? Her destruction? Certainly not. I merely wanted the end of an intolerable usurpation, the enjoyment of imprescriptible and sacred rights, the deliverance, the liberty, of the seas, the independence, the honour, of flags. I was speaking in the name of all and for all, and I should have succeeded by concession or by force. I had, on my side, power, indisputable right, the wishes of nations,” &c.

I have reasons for believing that the Emperor, disgusted with the losses occasioned by partial attempts at sea, and enlightened by fatal experience, had adopted a new system of maritime warfare.

The war between England and France had insensibly assumed the aspect of a real struggle for life or death. The irritation of all the English against Napoleon was raised to the highest degree. His Berlin and Milan decrees, his continental system, and his offensive expressions, had shocked all minds on the other side of the Channel; while the English ministers, by their libels, fabrications, and all imaginable means, had succeeded, by exciting every passion, in rendering the quarrel altogether national. On this ground, it was declared in full Parliament, that the war was perpetual, or at least for life. The Emperor thought it his duty to shape his plans in conformity to that state of things, and from that instant, as much from calculation as from necessity, he gave up all kind of cruizing, distant enterprizes, and hazardous attempts. He determined upon a strict defensive system, until his continental affairs should be finally settled, and the accumulation of his maritime force should allow him to strike, with certainty, at a later period. He, therefore, retained the whole of his shipping in port, and confined himself to the gradual augmentation of our naval resources, without exposing them to any further risk. Every thing was calculated on the basis of a remote result.

Our navy had lost a great number of vessels, the greatest part of our good seamen were prisoners in England, and all our ports were blockaded by the English, who obstructed their communications. The Emperor ordered canals in Britanny, by means of which, and in spite of the enemy, points of communication for providing Brest with all kinds of supplies were established between Bordeaux, Rochefort, Nantes, Holland, Antwerp, Cherbourg, and that port. He was desirous of having wet docks at Flushing or in its neighbourhood, for the purpose of containing the Antwerp squadron, completely equipped and ready to put to sea in four-and-twenty hours, which was necessarily confined in the Scheldt four or five months of the year. Finally, he projected near Boulogne, or on some spot along that coast, the construction of a dike similar to that of Cherbourg, and between Cherbourg and Brest, a suitable harbour at the Ile-à-Bois. All this was planned, for the purpose of securing, at all times and without danger, a full and free communication to our large ships between Antwerp and Brest. To obviate the want of seamen, and the great difficulty of forming them, it was ordered that the young conscripts should be, every day, trained in all our ports. They were, at first, to be put on board small light vessels, and a flotilla of that kind was even to navigate the Zuiderzee; they were afterwards to be turned over to large ships and immediately replaced by others of the same class. The vessels were ordered to get under sail every day, to go through every possible manœuvre and evolution, and even to exchange shots with the enemy, without exposing themselves to the chance of an engagement.

The last point was the force and number of our vessels; they were considerable, notwithstanding all our losses, and the Emperor calculated on being enabled to build 20 or 25 yearly. The crews would be ready as fast as they were wanted, and thus, at the expiration of four or six years, he could have relied upon having 200 sail of the line, and perhaps 300, had that number been necessary, in less than 10 years. And what was that period in comparison with the perpetual war, or the war for life, which was declared against us? The affairs of the continent would, in the mean time, be brought to a termination; the whole of it would have embraced our system; the Emperor would have marched back the greatest part of his troops to our coast, and it was in that situation that he looked with confidence to a decisive issue of the contest. All the respective resources of the two nations would have been called into action, and we should then, in his opinion, subdue our enemies by moral energy, or strangle them by our material strength.

The Emperor entertained several projects for the improvement of the navy, and adapted to that end part of his military tactics. He intended to establish his offensive and defensive line from Cape Finisterre to the mouth of the Elbe. He was to have had three squadrons with admirals commanding in chief, as he had corps d’armée with their generals in chief. The Admiral of the centre was to establish his head quarters at Cherbourg; of the left, at Brest; and of the right, at Antwerp. Smaller divisions were to be stationed at the extremities, at Rochefort, and at Ferrol, in the Texel, and at the mouth of the Elbe, for the purpose of turning and outflanking the enemy. All these points were to be connected by numerous intermediate stations, and their respective commanders in chief were to be considered as constantly present, by the assistance of telegraphs, which, lining the coast, were to preserve an uninterrupted communication between the parts of the grand system.

Let us consider, however, what would have been the conduct of the English during our preparations and the progressive increase of our naval power. Would they have continued the blockade of our ports? We should have had the satisfaction of witnessing the wear and tear of their cruising squadrons; we should have compelled them to maintain 100 or 150 vessels constantly exposed on our coasts to the violence of tempests, to the danger of rocks, to all the hazards of disaster, while we, on the contrary, had every chance of success, should any unforeseen catastrophe occur from natural events, or the faults of their admirals, which could not fail to happen in the course of time. What advantages should we not have derived from the event? We, fresh and in excellent condition; we, waiting only for the opportunity, always ready to set sail and engage! Should the English be tired out? Our vessels would immediately put to sea for the purpose of exercising and training their crews.

On the completion of our armaments and at the approach of the decisive moment, were the English alarmed for the safety of their island, to collect their strength in front of their principal arsenals, Plymouth, Portsmouth, and the Thames, our three divisions of Brest, Cherbourg, and Antwerp, would attack them, and our wings would turn then upon Ireland and Scotland. Were they, relying upon their skill and bravery, resolved to oppose us in one great body, then the struggle would be reduced to a decisive issue, of which we should have been at liberty to choose the time, the place, and the opportunity;—and this is what the Emperor called the battle of Actium, in which, if we were defeated, we should experience but simple losses, while, if we proved victorious, the enemy would cease to exist. But our triumph, he maintained, was certain, for the two nations would have to contend man to man, and we were upwards of forty millions against fifteen. This was the favourite position on which he uniformly dwelt. Such was one of his grand ideas, his gigantic conceptions.

Napoleon has been the founder of so many establishments, that his works and monuments are injurious to each other by their number, variety, and importance. It was my earnest wish to have given a full relation of his works, which were executed at Cherbourg, as well as of those which he had projected. A person precisely of the profession best qualified to appreciate the subject, and one of its brightest ornaments, has promised me a description of them. Should he keep his word, it shall be given hereafter.

LONG AUDIENCE GIVEN TO THE GOVERNOR.—REMARKABLE
CONVERSATION.

16th.—About nine o’clock, the Emperor took an airing in the calash. There was a vessel in sight, at which he looked through the glass. He invited the Doctor, whom he found employed in the same way, to accompany him. On our return, we breakfasted under the trees. He conversed at great length with the Doctor respecting the Governor’s conduct to us, his endless vexations, &c.

About two o’clock, a person came to enquire if the Emperor would receive the Governor. He gave him an audience that lasted nearly two hours, and ran over, without falling into a passion, he said, all the objects under discussion. He recapitulated all our grievances; enumerated all his wrongs; addressed himself, he observed, by turns to his understanding, his imagination, his feelings, and his heart. He put it in his power to repair all the mischief he had done, to recommence upon a plan altogether new, but in vain, for that man, he declared, was without fibres; nothing was to be expected from him.

This Governor, said the Emperor, assured him that, when the detention of M. de Montholon’s servant took place, he did not know he was in our service, and he added that he had not read Madame Bertrand’s sealed letter. The Emperor observed to him that his letter to Count Bertrand was altogether repugnant to our manners and in direct opposition to our prejudices; that if he, the Emperor, were but a mere general and a private individual, and had received such a letter from him, the Governor, he would have called him out; that a man so well known and respected in Europe, as the Grand Marshal, was not to be insulted, under the penalty of social reprobation; that he did not take a correct view of his situation with regard to us; that all his actions here came within the province of history, and that even the conversation which was passing at that moment belonged to history; that he injured every day, by his conduct, his own government and his own nation, and that in time he might feel the consequences of it; that his government would disclaim his conduct in the end, and that a stain would attach itself to his name, which would disgrace his children. “Will you allow me,” said the Emperor, “to tell you what we think of you? We think you capable of every thing; yes, of every thing; and while you retain your hatred, we shall retain our opinion. I shall still wait for some time, because I like to act upon certainties; and I shall then have to complain, not that the worst proceeding of ministers was to send me to St. Helena, but that they gave you the command of it. You are a greater calamity to us than all the wretchedness of this horrible rock.”

The Governor’s answer to all this was that he was about to make a report to his government; that he learned at least something from the Emperor, but that he received only provoking treatment from us, and that we made matters worse.

With respect to the Commissioners of the powers, whom the Governor wished to present, the Emperor rejected them in their political capacity, but assured the Governor that he would readily receive them as private individuals; that he had no dislike to any one of them, not even to the French Commissioner, M. de Montchenu, who might be a very worthy man, who had been his subject ten years, and, having been an emigrant, was probably indebted to him, the Emperor, for the happiness of returning to France; that, besides, after all, he was a Frenchman; that title was indelible in his eyes, and no opinion could destroy it in his estimation, &c.

With regard to the new buildings at Longwood which were the great object of the Governor’s visit, the Emperor replied to his communication on that topic that he did not wish for them; that he preferred his present inconvenient residence to a better, situated at a great distance, and to be obtained at the expense of a great deal of bustle and the trouble of moving; that the buildings which he had just mentioned to him required years to be completed, and that before that time, either we should not be worth the cost incurred for us, or Providence would have delivered him from us, &c.

ON THE BEAUTIFUL WOMEN OF ITALY.—MADAME GRASSINI—MADAME
V—— AND BERTHIER.

17th.—The Emperor sent for me about two o’clock; he dressed himself and went out in the calash. Madame de Montholon was of the party. It was her first appearance since her accouchement. The conversation turned particularly on the Italian ladies, their character and beauty.

The young General, who effected the conquest of Italy, excited in that country, from the first moment, every feeling of enthusiasm and ambition. This the Emperor was delighted to hear and to repeat. Above all, there was not a beauty who did not aspire to please and touch his heart, but in vain. “My mind,” he said, “was too strong to be caught in the snare; I fancied that there was a precipice under the flowers. My situation was singularly delicate; I had the command of veteran generals; the task I had to execute was immense; all my motions were watched by jealous eyes; my circumspection was extreme. My good fortune consisted in my prudence; I might have forgotten myself for an hour, and how many of my victories,” said he, “depended on no greater length of time!”

Several years afterwards, at the time of his coronation at Milan, his attention was attracted by Grassini, the celebrated singer. Circumstances were then more auspicious. He desired to see her, and immediately after her introduction, she reminded him that she had made her début precisely during the early achievements of the General of the army of Italy. “I was then,” said she, “in the full lustre of my beauty and my talent. My performance in the Virgins of the Sun was the topic of universal conversation. I fascinated every eye and inflamed every heart. The young General alone was insensible to my charms, and yet he was the only object of my wishes! What caprice, what singularity! When I possessed some value, when all Italy was at my feet, and I heroically disdained its admiration for a single glance from you, I was unable to obtain it; and now, how strange an alteration! you condescend to notice me—now, when I am not worth the trouble and am no longer worthy of you!”

The celebrated Madame V.... was also among the crowd of Armidas; but, tried with losing her time, she lowered her pretensions to Berthier, who, from the first instant, lived but for her. The Commander-in-Chief made him a present one day of a magnificent diamond worth more than 100,000 francs. “Here,” said he, “take that; we often play high, lay it up against a rainy day.”—Scarcely had four-and-twenty hours elapsed, before Madame Bonaparte came to tell her husband of a diamond which was the subject of her admiration. It was the present that was to have been laid up against a rainy day, which had already found its way from Berthier’s hand to Madame ——’s head. He has since, in all the circumstances of his life, been uniformly governed by her.

The Emperor, having gradually heaped riches and honours upon Berthier, pressed him often to marry, but he as constantly refused, declaring, that Madame V—— could alone make him happy. The son, however, of Madame V—— having got acquainted with a duchess of Bavaria, who had come to Paris, with the hope of obtaining a husband, through the Emperor’s favour, Madame V—— , thought she was doing wonders and advancing her son’s fortune by the marriage of her lover; and, with this impression, she prevailed upon Berthier to espouse the Bavarian princess. But, said the Emperor, there is no project, however excellent, which does not become the sport of fortune; for scarcely was the marriage concluded, when Madame V——’s husband died and left his wife at liberty. That event proved to her and to Berthier the source of real despair; they were inconsolable. Berthier came with tears in his eyes to communicate his wretched fate to the Emperor, who laughed at his misfortune. To what a miserable condition, he exclaimed, was he reduced; with a little more constancy, Madame V—— might have been his wife!

FAUBOURG SAINT GERMAIN.—ARISTOCRACY; DEMOCRACY.—THE EMPEROR’S INTENTION TO MARRY A FRENCH WOMAN.

18th.—About four o’clock, I was sent for by the Emperor, who was in a very weak state. He had, by an absence of mind, remained three hours in a very hot bath and scalded his right thigh with the boiling water. He had read two volumes in the bath. He shaved, but would not dress himself.

At half-past seven, the Emperor ordered two covers to be laid in his cabinet, and was very much out of temper, because his papers were thrown into confusion by being removed for the purpose of using the table on which they lay. They were replaced by his direction, and the covers laid upon another small table.

We conversed for a long time; he brought me back to topics which often suggested themselves to him when we were together, and upon which I must endeavour not to be guilty of repetitions, the more so, as they possess attractions, which to me are peculiarly interesting. We talked a great deal about our youthful years and the time we passed at the military school. This subject led him again to notice the new schools which he had established at St. Cyr and at St. Germain, and he finally recurred to the emigrants and those he called nos encroûtés. He became gay and lively in consequence of some anecdotes of the Faubourg St. Germain, respecting his person, which I related, and as the slightest things grew into importance the moment he touched upon them, he said—“I see plainly that my plan with respect to your Faubourg St. Germain was ill-managed. I did too much or too little. I did enough to dissatisfy the opposite party, and not enough to attach it to me altogether. Although some of them were fond of money, the multitude would have been content with the rattles and sound, with which I could have crammed them, without any injury, in the main, to our new principles. My dear Las Cases, I did too much and not enough, and yet I was earnestly occupied with the business. Unfortunately, I was the only one seriously engaged in the undertaking. All who were about me thwarted, instead of promoting it, and yet there were but two grand measures to be taken with regard to you;—that of annihilating, or that of melting you down into the great mass of society. The former could not enter my head, and the latter was not an easy task, but I did not consider it beyond my strength. And, in fact, although I had no support, and was even counteracted in my views, I nearly realized them at length. Had I remained, the thing would have been accomplished. This will appear astonishing to him who knows how to appreciate the heart of man and the state of society. I do not think that history can furnish any case of a similar kind, or that so important a result, obtained in so short a space of time, can be found. I should have carried that fusion into effect, and cemented that union by every sacrifice; it would have rendered us invincible. The opposite conduct has ruined us, and may for a long time protract the misfortunes, perhaps the last gasps of unhappy France. I once more repeat, that I did too much or too little. I ought to have attached the emigrants to me upon their return; I might have easily become an object of adoration with the aristocracy. An establishment of that nature was necessary for me. It is the real, the only, support of monarchy—its guide—its lever—its point of resistance. Without it, the state is but a vessel without a rudder, a real balloon in the air. But, the essence of aristocracy, its talismanic charm, consists in antiquity, in age; and these were the only things I could not create. The intermediate means were wanting. M. de Breteuil, who had insinuated himself into my favour, encouraged me. On the contrary, M. de T——, who certainly was not a favourite with the emigrants, discouraged me by every possible means. Reasonable democracy contents itself with husbanding equality for all, as a fair ground of pretension and possession. The real line of conduct would have been to employ the remains of aristocracy, with the forms and intention of democracy. Above all, it was necessary to collect the ancient names, those celebrated in our history. This is the only mode of giving an instantaneous air of antiquity to the most modern institutions.

“I entertained, upon that subject, ideas which were altogether peculiar to myself. Had any difficulties been started by Austria and Russia, I would have married a French woman. I would have selected one of the most illustrious names of the monarchy. That was even my original thought, my real inclination. If my ministers prevented me, it was only by their earnest appeals to political views. Had I been surrounded by the Montmorencies, the Nesles, and the Clissons, I should, by adopting their daughters, have united them with foreign sovereigns. My pride and my delight would have been to extend these noble French stocks, had they taken part with us, or given themselves up to us altogether. They and those belonging to me thought that I was influenced by prejudice alone, when I was acting in conformity with the most profound combinations. Be that as it will, your friends have lost more in me than they are aware of!... They are destitute of soul, of the feeling of true glory. By what unhappy propensity have they preferred wallowing in the mire of the allies to following me to the top of mount Simplon, and commanding, from its summit, the respect and admiration of the rest of Europe. Senseless men!—I had, however,” he continued, “a project in my portfolio; time alone was wanting to mature it, which would have rallied round me a great number of that class of persons, and which, after all, would have been but just. It was that every descendent of ancient marshals, ministers, &c., should be considered at all times capable of getting himself declared a duke, by presenting the requisite endowment. All the sons of generals and governors of provinces were upon the same principle, to be qualified to assume the title of count, and so on in gradation. This would have advanced some, raised the hopes of others, excited the emulation of all, and hurt the pride of none; grand, but altogether harmless rattles, and belonging, besides, to my system and my combinations.

“Old and corrupt are not governed like ancient and virtuous nations. For one individual, at present, who would sacrifice himself for the public good, there are thousands and millions who are insensible to every thing but their own interests, enjoyments and vanity. To pretend, therefore, to regenerate a people in an instant or as if one were travelling post, would be an act of madness. The genius of the workman ought to consist in knowing how to employ the materials he has at hand, and that is one of the causes of the resumption of all the monarchical forms, of the re-establishment of titles, of classes, and of the insignia of orders. The secret of the legislator should consist in knowing how to derive advantage even from the caprice and irregularities of those whom he pretends to rule; and, after all, these gewgaws were attended with few inconveniences, and not destitute of benefit. At the point of civilization to which we have now attained, they are calculated to attract the respect of the multitude, provided always that the person decorated with them preserves respect for himself. They may satisfy the vanity of the weak, without scaring, in the slightest degree, strong and powerful minds.” It was very late, and the Emperor said, at parting, “There is another pleasant evening spent.”

OUR HOUSE ON FIRE.—-ETIQUETTE AT LONGWOOD.

19th.—The chimney of the saloon took fire in the night, but the flames did not break out until day-light. Two hours sooner, and the building would have been a heap of ashes.

The Emperor took a walk; he was attended by several of us, and we went round the park on foot.

One of his shoe-buckles fell out, and we all eagerly strove to put it in again; he, who succeeded, considered himself the most fortunate. The Emperor, who would not have permitted this at the Tuileries, seemed here to feel a kind of satisfaction at our conduct; he let us do as we liked, and we were thankful to him for indulging us in an act, that did honour to us, in our own opinion.

This leads me to observe that I have not yet spoken of our customary manners when about his person, and I am more peculiarly induced to notice them because we have received several London newspapers, which circulate a thousand idle stories on this subject, and assert that the imperial etiquette was as strictly maintained at Longwood as at the Tuileries.

Ground Plan of Longwood.

The Emperor behaved to us in the kindest manner, and with a paternal familiarity. We were, on our part, the most attentive and respectful of courtiers. We uniformly endeavoured to anticipate his wishes; we carefully watched all his wants, and he had scarcely time to make a sign with his hand, before we were in motion.

None of us entered his apartment without being sent for, and, if any thing of importance was to be communicated to him, it was necessary to apply to be admitted. If he walked separately with any of us, no other presumed to intrude. In the beginning, we constantly remained uncovered near his person, which appeared strange to the English, who had been ordered to put on their hats, after the first salute. This contrast appeared so ridiculous to the Emperor that he commanded us, once for all, to behave like them. Nobody, except the two ladies, took a seat in his presence, unless desired to do so. He was never spoken to till he had spoken first, and always, and in all cases, the conversation was under his control and guidance. Such was the etiquette at Longwood, which was entirely, as it must be evident, that of our recollections and feelings.

On our return, the Emperor received and questioned, for a long time, the master of the Newcastle.

In consequence of the fire in the saloon, and a billiard-table being placed in the dining-room, we dined in the topographical cabinet. After dinner, there being no other apartment to retire to, we were obliged to remain a long time at table. That circumstance seemed, however, to give an additional interest to the conversation; we became more acquainted, more united with each other; we gave a greater scope to our language, and the evening passed off more rapidly.

ESTABLISHMENTS FOR MENDICITY IN FRANCE.—NAPOLEON’S PROJECTS RELATIVE TO ILLYRIA.—HOSPITALS.—THE FOUNDLING.—PRISONERS OF STATE.—IDEAS OF THE EMPEROR.

20th.—The Emperor sent for me in the morning; I found him reading an English work on the poor’s rate, the immense sums raised, and the vast number of individuals maintained at the expense of their parishes; the account embraced millions of men and hundreds of millions of money.

The Emperor was apprehensive that he had not read the work correctly, or that he had mistaken the meaning. The thing, he said, seemed altogether impossible. He could not conceive by what vices and defects so many poor could be found in a country so opulent, so industrious, and so abundant in resources for labour as England. He was still less capable of comprehending, by what prodigy the proprietors, overloaded with an oppressive ordinary and extraordinary taxation, were also enabled to provide for the wants of such a multitude. “But we have nothing,” he observed, “in France to be compared to it in the proportion of a hundredth or a thousandth part. Have you not told me that I sent you into the departments on a particular mission with regard to mendicity? Let us see, what is the number of our beggars? What did they cost? How many poor-houses did I establish? What was the number they held? What effect had they in removing mendicity?”

To this crowd of questions I was compelled to answer that a considerable period of time had since elapsed, that my mind had been occupied with several other objects, and that it was impossible for me to enter into correct statements from mere recollection; but that I had the official report itself among the few papers I had preserved, and that, the first time he might be pleased to send for me, I should be enabled to satisfy him. “But,” said he, “go instantly and look for it, things are not profitable unless seasonably applied, and I shall soon run it over with my thumb, as Abbé de Pradt ingeniously said; although, to tell the truth, I don’t much like to think of such subjects; they remind me of mustard after dinner.”

In two minutes the report was in his hand. “Well!” said the Emperor to me, also, in a very few minutes, for it might be really said that he had not turned over the leaves; “well, this, in fact, is not at all like England. Our organization, however, had failed; I suspected as much, and it was on that account I entrusted you with the mission. Your report would have been in perfect conformity with my views. You took up the consideration frankly and like an honest man, without fear of exciting the displeasure of the minister, by depriving him of a great many appointments.

“I am pleased with a great number of your details. Why did you not come and converse with me about them yourself? You would have satisfied me, and I should have known how to value your services.”—“Sire, as things were then situated, it would have been impossible for me to do so; we were then involved in the confusion and embarrassment caused by our misfortunes.”—“Your observation is perfectly correct; you establish an unquestionable position. The fact is that, in the flourishing state to which I had raised the empire, no hands could any where be found destitute of employment. It was idleness and vice alone that could produce mendicants.

“You think that their complete annihilation was possible; and, for my part, I am of the same opinion.

“Your levy en masse, to build a vast and single prison in each department, was equally adapted to the tranquility of society and to the well-being of those confined in it;—your idea of making them monuments for ages would have attracted my attention. That gigantic undertaking, its utility, its importance, the permanence of its results, were all in my way.

“With respect to your university for the people, I am very apprehensive that it would have been but a beautiful chimera of philanthropy, worthy of the unsophisticated Abbé de Saint Pierre. There is, however, some merit in the aggregate of those conceptions; but energy of character, and an unbending perseverance, for which we are not generally distinguished, would be requisite to produce any good result.

“For the rest, I every day collect ideas from you in this place, of which I did not imagine you capable; but it was not at all my fault. You were near me; why did you not open your mind to me? I did not possess the gift of divination. Had you been minister, those ideas, however fantastical they might at first have appeared to me, would not have been the less attended to, because there is, in my opinion, no conception altogether unsusceptible of some positive good, and a wrong notion, when properly controlled and regulated, often leads to a right conclusion. I should have handed you over to commissioners, who would have analyzed your plans; you would have defended them by your arguments, and, after taking cognizance of the subject, I alone should have finally decided according to my own judgment. Such was my way of acting, and my intention; I gave an impulse to industry; I put it into a state of complete activity throughout Europe; I was desirous of doing as much for all the faculties of the mind, but time was not allowed me. I could not bring my plans to maturity at full gallop; and, unfortunately, I but too often wasted them upon a sandy foundation, and consigned them to unproductive hands.

“What were the other missions with which I entrusted you?”—“One in Holland, another in Illyria.”—“Have you the reports?”—“Yes, Sire.”—“Go for them.” But I had not got to the door, when he said, “Never mind, come back, spare me the trouble of reading such matters!—They are henceforth, in reality, altogether useless.”—What did not these words unfold to me!

The Emperor resumed the subject of Illyria. “In obtaining[obtaining] possession of Illyria, it was never my intention to retain it; I never entertained the idea of destroying Austria. Her existence was, on the contrary, indispensably requisite for the execution of my plans. But Illyria was, in our hands, a vanguard to the heart of Austria, calculated to keep a check upon her; a sentinel at the gates of Vienna, to keep her steady to our interests. Besides, I was desirous of introducing and establishing in that country our doctrines, our system of government, and our codes. It was an additional step to the regeneration of Europe. I had merely taken it as a pledge, and intended, at a later period, to exchange it for Gallicia, at the restoration of Poland, which I hurried on against my own opinion. I had, however, more than one project with regard to Illyria; for I frequently fluctuated in my designs, and had few ideas that were fixed on solid grounds. This arose rather from adapting myself to circumstances than from giving an impulse and direction to them, and I was every instant compelled to shift about. The consequence was that, for the greater part of the time, I came to no absolute decision, and was occupied merely with projects. My predominant idea, however, particularly after my marriage, was to give it up to Austria as an indemnity for Gallicia, on the re-establishment of Poland, at any rate, as a separate and independent kingdom. Not that I cared upon whose head, whether on that of a friend, an enemy, or an ally, the crown was placed, provided the thing was effected. The results were indifferent to me. I have, my dear Las Cases, formed vast and numerous projects, all unquestionably for the advancement of reason and the welfare of the human race. I was dreaded as a thunderbolt; I was accused of having a hand of iron; but the moment that hand had struck the last blow, every thing would have been softened down for the happiness of all. How many millions would have poured their benedictions on me, both then and in future times! But how numerous, it must be confessed, the fatal misfortunes which were accumulated and combined to effect my overthrow, at the end of my career! My unhappy marriage; the perfidies which resulted from it; that villainous affair of Spain; from which I could not disengage myself; that fatal war with Russia, which occurred through a misunderstanding; that horrible rigour of the elements, which devoured a whole army; ... and then, the whole universe against me!... Is it not wonderful that I was still able to make so long a resistance, and that I was more than once on the point of surmounting every danger and emerging from that chaos more powerful than ever!... O destiny of man!—What is human wisdom, human foresight!”—And then abruptly adverting to my report, he said, “I observed, that you travelled over a great number of departments. Did your mission last long? Was your journey agreeable? Was it of real benefit to you? Did you collect much information? Were you enabled to form a correct judgment on the state of the country, on that of public opinion?

“I now recollect that I selected you precisely because you had just returned from your mission to Illyria, and I found in your report several things which made a strong impression upon me; for it is surprising how many things at present are every day brought back to my memory, which, at the time, struck me in you, and which, by a singular fatality, were immediately afterwards completely forgotten. When any appointments were about to take place to those special and confidential missions, the decree, with blanks for the names, was laid before me, and I filled them up with persons of my own selection—I must have written your name with my own hand.”

“Sire,” I replied, “there never was, perhaps, a mission more agreeable and satisfactory in every point of view. I commenced it early in the spring, and proceeded from Paris to Toulon, and from Toulon to Antibes, following the line of coast and occasionally diverging into the interior. I travelled nearly thirteen hundred leagues, but unfortunately the time was short. The minister, in his instructions, had strictly limited the period to three, or at most, to four months. It would be difficult for me to give an adequate description of all the delight, enjoyments, and advantages which I derived from the journey. I was a member of your Council, an officer of your household. I was every where considered as one of your missi dominici, and was received with suitable respect. The more I behaved with discretion, moderation, and simplicity, visiting myself the high functionaries, whose attendance I was authorized to require, the more I was treated with deference and complaisance. For one, who shewed any distrust, or betrayed any symptom of ill-humour or envy; (for I afterwards learnt from themselves, that my character, as a nobleman, emigrant, and chamberlain, formed three certain grounds for reprobation;) for one, I repeat, who looked upon me with a jealous eye, I found many whose communications were altogether unreserved, even upon subjects, respecting which I should not have presumed to make inquiry. They assured me that they took pleasure in unbosoming themselves to me with perfect openness; that they viewed my situation, near the person of the sovereign, as a favourable medium; and considered me as the confessor upon whom they relied for transmitting their most secret thoughts to the Most High. The more I endeavoured to convince them that they were mistaken with regard to my situation and the nature of my mission, the more they were confirmed in the contrary opinion. In so short a period, what a lesson for me on mankind! There were none of these high functionaries who did not differ from each other with regard to the views, means, and designs of all the objects under consideration; and yet they were all men selected with care, of tried ability, and generally of great merit. Persons in private life also looked up to me as to a ray of Providence, and applied to me either publicly or in secret. How many things did I not learn! How numerous the denunciations and accusations communicated to me! What a multitude of local abuses, of petty intrigues, were disclosed to me!

“Altogether unacquainted with affairs, and until then absolutely ignorant of official proceedings, I made use of that peculiar opportunity to obtain information. I did not fail to make myself acquainted with all the objects and particular circumstances of every party. I was not apprehensive of shewing my ignorance to the first who presented themselves, for I was thus enabled to qualify myself for discussing business with the others.

“It is true, Sire, that my special mission was restricted to the mendicity establishments and the houses of correction: but feeling, as I did, all the want of a stock of knowledge, fit to render myself useful to the Council of State, and taking advantage of my appointment, I connected with it, of my own accord, the minute inspection of prisons, hospitals, and beneficent institutions, and I also took a survey of all our ports and squadrons.

“How magnificent the combination which thus presented itself to my view! I every where beheld the most perfect tranquillity and complete confidence in the government; every hand, every faculty, every branch of industry, was employed; the soil was embellished by the flourishing state of agriculture, it was the finest time of the year; the roads were excellent; public works were in progress in almost in every quarter;—the canal of Arles, the noble bridge of Bordeaux, the works of Rochefort, the canals from Nantes to Brest, to Rennes, to Saint Malo; the foundation of Napoleonville, intended to be the key of the whole peninsula of Britanny; the magnificent works of Cherbourg, those of Antwerp, sluices, moles, or other improvements in most of the towns of the Channel—such is the sketch of what I saw.

“On the other hand, the ports of Toulon, Rochefort, L’Orient, Brest, Saint Malo, Havre, and Antwerp, displayed an extraordinary degree of activity; our roads were filled with vessels, and the numbers increased daily: our crews were training in spite of every obstacle, and our young conscripts were becoming good seamen, fit for future service. I, who belonged to the old naval establishment, was astonished at every thing I saw on board, so very great were the improvements made in the art, and so far did they exceed, in every point of view, all that I had witnessed.

“The squadrons belonging to the different ports got under sail every day, and executed their regular manœuvres, like the parades of garrisons, and all this took place within sight of the English, who thought it a ridiculous farce, without foreseeing the danger with which they were threatened; for, never at any period was our navy more formidable, or our ships more numerous. We already had upwards of 100 afloat or on the stocks, and we were making daily additions to the number. The officers were excellent, and animated with zeal and ardour. I had no idea whatever of the forward state of our preparations, before I witnessed it in person, and should not have believed it, had I been told of it.

“With respect to the mendicity establishments, the special object of my mission, your intentions, Sire, had been ill understood, and the plan was altogether unsuccessful. In most of the departments, mendicity not only remained with all its defects, but no steps whatever had been taken for its annihilation. The fact was that several prefects, so far from making the establishments a terror to the mendicants, had merely considered them as a refuge for the poor. Instead of holding out confinement as a punishment, they caused it to be sought after as an asylum; and thus the lot of the prisoners might be envied by the hard-working peasantry of the neighbourhood. France might, in that way, have been covered with similar establishments, which might have been filled without diminishing the number of mendicants, who commonly make a trade of begging, and follow it in preference. I was, however, enabled to judge that the extirpation of the evil was possible, and the example of some departments, in which the prefects had taken a better view of the subject was sufficient to produce that conviction. There were a few in which it had entirely disappeared.

“It is an observation which makes an immediate and striking impression, that, all other things fairly averaged, mendicity is much more rare in those parts which are poor and barren, and much more common in those which are fruitful and abundant. It is also infinitely more difficult to effect its destruction in the places where the clergy have enjoyed superior wealth and power. In Belgium, for instance, mendicants were seen to derive honour from their trade, and boast of having followed it for several generations. These claims belonged peculiarly to them, and that country was accordingly the rendezvous of mendicity.” “But I am not surprised at it,” resumed the Emperor, “the difficulty of this important consideration consists entirely in discriminating accurately between the poor man who commands our respect, and the mendicant who ought to excite our indignation; besides, our religious absurdities confound these two classes so completely that they seem to make a merit, a kind of virtue, of mendicity, and to encourage it by the promise of heavenly rewards. The mendicants are, in reality, neither more nor less than monks au petit pied; so that in the list of them we even find the mendicant monks. How was it possible for such ideas not to produce confusion in the mind, and disorder in society? A great number of saints have been canonized, whose only apparent merit was mendicity. They seem to have been transplanted to Heaven for that, which, considered as a matter of sound policy, ought to have subjected them to castigation and confinement in this world. This would not, however, have prevented them from being worthy of Heaven. But go on.”—

“It was not, Sire, without emotion that I observed the details of the charitable establishments. In contemplating the anxiety, the cares, the ardent charity, of so many sympathetic hearts, I was enabled to ascertain that we were far from yielding the palm, whatever might be the consideration, to any other people, and that we merely had less ostentation and made less use of artificial means to enhance our merits. The South, above all, and Languedoc, in particular, displayed a zeal and animation of which it would be difficult to form an adequate conception. The hospitals and alms-houses were every where numerous and well attended to. The foundlings had increased tenfold since the revolution, and I instantly ascribed it to the corruption of the times; but I was desired to remark, and constant reflection convinced me of the truth, that the result was, on the contrary, to be attributed to very satisfactory causes. I was assured that formerly the foundlings were so wretchedly taken care of, and so badly fed, that the whole of them were diminutive, sickly, and short-lived, and that from seven to nine perished out of ten; while at present their food, cleanliness, and the care taken of them, in every respect are such that nearly all of them are preserved, and constitute a fine race of children. They are thus indebted for their numbers solely to their preservation. Vaccination has also contributed, in an immense proportion, to their increase. These children are now treated with such attention as to give rise to a singular abuse. Mothers, even in easy circumstances, are tempted to expose their infants; they afterwards apply at the hospital, and, under a charitable pretence, offer to bring up one themselves; it is their own which is restored to them with the benefit of a small allowance. All this is carried on through the favour of the agents themselves, and often for the purpose of obtaining a trifling pension for one of their relations. Another abuse of this kind, and not less extraordinary, was that which I observed in Belgium, of persons getting their names entered a long time before, for the purpose of entitling them to send their children to the hospital. Any young couple, on their marriage, strove to get their names entered for vacancies, which fell to them some years afterwards, as a matter of right; it was a part of the marriage settlement.”—“O Jesus! Jesus!” exclaimed the Emperor, shrugging up his shoulders and laughing, “and after this make laws and regulations!”—

$1“$2”$3But with regard to the prisons, Sire, they were almost uniformly the scenes of horror and real misery, the shame and disgrace of our provinces, absolute sinks of corruption and infection, which I was obliged to pass through with the utmost haste, or from which I was driven back in spite of all my efforts. I had formerly visited certain prisons in England, and indulged in a smile at the kind of luxury which I observed in them; but it was quite a different thing with respect to ours, and my indignation was excited by the contrary extreme. There are no offences, I might even say crimes, that are not sufficiently punished by such habitations, and those who leave them should not, in strict justice, have any further expiation to make. Yet after all those confined in them were merely under a simple accusation, while those who had been found guilty, the real criminals, and hardened villains, had their special prisons, their houses of correction, where they were, perhaps, too well taken care of; and even, in the latter case, the honest day-labourer might have reason to envy their lot, and make comparisons injurious to Providence and society. Another striking inconsistency was observable in these houses of correction; it was the amalgamation, the habitual mixture of all the classes upon whom sentence had been passed. Some being imprisoned for small offences only for a year, and others for fifteen, twenty years, or for life, on account of the dreadful crimes they had perpetrated, it necessarily followed that they would be all reduced to one moral level, not by the amelioration of the latter, but rather by the corruption of the former.

“What struck me also very forcibly in La Vendée and the adjacent country was that maniacs had increased there, perhaps, tenfold more than in any other part of the empire, and that persons were detained in the mendicity establishments and other places of confinement, who were treated as vagabonds, or likely to become so, and who having been taken up in their childhood, had no knowledge of their parents or origin. Some of them had marks of wounds on their persons, but were ignorant how they had been inflicted. They had, no doubt, been made in their infancy. The opportunity of employing these persons, who had not acquired a single social idea, has been suffered to pass by; they are now unfit for any purpose.”—“Ah!” exclaimed the Emperor, “this is civil war and its hideous train; its inevitable consequences and its certain fruits! If some leaders make fortunes, and extricate themselves from danger, the dregs of the population are always trodden under foot, and become the victims of every calamity!”

“With respect to other matters, I found in the aggregate of these establishments a considerable number of persons who, I was told, whether right or wrong, were prisoners of state, and were kept in custody by order of the high, the intermediate, or the low, police.

“I listened to all those prisoners, I heard their complaints, and received their petitions, certainly, without any engagement on my part; for I had no right to contract any; and besides, I was perfectly aware that, having heard their testimony only, I could not attach guilt to any person. With the exception, however, of some notorious villains, they did not really, in general, deserve more at farthest than the common punishments of the correctional police.

“I found among them, in the prisons of Rennes, a boy between twelve and fourteen, who had, when only a few months old, been taken with a band of Chauffeurs. They had been all executed, and the boy had remained there ever since, without any decision on his case. His moral capabilities may be easily appreciated. He never saw, knew, or heard any but villains; they were the only kind of people of whose existence he was able to form an idea.

“At Mont Saint-Michel, a woman, whose name I have forgotten, particularly attracted my attention. She had rather a pretty face, pleasing manners, and a modest deportment. She had been imprisoned fourteen years, having taken a very active part in the troubles of La Vendée, and constantly accompanied her husband, who was the chief of a battalion of insurgents, and whom she succeeded, after his death, in the command. The wretchedness she suffered, and the tears she shed, had sensibly impaired her charms. I assumed a severe air during the recital of her misfortunes, but it was put on for the purpose of concealing the emotions which she excited. She had, by the kindness of her manners and her other qualifications, acquired a kind of empire over the vulgar and depraved women that were about her. She had devoted herself to the care of the sick; the prison infirmary was entrusted to her, and she was beloved by every one.

“With the exception of that woman, a few priests, and two or three old Chouan spies, the rest exhibited but a filthy compound of disgusting or extravagant depravity.

“I met with a married man, possessing an annual income of 15,000 livres, evidently confined in consequence of his wife’s intrigues, after the manner of the ancient lettres de cachet; and with prostitutes, who assured me they were detained, not as a punishment for the indiscriminate profusion of their favours, but out of spite at their want of complaisance for a single person. They told me lies, or they did not; but in either case ought they to be honoured with the title of prisoners of state, to be maintained at the expense of two francs a day, and contribute to render the government odious and ridiculous? Finally, I met with an unhappy man in a town of Belgium, who had married one of those girls for whom the municipalities provide marriage portions on great occasions. He was imprisoned on a charge of having stolen the portion, because he had neglected to earn it. He was positively required to discharge that important debt, and he as positively refused. He was, perhaps, required to do what was absolutely impossible for him.

“Immediately upon my return to Paris, I called on M. Réal, prefect of police of the district I had just visited. I considered it my duty, I said, to communicate to him, in a friendly manner, the result of my observations. I must do him justice; for whether he was far from having a bad heart, whether he was impressed with my plain dealing, or affected perhaps, Sire, by the magic influence of your uniform, he thanked me, observed that I was doing him a real service, and assured me that he would take immediate steps for relieving and redressing, such were his words, the cases I had laid before him. Meeting him, however, a few days afterwards at an assembly, he said, with apparent grief, ‘That is an unfortunate business, and very unfavourable to your Amazon (he alluded to General Mallet’s rash enterprise), which I thought myself capable of doing a few days ago of my own accord. I cannot now pretend to undertake it without an order from a superior quarter.’—I do not know how the thing ended.”

The Emperor dwelt some time on the abuses I had pointed out, and then concluded: “In the first place, in order to proceed regularly, it was incumbent upon you to ascertain whether your information was well founded, and to hear the evidence against the persons accused; and then it must be frankly admitted that abuses are inherent in every human establishment. You see that almost every thing, of which you complain, is done by the very persons who were expressly entrusted with the means of prevention. Can a remedy be provided, when it is impossible to see what passes every where? There is, as it were, a net spread over the low places, which envelops the lower classes. A mesh must be broken and discovered by a fortunate observer like you, before any thing of the matter is known in the upper regions. Accordingly, one of my dreams would have been, when the grand events of war were completely terminated, and I returned to the interior in tranquillity and at ease, to look out for half a dozen, or a dozen, of real philanthropists, of those worthy men who live but to do good. I should have distributed them through the empire, which they should have secretly inspected for the purpose of making their report to me. They would have been spies of virtue! They should have addressed themselves directly to me, and should have been my confessors, my spiritual guides, and my decisions with them should have been my good works done in secret. My grand occupation, when at full leisure, and at the height of my power, would have been the amelioration of every class of society. I should have descended to the details of individual comfort; and, had I found no motive for that conduct in my natural disposition, I should have been actuated by the spirit of calculation; for, after the acquisition of so much glory, what other means would have been left me to make any addition to it? It was because I was well aware that that swarm of abuses necessarily existed, because I wished for the preservation of my subjects, and was desirous of throwing every impediment in the way of subordinate and intermediate tyranny, that I conceived my system of state prisons, adapted to any crisis that might occur.”—“Yes, Sire, but it was far from being well received in our saloons, and contributed not a little to make you unpopular. An outcry was every where raised against the new bastiles, against the renewal of lettres de cachet.”—“I know it very well.” said the Emperor, “the outcry was echoed by all Europe, and rendered me odious. And yet, observe how powerful was the influence of words, envenomed by perfidy! The whole of the discontent was principally occasioned by the preposterous title of my decree, which escaped me from distraction, or some other cause; for, in the main, I contend that the law itself was an eminent service, and rendered individual liberty more complete and certain in France than in any other country of Europe.

“Considering the crisis from which we had emerged, the factions by which we had been divided, and the plots which had been laid, and were still contriving, imprisonment became indispensable. It was, in fact, a benefit; for it superseded the scaffold. But I was desirous of sanctioning it by legal enactments, and of placing it beyond the reach of caprice, of arbitrary power, of hatred, and of vengeance. Nobody, according to my law, could be imprisoned and detained as a prisoner of state, without the decision of my privy council, which consisted of sixteen persons; the first, the most independent and most distinguished characters of the state. What unworthy feeling would have dared to expose itself to the detection of such a tribunal? Had I not voluntarily deprived myself of the power of consigning individuals to prison? No man could be detained beyond a year, without a fresh decision of the Privy-Council, and four votes out of sixteen were sufficient to effect his release. Two councillors of state were bound to attend to the statements of the prisoners, and became from that moment their zealous advocates with the Privy Council. These prisoners were also under the protection of the Committee of individual liberty, appointed by the Senate, which was the object of public derision, merely because it made no parade of its labours and their results. Its services, however, were great; for it would argue a defective knowledge of mankind to suppose that Senators, who had nothing to expect from ministers, and who were their equals in rank, would not make use of their prerogative to oppose and attack them, whenever the importance of the case called for their interference. It must also be considered that I had assigned the superintendence of the prisoners, and of the police of the prisons, to the tribunals, which, from that instant, paralyzed the exercise of every kind of arbitrary authority by the other branches of administration and their numerous subordinate agents. After such precautions, I do not hesitate to maintain that civil liberty was as effectually secured by that law in France as it could possibly be. The public misconceived, or pretended to misconceive, that truth, for we Frenchmen must murmur at every thing and on every occasion.

“The fact is, that at the time of my downfal the state prisons scarcely contained 250 persons, and I found 9000 in them, when I became Consul. It will appear, from the list of those who were imprisoned, and upon an examination into the causes and motives of their confinement, that almost every one of them deserved death, and would have been sentenced to it by regular process of law; and it consequently follows that their imprisonment was, on my part, a benefit conferred upon them. Why is there nothing published against me on this subject at present? Where are the serious grievances to be found with which I am reproached? There are none in reality. If some of the prisoners afterwards made a merit of their sufferings with the King, on account of their exertions in his favour, did they not by that proceeding pronounce their own sentence and attest my justice? For what may seem a virtuous action in the King’s eye was incontestably a crime under me; and it was only because I was repugnant to the shedding of blood on account of political crimes, and because such trials would have but tended to the continuance of commotion and perplexity in the heart of the country, that I commuted the punishment to mere imprisonment.

“I repeat it, the French were, at my era, the freest people of all Europe, without even excepting the English; for, in England, if any extreme danger causes the suspension of the Habeas Corpus act, every individual may be sent to prison at the mere will of ministers, who are not called upon to justify their motives, or to account for their conduct. My law had very different limits.” He concluded with saying;—“And then, at last, if, in spite of my good intention, and notwithstanding my utmost care, all that you have just said, and no doubt, many other things, were well founded, it must not still be considered so easy a task as it is thought to create a beneficial establishment for a nation. It is a remarkable circumstance that the countries which have been separated from us have regretted the laws with which I governed them. This is an homage paid to their superiority. The real, the only, mode of passing a decisive sentence upon me, with regard to their defects, would be to shew the existence of a better code in any other country. New times are drawing near, it will be seen,” &c.

About five o’clock, I was told by the Grand Marshal, who had just left the Emperor, that he wished to see me. He had staid at home the whole of the day. I found him engaged in examining the new billiard-table. He was apprehensive that the weather was too damp for walking, and he played at chess until dinner. In the evening, he read us Crebillon’s Atrée et Thyeste. That piece seemed horrible to us; we found it disgusting, and by no means of a tragic cast. The Emperor could not finish it.

EGYPT.—ST. JEAN D’ACRE.—THE DESERT.—ANECDOTES.

21st. About three o’clock, the Emperor called for his calash. He sent for me, and we walked together to the bottom of the wood where he had ordered the carriage to take him up. I had some particulars of no great moment to communicate, which personally concerned him. We observed, in the course of our ride, two vessels under sail for the island.

At dinner, the Emperor was very talkative. He had been just employed on his campaign in Egypt, which he had, for some time, neglected, and which, he said, would be as interesting as an episode of romance. In speaking of his position at St. Jean d’Acre, he observed:—It was certainly a daring thing to post myself thus in the heart of Syria, with only 12,000 men. I was 500 leagues from Desaix, who formed the other extremity of my army. It has been related, by Sydney Smith, that I lost 18,000 men before Acre, although my army consisted but of 12,000. An obscure person, M...., who had just left college, as it seemed, who knows nothing of what he describes, and whose only talent is that of tacking some sentences together, with a view, no doubt, of converting them to his emolument, the brother, however, of one whom I have loaded with favours, and who was one of my Council of State, has recently published something on that subject, on which I have cast a glance, and which vexes me on account of its silliness and the unfavourable colouring which he endeavours to throw over the glory and exploits of that army.

“Had I been master of the sea, I should have been master of the East, and the thing was so practicable that it failed only through the stupidity or bad conduct of some seamen.

“Volney, who travelled in Egypt before the revolution, had stated his opinion that that country could not be occupied without three great wars, against England, the Grand Signor, and the inhabitants. The latter, in particular, seemed difficult and terrible to him. He was altogether mistaken in that respect, for it gave us no trouble. We had even succeeded in making friends of the inhabitants, in the course of a short time, and of uniting their cause with ours. A handful of Frenchmen had thus been sufficient to conquer that fine country, which they ought never to have lost. We had actually accomplished prodigies in war and in politics. Our undertaking was altogether different from the crusades; the crusaders were innumerable and hurried on by fanaticism. My army, on the contrary, was very small, and the soldiers were so far from being prepossessed in favour of the enterprise that, at first, they were frequently tempted to carry off the colours and return. I had, however, succeeded in familiarizing them with the country, which supplied every thing in abundance, and at so cheap a rate that I was one time on the point of placing them on half-pay for the purpose of laying by the other half for them. I had acquired such an ascendancy over them, that I should have been able, by a mere order of the day, to make them Mahometan. They would have treated it as a joke, the population would have been gratified, and the very Christians of the East would have considered themselves gainers, and approved it, knowing that we could do nothing better for them and for ourselves.

“The English were struck with consternation at seeing us in possession of Egypt. We exposed to Europe the certain means of wresting India from them. They have not yet dismissed their apprehensions, and they are in the right. If 40 or 50,000 European families ever succeed in establishing their industry, laws, and government in Egypt, India will be more effectually lost to the English by the commanding influence of circumstances than by the force of arms.”

In the course of the evening, the Grand Marshal put the Emperor in mind of one of his conversations with Monge, the mathematician, at Cutakié, in the midst of the desert. “What do you think of all this, citizen Monge?” said Napoleon.—“Why, citizen general,” answered Monge, “I think, if there are ever seen in this place as many equipages as at the Opera house, there must first be some wonderful revolutions on the globe.” The Emperor laughed very heartily at the recollection. He had, however, he observed, a carriage with six horses on the spot. It was unquestionably the first of the kind that travelled over the desert, and accordingly it very much surprised the Arabs.

The Emperor remarked that the desert always had a peculiar influence on his feelings. He had never crossed it without being subject to a certain emotion. To him, he said, it was an image of immensity: it seemed to have no bounds, neither beginning nor end; it was an ocean on terra firma. His imagination was delighted with the sight, and he took pleasure in drawing our attention to the observation that Napoleon meant Lion of the Desert!...

The Emperor also told us that, when he was in Syria, it was a settled opinion at Cairo that he never would be seen there again, and he noticed the thievery and impudence of a little Chinese, who was one of his servants. “It was,” said he, “a little deformed dwarf, whom Josephine once took a fancy to at Paris. He was the only Chinese in France; thenceforth she would always have him behind her carriage. She took him to Italy, but as he was in the constant habit of pilfering, she wished to get rid of him. With that view, I took him with me on my Egyptian expedition. Egypt was a lift to him half-way on his journey. This little monster was entrusted with the care of my cellar, and I had no sooner crossed the desert than he sold, at a very low price, 2000 bottles of capital claret. His only object was to make money, convinced that I should never come back. He was not at all disconcerted at my return, but came eagerly to meet me, and acquainted me, as he said, like a faithful servant, with the loss of my wine. The robbery was so glaring that he was himself compelled to confess it. I was much urged to have him hanged, but I refused, because, in strict justice, I ought to have done as much to those in embroidered clothes, who had knowingly bought and drunk the wine. I contented myself with discharging and sending him to Suez, where he was at liberty to do what he pleased.”

On this subject I must observe that we were induced, in this place, to give momentary credit to a very singular coincidence. We were informed a few months ago, that on board one of the Chinese traders, which were then off the island, on their return to Europe, there was a Chinese, who said he had been in the Emperor’s service in Egypt. The Emperor instantly exclaimed, that it must be his little thief, whose story I have just told; but it was, in fact, a cook of Kleber’s.

The Emperor put a sudden stop to the conversation, and, with more gaiety than usual, turning to Madame Bertrand, said with a smile, “When shall you be at your apartments in the Tuileries? When will you give your splendid dinners to the ambassadors? But you will be obliged, at least, I am told so, to have new furniture, for it is reported that the fashions have entirely changed.” The conversation then naturally turned on the magnificence and luxury which we had witnessed under the Emperor.

PATERNAL ADVICE—REMARKABLE CONVERSATION—CAGLIOSTRO;
MESMER, GALL, LAVATER, &C.

22nd.—The Emperor came to my apartment about 10 o’clock, and took me out to walk. We all breakfasted under the trees. The weather was delightful, and the heat, though great, was not unwholesome. The Emperor ordered his calash; two of us were with him, and the third accompanied us on horseback. The Grand Marshal could not attend. The Emperor recurred to some misunderstanding which had taken place among us a few days before. He took a view of our situation and our natural wants;—“You are bound,” said he, “when you are one day restored to the world, to consider yourselves as brothers, on my account. My memory will dictate this conduct to you. Be so, then, from this moment!” He next described how we might be of mutual advantage to each other, the sufferings we had it in our power to alleviate, &c. It was, at once, a family and moral lesson, a lesson of feeling and conduct. It ought to have been written in letters of gold. It lasted nearly an hour and a quarter, and will, I think, never be forgotten by any of us. For myself, not only the principles and the words, but the tone, the expression, the action, and above all, the heart with which he delivered them, will never be forgotten by me.

About five o’clock, the Emperor entered my apartment where I was employed with my son, on the chapter of the battle of Arcole. He had something to say to me, and I followed him to the garden, where he resumed, at great length, the conversation that had taken place in the calash....

We now dined in the old topographical cabinet, adjoining to that of the Emperor, and the apartment formerly occupied by Montholon’s family, which, with the help of the books and shelves lately received from England, was converted into a tolerable library.

As the damage done by the fire in the saloon was long in repairing, we were obliged to continue at table in our new dining-room until the Emperor withdrew. This circumstance, however, gave additional interest to the conversation.

The Emperor was very communicative to-day. The conversation turned on dreams, presentiments, and foresights, which the English call second sight. We exhausted every common-place topic, ordinarily connected with these objects, and came at last to speak of sorcerers and ghosts. The Emperor concluded with observing, “All these quackeries, and many others, such as those of Cagliostro, Mesmer, Gall, Lavater, &c. are destroyed by this sole and simple argument: All that may exist, but it does not exist.

“Man is fond of the marvellous; it has for him irresistible fascinations; he is ever ready to abandon what is near at hand, to run after what is fabricated for him. He voluntarily gives way to delusion. The truth is, that every thing about us is a wonder. There is nothing which can be properly called a phenomenon. Every thing in nature is a phenomenon. My existence is a phenomenon. The wood that is put on the fire and warms me, is a phenomenon; that candle yonder, which gives me light, is a phenomenon. All the first causes, my understanding, my faculties, are phenomena; for they all exist and we cannot define them. I take leave of you here,” said he, “and lo! I am at Paris, entering my box at the Opera. I bow to the audience; I hear their acclamations; I see the performers; I listen to the music. But if I can bound over the distance from Saint Helena, why should I not bound over the distance of centuries? Why should I not see the future as well as the past? Why should the one be more extraordinary, more wonderful, than the other? The only reason is, that it does not exist. This is the argument which will always annihilate, without the possibility of reply, all visionary wonders. All these quacks deal in very ingenious speculations; their reasoning may be just and seductive, but their conclusions are false, because they are unsupported by facts.

“Mesmer and Mesmerism have never recovered from the blow dealt at them by the report of Bailly on behalf of the Academy of Sciences. Mesmer produced effects upon a person by magnetizing him to his face, yet the same person, magnetized behind, without his knowing it, experienced no effect whatever. It was therefore, on his part, an error of the imagination, a debility of the senses; it was the act of the somnabule[somnabule], who, at night runs along the roof without danger, because he is not afraid; but who would break his neck in the day, because his senses would confound him.

“I once attacked the quack Puységur, on his somnabulism[somnabulism], at one of my public audiences. He would have assumed a very lofty tone: I brought him down to his proper level with only these words: If your doctrine is so instructive, let it tell us something new! Mankind will, no doubt, make very great progress in the next two hundred years; let it specify any single improvement which is to take place within that period! Let it tell me what I shall do within the following week! Let it declare the numbers of the lottery, which will be drawn to-morrow!

“I behaved in the same manner to Gall, and contributed very much to the discredit of his theory. Corvisart was his principal follower. He and his colleagues have a great propensity to materialism, which is calculated to strengthen their theory and influence. But nature is not so poor. Were she so clumsy as to make herself known by external forms, we should do our business more promptly and know a great deal more. Her secrets are more subtle, more delicate, more evanescent, and have hitherto escaped the most minute researches. We find a great genius in a little hunchback; and a man, with a fine commanding person, turns out to be a stupid fellow. A big head, with a large brain, is sometimes destitute of a single idea; while a small brain is found to possess a vast understanding. And observe the imbecility of Gall. He attributes to certain protuberances propensities and crimes, which are not in nature, but arise solely from society and the conventional usages of mankind. What would become of the protuberance of theft, if there were no property; of drunkenness, if there were no fermented liquors; and of ambition, if there were no society?

“The same remarks apply to that egregious charlatan, Lavater, with his physical and moral relations. Our credulity lies in the defect of our nature. It is inherent in us to wish for the acquisition of positive ideas, when we ought, on the contrary, to be carefully on our guard against them. We scarcely look at a man’s features, before we pretend to know his character. We should be wise enough to repel the idea and to neutralize those deceitful appearances. I was robbed by a person who had grey eyes, and from that moment am I never to look at grey eyes without the idea, the fear, of being robbed? A weapon wounded me, and I am afraid of it wherever I see it; but was it the grey eyes that robbed me? Reason and experience, and I have been enabled to derive great benefit from both, prove that all those external signs are so many lies; that we cannot be too strictly on our guard against them, and that the only true way of appreciating and gaining a thorough knowledge of mankind is by trying and associating with them. After all, we meet with countenances so hideous, it must be allowed,” (and as an instance he described one; it was that of the governor,) “that the most powerful understanding is confounded, and condemns them in spite of itself.”

SINGULAR SERIES OF VEXATIONS, &C.

23d.—The Emperor called upon me about three o’clock. He wished to take a walk. He had a gloomy look, and had suffered much since yesterday. He was seriously affected by the intense heat during his ride in the calash. He had observed a new outer door which was making, and which would have altered the whole interior of the topographical cabinet and of Madame Montholon’s former apartment. He had not been consulted on the occasion, and was sensibly affected at it. He sent instantly for the person who had given the directions, and the wretched reasons he assigned served only to vex him still more. We had come out to walk; but it seemed decided that every thing was to irritate and put him in ill humour that evening. He saw some English officers on his way, and turned aside from them almost in anger, observing that shortly it would be impossible for him to put his foot out of doors. A few paces off he was joined by the Doctor, who came to tell him, unseasonably enough, of some arrangements that were making for him, (the Emperor) and to ask his opinion on the subject. It was one of the topics which, perhaps, hurt his feelings most. He made no answer, his ordinary resource against disappointment; but this time he kept silence with a fretfulness which he could not conceal. He came up with the carriage, and got in; but on our way we met some more English officers, and then he suddenly ordered the coachman to drive off, at a gallop, in another direction.

The new door-way, however, which had been made in the house without his knowledge, and which he found so inconvenient, still lay heavy on his heart. He was about to lighten the load by a lively playfulness with the wife of the person who had ordered it, and who happened to be in the calash. “Ah,” said he, “are you there? You are in my power; you shall pay the penalty. The husband is the guilty person; it is the wife that shall answer for him.” But instead of accommodating herself to the sense in which the words were uttered, which she might have done without the least inconvenience, and with the certainty of a satisfactory result, she persisted in making lame excuses for her husband, and repeating reasons, which served but to revive his dissatisfaction. Finally, to fill up the chapter of cross-purposes, one of us, on discovering the tents of the camp, informed him that the evolutions and manœuvres of the preceding day were in celebration of one of the great victories gained by the English in Spain, and that the regiment which executed them had been very nearly destroyed in that battle. “A regiment. Sir, is never destroyed by the enemy; it is immortalized,” was his only answer. It is true, that it was delivered very dryly.

For myself, I meditated in silence on this accumulation of contrarieties, which struck such repeated blows in so short a time. It was a precious moment for an observer. I estimated the mortification which they were calculated to produce, and I remarked with admiration, how little he betrayed. I said to myself: This is the intractable man, this the tyrant! One would have supposed that he knew what was passing in my mind, for, when we left the calash, and were a few paces before the others, he said to me in a low tone, “If you like to study mankind, learn how far patience can go, and all that one can put up with,” &c.

On his return, he called for tea; I had never seen him take any. Madame de Montholon was, for the first time, in possession of her new saloon. He wished to see it, and observed that she would be much better accommodated than any of us. He called for fire, and played at chess with several of us successively. He gradually recovered his natural temper and ate a little at dinner, which completely restored him. He indulged in conversation, and again reverted to his early years, which always possessed fresh charms for him. He spoke a great deal of his early acquaintances, and of the difficulties which some of them experienced in obtaining admission to him after his elevation, and observed that, “if the threshold of his palace was impassable, it was in spite of himself. What then,” said he, “must be the situation of other sovereigns in that respect!”

We continued the conversation until eleven, without noticing the lateness of the hour.

MADAME DE B—— —ANECDOTES RESPECTING
THE EMIGRANTS.

24th.—To-day the Emperor tried the billiard-table which had just been placed, and went out, but the weather being very damp, he returned almost immediately.

He conversed with me in his apartment, before dinner, on the emigrants, and the name of Madame de B...., who had been dame d’atours to Madame, and was very conspicuous in the commencement of our affairs, was mentioned. The Emperor observed, “But is not this Madame de B.... a very dangerous woman?”—“Certainly not,” I replied; “she is, on the contrary, one of the best women in the world, with a great deal of wit, and an excellent judgment.” “If that is the case,” said the Emperor, “she must have much cause to complain of me. This is the painful consequence of false representations; she was pointed out as a very dangerous character.”—“Yes, Sire, you made her very unhappy. Madame de B.... placed all her happiness in the charms of society, and you banished her from Paris. I met with her in one of my missions, confined within her province, and pining away with vexation, yet she expressed no resentment against your Majesty, and spoke of you with great moderation.” “Well, then! why did you not come to me, and set me right?”—“Ah, Sire, your character was then so little known to us, compared with what I know it to be at present, that I should not have dared to do so. But I will mention an anecdote of Madame de B.... when in London, during the high tide of our emigration, which will make you better acquainted with her than any thing I could say. At the time of your accession to the Consulate, a person, just arrived from Paris, was invited to a small party at her house. He engrossed the attention of the company, in consequence of all the particulars that he had to communicate respecting a place, which interested us so very materially. He was asked several questions respecting the Consul. He cannot, said he, live long, he is most delightfully sallow. These were his words. He grew more animated by degrees, and gave as a toast—The death of the First Consul! Oh horrible! was the instantaneous exclamation of Madame de B..... What, drink to the death of a fellow creature! For shame! I will give a much better one: The King’s health!”

“Well,” said the Emperor, “I repeat that she was very ill used by me, in consequence of the representations which were made to me. She had been described to me as a person fond of political intrigues, and remarkable for the bitterness of her sarcasms. And this puts me in mind of an expression which is perhaps wrongly attributed to her, but which struck me, however, solely on account of its wit. I was assured that a distinguished personage, who was very much attached to her, was seized with a fit of jealousy, for which she clearly proved that she had given no cause. He persisted however, and observed that she ought to know that the wife of Cæsar should be free from suspicion. Madame de B.... replied that the remark contained two important mistakes; for it was known to all the world that she was not his wife, and that he was not Cæsar.”

After dinner, the Emperor read to us parts of the comedies of the Dissipateur and the Glorieux, but he was so little pleased with them that he left off; they did not possess a sufficient degree of interest. He had a severe pain in his right side. It was the effect of the damp to which he had been exposed during his morning walk, and we were not without apprehensions of its being a symptom of the ordinary malady of this scorching climate.

On my return home, I found a letter from England, with a parcel, containing some articles for my toilet. The Griffin ship of war had just arrived from England.

THE EMPEROR RECEIVES LETTERS FROM HIS FAMILY.—CONVERSATION WITH THE ADMIRAL.—THE COMMISSIONERS OF THE ALLIED POWERS.

25th.—About nine o’clock, I received from the Grand Marshal three letters for the Emperor. They were from Madame Mère, the Princess Pauline, and Prince Lucien. The latter was enclosed in one addressed to me, from Rome, by Prince Lucien, dated the 6th of March. I also received two from my agent in London.

The Emperor passed the whole of the morning in reading the papers from the 25th of April to the 13th of May. They contained accounts of the death of the Empress of Austria, the prorogation of the French Chambers, Cambrone’s acquittal, the condemnation of General Bertrand, &c. He made many remarks upon all these subjects.

About three, Admiral Malcolm requested to be presented to the Emperor. He brought him a series of the Journal des Debats to the 13th of May. The Emperor desired me to introduce him, and he conversed with him nearly three hours. He gave great pleasure to the Emperor, who treated him, from the first moment, with a great deal of freedom and good nature, as if he had been an old acquaintance. The Admiral was entirely of his opinion with respect to a great number of subjects. He admitted that it was extremely difficult to escape from St. Helena, and he could see no inconvenience in allowing him to be at large in the island. He considered it absurd that Plantation-house had not been given up to the Emperor, and felt, but only since his arrival, he confessed, that the title of General might be offensive. It struck him that Lady Loudon’s conduct had been ridiculous here, and would be laughed at in London. He thought that the Governor had good intentions, but did not know how to act. Ministers had, in his opinion, been embarrassed with respect to the Emperor, but entertained no hatred against him; they did not know how to dispose of him. Had he remained in England, he would have been, and was still, a terror to the Continent; he would have been too dangerous and efficient an instrument in the hands of Opposition, &c. He was apprehensive, however, that all these circumstances put together would detain us here a long time; and he expressed his confidence that it was the intention of Ministers, with the exception of the necessary precautions to prevent his escape, that Napoleon should be treated with every possible indulgence at St. Helena, &c. He delivered himself upon all these points in so satisfactory a manner that the Emperor discussed the business with him, with as little warmth as if he had not been concerned in the matter.

At one moment, the Emperor produced a sensible effect upon him; it was when, alluding to the Commissioners, he pointed out the impossibility of receiving them. “After all, Sir,” said he, “you and I are men. I appeal to you, is it possible that the Emperor of Austria, whose daughter I married, who implored that union on his knees, who keeps back my wife and my son, should send me his Commissioner, without a line for myself, without the smallest scrap of a bulletin with respect to my son’s health? Can I receive him with consistency? Can I have any thing to communicate to him? I may say the same thing of the Commissioner sent by Alexander, who gloried in calling himself my friend, with whom, indeed, I carried on political wars, but had no personal quarrel. It is a fine thing to be a Sovereign, but we are not on that account the less entitled to be treated as men; I lay claim to no other character at present! Can they all be destitute of feeling? Be assured, Sir, that when I object to the title of General, I am not offended. I decline it merely because it would be an acknowledgment that I have not been Emperor; and, in this respect, I advocate the honour of others more than my own. I advocate the honour of those with whom I have been, in that rank, connected by treaties, by family and political alliances. The only one of those Commissioners, whom I might perhaps receive, would be that of Louis XVIII., who owes me nothing. That Commissioner was a long time my subject, he acts merely in conformity to circumstances, independent of his option; and I should accordingly receive him to-morrow, were I not apprehensive of the misrepresentations that would take place, and of the false colouring that would be given to the circumstance.”

After dinner, the Emperor again alluded to the time of his Consulate, to the numerous conspiracies which had been formed against him, to the celebrated persons of that period, &c. I have already noticed these topics at considerable length. The conversation lasted until one o’clock in the morning—a very extraordinary hour for us.

THE EMPEROR’S COURT.—EXPENSES, SAVINGS, HUNTING AND SHOOTING ESTABLISHMENT, MEWS, PAGES, SERVICE OF HONOUR, &C.

26th—28th. Our usual mode of living, an airing in the carriage in the middle of the day; conversation at night.

On the 27th the Emperor received, for a moment, a colonel, a relation of the family of Walsh Serrant, who was on his return from the Cape in the Haycomb, and was to sail next day for Europe. He had been Governor of Bourbon, and entertained us with many agreeable particulars respecting that island.

After dinner, the conversation turned on the old and new Court, with their arrangements, expenses, etiquette, &c. I have already mentioned most of these points in another place, and many of them were repeated on the present occasion. I pass over what would seem but a literal repetition.

The Emperor’s Court was, in every respect, much more magnificent than any thing seen up to that period, and yet, said he, the expense was infinitely less. That vast difference was caused by the suppression of abuses, and by the introduction of order and regularity into the accounts. His hunting and shooting establishment, with the exception of some useless and ridiculous particulars, he observed, as that of falconry and some others, was as splendid, as numerous, and as striking, as that of Louis XVI., and the annual disbursement, he assured us, was but 400,000 francs, while the King’s amounted to seven millions. His table was regulated according to the same system. Duroc had, by his regularity and strictness, done wonders in that respect. Under the kings, the palaces were not kept furnished, and the same articles were transferred from one palace to another; the people belonging to the Court had no furniture allowed them, and every one was obliged to look out for himself. Under him, on the contrary, there was not a person in attendance who did not find himself provided as comfortably, or even more so, with every thing that was necessary or suitable, in the apartment assigned to him, than in his own house.

The Emperor’s stud cost three millions, the expense of the horses was averaged at 3000 francs a horse yearly. A page cost from 6 to 8000 francs. That establishment, he observed, was perhaps the most expensive belonging to the palace, and accordingly the education of the pages and the care taken of them, were the subjects of just encomium. The first families of the empire were solicitous to place their children in it, and they had good reason, said the Emperor.

With respect to the etiquette of the Court, the Emperor said he was the first who had separated the service of honour (an expression invented under him) from that which was absolutely necessary. He had dismissed every thing that was laborious and substantial, and substituted what was nominal and ornamental only. “A king,” he said, “is not to be found in nature, he is the mere creature of civilization. There are no naked kings; they must all be dressed,” &c.

The Emperor remarked[remarked] that it was impossible for any one to be better informed of the nature and relation of all these matters than himself; because they had been all regulated by him, according to the precedents of past times, from which he had lopped off whatever was ridiculous, and preserved every thing that appeared suitable.

The conversation lasted until after eleven o’clock. It had been kept up with tolerable spirit; and the Emperor again observed, on leaving us, that, after all, we must be a good-natured kind of people to be able to lead so contented a life at St. Helena.

FRESH INSTANCE OF THE GOVERNOR’S MALIGNITY, &c.—DESPERATE PROJECT OF SANTINI, THE CORSICAN.

29th.—The weather had been bad for some days; the Emperor took advantage of a fine interval to examine a tent, which the admiral had, in a very handsome manner, ordered to be erected for his accommodation by his ship’s crew, having heard him complain, in the course of conversation, of the want of shade, and of the impossibility of enjoying himself in the air out of his apartment. The Emperor conversed with the officer and men who were putting the last hand to the work, and ordered a napoleon to be given to each of the seamen.

We learnt to-day that the last vessel had brought a book on the state of public affairs for the Emperor, written, as it was said, by a Member of Parliament. It had been sent by the author himself, and the following words were inscribed in letters of gold on the outside,—To Napoleon the Great. This circumstance induced the Governor to keep back the work, a rigour, on his part, which formed a singular contrast with his eagerness to supply us with libels, that treated the Emperor so disrespectfully.

During dinner, the Emperor, turning, with a stern look, to one of the servants in waiting, exclaimed, to our utter consternation: “So then, assassin, you intended to kill the Governor!—Wretch!—If such a thought ever again enters your head, you will have to do with me; you will see how I shall behave to you.” And then, addressing himself to us, he said, “Gentlemen, it is Santini, there, who determined to kill the Governor. That rascal was about to involve us in a sad embarrassment. I found it necessary to exert all my authority, all my indignation to restrain him.”

In order to explain this extraordinary transaction, it is necessary for me to observe that Santini, who was formerly usher of the Emperor’s cabinet, and whose extreme devotion had prompted him to follow his master and serve him, no matter, he said, in what capacity, was a Corsican, of deep feeling and a warm imagination. Enraged at the Governor’s ill usage, no longer able to bear with patience the affronts which he saw heaped upon the Emperor, exasperated at the decline of his health, and affected himself with a distracting melancholy, he had, for some time, done no work in the house, and, under pretence of procuring some game for the Emperor’s table, his employment seemed to be that of shooting in the neighbourhood. In a moment of confidence, he told his countryman Cypriani that he had formed the project, by the means of his double barrelled piece, of killing the Governor, and then putting an end to himself. And all, said he, to rid the world of a monster.

Cypriani, who knew his countryman’s character, was shocked at his determination, and communicated it to several other servants. They all united in entreating him to lay aside his design, but their efforts, instead of mitigating, seemed but to inflame his irritation. They resolved then to disclose the project to the Emperor, who had him instantly brought before him: “And it was only,” he told me some time afterwards, “by imperial, by pontifical authority, that I finally succeeded in making the scoundrel desist altogether from his project. Observe for a moment the fatal consequences which he was about to produce. I should have also passed for the murderer, the assassin, of the Governor, and in reality it would have been very difficult to destroy such an impression in the mind of a great number of people.”

The Emperor read to us La Mort de Pompée, which was stated in the journals to be the subject of general interest at Paris, on account of its political allusions. And this gave rise to the remark that government had been obliged to forbid the representation of Richard, and that, certainly on the fifth and sixth of October, Louis XVI. little thought of its ever being prohibited for its allusions to another. “The fact is that times are wonderfully changed,” said the Emperor.

30th.—The Emperor, after a few turns in the garden, went to General Gourgaud’s apartment, where he was a long time employed, with his compasses and pencil, in laying down the coast of Syria, and the plan of Saint Jean d’Acre, which the general was to execute. In marking some points about Acre, he said:—“I passed many unpleasant moments there.”

In the evening we had Le Mariage de Figaro, which entertained and interested us much more than we had been led to expect. “It was,” observed the Emperor, in shutting the book, “the Revolution already put into action.”

LA HARPE’S MÉLANIE.—NUNS.—CONVENTS.—MONKS
OF LA TRAPPE.—THE FRENCH CLERGY.

31st.—The weather was horrible about three o’clock, and the Emperor could scarcely reach Madame de Montholon’s saloon. He amused himself for some time there in reading the Thousand and One Nights, and afterwards, perceiving a volume of the Moniteur on which M. de Montholon was then employed, and which lay open in the part relative to the negotiations for a maritime armistice in 1800, his whole attention was absorbed by them for upwards of an hour.

After dinner, the Emperor read first La Mère Coupable, in which we felt interested, and next the Mélanie of La Harpe, which he thought wretchedly conceived and very badly executed. “It was,” he said, “a turgid declamation, in perfect conformity with the taste of the times, founded in fashionable calumnies and absurd falsehoods. When La Harpe wrote that piece, a father certainly had not the power of forcing his daughter to take the veil; the laws would never have allowed it. This play, which was performed at the beginning of the Revolution, was indebted for its success solely to the extravagance of public opinion. Now, that the passion is over, it must be deemed a wretched performance! La Harpe’s characters are all unnatural. He should not have attacked defective institutions with defective weapons.”

The Emperor said that La Harpe had so completely failed in his object, with regard to his own impressions, that all his feelings were in favour of the father, while he was shocked at the daughter’s conduct. He had never seen the performance, without being tempted to start from his seat, and call out to the daughter: “You have but to say, No, and we will all take your part; you will find a protector in every citizen.”

He observed that, when he was on service with his regiment, he had often witnessed the ceremony of taking the veil. “It was a ceremony very much attended by the officers, and which raised our indignation, particularly when the victims were handsome. We ran in crowds to it, and our attention was alive to the slightest incident. Had they but said, No, we should have carried them off sword in hand. It is consequently false that violence was employed: seductive means only were resorted to. Those, upon whom they were practised, were kept secluded perhaps, like recruits. The fact is that, before they had done, they had to pass the ordeal of the nuns, the abbess, the spiritual director, the bishop, the civil officer, and finally the public spectators. Can it be supposed that all these had agreed to concur in the commission of a crime?”

The Emperor declared that he was an enemy to convents in general, as useless, and productive of degrading inactivity. He allowed, however, in another point of view, that certain reasons might be pleaded in their favour. The best mezzo termine, and he had adopted it, was, in his opinion, that of tolerating them, of obliging the members to become useful, and of allowing annual vows only.

The Emperor complained that he had not had time enough to complete his institutions. It had been his intention to enlarge the establishments of Saint Denis and Ecouen, for the purpose of affording an asylum to the widows of soldiers, or women advanced in years. “And then,” he added, “it must also be admitted that there were characters and imaginations of all kinds; that compulsion ought not to be used with regard to persons of an eccentric turn, provided their oddities are harmless, and that an empire, like France, might and ought to have houses for madmen, called Trappistes. With respect to the latter,” he observed, “that if any one ever thought of inflicting upon others the discipline which they practised, it would be justly considered a most abominable tyranny, and that it might, notwithstanding, constitute the delight of him who voluntarily exercised it on himself. Such is man, such his whims, or his follies!... He had tolerated the monks of Mount Cenis, but these, at least,” he added, “were useful, very useful, and might be even called heroic.”

The Emperor expressed himself in his Council of State in the following words, when the organization of the University was about to take place: “It is my opinion that the monks would be far the best body for communicating instruction, were it possible to keep them under proper control, and to withdraw them from their dependence upon a foreign master. I am disposed to be favourable to them. I should, perhaps, have had the power to reinstate them in their establishments, but they have made the thing impossible. The moment I do any thing for the clergy, they give me cause to repent it. I do not complain of the old established clergy, for with them I am sufficiently satisfied; but the young priests are brought up in a gloomy fanatical doctrine; there is nothing Gallican in the young clergy.

“I have nothing to say against the old bishops. They have shewn themselves grateful for what I did for religion; they have realized my expectations.

“Cardinal de Boisgelin was a man of sense, a virtuous character, who had faithfully adopted me.

“The Archbishop of Tours, Barral, a man of great acquirements, and who was of essential service to us in our differences with the Pope, was always very much attached to me.

“The worthy Cardinal du Belloy, and the virtuous Bishop Roquelaure, had a sincere affection for me.

“I made no difficulty whatever in placing Bishop Beausset among the Dignitaries of the University, and I am convinced that he was one of those who, in that capacity, most sincerely conducted themselves in conformity with my views.

“All these old bishops possessed my confidence, and none of them deceived me. It is not a little singular that those whom I had the greatest cause to complain of were precisely those whom I had chosen myself; so very true is it that the holy unction, though it attaches us to the kingdom of Heaven, does not deliver us from the infirmities of the earth, from its irregularities, its obscenities, its turpitudes.”

The conversation next turned upon the want of priests in France, the obligation of engaging them at the age of sixteen, and the difficulty, even the impossibility, of finding any at twenty-one.

It was the Emperor’s wish that they should be ordained at a more advanced age. The answer of the bishops and the Pope himself was, “It is very well: your reasons are very just; but if you wait for that period you will find none to ordain, and yet you admit that you are in want of them.”

“I have no doubt,” observed the Emperor, “that, after me, other principles will be adopted. A conscription of priests and nuns will, perhaps, be seen in France, as a military conscription was seen in my time. My barracks will, perhaps, be turned into convents and seminaries. Thus goes the world. Poor nations! In spite of all your knowledge, all your wisdom, you continue, like individuals, the slaves of fashionable caprice.”

It was nearly one o’clock in the morning before the Emperor retired. It was, he said, a real victory over ennui, and a great relief for the want of sleep.

MARIA ANTOINETTE.—THE MANNERS OF VERSAILLES.—ANECDOTE.—BEVERLEY.—DIDEROT’S
PÉRE DE FAMILLE.

August 1.—The weather was dreadful. About three o’clock, the Grand Marshal came to look for me; but as I had at that moment ventured out, I was not to be found. It was on account of some English, whom he had to present to the Emperor.

The Emperor sent for me at five; he was in a bad humour, and not a little so, he said, on my account. The visit of the English, the bad weather, the want of the saloon and an interpreter, had all combined to vex him.

He was reading the Veillées du Château, which, he observed, were tiresome, and he left them for the Tales of Margaret, Queen of Navarre.

He afterwards adverted to Versailles; the Court, the Queen, Madame Campan, and the King, were the principal subjects of his remarks, and he said many things, some of which I have already noticed. He concluded with observing that Louis XVI. would have been a perfect pattern in private life, but that he had been a sorry King; and that the Queen would no doubt have been, at all times, the ornament of every circle, but that her levity, her inconsistencies, and her want of capacity, had not a little contributed to promote and accelerate the catastrophe. She had, he remarked, deranged the manners of Versailles; its ancient gravity and strict etiquette were transformed into the free and easy manners and absolute tittle-tattle of a private party. No man of sense and importance could avoid the jests of the young courtiers, whose natural disposition for raillery was sharpened by the applauses of a young and beautiful Sovereign.

One of the most characteristic anecdotes of that day was told. A gallant and worthy German general arrived at Paris, with a special recommendation to the Queen, from the Emperor Joseph, her brother. The Queen thought she could not do him a greater favour than to invite him to one of her private parties. He found himself, it may be easily imagined, a little out of his element in such company, but it was every one’s wish to treat him with marked respect, and he was obliged to take a leading part in the conversation. He was unfortunate in the selection of his topics, and in his manner of introducing them. He talked a great deal about his white mare, and his grey mare, which he valued above all things. The subject gave rise to a number of arch inquiries on the part of the young courtiers, respecting a thousand frivolous points, which he had the good-nature to answer, as if they were matters of importance. In conclusion, one of them asked to which of the two he gave the decided preference: “Really,” answered the general, with peculiar significance, “I must confess, that, if I were in the day of battle on my white mare, I do not believe I should dismount to get on my grey one.” At length he made his bow, and the bursts of laughter that followed may be easily conceived. The conversation took another turn after his departure; the attractions of white and brown beauties were long and ingeniously canvassed, and, the Queen having asked one of the party which he preferred, he instantly assumed a grave air, and imitating the solemn tone of the Austrian, answered, “Really, Madam, I must confess, that if I were in the day of battle on....” “Enough,” interposed the Queen, “spare us the remainder.”

After dinner he read Beverley and the Père de Famille to us. The latter, in particular, excited his animadversion. To us it seemed a paltry production. What most amused the Emperor, as he said, was that it was Diderot’s, that Coryphœus of philosophers and of the Encyclopedia. All it contained was, he said, false and ridiculous. The Emperor entered into a long examination of the details, and concluded with saying, “Why reason with a madman in the height of a raging fever? It is remedies and a decisive mode of treatment that he needs. Who does not know that the only safeguard against love is flight? When Mentor wishes to secure Telemachus, he plunges him into the sea. When Ulysses endeavours to preserve himself from the Syrens, he causes himself to be bound fast, after having stopped the ears of his companions with wax.”

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE EMIGRATION TO COBLENTZ.—ANECDOTES, &C.

2nd.—Uninterrupted bad weather, with heavy rains. The Emperor was not well; he felt his nerves very much irritated.

He sent for me to breakfast with him. During the whole of breakfast, and a long time afterwards, the conversation again turned on the emigration. I have already remarked that he often brought me back to the subject. His enquiries to-day were directed to the particulars of what had passed at Coblentz, our situation, our disposition, our organization, our views, and our resources, and at the end of all my answers, he concluded, observing: “You have already several times acquainted me with a considerable part of those things, and yet I do not retain them, because you communicate them without regularity. Reduce them to a consistent historical summary. How could you be better employed in this place? And then, my dear Las Cases, you will have a piece ready at hand for your journal.” This demand was like that addressed by Dido to Æneas, and I too might have exclaimed, Infandum regina, jubes ... however, I executed the sketch as completely as my memory and judgment enabled me, for the subject began to grow old, and I was, at that time, very young. I give it as I read it, a short time afterwards, to Napoleon.

“Sire, after the famous events which overthrew the Bastile, and set all France in agitation, most of our Princes, who found themselves implicated in the consequences, fled from the country, with the sole view, at that period, of securing their personal safety. They were soon after joined by persons of considerable rank, and by a number of young men; the former, induced by the connection which they had with them, and the latter by a persuasion that the measure of itself indicated, in some degree, a striking, generous, and decided devotedness. When a certain number were collected, the idea suggested itself of converting to a political end that which, until then, had been produced by zeal and chance alone. It was thought that if, with the assistance of these assemblages, a kind of small power could be created, it might be enabled to re-act, with advantage, on the interior, become a lever to insurrection there, make an impression on the public mind, and restrain popular commotion; while it would be, abroad, a title or pretext for applying to foreign Powers and claiming their attention. This was the origin of the emigration; and it is confidently stated that this grand idea was conceived by M. de Calonne,[^[3]] as he passed through Switzerland, in the suite of one of our Princes, who was on his way from Turin to Germany.

“The first assemblage took place at Worms, under the Prince de Condé. The most celebrated was that at Coblentz, under the King’s two brothers, one of whom came from Italy, where he had at first found an asylum in the Court of the King of Sardinia, his father-in-law, and the other arrived by way of Brussels, after escaping the crisis, which had made a captive of Louis XVI. at Varennes.

“I was one of the first of those who assembled at Worms. The number about the Prince was scarcely fifty when I arrived. In the entire effervescence of youth, and with the first inspiration of what was noble, I hastened to Worms with the most innocent simplicity of heart. My reading and my prayer each morning consisted of a chapter of Bayard. I expected, on reaching Worms, to be, at the very least, seized and embraced by so many brothers in arms; but, to my great surprise (and it was my first lesson on mankind), instead of this affectionate reception, I and a companion were, all at once, examined and watched, for the purpose of ascertaining that we were not spies. We were afterwards carefully sounded with regard to our interests, our views, and the pretensions by which we might have been actuated, and, finally, great pains were taken to prove to us, and to make the Prince perceive (and this plan was renewed on every fresh arrival), that our numbers increased greatly, and exceeded, no doubt, already, the places and favours which he had to confer. My companion was so shocked that he proposed to me to return instantly to Paris.

“We, who composed the assemblage, in order to make ourselves useful or to acquire importance, undertook, three or four of us by turns, to form a kind of regular guard about the Prince’s person night and day; for we dreamt already of nothing but conspiracies and assassination, so very powerful and redoubtable did we think ourselves, and when relieved, whilst on this kind of voluntary guard, we had the honour of being admitted to the Prince’s table. Three generations of Condé constituted its ornament, a singular circumstance, which was renewed with more striking effect in the army of Condé, in which the grandfather fought in the centre, while the son and grandson commanded the right and left, where they were, I believe, both wounded, and on the same day.

“The Princess of Monaco had followed the Prince of Condé; he married her afterwards, but she then governed and did the honours of his establishment. We had the opportunity of hearing at that table some of the guests assert and re-assert to the Prince that we were already more than enough to enter France; that his name and a white handkerchief were sufficient; that the star of Condé was about to shine forth once more; that the occasion was singularly happy, and that it was necessary to seize it; and I would not pledge myself, that adulation was[was] not pushed so far as to suggest very interested personal views to the Prince.

“Worms, from the nature of its meeting, and the character of its chief, always evinced more regularity, more austerity of discipline, than Coblentz, where there was a display of more agitation, luxury, and pleasure. Worms was accordingly called the camp, and Coblentz the City or the Court.

“The importance of the leader was in proportion to the force under his command, and of this the Prince of Condé was so sensible that he never saw any one leave him without regret, and remembered it a long time. I was not, on that account, the less eager to go to Coblentz, the moment it acquired a certain degree of splendour. I had relations and friends there, and it was, besides, more attractive, from superior magnificence, activity, and grandeur. Coblentz became in a short time a focus of foreign and domestic intrigues. Two distinct parties might be observed there; Messrs. d’Avaray, de Jaucourt, and some others, were the confidential friends, the advisers, or the ministers, of Monsieur, now Louis XVIII. The Bishop of Arras, the Count de Vaudreuil, and others, were those of Monseigneur, the Count d’Artois; and it was confidently stated that, even then, these Princes manifested distinctly enough the same political differences which, it is pretended, have since characterized them. M. de Breteuil, resident at Brussels, and charged, according to his own declaration, with unlimited powers by Louis XVI., had formed a third party, and added to the complication of our affairs.

“M. de Calonne was relied on for our financial department, and the old Marshal de Broglie and the Marshal de Castries were at the head of our military establishment. The brave and able M. de Bouilly, who had left France after the affair of Varennes, found it impossible to remain with us, and followed King Gustavus III. to Sweden.

“The emigration had, however, assumed a grand character, thanks to the care employed for its propagation. Agents had traversed the provinces, circulars had been distributed in the mansions and country-seats, summoning every gentleman to join the Princes, and act in co-operation with them for the security of the altar and the throne, the revenge of their honour, and the recovery of their rights. An absolute crusade had been preached, and with so much more effect, as it made an impression on minds disposed to attend to it. Among the whole of the nobility and privileged classes there was not a single person who did not feel himself cut to the quick by the decrees of the Assembly. All, from him who filled the highest rank to the lowest country squire, had been deprived of what they held most dear; for the former had lost his title and his vassals, and the latter had seen his turret and his pigeon-house invaded, and his hares shot. Accordingly, the movement to begin the journey was immediate and universal; it could not be abandoned, under the penalty of dishonour, and the women were directed to send spindles to those who hesitated, or were too tardy. Whether then from passion, pusillanimity, or a point of honour, the emigration became a real infection; multitudes rushed furiously beyond the frontiers; and what contributed not a little to increase the evil was the means employed by the leaders of the Revolution to promote it in secret, while they affected to oppose it in public. They declaimed, in vague terms, against it from the tribune, it is true; but they took great care that all the passages should be left open. Did the zeal of the emigrants slacken?—the declaimers became more violent, and it was decided that the barriers should be strictly guarded. Then those who had been left behind were reduced to despair, because they had not taken advantage of the favourable moment. But, accidentally, or from inattention, the barriers were again opened, and they were passed with eagerness by those who were determined not to expose themselves to another disappointment. It was by this dextrous management that the Assembly assisted its enemies in plunging themselves into the abyss.

“The able men of the faction had, from the beginning, conceived that such a measure would deliver them from the heterogeneous parts that checked their progress, and that the property of all these voluntary exiles would secure to them incalculable resources. The officers thought they did wonders in stealing away from their regiments, while the leaders of the Revolution, on their part, excited the soldiers to revolt, in order to force them to it. They got rid, by these means, of enemies who were highly dangerous, and obtained, on the contrary, in the non-commissioned officers, zealous co-operators, who became heroes in the national cause; it was they who furnished great captains, and who beat all the veteran troops of foreign powers.

“The consequence was that Coblentz collected all that was illustrious belonging to the Court in France, and all that was opulent and distinguished belonging to the provinces. We were thousands, consisting of every branch, uniform, and rank of the army; we peopled the town and overran the palace. Our daily assemblages about the persons of the Princes seemed like so many splendid festivals. The Court was most brilliant, and our Princes were so effectually its Sovereigns that the poor Elector was eclipsed and lost in the midst of us, which induced a person to observe to him, very pleasantly, one day, whether from perfect simplicity or keen raillery, that, among all those who thronged his palace, he was the only stranger.

“During the grand solemnities, we occasionally had public galas; and the respectable inhabitants were permitted to take a view of the tables. We then exulted at witnessing the admiration expressed by the people of the country for the pleasing countenance and chivalrous appearance of Monseigneur the Count d’Artois, and we were proud of the homage paid by them to the acquirements and talents of Monsieur. It was worth while to see with what arrogance we paraded with us, as it were, the whole dignity, the lustre of our monarchy, and, above all, the superiority of our Sovereign and the elevation of our Princes. His Majesty the King, was the expression which we pompously used in the German circles to designate the King of France; for that was, or ought to be, in our opinion, his title in point of pre-eminence with respect to all Europe. The Abbé Maury, whom we had at first received with acclamation, but who, by the by, lost much of our esteem in a very short time, had discovered, he assured us, that such was his right and his prerogative. Shall I give another instance of overweening pride and conceit?

“At a later period, during our greatest disasters, and when our cause was completely ruined, an Austrian officer, of superior rank, charged with despatches for the Court of London, invited to dinner several of our officers with whom he had formerly been acquainted on the Continent. After dinner, and very near the time when every truth comes out, the company began to talk politics, and he happened to say that, on his departure from Vienna, one of the principal subjects of conversation was the marriage of Madame Royale (now Duchess d’Angouleme) with the Archduke Charles, who at that moment enjoyed great celebrity. ‘But it is impossible!’ observed one of his French guests. ‘And why?’ ‘Because it is not a suitable marriage for Madame.’—‘How!’ exclaimed the Austrian, seriously offended, and almost breathless, ‘His Royal Highness Monseigneur, the Archduke Charles! not a suitable match for your Princess.’[Princess.’] ‘Oh! no, Sir, it would be but a garrison match for her!’

“Besides, these lofty pretensions were instilled into us with our education; they belonged to us as national sentiments, and our Princes were not exempt from them. With us the King’s brothers disdained the title of Royal Highness, they had the pretension of addressing all the sovereigns by the title of brother; the rest of the system was carried on in a proportionate way, and there was accordingly but one feeling in Europe against our Versailles, manners and the presumption of our Princes.

“Gustavus III. said, at Aix-la-Chapelle—‘Your Court of Versailles was not accessible; it indulged too much in haughtiness and ridicule. When I was there, there was scarcely any attention paid to me, and, when I left it, I brought away the titles of booby and blockhead.’

“The Duchess of Cumberland, who was married to the King of England’s brother, had to complain, at the same time and in the same city, that the Princess de Lamballe did not grant her the honours of the folding-doors.

“The old Duke of Gloucester complained, on his own account, at a later period in London, of one of our Princes of the blood, and added that the Prince of Wales laughed heartily, because he, the Prince of Wales, addressing the same Prince by the title of Monseigneur, the latter studiously endeavoured to model his language so as not to return the compliment.

“At Coblentz, however, when our circumstances were altered, our Princes condescended to change their manners in that respect, and to let themselves down to the level of the foreign Princes. They were then with the Elector of Treves, a Prince of Saxony, their mother’s brother, whom, by way of parenthesis, we were at that time eating up, and who was afterwards deprived of his possessions on our account. They condescended to call him their uncle, and he was allowed to call them his nephews. It is confidently stated that he said to them one day, ‘It is to your misfortunes that I am indebted for such affectionate expressions; at Versailles you would have treated me as plain M. l’Abbé, and it is not certain that you would have received my visits every day.’ It was added that he spoke the truth, and that they had given melancholy proofs of it to his brother, the Count of Lusatia, who was present.

“The Princes generally passed their evenings in the company of their intimate friends. One of them was, most of the time, at the house of Madame de Polastron, to whom he paid attentions that were justified by her constancy and her behaviour. Frequent attempts were made to destroy the intimacy, but in vain, for Madame de Polastron was above all the cabals employed for the purpose; and, in addition to her amiable manners and excellent conduct, was completely disinterested, and carefully avoided all interference in political affairs. She saw but very little company. I was indebted to a female relative for the pleasure of being admitted to it; but, as it was necessary to withdraw before the Prince’s arrival, I never had the honour of seeing him there.

“Monsieur passed his evenings at Madame de Balby’s, Dame d’Atours to Madame. Madame de Balby, who was lively, witty, a warm friend and a determined enemy, attracted all the most distinguished characters. It was an honour to be admitted to her house, which was the centre of taste and fashion. Monsieur sometimes remained there until a late hour; and when, after the crowd had slipped away and the circle was contracted, he happened to be communicative, it must be confessed that he was as superior to us by the charms of his conversation as by his rank and dignity.

“So much for our manner of living and our outward appearance at Coblentz; this was the fair side of our situation; but we were less happy in a political point of view—that was the degrading side.”

“Good!” said the Emperor, “I begin to find your drawing-room details too long. This is, however, excusable in you. The subject is a pleasing one to you. You were then young; but go on.”

“Sire, the whole of our number was but a noble and brilliant mob, and presented the image of complete confusion. It was anarchy striving without, to establish, it was said, order within—a real democracy struggling for the re-establishment of its aristocracy. We presented, on a small scale, and merely with a few shades of difference, a copy of every thing that was passing in France. We had among us zealous adherents to our ancient forms, and ardent admirers of novelty; we had our constitutionalists, our intolerants, and our moderates. We had our empirics, who sincerely regretted that they had not made themselves masters of the King’s person, for the purpose of acting with violence in his name, or who frankly avowed that they entertained the design of declaring his incapability. Finally, we had also our Jacobins, who wished, on their return, to kill, to burn, to destroy every thing.

“No direct authority was exercised over the multitude by our Princes.—They were our Sovereigns, it was true, but we were very unruly subjects, and very easily irritated. We murmured on every occasion, and it was particularly against those who joined us last that our common fury was directed. It was, we declared, so much glory and good fortune of which they deprived our exploits and our hopes. Those who were once admitted considered every subsequent arrival too late. It was maintained that all merit on that score was at an end. If all continued to be received in the same way, the whole of France would soon be on our side, and there would no longer be any person to punish.

“Denunciations of every kind, and from every quarter, were then showered down upon those who joined us. A Prince de Saint-Maurice, son of the Prince de Montbarey, found it impossible to resist the storm, although he had the formal support of every distinguished character, and that of the Prince himself, who deigned to employ supplication in his favour, and said, ‘Alas! gentlemen, who is there that has not faults to reproach himself with in the Revolution? I have been guilty of several, and, by your oblivion of them, you have given me the right of interceding for others.’ This did not spare M. de Saint-Maurice the necessity of making his escape as soon as possible. His crime was that of having belonged to the Society of the Friends of the Negroes, and of having been violently attacked in the midst of us by a gentleman of Franche Comté, who denounced M. de Saint-Maurice for having caused his mansions to be burnt. It was, however, discovered, a few days afterwards, that the brawling assailant had no mansion and was neither from Franche Comté, nor a gentleman: he was a mere adventurer.

“M. de Cazalès, who had filled France and Europe with the celebrity of his eloquence and courage in the National Assembly, had, notwithstanding, lost the popular favour at Coblentz. When he arrived at Paris, a report was spread among us that the Princes would not see him, or would give him an ungracious reception. We collected eighty natives of Languedoc to form, in opposition to his own wishes, a kind of escort for him. M. de Cazalès was the honour of our province; we conducted him to the Princes, by whom he was well received.

“A deputy of the third estate, who had highly distinguished himself in the Constituent Assembly by his attachment to royalty, was among us. One of our Princes, addressing him one day in the crowd, said, ‘But, Sir, explain to me then.—You are so worthy a man, how could you, at the time, take the oath of the jeu de paume?’ The deputy, struck dumb by the attack, at first stammered out that he had been taken unawares—that he did not foresee the fatal consequences—but promptly recovering himself, he replied with vivacity: ‘I shall, however, observe to Monseigneur that it was not that which led to the ruin of the French monarchy, but in fact the assemblage of the nobility, which joined us in consequence of the very persuasive letter written by Monseigneur.’—‘Stop there,’ exclaimed the Prince, patting him on the stomach, ‘be cool, my dear Sir; I did not intend to vex you by that question.’

“Something like a system of regularity, whether good or bad, was, however, adopted in the course of time. We were classed by corps and by provinces; we had cantonments assigned to us, and were supplied with arms. The King’s body-guards were again formed, clothed, equipped, and paid, and soon became a superb corps in appearance and discipline. The coalition of Auvergne and the marine corps, part on foot and part on horseback, attracted peculiar notice by its discipline, knowledge, and union. Our resignation and self-denial could not be too much admired. Each officer was henceforth but a private soldier, subject to exercises and fatigues, very contrary to his former manner of life, and exposed to the greatest privations, for there was no pay, and many of that number had soon no resource to depend on but the contributions of their more fortunate comrades. We deserved a better fate, or, to speak more correctly, we were worthy of a better enterprize. All the officers belonging to the same regiments had been collected together in separate bodies, in order that they might be ready to take the command of their soldiers, who would not fail to join them, as we thought, on their first seeing them. Such was our delusion! It was from a similar motive that the gentlemen were classed according to their respective provinces, no doubt being entertained of their efficient influence over the mass of the population. Our weakness consisted in the conviction that we continued to be wished for, respected, adored.

“All these bodies were publicly exercised and manœuvred, and the diplomatic remonstrances which were made on the subject were answered with a confident assurance that no such thing existed, or that it certainly should be prevented. We had generals appointed, a staff formed, and every thing which distinguishes head-quarters, even to the office of grand-provost, arranged. Our Princes were gradually surrounded with all that constitutes a real government. They had Ministers for the affairs of the moment, and even for France, when we should return, so certain and near at hand did that time appear.

“M. de Lavilleurnois, who was afterwards so much talked of, on account of the share which he had in a royalist conspiracy, and who died at Sinnamary, in consequence of the events of Fructidor, was intrusted with the Administration of the Police. He set off at an early period to perform its duties clandestinely at Paris. He had conceived a sincere affection for me, and was determined to make me his son-in-law. He made use of the most urgent arguments to induce me to follow him; but I refused: I disliked the nature of his office. Otherwise, what different combinations in my destiny!

“We had also direct relations with almost every Court. The Princes had envoys at them, and received theirs at Coblentz. Monseigneur, the Count d’Artois, visited Vienna, I believe, but I can state with certainty that he was at Pilnitz. The nobility, in a body, addressed a letter to Catherine, from whom we received M. de Romansoff as Ambassador. That Empress saw, with pleasure, the storm that was rising in the south of Europe; she cheerfully fanned a flame, which might prove very favourable to her views, without putting her to any expense, and she accordingly shewed herself ardent in her sentiments, and enthusiastic in her promises. She did not despair, in that crisis, of making a dupe of Gustavus III., whose contiguous activity was troublesome to her; she had prevailed upon him, it is said, to undertake the crusade, by flattering him with the rank of Generalissimo. I do not know if this Prince, who certainly was a very superior character for his time, and possessed a great share of understanding and talent, suffered himself to be deluded by her. It is, however, undeniable that he displayed great attachment to our cause, and announced his wish to fight for it in person. When he left Aix la Chapelle to arrange his ultimate measures for that purpose in Sweden, I heard him say, on taking leave of the Princess de Lamballe: ‘You[‘You] will see me again shortly, but I am, nevertheless, obliged, on my own account, to adhere to certain proceedings, to certain measures of caution; for the part I have to play is of a very delicate nature. Know that I, who am desirous of returning to fight at the head of your aristocrats in France, am, at home, the first democrat of the country.’

“We also received envoys from Louis XVI., who presented public messages in reprobation of our conduct, and had confidential conferences, perhaps totally different. At least, we acted as if that had been the case; openly declaring that he was a captive, and that we ought to take no notice of any of his orders; that we were bound to take every thing he was compelled to say in a contrary sense, and that, when he exhorted us to peace, he was, in reality, calling upon us to go to war. It is accordingly my opinion that we were very detrimental to the tranquillity of the unfortunate Monarch, and that we had our special share in the pardon which he bequeathed by his will to his friends, who, by an indiscreet zeal, as he observes, did him so much injury.

“Our emigration, however, was prolonged in spite of all the promises which were made to us, and of all the hopes with which our fancy was flattered. With what illusions, what idle tales, what absurdities, was our impatience mocked! whether those who invented them anticipated our disappointment, or were themselves deceived. It was pleasantly calculated that, according to our letters and gazettes, we had, in less than eighteen months, set in motion nearly two millions of men, although we ourselves had seen none of them. But those initiated in the mystery assured us, in special confidence, that these troops marched only by night, for the purpose of more effectually surprising the democrats, or that they passed in the day-time only by platoons and without uniform; or told us some other story of a similar kind. On the other hand, we shewed each other a heap of letters from all countries and the best sources, written in an enigmatical style, and which were thought to be intelligible to us alone. One was acquainted that fifty thousand Bohemian glasses had been just sent off for his country; another was informed that ten thousand pieces of Saxon porcelain would soon be sent off; and a third received intelligence that twenty-five bales of cocoa would be addressed to him, with other fooleries of the same kind.

“How was it possible, I now ask myself, that men of understanding, for there certainly were a great many among the number, that Ministers, who had formerly governed us, and others who were destined to succeed them, should be gulled by such wretched stuff, or that the plain good sense, which we possessed as a multitude, did not make us laugh in their faces? But no; we were not the less convinced that we were near the accomplishment of our hopes; that the moment was at hand; that it would infallibly happen; that we had only to show ourselves; that we were eagerly expected, and that all would fall prostrate at our feet.”

Here the Emperor, who had often interrupted me with laughter and raillery, said, in a very serious tone, “How very faithful is the picture you have drawn! I recognise a crowd of your friends in it. Truly, my dear Las Cases, and I say it without meaning any offence to you, vapouring, credulity, inconsistency, stupidity itself, might be said, in spite of all their wit, to be specially their lot. When I occasionally wished to be amused, and divested myself of all reserve, for the purpose of giving them full scope, and encouraging their confidence in me, I have heard, in the Tuileries, under the Consulate and the Empire, things not less ridiculous than those which you now relate. None of them ever entertained a doubt of any thing. The love of the French for their Kings was centered, they assured me, in my person. I could henceforth do what I pleased; I had a right to use my power; I should never meet with any other obstacle but a handful of incorrigible persons who were the detestation of all. That counter-revolution so much dreaded, observed another, was but child’s play to me; I had effected it with the utmost ease. And (will this be believed?) ‘the only thing wanting to it,’ said he, in an insinuating tone, ‘is the substitution of the ancient white colour for those which have done us so much injury in all countries.’ The idiot! That was the only blot which he could find in our escutcheon. I laughed out of sheer pity, although I felt some difficulty in restraining my feelings; but for his part, his sincerity was unquestionable; he was fully persuaded that he spoke as I thought; and still more so that the generality thought as he did.[^[4]] But go on.”

“The appearance of the Duke of Brunswick at Coblentz, and the arrival of the King of Prussia at the head of his troops, were subjects of great joy and expectation to the whole of the emigrants. Heaven opens at length before us! was our exclamation, and we are about to return to the land of promise. It was, however, the opinion of persons of judgment and experience, from the beginning, that our struggle would have the same result as all those that resembled it in history, and that we should be but instruments and pretexts for foreigners, who only pursued their private interest, and entertained no feeling for us.

“M. de Cazalès, whom a short time much improved, expressed himself to that effect with much energy. We beheld, with delight, the Prussians, as they filed off through the streets of Coblentz, on their march to our frontiers. ‘Foolish boys,’ he exclaimed, ‘you admire, with enthusiasm, those troops and all their train. You rejoice at their march; you ought rather to shudder at it. For my own part, I should wish to see these soldiers, to the last man of them, plunged in the Rhine. Wo be to them who incite foreigners to invade their country! O my friends, the French nobility will not survive this atrocity! They will have the affliction of expiring far from the places of their birth. I am more guilty than any other, for I see it, and yet I act like all the rest; but my only excuse is that I cannot prevent the catastrophe. I repeat, wo to them who call in foreigners against their country, and trust in them.’

“How oracular these last words! Facts would have speedily convinced us of their truth, had we been less infatuated, or had the multitude been capable of reasoning and acting with propriety; but we were destined to enrich history with one of those lessons that are most entitled to the meditation of mankind. We might be estimated at 20 or 25,000 men under arms; and certainly, such a force, filled with ardour and devotion, fighting for its own interests, maintaining an understanding with the sympathetic elements of the interior, acting against a nation, shaken to its foundation and convulsed by the agitation of new rights, not yet established and but imperfectly understood, might be capable of striking decisive blows. But it was not upon our strength, our success, our activity, that the foreigners relied for the attainment of their views. Accordingly, under the pretence of employing that influence and of directing its operation, as they said, against several points at once, they annihilated us by parcelling out our numbers, and by making, as it were, prisoners of us in the middle of their different corps. In this way, 6000 of us, under the Prince of Condé, were marched against Alsace; 4000, under the Duke of Bourbon were to act in Flanders, and from 12 to 15,000 continued in the centre, under command of the King’s two brothers, to co-operate in the invasion of Champagne.

“It had been the plan and wish of our Princes, that Monsieur, as heir to the crown and the natural representative of Louis XVI., should, on account of his captivity, proclaim himself Regent of the kingdom, the moment he set foot on the French territory; that he should march with his emigrants at the head of the expedition, and that the allies, in his rear, should be considered only as auxiliaries. But the allies treated the plan with derision, and confined us to a station at their tail, under the orders and at the will and pleasure of the Generalissimo, Brunswick, who caused us to be preceded by the most absurd of manifestoes; from the ridicule and odium of which, however, he at least saved us.

“It is but just, however, to acknowledge that this treatment had not escaped the foresight of some experienced and better advised heads among us. They had accordingly suggested, it was said, in the Council of the Princes, that we should throw ourselves, before the arrival of the allies, on some point of France, and maintain a civil war there by ourselves. Others more desperate, or more ardent, were of opinion that we should nobly seize upon the states of the Elector of Treves, our benefactor; occupy the town and fortress of Coblentz, and establish there a central rallying point, or point of support, independent of the Germanic body; and when we exclaimed against such perfidy and ingratitude, their answer was:—‘Desperate evils called for desperate remedies.’ It is impossible to say what might have been the result of such resolutions, which were, however, more consistent with the bold spirit of enterprize, that characterizes the present times, than with the state of manners as they then existed. They were, therefore, unattended to, and besides, the opportunity had slipped by; we were too closely involved in the midst of foreigners; we were already in their power, and our destiny was to be fulfilled!...

“As for us who formed the multitude, we were far from foreseeing the calamities that were to attend us. We began our march in high spirits. There was not one of us who did not expect to be, in a fortnight from that moment, at home, triumphant in the midst of his submissive, humiliated, and increased vassals. Our confidence would not have endured a single observation or doubt upon that head. Of this I am about to give an instance, which though personal and very trifling in itself, will not be the less characteristic with respect to us all. We were marching through the city of Treves; one of my granduncles had, during the war of the succession, been Governor for Louis XIV. while we retained[we retained] possession of it. I went to see his tomb, which is in a chapel, belonging to the Carthusians of that town. The ardour of my youth and the emotion of the moment determined me to erect a small monument to his memory, with a superb inscription, suitable to the circumstances. I entertained no doubt of executing my wish. The good friars were of a different way of thinking; the prior wished me to arrange the matter with the Abbé, a kind of bishop, and of German bishop. His reserve and coldness, in spite of his numerous coats of arms, prepossessed me very much against him, when I communicated my chivalrous project; but when, after some circumlocution, he declared that under the present circumstances ... prudence,—discretion,—if the French were to enter the place—At these last words, my indignation was extreme; it was such that I did not wait to utter a single word in reply. I instantly hurried away, with a mingled laugh of contempt and anger, convinced that I had left the most horrible Jacobin in existence behind me; and nothing but my natural generosity and respect for my own character could have prevented me calling in my comrades, who would have certainly pulled down the chapel. But alas! the abbot saw farther than I did! Three weeks had not elapsed before the republicans were in Treves, the poor abbé put to flight, and the ashes of my good uncle profaned by the infidels.

“But no sooner were we in full operation, no sooner had we set foot on French ground, than it became no difficult matter, except in cases of downright stupidity and blindness, to comprehend that it actually might be just possible that we had been the dupes of our own folly. We found ourselves in the midst of the Prussians, who fettered all our movements; we could not take a step in advance, to the right or to the left, without their permission, and they never granted it. Our subsistence, all our resources, depended solely upon their will; we had the shame of appearing as slaves on the soil where we aspired to reign.

“As for our countrymen, instead of receiving us as their deliverers, as we had been convinced they would, they only gave us proofs of dislike and aversion. With the exception of a few country gentlemen or others who joined us, the whole mass of the population fled at our approach; we were treated as enemies, with the look of reproach and the stern silence of reprobation. They seemed to say to us: ‘Do you not shudder then at thus staining your country’s soil? Are you not Frenchmen by birth? Do your hearts then make no appeal to you in favour of your native land? You say you are wronged; but what wrong, what injury ever gave to a son the right or the wish to tear open the bosom of his mother?... We are told that in ancient times a fiery patrician, Coriolanus, was infamous enough to fight against his country, but he had at least the merit of uniting elevated sentiments with his furious passion; he came forward with a victorious arm; he imposed his own conditions; he was not dragged along at the tail of barbarous foreigners; he commanded them, and he also suffered himself to be moved to compassion. Can you be unsusceptible of that tenderness, and do you not tremble at our maledictions, which will be perpetuated on you by our children? At any rate, whatever may be your success, it will not equal your mortifications! You pretend to come for the purpose of governing, and you will have brought your masters with you.’

“At Verdun and at Estain, we were quartered in the town. Some of my comrades and myself were lodged in a handsome house, but all the furniture and all the proprietors had disappeared, with the exception of two very pretty young ladies, who put us in possession of it. This last circumstance seemed a favourable omen, we took the opportunity of remarking it to them, and were desirous of ingratiating ourselves by our politeness and attentions. ‘Gentlemen,’ said one of the two amazons in rather a sharp tone, ‘we have remained, because we have felt that we had the courage to tell you, face to face, that our lovers are in arms against you, and that they have our prayers at least as much as our hearts.’ This was intelligible language; we wished for no more of it, and even shifted our quarters to another house.

“Be it as it may, we were at length in France, and in the rear of that Prussian army, which pushed forward its brilliant successes, leaving us three or four marches behind. And, whether their object was to turn us into ridicule, because we had assured them that all the towns would throw open their gates on our appearance, or to rid themselves of our importunities, they charged us with the siege of Thionville. We made our approaches, and, by a fantastical singularity, the marine corps found itself precisely opposed to the national volunteers of Brest. When they recognised each other, it is impossible to describe the volley of invectives and insults that was instantly exchanged.

“Thionville is, however, as it is known, one of the strongest places, and we found the reduction of it impossible with our limited means, for we were in want of every thing; and it absolutely required an important negociation to obtain two 24-pounders from the Austrians at Luxembourg. After a great deal of solicitation and hesitation, the two pieces were at length brought in triumph, and it was with this formidable train, that we summoned the place, and fired at night, in pure waste of powder, some hundreds of cannon shot. On my return from emigration, having fallen by chance into company with General de Wimphen, who commanded the fortress, he asked me, ‘what could have been our intention, or the meaning of the jest we had thus attempted to play off?’ ‘It was done, I believe,’ said I, ‘because reliance was placed upon you.’ ‘But even had that been the case,’ said he, ‘you still ought to have furnished me with an excuse for surrendering; you could not expect that I should solicit you to attack me.’ Every thing was on a proportionate scale: the slightest sally spread confusion through all our forces; the most trifling circumstance was an event with us; the cause was obvious; we were unacquainted with every thing, and accordingly, setting courage aside, I do not scruple to believe that a hundred picked men of the Imperial guard would have routed the whole of our army. Happily, our adversaries were as ignorant as ourselves, all were pigmies then, although in a very short time giants were found every where.

“Meanwhile we were extremely discontented with all this, under our tents, and on our wretched straw; but à la Française, we found relief in our gaiety; our ill humour evaporated in puns and jests. All our principal officers had nicknames, there was not one, even to our Commander in Chief, the venerable Marshal de Broglie, who escaped us, and this puts me in mind of a circumstance, which gave rise to a nickname for one of his lieutenants, which he never got rid of. Should any of my comrades in the field ever read this, it may even now excite a laugh.

“At the moment of a sally, which, as usual, made us very uneasy, every one pressed forward. We had two small pieces of cannon, which we had bought, and which, for want of horses, were drawn by the officers of artillery themselves.” “Well!” observed the Emperor, “I might myself have been attached to these very pieces, and yet what different combinations in our destinies and in those of the world! For it is incontestable that I have given an impulse and direction to it, emanating solely from myself. But go on.”

“Sire, our two small pieces were rolling along the highway, when the general officer of the day arrived at full gallop, and stopped with indignation at the sight of our little cannon, as they were drawn towards the fortress, breech foremost.—‘How’[‘How’], exclaimed he, ‘are these really gentlemen, who draw their cannon in this manner against the enemy? And, if he were actually to present himself, how could you contrive to fire upon him?’ He persisted in his blunder, refusing to comprehend what the officers of artillery strove by every possible means to explain; that such was the mode of proceeding every where, and that, unless he had some new invention to communicate, there was no other mode to be adopted. From that moment we dubbed him by a nickname, by which he soon became universally known.

“But all this burlesque was soon exchanged for what was serious in the extreme; the scene shifted, as it were by magic, and our misfortunes burst upon us in an instant. Whether from treachery, weakness, political interest, or sickness in his army, from the real superiority of force, or the mere dexterity of the French general, the King of Prussia entered into secret negotiation with him, suddenly faced about, and, marching to the frontier, evacuated the French territory. A most dreadful storm now burst over our heads; words are inadequate to express the scandalous treatment we experienced, as well as the just indignation, which could not fail to animate every generous heart against our allies, the Prussians. Our Princes degraded, disavowed, insulted, by them; our equipages, our most necessary effects, even our linen, plundered; our persons ill-used: and thus we were basely driven and thrust beyond the frontiers by our friends, our allies!!!

“For my part, sinking under the fatigue of too long marches in the mud, and under torrents of rain; bending under a musquet and a load of accoutrements, which did harm to no one but to myself, I took advantage of my privilege as a volunteer, to leave the ranks, and effect my retreat as well as I could. I proceeded as occasion served; I never sought the common halting place; I took refuge in the nearest farm-yard, and whether it was my own peculiar good fortune, or because the peasants were in reality kind and not exasperated against us, I passed the frontier without any unlucky accident. It was not until some time afterwards that I was enabled to form a correct estimate of the whole extent of the danger to which I had exposed myself, when I read, in the papers, that from fifteen to eighteen of us, stragglers like myself, and some of whom stood near me in the ranks, had been seized, dragged to Paris, and executed in public, in a kind of auto-da-fé, and, as it were, by way of expiation.

“As soon as we were out of France, we received notice to disband, but the intimation was superfluous, for that measure was rendered absolutely indispensable by our wants, and the privation of every necessary. We dispersed, each taking his own way at random, with despair and rage for our companions. We travelled as fugitives, the greater part of the time on foot, and some almost naked, over the scenes of our past splendour and luxury; happy when the doors were not shut in our faces, when we did not receive a brutal repulse! In a moment, we were officially driven from every quarter; we were prohibited from residing in, or from entering, all the neighbouring states; we were compelled to take refuge in distant countries, and to exhibit, throughout Europe, the spectacle of our miseries, which ought to have been a grand moral and political lesson to the people, to the great, and to Kings.

“The exploits of the French exacted, however, from foreigners, a cruel expiation of the indignities with which they overwhelmed us; whilst, on our part, we experienced a kind of consolation in seeing the honour of the emigration take refuge in the army of Condé, which displayed itself to public view, and inscribed itself in history, as a model of loyalty, valour, and constancy.

“Such, Sire, is that too celebrated era, that fatal determination, which, with respect to a great number, can be considered only as the delusion of youth and inexperience. None, however, but themselves, possess the right of reproaching them with the error. The sentiments by which they were actuated were so pure, so natural, so generous, that they might even, were it necessary, derive honour from them; and these dispositions, I must say, belonged to the mass of which we consisted, and more particularly to that crowd of country gentlemen, who, sacrificing all and expecting nothing, without fortune as well as without hope, displayed a devotion truly heroic, because its only aim was the performance of duties which they held to be sacred. In other respects, our defect lay in our political education, which did not teach us to distinguish our duties, and made us dedicate to the Prince alone what belonged to the country at large. Accordingly, in future times, when hostile passions shall be extinct, when no traces shall be left of jarring interests or of party infatuation and fury, what was doubtful with us will be positive and clear to others; what was excusable or even allowable in us, who were situated between an ancient order of things that was on the point of terminating, and a new one that was about to commence, will be considered highly culpable in those possessing established doctrines. Among them, the following will be held as articles of faith:—1st. That the greatest of all crimes is the introduction of a foreign power into the heart of one’s country. 2ndly. That the sovereignty cannot be erratic, but that it is inseparable from the territory, and remains attached to the mass of the citizens. 3rdly. That the country cannot be transported abroad; but that it is immutable and entire on the sacred soil which has given us birth, and which contains the bones of our ancestors. Such are the grand maxims, and many others besides, which will remain the offspring of our emigration; such the great truths, which will be collected from our calamities!”

“Very well!” exclaimed the Emperor, “very well! This is what is called being free from prejudices! These are really philosophical views! And it will be said of you, that you were enabled to convert to your advantage the lessons of time and adversity.”

“Sire, during our stay on board the Northumberland, and the leisure hours of our passage, the English alluded more than once to this delicate topic. Misled by the war, which they had carried on with fury against us, as well as by the maxims with which the interest of the moment filled their journals, even in opposition to their national doctrines, they conversed about the merits of the emigration, and the virtues they had witnessed: and condemned the nation for having resisted it. But when the arguments became too complicated, or we were desirous of putting a sudden stop to them, we gained our point with a single word. We merely said to them:—‘Go back to the period of your own Revolution; imagine James II. threatening you from the opposite shore and under French banners: although surrounded by faithful subjects, what would you have done? And if Louis XIV. had brought him back to London at the head of 50,000 French, who should have afterwards maintained garrisons in your country, what would have been your feelings?’—‘Ah!... But ... Ah!...’ they exclaimed, endeavouring to find out some difference, but not being able to discover it, they laughed, and were silent.” “And in fact,” said the Emperor, “there was not a word to be said in reply.”

He then began to review, with his accustomed rapidity and talent, the different subjects I had noticed, and stopped to reflect on the absurdity, the inconsistency, the great mistake of our emigration, and the real injuries that it had done to France, to the King, and to ourselves. “You have established, and consecrated in political France,” he observed, “a separation similar to that which the Catholics and Protestants introduced into religious Europe; and to what calamities has it not given rise! I had succeeded in destroying its results, but are they not on the point of being revived?” He next developed the means which he had employed to annihilate that plague, the precautions he had been forced to adopt, and the effects which he had in view. How every thing that fell from his tongue was changed in appearance!—how every thing seemed magnified in my eyes in proportion as he discussed the subject! “And,” he remarked, “a peculiar singularity in my situation was that in the whole of those transactions I held the helm myself constantly in the midst of rocks. Every one, judging according to his own standard, attributed to passion, to simple prejudice, or to littleness, what in me, however, was but the consequence of profound views, of grand conceptions, and the most elevated state maxims. It might have been said that I reigned only over pigmies with respect to intellectual talent. I was comprehended by none. The national party felt only jealousy and resentment at what they saw me do in favour of the emigrants, and the latter, on their part, were persuaded that I sought only to gain lustre by their assistance. Poor creatures!...

“I obtained, however, my object, in spite of reciprocal infatuation and prejudice, and I had the satisfaction of leaving every thing quiet in port, when I launched out to sea in prosecution of my grand enterprises.”

Having mentioned, since my return to Europe, these expressions of Napoleon’s to a great Officer of the Crown, who had often the honour of conversing with him in private (Le Comte de S——), he related to me, in his turn, a conversation precisely on the same subject. Its coincidence with what has been just read is so very striking as to induce me to insert it here. The Emperor said to him one day: “What, think you, is my reason for endeavouring to have about me the great names of the ancient monarchy?”—“Perhaps, Sire, for the splendour of your throne, and for the purpose of keeping up certain appearances in the eyes of Europe.”—“Ah! That is just like you, with your pride and your prejudices of rank! Well then, learn, that my victories and my power are much better recommendations for me in Europe than all your great names, and that my apparent predilection for them does me a great deal of injury, and renders me very unpopular at home. You attribute to narrow views what arise from most extensive ones. I am engaged in renovating a society, a nation, and the elements that I am obliged to employ are hostile to each other. The nobility and the emigrants are but a point in the mass, and that mass is inimical to them, and continues very much exasperated against them; it hardly forgives me for having recalled them. For my own part, I considered it as a duty: but if I suffer them to continue as a body, they may one day be serviceable to foreign powers, prove injurious to us, and subject themselves to great dangers. My object, then, is to dissolve their union, and to render them independent of each other. If I place some of them about my person, in the different branches of administration, and in the army, it is for the purpose of consolidating them with the mass, and of managing so as to reduce all classes into a whole; for I am mortal, and if I should happen to leave you before that fusion is accomplished, you would soon see what disasters would arise from these heterogeneous parts, and the dreadful dangers of which certain persons might become the victims! Thus, then, Sir, my views are all connected with humanity and elevated political considerations, and, in no respect, with vain and silly prejudices.”

When I observed to the person who related this anecdote, how little we were acquainted at the Tuileries with Napoleon’s real character, and the great and excellent qualities of his soul and heart, he answered that, for his own part, he had been personally more fortunate, and that he would give me a proof of it, which he selected out of ten: “The Emperor shewed himself, one day, in his Privy Council, very much incensed against General La F——, whom he attacked with great severity, and whose opinions and principles, he said, were capable of effecting the complete dissolution of a state: becoming animated by degrees, he at length put himself into a real passion. I was present as a member of the Council; I had been recently admitted, and was little accustomed to the Emperor’s manners, and, although stopped by the two members placed next to me, I undertook to speak in defence of the accused, asserting that he had been calumniated to the Sovereign, and that he lived quietly on his estate, with personal opinions which were productive of no ill effect whatever. The Emperor, still in a passion, resumed the charge for the purpose of pressing it with vehemence; but after five or six words, he stopped short, and addressing himself to me, said: ‘But he is your friend, Sir, and you are right. I had forgotten that.—Let us speak of something else.’ ‘And why,’ I asked, ‘did you not make us acquainted with all this at the time?’—By a fatality which would seem to belong to Napoleon’s atmosphere, whether from prejudice or otherwise, the impression on our minds was that it could only be told to his intimate friends; for whoever had said much about it would only have passed for a clumsy romancer of a courtier, who told not what he believed to be true, but what he conceived best suited to obtain favour and rewards.”

Since I have mentioned this great Officer of the Crown, who is no less distinguished by the graces of his mind and the amenity of his manners than by his exalted character, I shall notice one of his answers to Napoleon, remarkable for its ingenious and delicate flattery. The Emperor, at one of his levees, having been obliged to wait some time for his appearance, attacked him on his arrival, openly, in the presence of all. It happened to be precisely at the time when five or six Kings (and among others, those of Bavaria, Saxony, and Wurtemberg), were at Paris. “Sire,” replied the culprit, “I have, no doubt, a million of excuses to make to your Majesty, but at this time, one is not at perfect liberty to go through the streets as one pleases. I just now had the misfortune to get into a crowd of kings, from which I found it impossible to extricate myself sooner. This, Sire, was the cause of my delay.” Every one smiled, and the Emperor contented himself with saying, in a softened tone of voice: “Whatever, Sir, may be the cause, take proper precautions for the future, and above all, never make me wait again.”

NAPOLEON’S SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY.—PUBLIC SPIRIT
OF THE TIME.—EVENTS OF THE 10TH OF AUGUST.

3rd.—The weather is somewhat improved; the Emperor attempted to take a walk in the garden. General Bingham and the Colonel of the 53d requested to see the Emperor, who kept them rather long. The appearance of the Governor put us all to flight. General Bingham disappeared, and, for our part, we went to the wood, for the purpose of keeping away from the spot.

The Emperor, during his walk, conversed a great deal about a journey which he took to Burgundy in the beginning of the Revolution. This he calls his Sentimental Journey to Nuitz. He supped there with his comrade Gassendi, at that time captain in the same regiment, and who was advantageously married to the daughter of a physician of the place. The young traveller soon remarked the difference of political opinion between the father and son-in-law; Gassendi, the gentleman, was, of course, an aristocrat, and the physician a flaming patriot. The latter found in the strange guest a powerful auxiliary, and was so delighted with him that the following day at dawn he paid him a visit of acknowledgment and sympathy. The appearance of a young officer of artillery, with good logical reasoning and a ready tongue, was, observed the Emperor, a valuable and rare accession to the place. It was easy for the traveller to perceive that he made a favourable impression. It was Sunday, and hats were taken off to him from one end of the street to the other. His triumph, however, was not without a check. He went to sup at the house of a Madame Maret or Muret, where another of his comrades, V——, seemed to be comfortably established. Here the aristocracy of the canton were accustomed to meet, although the mistress was but the wife of a wine-merchant, but she had great property and the most polished manners; she was, said the Emperor, the duchess of the place. All the gentlefolks of the vicinity were to be found there. The young officer was caught, as he remarked, in a real wasp-nest, and it was necessary for him to fight his way out again. The contest was unequal. In the very heat of the action, the mayor was announced. “I believed him to be an assistant sent to me by Heaven in the critical moment, but he was the worst of all my opponents. I see this villanous fellow now before me in his fine Sunday clothes, fat and bloated, in an ample scarlet coat; he was a miserable animal. I was happily extricated by the generosity of the mistress of the house, perhaps from a secret sympathy of opinion. She unceasingly parried with her wit the blows which were dealt at me; and was a protecting shield on which the enemy’s weapons struck in vain. She guarded me from every kind of wound, and I have always retained a pleasing recollection of the services I received from her in that sort of skirmish.

“The same diversity of opinions,” said the Emperor, “was then to be met with in every part of France. In the saloons, in the streets, on the highways, in the taverns, every one was ready to take part in the contest, and nothing was easier than for a person to form an erroneous estimate of the influence of parties and opinions, according to the local situation in which he was placed. Thus a patriot might easily be deceived, when in the saloons, or among an assembly of officers, where the majority was decidedly against him; but, the instant he was in the street, or among the soldiers, he found himself in the midst of the entire nation. The sentiments of the day succeeded even in making proselytes among the officers themselves, particularly after the celebrated oath to the Nation, the Law, and the King. Until that time,” continued the Emperor, “had I received an order to point my cannon against the people, I have no doubt, that custom, prejudice, education, and the name of the King, would have induced me to obey; but, the national oath once taken, this would have ceased, and I should have acknowledged the nation only. My natural propensities thenceforth harmonized with my duties, and happily accorded with all the metaphysics of the Assembly. The patriotic officers, however, it must be allowed, constituted but the smaller number; but with the soldiers, as a lever, they led the regiment and imposed the law. The comrades of the opposite party, and the officers themselves, had recourse to us in every critical moment. I remember, for instance, having rescued from the fury of the populace a brother officer, whose crime consisted in singing from the windows of our dining-room the celebrated ballad O Richard! O mon Roi! I had little notion then that that air would one day be proscribed in the same manner on my account. Just so, on the 10th of August, when I saw the palace of the Tuileries stormed and the person of the King seized, I was certainly very far from thinking that I should replace him, and that that palace would be my place of residence.”

In dwelling upon the events of the 10th of August, he said: “I was, during that horrible epoch, at Paris, in lodgings in the Rue du Mail, Place des Victoires. On hearing the sound of the tocsin, and the news of the assault upon the Tuileries, I ran to the Carousel, to the house of Fauvelet, the brother of Bourrienne, who kept an upholsterer’s shop. He had been my comrade at the military school of Brienne. It was from that house, which, by the by, I was never afterwards able to find, in consequence of the great alterations made there, that I had a good view of all the circumstances of the attack. Before I reached the Carousel, I had been met by a group of hideous-looking men, carrying a head at the end of a pike. Seeing me decently dressed, with the look of a gentleman, they called upon me to shout Vive la Nation! which, as it may be easily believed, I did without hesitation.

“The palace was attacked by the vilest rabble. The King had unquestionably for his defence as many troops as the Convention afterwards had on the 13th Vendémiaire[Vendémiaire], and the enemies of the latter were much better disciplined and more formidable. The greater part of the national guard shewed themselves favourable to the King; this justice is due to them.”

Here the Grand Marshal observed “that he actually belonged to one of the battalions which manifested the most determined devotion. He was several times on the point of being massacred as he returned alone to his residence.” We remarked, on our part, that in general the national guard of Paris had constantly displayed the virtues of its class; the love of order, attachment to authority, the dread of plunder, and the detestation of anarchy; and that also was the Emperor’s opinion.

“The palace being forced, and the King having repaired to the Assembly,” continued he, “I ventured to penetrate into the garden. Never since has any of my fields of battle given me the idea of so many dead bodies, as I was impressed with by the heaps of the Swiss; whether the smallness of the place seemed to increase the number, or because it was the result of the first impression I ever received of that kind. I saw well dressed women commit the grossest indecencies on the dead bodies of the Swiss. I went through all the coffee-houses in the neighbourhood of the Assembly; the irritation was every where extreme; fury was in every heart and shewed itself in every countenance, although the persons thus enflamed were far from belonging to the class of the populace; and all these places must necessarily have been frequented daily by the same visitors: for, although I had nothing particular in my dress, or perhaps it was because my countenance was more calm, it was easy for me to perceive that I excited many hostile and distrustful looks, as some one who was unknown or suspected.”

MASKED BALLS.—MADAME DE MÉGRIGNY.—PIEDMONT AND THE PIEDMONTESE.—CANALS OF FRANCE.—PLANS RESPECTING PARIS.—VERSAILLES.—FONTAINEBLEAU, &C.

4th.—The weather was much improved. The Emperor ordered his calash, and walked a good way until it took him up.

The conversation turned upon masked balls, which the Emperor was peculiarly fond of and frequently ordered. He was then always sure of a certain meeting which never failed to take place. He was, he said, regularly accosted every year by the same mask, who reminded him of old intimacies, and ardently entreated to be received and admitted at Court. The mask was a most amiable, kind, and beautiful woman, to whom many persons were certainly much indebted. The Emperor, who continued to love her, always answered;—“I do not deny that you are charming, but reflect a little upon your situation; be your own judge and decide. You have two or three husbands, and children by several of your lovers. It would have been thought a happiness to have shared in the first fault; the second would have caused pain, but still it might be pardoned; but the sequel—and then, and then!... Fancy yourself the Emperor and judge; what would you do in my place, I who am bound to revive and maintain a certain decorum.” The beautiful suitor either did not reply, or said:—“At least do not deprive me of hope;” and deferred her claims of happiness to the following year. And each of us,” said the Emperor, “was punctual at the new meeting.”

The Emperor took great pleasure in getting himself insulted at these balls. He laughed heartily at the house of Cambacérès one day, on being told by a Madame de St. D——, “that there were people at the ball who ought to be turned out, and that they certainly could not have got admittance without stolen tickets.”

Another time, he forced the tender and timid Madame de Mégrigny to rise and retire in anger, and with tears in her eyes, complaining that the freedom, allowed at a masked ball, had, in her case, been sadly abused. The Emperor had just put her in mind of a very remarkable favour, which he had formerly granted to her, and added that every one supposed she had paid for it by granting him the lord’s right. “But there was,” said the Emperor, “nobody but myself who could say so, without insulting her; because, although such was the report, I was certain of its falsehood.” The following is an account of the circumstance.

When the Emperor was on his way to be crowned at Milan, he slept at Troyes. The authorities were presented to him; and with them was a young lady, on the point of being married, with a petition, intreating his protection and assistance. As the Emperor was, besides, desirous of doing something which might produce a good effect, and prove agreeable to the country, the circumstance appeared favourable, and he took advantage of it with all imaginable grace. The young lady (Madame de Mégrigny) belonged to the first families of this province, but had been completely ruined by the emigration. She had scarcely returned to the miserable abode of her parents, when a page arrived with the Emperor’s decree, which put them in possession of an income of 30,000 francs or more. The effect of such a proceeding may be well imagined. However, as the young lady was very charming and perfectly handsome, it was decided that her fascinations had some share in his gallantry, although he left the town a few hours afterwards, and never thought more of the thing; but the general opinion was not a jot altered on that account. It is well known how stories are formed; and as she married one of his equerries, and had consequently come to Court, all this had been so well mingled together that, when she was afterwards appointed sub-governess to the King of Rome, the choice shocked, for a moment, the austere Madame de Montesquiou, who suspected, said the Emperor, that it was but a mere arrangement.

The Emperor said that he renewed at Turin, in the person of Madame de Lascaris, the gracious gallantry exercised at Troyes; and that, in both instances, he had reason to be gratified with the results of his liberality. The two families gave proofs of attachment and gratitude.

We enquired what might have been the sentiments of Piedmont with regard to himself. He had, he said, a particular affection for that province. M. de Saint-Marsan, on whose fidelity he relied to the end, had assured him, at the period of our reverses, that the country would shew itself one of his best provinces.

“In fact,” continued the Emperor, “the Piedmontese do not like to be a small state; their King was a real feudal lord, whom it was necessary to court, or to dread: He had more power and authority than I, who, as Emperor of the French, was but a supreme magistrate, bound to see the laws executed, and unable to dispense with them. Had I it in my power to prevent the arrest of a courtier for debt? Could I have put a stop to the regular action of the laws, no matter upon whom they operated?”

During the conversation at dinner, the Emperor inquired whether the quantity of river water flowing into the Mediterranean and the Black Sea had been calculated. This led him to express a wish that a calculation of the fluvial water of Europe should be made, and that the proportion contributed by each valley and each stream, should be ascertained. He regretted much that he had not proposed this series of scientific questions. This was, he observed, his grand system. Did any useful, curious or interesting idea suggest itself to him: “I proposed, at my levees, or in my familiar communications, analogous questions to my Members of the Institute, with orders to resolve them. The solution became the subject of public inquiry; it was analyzed, contested, adopted or rejected; and there is nothing which cannot be accomplished in this way. It is the grand lever of improvement for a great nation, possessing a great deal of intelligence, and a great deal of knowledge.”

The Emperor also observed on this subject, that geography had never been so successfully cultivated as at present, and that his expeditions had contributed somewhat to its improvement. He afterwards noticed the canals, which he had caused to be made in France, and particularly mentioned that from Strasburg to Lyons, in which, he hoped sufficient progress had been made to induce others to complete it. He thought that, out of thirty millions, twenty-four must have been already expended.

“Communications are now established in the interior from Bordeaux to Lyons and Paris. I had constructed a great number of canals, and projected a great many more.” One of us having observed that a proposal for the construction of a very useful canal had been submitted to the Emperor, but that measures had been taken to deceive him, for the purpose of preventing his acceptance of the offer: “Without doubt,” said the Emperor, “the plan must have appeared advantageous only on paper; but I suppose it would have been necessary to advance money, which was drawn from me with difficulty.”—No, Sire, the refusal was but the effect of an intrigue. Your Majesty was deceived.”—“It was impossible, with respect to such a subject. You speak without sufficient information.”—“But I am confident of it. I was acquainted with the plan, the offers and the subscribers; my relations had put down their names for considerable sums. The object was the union of the Meuse with the Marne. The length of the canal would have been less than seven leagues.”—“But you do not tell us all; it was, perhaps, required that I should grant immense national forests in the environs, which I should not have agreed to.”—“No, Sire, the whole was an intrigue of your Board of Bridges and Roads.”—“But even then, it was necessary for them to allege some reasons, some appearance of public interest. What reasons did they assign?”—“Sire, that the profits would have been too considerable.”—“But in that case the plan ought to have been submitted to me in person, and I would have carried it into execution. I repeat, that you are not justified by the facts; you are speaking now to a man upon the very subject which constantly engaged his attention. The Board of Bridges and Roads were, on their part, never better pleased than when they were employed. There never was an individual who proposed the construction of a bridge that was not taken at his word. If he asked for a toll for twenty-five years, I was disposed to grant him one for thirty. If it cost me nothing, it was a matter of indifference whether it would prove useful. It was still a capital with which I enriched the soil. Instead of rejecting proposals for canals, I eagerly courted them. But, my dear Sir, there are no two things that resemble each other so little as the conversation of a saloon, and the consideration of an Administrative Council. The projector is always right in a saloon; his projects would be magnificent and infallible, if he were listened to, and if he can, by some little contrivance, but connect the refusal under which he[he] suffers with some bottles of wine, with some intrigue carried on by a wife or a mistress, the romance is complete, and that is what you probably heard. But an Administrative Council is not to be managed so, because it comes to no decision but on facts and accurate measurement. What is the canal you mentioned? I cannot be unacquainted with it.”—“Sire, from the Meuse to the Marne, a distance of seven leagues only.”—“Very well! my dear Sir, it is from the Meuse to the Aisne you mean, and it would have been less than seven leagues. I shall soon recollect all about it; there is, however, but one little difficulty to overcome, and that is that at this very instant it is doubtful whether the project be practicable. There, as in other places, Hippocrates says yes, and Galen says no. Tarbé maintained that it was impossible, and denied that there was a sufficiency of water at the point where it was to commence. I repeat, that you are speaking to him, who, of all others was the most attentive to these objects, more especially in the environs of Paris. It was the constant subject of my thoughts to render Paris the real capital of Europe. I sometimes wished it, for instance, to become a city with a population of two, three, or four millions, in short, something fabulous, colossal, unexampled until our days, and with public establishments suitable to its population.”

Some one having then observed that, if Heaven had allowed the Emperor to reign sixty years, as it had Louis XIV., he would have left many grand monuments: “Had Heaven but granted me twenty years, and a little more leisure,” resumed the Emperor with vivacity, “ancient Paris would have been sought for in vain; not a trace of it would have been left, and I should have changed the face of France. Archimedes promised to do any thing, provided he had a resting place for his lever; I should have done as much, wherever I could have found a point of support for my energy, my perseverance, and my budgets; a world might be created with budgets. I should have displayed the difference between a constitutional Emperor and a King of France. The Kings of France have never possessed any administrative or municipal institution. They have merely shown themselves great Lords who were ruined by their men of business.

“The nation itself has nothing in its character and its tastes but what is transitory and perishable. Every thing is done for the gratification of the moment and of caprice, nothing for duration.... That is our motto, and it is exemplified by our manners in France. Every one passes his life in doing and undoing; nothing is ever left behind. Is it not unbecoming that Paris should not possess even a French theatre, or an Opera house, in any respect worthy of its high claims?

“I have often set myself against the feasts which the city of Paris wished to give me. They consisted of dinners, balls, artificial fire-works, at an expense of four, six, or eight hundred thousand francs; the preparations for which obstructed the public for several days, and which afterwards cost as much for their removal as they had for their construction. I proved that, with these idle expenses, they might have erected lasting and magnificent monuments.

“One must have gone through as much as I have, in order to be acquainted with all the difficulty of doing good. If the business related to chimneys, partitions, and furniture for some individuals in the imperial palaces, the work was quickly accomplished; but if it was necessary to lengthen the garden of the Tuileries, to render some quarters wholesome, to cleanse some sewers, and to perform a task beneficial to the public, in which particular persons had no direct interest, I found it requisite to exert all the energy of my character, to write six, ten letters a day, and to get into a downright passion. It was in this way that I laid out as much as thirty millions in sewers, for which no body will ever thank me. I pulled down a property worth seventeen millions in houses in front of the Tuileries, for the purpose of forming the Carousel, and throwing open the Louvre. What I did is immense; what I had resolved to do and what I had projected was much more so.”

A person then remarked that the Emperor’s labours had not been limited either to Paris or to France, but that almost every city in Italy exhibited traces of his creative powers. Wherever one travelled, at the foot as well as on the top of the Alps, in the sands of Holland, on the banks of the Rhine, Napoleon, always Napoleon, was to be seen.

In consequence of this remark, he observed that he had determined on draining the Pontine marshes. “Cæsar,” he said, “was about to undertake it, when he perished.” Then reverting to France; “The kings, he said, had too many country-houses and useless objects. Any impartial historian will be justified in blaming Louis XIV. for his excessive and idle expenditure at Versailles, involved as he was in wars, taxes, and calamities. He exhausted himself for the purpose of forming after all but a bastard town.” The Emperor then analyzed the advantages of an administrative city, that is to say, calculated for the union of the different branches of administration, and they seemed to him truly problematical.

The Emperor did not conceal his opinion that the capital was not, at times, a fit residence for the sovereign; but, in another point of view, Versailles was not suitable to the great, the ministers, and the courtiers. Louis XIV. therefore committed a blunder, if he undertook to build Versailles solely for the residence of the kings, when Saint Germain was, in every respect, ready for the purpose; Nature seemed to have made it expressly for the real residence of the kings of France. Napoleon himself had committed faults in that respect: for it was not right he said to praise himself for all that had been done in this way. He ought, for instance, to have given up Compiegne, and he regretted having celebrated his marriage there instead of selecting Fontainebleau. “That,” said he, referring to Fontainebleau, “is the real abode of kings, the house of ages; it is not, perhaps, strictly speaking, an architectural palace; but it is, unquestionably, well calculated and perfectly suitable. It was certainly the most commodious and the most happily situated in Europe for a sovereign.”

He then took a review of the capitals he had visited, of the palaces he had seen, and claimed a decided superiority in our favour. Fontainebleau, he further added, was also, at the same time, the most suitable political and military situation. The Emperor reproached himself with the sums he had expended on Versailles, but yet it was, he said, necessary to prevent it from falling into ruin. The demolition of a considerable part of that palace was a subject of consideration, during the Revolution; it was proposed to take away the centre, and thus to separate the two wings. “It would have been of essential service to me,” he observed; “for nothing is so expensive or so truly useless as this multitude of palaces: and if, nevertheless, I undertook that of the King of Rome, it was because I had views peculiar to myself; and besides, in reality, I never thought of doing more than preparing the ground. There I should have stopped.[^[5]]

“My errors, in disbursements of this kind, could not, after all, be very great. They were, thanks to my budgets, observed and necessarily corrected every year, and could never exceed a small part of the expense occasioned by the original fault.”

The Emperor assured us that he experienced every possible difficulty in making his system of budgets intelligible, and in carrying it into execution. Whenever a plan to the amount of thirty millions, which suited me, was proposed; Granted, was my answer, but to be completed in twenty years, that is to say, at a million and a half francs a-year. So far, all went on very smoothly; but what am I to get, I added, for my first year? For if my expenditure is to be divided into parts, it is, however, my determination to have the result, the work, as far as it goes, entire and complete. In this manner, I wished at first for a recess, an apartment, no matter what, but something perfect, for my million and a half of francs. The architects seemed resolved not to comprehend my meaning; it narrowed their expansive views and their grand effects. They would, at once, have willingly erected a whole façade, which must have remained for a long time useless, and thus involved me in immense disbursements, which, if interrupted, would have swallowed up every thing.

“It was in this manner, which was peculiar to myself, and in spite of so many political and military obstacles, that I executed so many undertakings. I had collected furniture belonging to the Crown, to the amount of forty millions, and plate worth at least, four millions. How many palaces have I not repaired? Perhaps, too many; I return to that subject. Thanks to my mode of acting, I was enabled to inhabit Fontainebleau within one year after the repairs were begun, and it cost me no more than 5 or 600,000 francs. If I have since expended six millions on it, that was done in six years. It would have cost me much more in the course of time. My principal object was to make the expense light and imperceptible, and to give durability to the work.

“During my visits to Fontainebleau,” said the Emperor, “from 12 to 1500 persons were invited and lodged, with every convenience; upwards of 3000 might be entertained at dinner, and this cost the Sovereign very little, in consequence of the admirable order and regularity established by Duroc. More than twenty or five-and-twenty Princes, Dignitaries, or Ministers, were obliged to keep their households there.

“I disapproved the building of Versailles; but in my ideas respecting Paris, and they were occasionally gigantic, I thought of making it useful and of converting it, in the course of time, into a kind of fauxbourg, an adjacent site, a point of view from the grand capital; and, for the purpose of more effectually appropriating it to that end, I had conceived a plan, of which I had a description sketched out.

“It was my intention to expel from its beautiful groves those nymphs, the productions of a wretched taste, and those ornaments à la Turcaret, and to replace them by panoramas, in masonry, of all the capitals, into which we had entered victorious, and of all the celebrated battles, which had shed lustre on our arms. It would have been a collection of so many eternal monuments of our triumphs and our national glory, placed at the gate of the capital of Europe, which necessarily could not fail of being visited by the rest of the world.” Here he suddenly left off, and began reading Le Distrait, but he almost instantly laid it aside, whether from the agitation of his own thoughts, or from a nervous cough, with which he had, for a short time, been often affected after dinner. He certainly gets considerably worse, and his health is altogether declining.

PLAN OF A HISTORY OF EUROPE.—SELIM III.—FORCES OF A TURKISH SULTAN.—THE MAMELUKES.—ON THE REGENCY.