Ver.10/04/01*END*
This etext was produced by David Widger
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, at the end of several of the
files for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making
an entire meal of them. D.W.]
MEMOIRS OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, VOLUME 15.
By LOUIS ANTOINE FAUVELET DE BOURRIENNE
His Private Secretary
Edited by R. W. Phipps
Colonel, Late Royal Artillery
1891
CONTENTS:
CHAPTER XI. to CHAPTER XII. 1815
CHAPTER XI.
1815.
My departure from Hamburg-The King at St. Denis--Fouche appointed
Minister of the Police--Delay of the King's entrance into Paris--
Effect of that delay--Fouche's nomination due to the Duke of
Wellington--Impossibility of resuming my post--Fouche's language
with respect to the Bourbons--His famous postscript--Character of
Fouche--Discussion respecting the two cockades--Manifestations of
public joy repressed by Fouche--Composition of the new Ministry--
Kind attention of Blucher--The English at St. Cloud--Blucher in
Napoleon's cabinet--My prisoner become my protector--Blucher and the
innkeeper's dog--My daughter's marriage contract--Rigid etiquette--
My appointment to the Presidentship of the Electoral College of the
Yonne--My interview with Fouche--My audience of the King--His
Majesty made acquainted with my conversation with Fouche--The Duke
of Otranto's disgrace--Carnot deceived by Bonaparte--My election as
deputy--My colleague, M. Raudot--My return to Paris--Regret caused
by the sacrifice of Ney--Noble conduct of Macdonald--A drive with
Rapp in the Bois de Boulogne--Rapp's interview with Bonaparte in
1815--The Due de Berri and Rapp--My nomination to the office of
Minister of State--My name inscribed by the hand of Louis XVIII.--
Conclusion.
The fulfilment of my prediction was now at hand, for the result of the
Battle of Waterloo enabled Louis XVIII. to return to his dominions. As
soon as I heard of the King's departure from Ghent I quitted Hamburg, and
travelled with all possible haste in the hope of reaching Paris in time
to witness his Majesty's entrance. I arrived at St. Denis on the 7th of
July, and, notwithstanding the intrigues that were set on foot, I found
an immense number of persons assembled to meet the King. Indeed, the
place was so crowded that it was with the greatest difficulty I could
procure even a little garret for my lodging.
Having resumed my uniform of a captain of the National Guard, I proceeded
immediately to the King's palace. The salon was filled with ladies and
gentlemen who had come to congratulate the King on his return. At St.
Denis I found my family, who, not being aware that I had left Hamburg,
were much surprised to see me.
They informed me that the Parisians were all impatient for the return of
the King--a fact of which I could judge by the opposition manifested to
the free expression of public feeling. Paris having been declared in a
state of blockade, the gates were closed, and no one was permitted to
leave the capital, particularly by the Barriere de la Chapelle. It is
true that special permission might be obtained, and with tolerable ease,
by those who wished to leave the city; but the forms to be observed for
obtaining the permission deterred the mass of the people from proceeding
to St. Denis, which, indeed, was the sole object of the regulation. As
it had been resolved to force Fouche and the tri-coloured cockade upon
the King, it was deemed necessary to keep away from his Majesty all who
might persuade him to resist the proposed measures. Madame de Bourrienne
told me that on her arrival at St. Denis she called upon M. Hue and M.
Lefebvre, the King's physician, who both acquainted her with those fatal
resolutions. Those gentlemen, however, assured her that the King would
resolutely hold out against the tri-coloured cockade, but the nomination
of the ill-omened man appeared inevitable.
Fouche Minister of the Police! If, like Don Juan, I had seen a statue
move, I could not have been more confounded than when I heard this news.
I could not credit it until it was repeated to me by different persons.
How; indeed, could I think that at the moment of a reaction the King
should have entrusted the most important ministerial department to a man
to whose arrest he had a hundred days before attached so much
consequence? to a man, moreover, whom Bonaparte had appointed, at Lyons,
to fill the same office! This was inconceivable! Thus, in less than
twenty-four hours, the same man had been entrusted to execute measures
the most opposite, and to serve interests the most contradictory. He was
one day the minister of usurpation, and the next the minister of
legitimacy! How can I express what I felt when Fouche took the oath of
fidelity to Louis XVIII. when I saw the King clasp in his hands the hands
of Fouche! I was standing near M. de Chateaubriand, whose feelings must
have been similar to mine, to judge from a passage in his admirable work,
'La Monarchie selon la Charte'. "About nine in the evening," he says, "I
was in one of the royal antechambers. All at once the door opened, and I
saw the President of the Council enter leaning on the arm of the new
minister. Oh, Louis-le-Desire! Oh, my unfortunate master! you have
proved that there is no sacrifice which your people may not expect from
your paternal heart!"
Fouche was resolved to have his restoration as well as M. de Talleyrand,
who had had his the year before; he therefore contrived to retard the
King's entry into Paris for four days. The prudent members of the
Chamber of Peers, who had taken no part in the King's Government in 1814,
were the first to declare that it was for the interest of France to
hasten his Majesty's entrance into Paris, in order to prevent foreigners
from exercising a sort of right of conquest in a city which was a prey to
civil dissension and party influence. Blucher informed me that the way
in which Fouche contrived to delay the King's return greatly contributed
to the pretensions of the foreigners who, he confessed, were very well
pleased to see the population of Paris divided in opinion, and to hear
the alarming cries raised by the confederates of the Faubourgs when the
King was already at St. Denis.
I know for a fact that Louis XVIII. wished to have nothing to do with
Fouche, and indignantly refused to appoint him when he was first
proposed. But he had so nobly served Bonaparte during the Hundred Days
that it was necessary he should be rewarded. Fouche, besides, had gained
the support of a powerful party among the emigrants of the Faubourg St.
Germain, and he possessed the art of rendering himself indispensable.
I have heard many honest men say very seriously that to him was due the
tranquillity of Paris. Moreover, Wellington was the person by whose
influence in particular Fouche was made one of the counsellors of the
King. After all the benefits which foreigners had conferred upon us
Fouche was indeed an acceptable present to France and to the King.
I was not ignorant of the Duke of Wellington's influence upon the affairs
of the second Restoration, but for a long time I refused to believe that
his influence should have outweighed all the serious considerations
opposed to such a perfect anomaly as appointing Fouche the Minister of a
Bourbon. But I was deceived. France and the King owed to him Fouche's
introduction into the Council, and I had to thank him for the
impossibility of resuming a situation which I had relinquished for the
purpose of following the King into Belgium. Could I be Prefect of Police
under a Minister whom a short time before I had received orders to
arrest, but who eluded my agents? That was impossible. The King could
not offer me the place of Prefect under Fouche, and if he had I could not
have accepted it. I was therefore right in not relying on the assurances
which had been given me; but I confess that if I had been told to guess
the cause why they could not be realised I never should have thought that
cause would have been the appointment of Fouche as a Minister of the King
of France. At first, therefore, I was of course quite forgotten, as is
the custom of courts when a faithful subject refrains from taking part in
the intrigues of the moment.
I have already frequently stated my opinion of the pretended talent of
Fouche; but admitting his talent to have been as great as was supposed,
that would have been an additional reason for not entrusting the general
police of the kingdom to him. His principles and conduct were already
sufficiently known. No one could be ignorant of the language he held
respecting the Bourbons, and in which be indulged as freely after he
became the Minister of Louis XVIII. as when he was the Minister of
Bonaparte. It was universally known that in his conversation the
Bourbons were the perpetual butt for his sarcasms, that he never
mentioned them but in terms of disparagement, and that he represented
them as unworthy of governing France. Everybody must have been aware
that Fouche, in his heart, favoured a Republic, where the part of
President might have been assigned to him. Could any one have forgotten
the famous postscript he subjoined to a letter he wrote from Lyons to his
worthy friend Robespierre: "To celebrate the fete of the Republic
suitably, I have ordered 250 persons to be shot?" And to this man, the
most furious enemy of the restoration of the monarchy, was consigned the
task of consolidating it for the second time! But it would require
another Claudian to describe this new Rufinus!
Fouche never regarded a benefit in any other light than as the means of
injuring his benefactor. The King, deceived, like many other persons, by
the reputation which Fouche's partisans had conjured up for him, was
certainly not aware that Fouche had always discharged the functions of
Minister in his own interest, and never for the interest of the
Government which had the weakness to entrust him with a power always
dangerous in his hands. Fouche had opinions, but he belonged to no
party, and his political success is explained by the readiness with which
he always served the party he knew must triumph, and which he himself
overthrew in its turn. He maintained himself in favour from the days of
blood and terror until the happy time of the second Restoration only by
abandoning and sacrificing those who were attached to him; and it might
be said that his ruling passion was the desire of continual change. No
man was ever characterised by greater levity or inconstancy of mind. In
all things he looked only to himself, and to this egotism he sacrificed
both subjects and Governments. Such were the secret causes of the sway
exercised by Fouche during the Convention, the Directory, the Empire, the
Usurpation, and after the second return of the Bourbons. He helped to
found and to destroy every one of those successive Governments. Fouche's
character is perfectly unique. I know no other man who, loaded with
honours, and almost escaping disgrace, has passed through so many
eventful periods, and taken part in so many convulsions and revolutions.
On the 7th of July the King was told that Fouche alone could smooth the
way for his entrance into Paris, that he alone could unlock the gates of
the capital, and that he alone had power to control public opinion. The
reception given to the King on the following day afforded an opportunity
of judging of the truth of these assertions. The King's presence was the
signal for a feeling of concord, which was manifested in a very decided
way. I saw upon the boulevards, and often in company with each other,
persons, some of whom had resumed the white cockade, while others still
retained the national colours, and harmony was not in the least disturbed
by these different badges.
Having returned to private life solely on account of Fouche's presence in
the Ministry, I yielded to that consolation which is always left to the
discontented. I watched the extravagance and inconsistency that were
passing around me, and the new follies which were every day committed;
and it must be confessed that a rich and varied picture presented itself
to my observation. The King did not bring back M. de Blacas. His
Majesty had yielded to prudent advice, and on arriving at Mons sent the
unlucky Minister as his ambassador to Naples. Vengeance was talked of,
and there were some persons inconsiderate enough to wish that advantage
should be taken of the presence of the foreigners in order to make what
they termed "an end of the Revolution," as if there were any other means
of effecting that object than frankly adopting whatever good the
Revolution had produced. The foreigners observed with satisfaction the
disposition of these shallow persons, which they thought might be turned
to their own advantage. The truth is, that on the second Restoration our
pretended allies proved themselves our enemies.
But for them, but for their bad conduct, their insatiable exactions, but
for the humiliation that was felt at seeing foreign cannon planted in the
streets of Paris, and beneath the very windows of the Palace, the days
which followed the 8th of July might have been considered by the Royal
Family as the season of a festival. Every day people thronged to the
garden of the Tuileries, and expressed their joy by singing and dancing
under the King's windows.
This ebullition of feeling might perhaps be thought absurd, but it at
least bore evidence of the pleasure caused by the return of the Bourbons.
This manifestation of joy by numbers of persons of both sexes, most of
them belonging to the better classes of society, displeased Fouche, and
he determined to put a stop to it. Wretches were hired to mingle with
the crowd and sprinkle corrosive liquids on the dresses of the females
some of them were even instructed to commit acts of indecency, so that
all respectable persons were driven from the gardens through the fear of
being injured or insulted: As it was wished to create disturbance under
the very eyes of the King, and to make him doubt the reality of the
sentiments so openly expressed in his favour, the agents of the Police
mingled the cry of "Vive l'Empereur!" with that of "Vive le Roi!" and it
happened oftener than once that the most respectable persons were
arrested and charged by Fouche's infamous agents with having uttered
seditious cries. A friend of mine, whose Royalist opinions were well
known, and whose father had been massacred during the Revolution, told me
that while walking with two ladies he heard some individuals near him
crying out "Vive l'Empereur!" This created a great disturbance. The
sentinel advanced to the spot, and those very individuals themselves had
the audacity to charge my friend with being guilty of uttering the
offensive cry. In vain the bystanders asserted the falsehood of the
accusation; he was seized and dragged to the guard-house, and after being
detained for some hours he was liberated on the application of his
friends. By dint of such wretched manoeuvres Fouche triumphed. He
contrived to make it be believed that he was the only person capable of
preventing the disorders of which he himself was the sole author: He got
the Police of the Tuileries under his control. The singing and dancing
ceased, and the Palace was the abode of dulness.
While the King was at St. Denis he restored to General Dessoles the
command of the National Guard. The General ordered the barriers to be
immediately thrown open. On the day of his arrival in Paris the King
determined, as a principle, that the throne should be surrounded by a
Privy Council, the members of which were to be the princes and persons
whom his Majesty might appoint at a future period. The King then named
his new Ministry, which was thus composed:
Prince Talleyrand, peer of France, President of the Council of Ministers,
and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
Baron Louis, Minister of Finance.
The Duke of Otranto, Minister of the Police.
Baron Pasquier, Minister of Justice, and Keeper of the Seals.
Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr, War Minister.
Comte de Jaucourt, peer of France, Minister of the Marine.
The Duc de Richelieu, peer of France, Minister of the King's Household.
The portfolio of the Minister of the Interior, which was not immediately
disposed of, was provisionally entrusted to the Minister of Justice. But
what was most gratifying to the public in the composition of this new
ministry was that M. de Blacas, who had made himself so odious to
everybody, was superseded by M. de Richelieu, whose name revived the
memory of a great Minister, and who, by his excellent conduct throughout
the whole course of his career, deserves to be distinguished as a model
of honour and wisdom.
General satisfaction was expressed on the appointment of Marshal
Macdonald to the post of Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honour in lieu
of M. de Pradt. M. de Chabrol resumed the Prefecture of the Seine,
which, during the Hundred Days, had been occupied by M. de Bondi, M. de
Mole was made Director-General of bridges and causeways. I was
superseded in the Prefecture of Police by M. Decazes, and M. Beugnot
followed M. Ferrand as Director-General of the Post-office.
I think it was on the 10th of July that I went to St. Cloud to pay a
visit of thanks to Blucher. I had been informed that as soon as he
learned I had a house at St. Cloud he sent a guard to protect it. This
spontaneous mark of attention was well deserving of grateful
acknowledgment, especially at a time when there was so much reason to
complain of the plunder practised by the Prussians. My visit to Blucher
presented to observation a striking instance of the instability of human
greatness. I found Blucher residing like a sovereign in the Palace of
St. Cloud, where I had lived so long in the intimacy of Napoleon, at a
period when he dictated laws to the Kings of Europe before he was a
monarch himself.
--[The English occupied St. Cloud after the Prussians. My large
house, in which the children of the Comte d'Artois were inoculated,
was respected by them, but they occupied a small home forming part
of the estate. The English officer who commanded the troops
stationed a guard at the large house. One morning we were informed
that the door had been broken open and a valuable looking-glass
stolen. We complained to the commanding officer, and on the affair
being inquired into it was discovered that the sentinel himself had
committed the theft. The man was tried by a court-martial, and
condemned to death, a circumstance which, as may naturally be
supposed, was very distressing to us. Madame de Bourrienne applied
to the commanding officer for the man's pardon, but could only
obtain his reprieve. The regiment departed some weeks after, and we
could never learn what was the fate of the criminal.--Bourrienne.]--
In that cabinet in which Napoleon and I had passed so many busy hours,
and where so many great plans had their birth, I was received by the man
who had been my prisoner at Hamburg. The Prussian General immediately
reminded me of the circumstance. "Who could have foreseen," said he,
"that after being your prisoner I should become the protector of your
property? You treated me well at Hamburg, and I have now an opportunity
of repaying your kindness. Heaven knows what will be the result of all
this! One thing, however, is certain, and that is, that the Allies will
now make such conditions as will banish all possibility of danger for a
long time to come. The Emperor Alexander does not wish to make the
French people expiate too dearly the misfortunes they have caused us.
He attributes them to Napoleon, but Napoleon cannot pay the expenses of
the war, and they must be paid by some one. It was all very well for
once, but we cannot pay the expense of coming back a second time.
However," added he, "you will lose none of your territory; that is a
point on which I can give you positive assurance. The Emperor Alexander
has several times repeated in my presence to the King my master,
'I honour the French nation, and I am determined that it shall preserve
its old limits.'"
The above are the very words which Blucher addressed to me. Profiting by
the friendly sentiments he expressed towards me I took the opportunity of
mentioning the complaints that were everywhere made of the bad discipline
of the troops under his command. "What can I do?" said he. "I cannot
be present everywhere; but I assure you that in future and at your
recommendation I will severely punish any misconduct that may come to my
knowledge."
Such was the result of my visit to Blucher; but, in spite of his
promises, his troops continued to commit the most revolting excesses.
Thus the Prussian troops have left in the neighbourhood of Paris
recollections no less odious than those produced by the conduct of
Davoust's corps in Prussia.--Of this an instance now occurs to my
memory, which I will relate here. In the spring of 1816, as I was going
to Chevreuse, I stopped at the Petit Bicetre to water my horse. I seated
myself for a few minutes near the door of the inn, and a large dog
belonging to the innkeeper began to bark and growl at me. His master, a
respectable-looking old man, exclaimed, "Be quiet, Blucher!"--"How came
you to give your dog that name?" said I.--"Ah, sir! it is the name of a
villain who did a great deal of mischief here last year. There is my
house; they have left scarcely anything but the four walls. They said
they came for our good; but let them come back again . . . . we will
watch them, and spear them like wild boars in the wood." The poor man's
house certainly exhibited traces of the most atrocious violence, and he
shed tears as he related to me his disasters.
Before the King departed for Ghent he had consented to sign the contract
of marriage between one of my daughters and M. Massieu de Clerval, though
the latter was at that time only a lieutenant in the navy. The day
appointed for the signature of the contract happened to be Sunday, the
19th of March, and it may well be imagined that in the critical
circumstances in which we then stood, a matter of so little importance
could scarcely be thought about. In July I renewed my request to his
Majesty; which gave rise to serious discussions in the Council of
Ceremonies. Lest any deviation from the laws of rigid etiquette should
commit the fate of the monarchy, it was determined that the marriage
contract of a lieutenant in the navy could be signed only at the petty
levee. However, his Majesty, recollecting the promise he had given me,
decided that the signature should be given at the grand levee. Though
all this may appear exceedingly ludicrous, yet I must confess that the
triumph over etiquette was very gratifying to me.
A short time after the King appointed me a Councillor of State; a title
which I had held under Bonaparte ever since his installation at the
Tuileries, though I had never fulfilled the functions of the office.
In the month of August; the King having resolved to convoke a new Chamber
of Deputies, I was appointed President of the Electoral College of the
department of the Yonne. As soon as I was informed of my nomination I
waited on M. de Talleyrand for my instructions, but he told me that, in
conformity with the King's intentions, I was to receive my orders from
the Minister of Police. I observed to M. de Talleyrand that I must
decline seeing Fouche, on account of the situation in which we stood with
reference to each other. "Go to him, go to him," said M. de Talleyrand,
"and be assured Fouche will say to you nothing on the subject."
I felt great repugnance to see Fouche, and consequently I went to him
quite against my inclination. I naturally expected a very cold
reception. What had passed between us rendered our interview exceedingly
delicate. I called on Fouche at nine in the morning, and found him
alone, and walking in his garden. He received me as a man might be
expected to receive an intimate friend whom he had not seen for a long
time. On reflection I was not very much surprised at this, for I was
well aware that Fouche could make his hatred yield to calculation. He
said not a word about his arrest, and it may well be supposed that I did
not seek to turn the conversation on that subject. I asked him whether
he had any information to give me respecting the elections of the Yonne.
"None at all," said he; "get yourself nominated if you can, only use your
endeavours to exclude General Desfouinaux. Anything else is a matter of
indifference to me."--"What is your objection to Desfournaux?"--"The
Ministry will not have him."
I was about to depart when Fouche; called me back saying, "Why are you in
such haste? Cannot you stay a few minutes longer?" He then began to
speak of the first return of the Bourbons, and asked me how I could so
easily bring myself to act in their favour. He then entered into details
respecting the Royal Family which I conceive it to be my duty to pass
over in silence: It may be added, however, that the conversation lasted a
long time, and to say the least of it, was by no means in favour of
"divine right."
I conceived it to be my duty to make the King acquainted with this
conversation, and as there was now no Comte de Blacas to keep truth and
good advice from his Majesty's ear, I was; on my first solicitation,
immediately admitted to, the Royal cabinet. I cautiously suppressed the
most startling details, for, had I literally reported what Fouche said,
Louis XVIII. could not possibly have given credit to it. The King
thanked me for my communication, and I could perceive he was convinced
that by longer retaining Fouche in office he would become the victim of
the Minister who had been so scandalously forced upon him on the 7th of
July. The disgrace of the Duke of Otranto speedily followed, and I had
the satisfaction of having contributed to repair one of the evils with
which the Duke of Wellington visited France.
Fouche was so evidently a traitor to the cause he feigned to serve, and
Bonaparte was so convinced of this,--that during the Hundred Days, when
the Ministers of the King at Ghent were enumerated in the presence of
Napoleon, some one said, "But where is the Minister of the Police?"
"E-h! Parbleu," said Bonaparte, "that is Fouche?" It was not the same
with Carnot, in spite of the indelible stain of his vote: if he had
served the King, his Majesty could have depended on him, but nothing
could shake the firmness of his principles in favour of liberty. I
learned, from a person who had the opportunity of being well informed,
that he would not accept the post of Minister of the Interior which was
offered to him at the commencement of the Hundred Days until he had a
conversation with Bonaparte, to ascertain whether he had changed his
principles. Carnot placed faith in the fair promises of Napoleon, who
deceived him, as he had deceived others.
Soon after my audience with the King I set off to discharge my duties in
the department of the Yonne, and I obtained the honour of being elected
to represent my countrymen in the Chamber of Deputies. My colleague was
M. Raudot, a man who, in very trying circumstances, had given proofs of
courage by boldly manifesting his attachment to the King's Government.
The following are the facts which I learned in connection with this
episode, and which I circulated as speedily as possible among the
electors of whom I had the honour to be President. Bonaparte, on his way
from Lyons to Paris, after his landing at the gulf of Juan, stopped at
Avalon, and immediately sent for the mayor, M. Raudot. He instantly
obeyed the summons. On coming into Napoleon's presence he said, "What do
you want, General? "This appellation displeased Napoleon, who
nevertheless put several questions to M. Raudot, who was willing to
oblige him as a traveller, but not to serve him as an Emperor. Napoleon
having given him some orders, this worthy servant of the King replied,
"General, I can receive no orders from you, for I acknowledge no
sovereign but the King, to whom I have sworn allegiance." Napoleon then
directed M. Raudot, in a tone of severity, to withdraw, and I need not
add that it was not long before he was dismissed from the mayoralty of
Avalon.
The elections of the Yonne being over, I returned to Paris, where I took
part in public affairs only as an amateur, while waiting for the opening
of the session. I was deeply grieved to see the Government resort to
measures of severity to punish faults which it would have been better
policy to attribute only to the unfortunate circumstances of the times.
No consideration can ever make me cease to regret the memory of Ney, who
was the victim of the influence of foreigners. Their object, as Blucher
intimated to me at St. Cloud, was to disable France from engaging in war
for a long time to come, and they hoped to effect that object by stirring
up between the Royal Government and the army of the Loire that spirit of
discord which the sacrifice of Ney could not fail to produce. I have no
positive proofs of the fact, but in my opinion Ney's life was a pledge of
gratitude which Fouche thought he must offer to the foreign influence
which had made him Minister.
About this time I learned a fact which will create no surprise, as it
affords another proof of the chivalrous disinterestedness of Macdonald's
character. When in 1815 several Marshals claimed from the Allied powers
their endowments in foreign countries, Madame Moreau, to whom the King
had given the honorary title of 'Madame la Marechale', and who was the
friend of the Duke of Tarentum, wrote, without Macdonald's knowledge, to
M. de Blacas; our ambassador at Naples, begging him to endeavour to
preserve for the Marshal the endowment which had been given him in the
Kingdom of Naples. As soon as Macdonald was informed of this
circumstance he waited upon Madame Moreau, thanked her for her kind
intentions, but at the same time informed her that he should disavow all
knowledge of her letter, as the request it contained was entirely averse
to his principles. The Marshal did, in fact, write the following letter
to M. de Blacas:--"I hasten to inform you, sir, that it was not with my
consent that Madame Moreau wrote to you, and I beg you will take no step
that might expose me to a refusal. The King of Naples owes me no
recompense for having beaten his army, revolutionised his kingdom, and
forced him to retire to Sicily." Such conduct was well worthy of the man
who was the last to forsake Napoleon in, 1814, and the first to rejoin
him, and that without the desire of accepting any appointment in 1815.
M. de Blacas, who was himself much surprised at Macdonald's letter,
communicated it to the King of Naples, whose answer deserves to be
recorded. It was as follows:--"If I had not imposed a law upon myself to
acknowledge none of the French endowments, the conduct of Marshal
Macdonald would have induced me to make an exception in his favour." It
is gratifying to see princes such scrupulous observers of the laws they
make for themselves!
About the end of August 1815, as I was walking on the Boulevard des
Capucines, I had the pleasure of meeting Rapp, whom I had not seen for a
long time. He had just come out of the house of Lagrenee, the artist,
who was painting his portrait. I was on foot, and Rapp's carriage was
waiting, so we both stepped into it, and set off to take a drive in the
Bois de Boulogne. We had a great deal to say to each other, for we had
not met since the great events of the two Restorations. The reason of
this was, that in 1814 I passed a part of the year at Sens, and since the
occurrences of March 1815 Rapp himself had been absent from Paris. I
found him perfectly resigned to his change of condition, though indulging
in a few oaths against the foreigners. Rapp was not one of those,
generals who betrayed the King on the 20th of March. He told me that he
remained at the head of the division which he commanded at Ecouen, under
the orders of the Due de Berry, and that he did not resign it to the War
Minister until after the King's departure. "How did Napoleon receive
you?" I inquired. "I waited till he sent for me. You know what sort of
fellow I am: I know nothing about politics; not I. I had sworn fidelity
to the King. I know my duty, and I would have fought against the
Emperor."--"Indeed!"--"Yes, certainly I would, and I told him so
myself."--"How! did you venture so far?"--"To be sure. I told him that
my resolution was definite. 'Pshaw! . . . replied he angrily.
'I knew well that you were opposed to me. If we had come to an action I
should have sought you out on the field of battle. I would have shown
you the Medusa's head. Would you have dared to fire on me?'--'Without
doubt,' I replied. `Ah! parbleu this is too much,' he said. 'But your
troops would not have obeyed you. They had preserved all their affection
for me.'--'What could I do?' resumed I. 'You abdicated, you left France,
you recommended us to serve the King--and then you return! Besides; I
tell you frankly, I do not augur well of what will happen. We shall have
war again. France has had enough of that.' Upon this," continued Rapp,
"he assured me that he had other thoughts; that he had no further desire
for war; that he wished to govern in peace, and devote himself solely to
the happiness of his people. When I hinted opposition on the part of the
Foreign Powers, he said that he had made alliances. He then spoke to me
of the King, and I said I had been much pleased with him; indeed, the
King gave me a very gratifying reception on my return from Kiow, and I
see no reason why I should complain, when I am so well used. During the
conversation the Emperor much extolled the conduct of the Duke of
Orleans. He then gave me some description of his passage from the Isle
of Elba and his journey to Paris. He complained of being accused of
ambition; and observing that I looked astonished and doubtful--`What?' he
continued, 'am I ambitious then?' And patting his belly with both his
hands, 'Can a man,' he asked, 'so fat as I am be ambitious?' I could not
for my soul help saying, 'Ah! Sire, your Majesty is surely joking.'
He pretended, however, to be serious, and after a few moments, noticing
my decorations, he began to banter me about the Cross of St. Louis and
the Cross of the Lily, which I still wore."
I asked Rapp whether all was true that had been said about the enthusiasm
which was manifested along the whole of Napoleon's route from the Gulf of
Juan to Paris. "Ma foe!" he replied, "I was not there any more than you,
but all those who accompanied him have assured me of the truth of the
details which have been published; but I recollect having heard Bertrand
say that on one occasion he was fearful for the safety of the Emperor, in
case any assassin should have presented himself. At Fossard, where the
Emperor stopped to breakfast on his way to Paris, his escort was so
fatigued as to be unable to follow, so that he was for some time almost
alone on the road, until a squadron which was in garrison at Melun met
him and escorted him to Fontainebleau. As to anything else, from all I
have heard, the Emperor was exposed to no danger."
We then began to talk of our situation, and the singular chances of our
fortune. Rapp told me how, within a few days only, he had ceased to be
one of the discontented; for the condition of the generals who had
commanded army corps in the campaign of Waterloo was very different in
1815 from what it had been in 1814. "I had determined," he said, "to
live a quiet life, to meddle with nothing, and not even to wear my
uniform. I had, therefore, since the King's return never presented
myself at Court; when, a week ago, while riding on horseback two or three
hundred paces from this spot, I saw a group of horsemen on the other
side of the avenue, one of whom galloped towards me. I immediately
recognised the Duc de Berry, 'How, Monseigneur, is it you?' I exclaimed.
'It is, my dear General; and since you will not come to us, I must come
to you. Will you breakfast with me tomorrow morning?'--'Ma foi!"
continued Rapp, "what could I do? The tone of kindness in which he gave
this invitation quite charmed me. I went, and I was treated so well that
I shall go again. But I will ask for nothing: I only want these
Prussians and English rascals out of the way! "I complimented Rapp on
his conduct, and told him that it was impossible that so loyal and honest
a man as he should not, at some time or other, attract the King's notice.
I had the happiness to see this prediction accomplished. Since that time
I regularly saw Rapp whenever we both happened to be in Paris, which was
pretty often.
I have already mentioned that in the month of August the King named me
Councillor of State. On the 19th of the following month I was appointed
Minister of State and member of the Privy Council. I may close these
volumes by relating a circumstance very flattering to me, and connected
with the last-mentioned nomination. The King had directed M. de
Talleyrand to present to him, in his official character of President of
the Council of Ministers, a list of the persons who might be deemed
suitable as members of the Privy Council. The King having read the list,
said to his Minister, "But, M. de Talleyrand, I do not see here the names
of two of our best friends, Bourrienne and Alexis de Noailles."--" Sire,
I thought their nomination would seem more flattering in coming directly
from your Majesty." The King then added my name to the list, and
afterwards that of the Comte Alexis de Noailles, so that both our names
are written in Louis XVIII.'s own hand in the original Ordinance.
I have now brought to a conclusion my narrative of the extraordinary
events in which I have taken part, either as a spectator or an actor,
during the course of a strangely diversified life, of which nothing now
remains but recollections.
--[I discharged the functions of Councillor of State until 1818, at
which time an Ordinance appeared declaring those functions
Incompatible with the title of Minister of State--Bourrienne.]--
CHAPTER XII.
THE CENT JOURS.
The extraordinary rapidity of events during the Cent fours, or Hundred
Days of Napoleon's reign in 1815, and the startling changes in the parts
previously filled by the chief personages, make it difficult to consider
it as an historical period; it more resembles a series of sudden
theatrical transformations, only broken by the great pause while the
nation waited for news from the army.
The first Restoration of the Bourbons had been so unexpected, and was so
rapidly carried out, that the Bonapartists, or indeed all France, had
hardly realized the situation before Napoleon was again in the Tuileries;
and during the Cent Jours both Bonapartists and Royalists were alike
rubbing their eyes, asking whether they were awake, and wondering which
was the reality and which the dream, the Empire or the Restoration.
It is both difficult and interesting to attempt to follow the history of
the chief characters of the period; and the reader must pardon some
abrupt transitions from person to person, and from group to group, while
the details of some subsequent movements of the Bonaparte family must be
thrown in to give a proper idea of the strange revolution in their
fortunes. We may divide the characters with which we have to deal into
five groups,--the Bonaparte family, the Marshals, the Statesmen of the
Empire, the Bourbons, and the Allied Monarchs. One figure and one name
will be missing, but if we omit all account of poor, bleeding, mutilated
France, it is but leaving her in the oblivion in which she was left at
the time by every one except by Napoleon.
The disaster of 1814 had rather dispersed than crushed the Bonaparte
family, and they rallied immediately on the return from Elba. The final
fall of the Empire was total ruin to them. The provisions of the Treaty
of Fontainebleau, which had been meant to ensure a maintenance to them,
had not been carried out while Napoleon was still a latent power, and
after 1815 the Bourbons were only too happy to find a reason for not
paying a debt they had determined never to liquidate it was well for any
of the Bourbons in their days of distress to receive the bounty of the
usurper, but there was a peculiar pleasure in refusing to pay the price
promised for his immediate abdication.
The flight of the Bonapartes in 1815 was rapid. Metternich writes to
Maria Louisa in July 1815: "Madame Mere and Cardinal Fesch left yesterday
for Tuscany. We do not know exactly where. Joseph is. Lucien is in
England under a false name, Jerome in Switzerland, Louis at Rome. Queen
Hortense has set out for Switzerland, whither General de Flahault and his
mother will follow her. Murat seems to be still at Toulon; this,
however, is not certain." Was ever such an account of a dynasty given?
These had all been among the great ones of Europe: in a moment they were
fugitives, several of them having for the rest of their lives a bitter
struggle with poverty. Fortunately for them the Pope, the King of
Holland, and the Grand-Duke of Tuscany, were not under heavy obligations
to Napoleon, and could thus afford to give to his family the protection
denied them by those monarchs who believed themselves bound to redeem
their former servility.
When Napoleon landed Maria Louisa was in Austria, and she was eager to
assist in taking every precaution to prevent her son, the young King of
Rome, being spirited off to join his father, whose fortunes she had sworn
to share: She herself was fast falling under the influence of the one-
eyed Austrian General, Neipperg, just then left a widower, who was soon
to be admitted to share her bed. By 1823 she seemed to have entirely
forgotten the different members of the Bonaparte family, speaking of her
life in France as "a bad dream." She obtained the Grand-Duchy of Parma,
where she reigned till 1847, marrying a third time, it is said, the Count
Bombellea, and dying, just too soon to be hunted from her Duchy by the
Revolution of 1848.
There is something very touching in most that we know of the poor young
King of Rome, from his childish but strangely prescient resistance to his
removal from Paris to Blois on the approach of the Allies in 1814, to the
message of remembrance sent in after years to the column of the Place
Vendome, "his only friend in Paris."
At four years of age Meneval describes him as gentle, but quick in
answering, strong, and with excellent health. "Light curly hair in
ringlets set off a fresh face, while fine blue eyes lit up his regular
features: He was precociously intelligent, and knew more than most
children older than himself." When Meneval--the former secretary of his
father, giving up his post in Austria with Maria Louisa, as he was about
to rejoin Napoleon--took farewell of the Prince in May 1815, the poor
little motherless child drew me towards the window, and, giving me a
touching look, said in a low tone, "Monsieur Meva, tell him (Napoleon)
that I always love him dearly." We say "motherless," because Maria
Louisa seems to have yielded up her child at the dictates of policy to be
closely guarded as easily as she gave up her husband. "If," wrote Madame
de Montesquiou, his governess, "the child had a mother, I would leave him
in her hands, and be happy, but she is nothing like a mother, she is more
indifferent to his fate than the most utter stranger in her service."
His grandfather, the Emperor Francis, to do him justice, seems to have
been really kind to the lad, and while, in 1814, 1816, and in 1830,
taking care to deprive him of all chance of, his glorious inheritance,
still seems to have cared for him personally, and to have been always
kind to him. There is no truth in the story that the Austrians neglected
his education and connived at the ruin of his faculties. Both his tutor,
the Count Maurice Dietrichstein, and Marshal Marmont, who conversed with
him in 1831, agree in speaking highly of him as full of promise:
Marmont's evidence being especially valuable as showing that the
Austrians did not object to the Duke of Reichstadt (as he had been
created by his grandfather in 1818), learning all be could of his
father's life from one of the Marshals. In 1831 Marment describes him:
"I recognised his father's look in him, and in that he most resembled
Napoleon. His eyes, not so large as those of Napoleon, and sunk deeper
in their sockets, had the same expression, the same fire, the same
energy. His forehead was like that of his father, and so was the lower
part of his face and his chin. Then his complexion was that of Napoleon
in his youth, with the same pallor and the same colour of the skin, but
all the rest of his face recalled his mother and the House of Austria.
He was taller than Napoleon by about three inches." `
As long as the Duke lived his name was naturally the rallying-point of
the Bonapartes, and was mentioned in some of the many conspiracies
against the Bourbons. In 1830 Joseph Bonaparte tried to get the sanction
of the Austrians to his nephew being put forward as a claimant to the
throne of France, vacant by the flight of Charles X., but they held their
captive firmly. A very interesting passage is given in the 'Memoirs of
Charles Greville', who says that Prince Esterhazy told him a great deal
about the Duke of Reichstadt, who, if he had lived, would have probably
played a great part in the world. He died of a premature decay, brought
on, apparently, by over-exertion and over-excitement; his talents were
very conspicuous, he was 'petri d'ambition', worshipped the memory of his
father, and for that reason never liked his mother; his thoughts were
incessantly turned towards France, and when he heard of the Days of July
(overthrow of Charles X.) he said, "Why was I not there to take my
chance? He evinced great affection and gratitude to his grandfather,
who, while he scrupulously observed all his obligations towards Louis
Philippe, could not help feeling a secret pride in the aspiring genius of
Napoleon's son. He was well educated, and day and night pored over the
history of his father's glorious career. He delighted in military
exercises, and not only shone at the head of his regiment, but had
already acquired the hereditary art of ingratiating himself with the
soldiers." Esterhazy went on to describe how the Duke abandoned
everything at a ball when he met there Marshals Marmont and Maison."
He had no eyes or ears but for them; from nine in the evening to five the
next morning he devoted himself to these Marshals." There was the true
Napoleonic ring in his answer to advice given by Marmont when the Duke
said that he would not allow himself to be put forward by the Sovereigns
of Europe. "The son of Napoleon should be too great to serve as an
instrument; and in events of that nature I wish not to be an advanced
guard, but a reserve,--that is, to come as a succour, recalling great
memories."
His death in 1832, on the 22d of July, the anniversary of the battle of
Salamanca, solved many questions. Metternich visited the Duke on his
deathbed: "It was a heartrending sight. I never remember to have seen a
more mournful picture of decay." When Francis was told of the death of
his grandson he answered, "I look upon the Duke's death as a blessing for
him. Whether it be detrimental or otherwise to the public good I do not
know. As for myself, I shall ever lament the loss of my grandson."
Josephine was in her grave at Rueil when Napoleon returned. She had died
on the 29th of May 1814, at Malmaison, while the Allies were exhibiting
themselves in Paris. It seems hard that she should not have lived to
enjoy a triumph, however brief, over her Austrian rival. "She, at
least," said Napoleon truly, "would never have abandoned me."