CHAPTER XXIX

(1808.)

ON the 2d of July, 1808, the Emperor set out on the pretext of

visiting the southern provinces, but in reality to watch what was going

on in Spain. I will give an idea of what that was as succinctly as

possible.

The transactions of Charles IV. with the different Governments of France

were well known. After having vainly attempted in 1793 to save the life

of Louis XVI., at the close of a war nobly undertaken but unskillfully

conducted, the Spaniards had to submit to the dictation of the

conqueror, and the French Government had always meddled more or less in

their affairs since that time.

At the head of the administration was Emanuel Godoy—a man of ordinary

capacity, who had risen to the position which he now held, and was

governing the Spains, as the result of the feelings with which he had

inspired the Queen. On him had been heaped all the dignities, honors,

and treasures which any favorite could possibly obtain. He was born in

1768, of a noble family, and placed in the royal Bodyguard in 1787. The

Queen took him into favor, and he rose rapidly from rank to rank,

becoming lieutenant-general, Duke of Alcudia, and in 1792 Minister of

Foreign Affairs. In 1795 he was made Prince of the Peace. After the

treaty which he concluded with France in 1798, with so little honor to

himself, he ceased to be Minister; but he still directed affairs, and

all his life he exercised complete empire over King Charles IV., who

strangely shared the infatuation of the Queen his wife. The Prince of

the Peace married a niece of the King.

The good understanding which existed between France and Spain appeared

to be intact until the opening of the Prussian campaign, when the Prince

of the Peace, believing that the war would injure the fortunes of the

Emperor, proposed to arm Spain, so that the country should be ready to

profit by events which might enable it to shake off the French yoke. He

issued a proclamation, inviting all Spaniards to enroll themselves. This

proclamation reached the Emperor on the battle-field of Jena, and many

persons have said that from that moment he was resolved on the

destruction of the house of Bourbon in Spain. After his great victories

he distributed the Spanish troops over all points of Europe, and the

Prince of the Peace obtained his protection only at the price of

submitting to his policy.

Bonaparte often asserted in 1808 that at Tilsit the Czar had approved

his designs upon Spain; and, in fact, the interview of the two Emperors

took place so amicably at Erfurt, immediately after the overthrow of

Charles IV., that it is very likely they had mutually authorized each

other to pursue their projects, the one toward the north and the other

toward the south. But I can not tell to what extent Bonaparte deceived

the Emperor of Russia, nor whether he did not begin by hinting to him

the division of the states of King Charles IV., which he was pretending

to prepare, and the equivalent in Italy which he feigned to intend to

give him. Perhaps he had not yet arranged his plan for entirely

dispossessing him, and it is quite certain that M. de Talleyrand was not

in the plot.

Murat, in his correspondence with the Prince of the Peace, bribed him

with the government of a portion of Portugal, which, he said, should

become the kingdom of the Algarves. Another portion of Portugal was to

belong to the King of Etruria, and Etruria was thenceforth to become the

empire of King Charles IV., who was to keep the American colonies, and

at the general peace to take the title of Emperor of the Two Americas.

In 1807 a treaty on these bases was concluded at Fontainebleau, without

the knowledge of M. de Talleyrand, and the passage of our troops through

Spain for the conquest of Portugal was granted by the Prince of the

Peace. At Milan the Emperor signified to the Queen of Etruria that she

was to return to her father. Meanwhile the Prince of the Peace was

becoming more and more odious to the Spanish nation, and was especially

hated by the Prince of the Asturias. The latter, impelled by his own

feelings and by the advice of those who surrounded him, distressed by

the increasing alienation of his mother and the weakness of his father,

alarmed at the entry of our troops, which made him suspect some fresh

plot, and especially indignant that the Prince of the Peace should

endeavor to make him contract a marriage with the sister of the

Princess, wrote to Bonaparte to apprise him of the grievances of the

Spaniards against the favorite, and to request his support and the hand

of a lady of the Bonaparte family. To this request, which was probably

inspired by the ambassador of France, the Emperor made no immediate

reply. Shortly afterward the Prince of the Asturias was denounced as a

conspirator and arrested, and his friends were exiled. Several notes

denunciatory of the exactions of the Prince of the Peace were found

among his papers, and on this a charge of conspiracy was founded. The

Queen pursued her son with determined enmity, and the Prince of the

Asturias was about to be brought to trial when letters from the Emperor,

signifying that he would not permit a question of the project of

marriage to be raised, reached Madrid. As it was upon this point that

the accusation of conspiracy was to bear, the charge had to be

abandoned. The Prince of the Peace wanted to take credit for indulgence,

and pretended that he had solicited and obtained pardon for the Prince

of the Asturias. King Charles IV. wrote to the Emperor, giving him an

account of the affair and of his own conduct; and Bonaparte became

adviser and arbitrator in all these difficulties, which so far were

favorable to his own designs. These events took place in October, 1807.

Meanwhile our troops were establishing themselves in Spain. The

Spaniards, surprised by this invasion, complained bitterly of the

weakness of their sovereign and the treason of the favorite. It was

asked why the Spanish armies were sent to the frontiers of Portugal, far

from the center of the kingdom, which was thus delivered over without

defense. Murat was marching toward Madrid. The Prince of the Peace sent

a creature of his own, one Izquierdo, to Fontainebleau for final

instructions. This man had an interview with M. de Talleyrand, in which

the latter informed him of the error into which the Prince of the Peace

had fallen, and showed him that the treaty just signed at Fontainebleau

involved the complete destruction of the power of Spain. Izquierdo,

thunderstruck at all he heard, returned immediately to Madrid, and the

Prince of the Peace began to perceive how he had been tricked. But it

was too late. The troops were recalled, and a project of imitating the

conduct of the Prince of Brazil by abandoning the Continent was

discussed. The Court was at Aranjuez; its preparations, however, could

not be so secretly conducted but that they transpired in Madrid. The

excitement in the city was increased by intelligence of the approach of

Murat and of the intended departure of the King, and soon broke out into

a revolt; the people went in crowds to Aranjuez, the King was detained

as a prisoner in the palace, and the house of the Prince of the Peace

was sacked, while he himself was thrown into prison, barely escaping

from the fury of the populace. Charles IV. was forced to disgrace his

favorite and banish him from Spain. On the following day the King,

either feeling himself too weak to rule over a country about to become

the scene of discord, or successfully coerced by the opposite party,

abdicated in favor of his son.

All this took place at a few leagues’ distance from Madrid, where Murat

had established his headquarters. On the 19th of March, 1808, Charles

IV. wrote to the Emperor that, on account of his health, he was unable

to remain in Spain, and that he had just abdicated in favor of his son.

This occurrence upset all Bonaparte’s plans. The fruit of the device

which he had been planning for six months was snatched from him; Spain

was about to pass under the sway of a young Prince who, judging by

recent events, appeared capable of taking strong measures. The Spanish

nation would, no doubt, eagerly embrace the cause of a sovereign whose

aim would be the deliverance of his country. Our army was coldly

received at Madrid. Murat had already been obliged to have recourse to

severe measures for the maintenance of order. A new plan was necessary,

and it was needful, above all, to be nearer the theatre of events, so as

to estimate them aright.

For these reasons the Emperor resolved on going to Bayonne. He left

Saint Cloud on the 2d of April, parting with coolness from M. de

Talleyrand, and abstaining from any disclosure of his plans. The

“Moniteur” announced that the Emperor was about to visit the southern

departments, and not until the 8th of April, after meager accounts of

what was taking place in Spain, did we learn that his presence at Madrid

was not only desired, but expected.

The Empress, who was both fond of traveling and averse to being

separated from her husband, obtained permission to make the journey

after his departure, and she soon joined him at Bordeaux.

M. de Talleyrand was uneasy and displeased at the Emperor’s movements. I

am inclined to think that for a long time past, as much from his dislike

to Murat as on account of other projects of which I am ignorant, he had

favored the party by whom the Prince of the Asturias was guided. On this

occasion he found himself put aside, and realized for the first time

that Bonaparte was learning to do without him. In Paris we were all

mystified at what was going on. The official articles in the “Moniteur”

were extremely obscure; nothing that emanated from the Emperor could

surprise us; but even curiosity was at last wearing out, and, moreover,

no great interest was felt in the royal house of Spain. There was,

therefore, very little excitement, and we waited for time to enlighten

us. France was growing used to expect that Bonaparte would use her

simply for his own personal ends.

Meanwhile Murat, who was acquainted with some of the Emperor’s projects,

and who saw that some of them must fail through the abdication of

Charles IV., acted with skillful duplicity at Madrid. He contrived to

avoid recognizing the Prince of the Asturias, and all the evidence leads

to the conclusion that he contributed to excite the old King’s desire to

resume his crown. A dispatch from General Monthion, who had been sent as

envoy to Charles IV. at Aranjuez, was published in the “Moniteur,” and

Europe was informed that the King had made bitter complaints of his son,

had declared that his abdication was forced, and had placed himself in

the Emperor’s hands, with a special request that the life of the Prince

of the Peace should be spared. The Queen, in still more passionate

terms, accused her son, and seemed entirely engrossed by anxiety for the

fate of her favorite.

The Spaniards had accepted the abdication of their King, and were

rejoiced to be rid of the yoke of the Prince of the Peace. They were

impatient, especially at Madrid, of the presence of the French, and of

their reserved behavior toward the young sovereign; and Murat could

repress the growing excitement only by measures of severity, necessary

under the circumstances, but which completed the detestation in which we

were held.

On the Emperor’s arrival at Bayonne, he took up his abode at the Château

de Marrac, about a mile from the town. He was uncertain as to what might

come of his present undertaking, and as a last resource was prepared to

go to Madrid; but he was fully determined not to let the fruit of his

endeavors escape him. No one about him was in the secret: he controlled

the actions of all without confiding in any one. In the Abbé de Pradt’s

“History of the Revolution in Spain,” there are some interesting notes

and comments on the force of character which enabled the Emperor to bear

quite alone the secret of his vast conceptions. The Abbé de Pradt was at

that time Bishop of Poitiers, and Bonaparte, on passing through the

city, attached him to his suite, believing he should be able to make use

of his well-known talent and inclination for intrigue.

Several persons who accompanied the Emperor on this journey told me that

their sojourn at Marrac was dull, and that they all wished for a climax

to the events then taking place, in order that they might return to

Paris.

Savary was dispatched to Madrid, and in all probability received orders

to bring back the Prince of the Asturias at any cost. He accomplished

his mission with the exactitude for which he was remarkable, and which

forbade him from criticising either the orders he received or the means

necessary to their fulfillment. On the 7th of April Savary presented

himself to the Prince of the Asturias at Madrid. He announced the

Emperor’s journey into Spain as certain, assumed the character of an

ambassador coming to congratulate a new King, and bound himself, in the

name of his master, not to meddle with any Spanish affairs if the

sovereign’s dispositions were friendly toward the Emperor. He next

insinuated that negotiations would be greatly expedited by the Prince’s

moving forward to meet the Emperor, who intended very shortly to repair

to Madrid; and to the surprise of every one, to the surprise of

posterity also, he contrived to persuade the Prince of the Asturias and

his Court to undertake the journey. We can hardly doubt that advice on

this occasion was backed by threats, and that the unfortunate young

Prince was caught in a multitude of snares, all spread for him at once.

He was, no doubt, given to understand that this was the price at which

his crown must be purchased, and that, as the Emperor wished him to take

this step, no help would be afforded him unless he consented to it; the

bait that the Emperor would meet him on the way was also held out, and

nothing was at first said about his crossing the frontier.

The Prince of the Asturias found himself involved by circumstances in an

enterprise beyond his strength; he was more the puppet than the chief of

the party who had placed him on the throne, and he could not quite

reconcile himself to the position of a son in open rebellion against his

father. Moreover, he was intimidated by the presence of our troops, and

dared not answer to his people for the safety of their country if he

resisted us. His advisers were alarmed. Savary’s counsels were mingled

with threats, and the unhappy Prince, who was influenced by the most

generous sentiments, consented to a step which was the proximate cause

of his ruin. I have heard Savary say that the orders he had received

were so positive that, when once he had him on the road to Bayonne, he

would not have suffered him to turn back for any consideration in the

world; and, some faithful adherents having conveyed a warning to the

Prince, he watched him so closely that he felt assured no human power

could snatch him from his grasp.

To further this wicked and ably laid plot, the Emperor wrote the

following letter, which was subsequently published. It was handed to the

Prince of the Asturias at Vittoria, and I transcribe it here, as it

throws a light on the events which followed:

“BAYONNE, _April, 1808_.

“MY BROTHER: I have received your Royal Highness’s letter. In

the papers of the King, your father, you must have seen proofs

of the interest I have always felt in your Royal Highness. You

will permit me, under present circumstances, to address you

loyally and frankly.

“I hoped, on reaching Madrid, to have persuaded my illustrious

friend to undertake some necessary reforms in his states, and to

satisfy in some measure the public opinion of the country. The

dismissal of the Prince of the Peace seemed to me to be

necessary both for his own happiness and that of his subjects.

Affairs in the north have delayed my journey. Certain events

have taken place at Aranjuez. I pronounce no judgment on these,

nor on the conduct of the Prince of the Peace; but I know this

well, that it is dangerous for kings to accustom their people to

shed blood and to administer justice to themselves. I pray God

that your Royal Highness may not learn this one day by your own

experience. It is not in the interest of Spain to injure a

Prince who is husband to a Princess of the blood royal, and who

has so long reigned over the kingdom. He has now no friends, nor

will your Highness have any if misfortune overtake you. Men are

always ready to make us suffer for the honors they have paid us.

Besides, how could proceedings be taken against the Prince of

the Peace without implicating the Queen and the King, your

father? Such a lawsuit will encourage dissensions and faction,

and the consequences will be fatal to your crown. Your Royal

Highness has no other claim to it than that conferred on you by

your mother; if the lawsuit reflects dishonor on her, your Royal

Highness’s rights will be thereby destroyed. Close your ears,

therefore, to weak and perfidious counsel; you have no right to

sit in judgment on the Prince of the Peace. His crimes, if he is

accused of any, are absorbed in the rights of the throne. I have

often expressed a desire that the Prince of the Peace should be

removed from the conduct of affairs. The friendship of King

Charles has often induced me to keep silence, and to turn away

my eyes from his weak attachment. Wretched creatures that we all

are! our motto should be, ‘Weakness and Error.’ But all may be

arranged. Let the Prince of the Peace be banished from Spain; I

will offer him a refuge in France.

“As to the abdication of King Charles IV., he made it at a time

when my army was occupying Spain, and in the eyes of Europe and

of posterity I should appear to have sent large numbers of

troops thither merely in order to turn my ally and my friend off

his throne. As a neighboring sovereign, I may be allowed to wait

for full and entire information before recognizing this

abdication. I say to your Royal Highness, to all Spaniards, and

to the whole world, if the abdication of King Charles IV. is

spontaneous, if it has not been forced on him by the

insurrection and the tumult at Aranjuez I will make no

difficulty about recognizing it, and will acknowledge your Royal

Highness to be King of Spain. I desire, therefore, to converse

with you to this end. The caution with which I have watched

these things for the last month should be a guarantee of the

support I would afford you if, in your turn, a factious spirit,

of whatever kind, should disturb you on your throne. When King

Charles informed me of the events of last October, I was

painfully impressed by them, and I may have contributed, by the

suggestions I then made, to the happy ending of the Escurial

affair. Your Royal Highness was greatly to blame: no other proof

of this is needed than the letter you addressed to me, which I

have persistently ignored. When, in your turn, you are a King,

you will know how sacred are the rights of a throne. Any

advances made to a foreign sovereign are criminal. Your Royal

Highness must be on your guard against outbursts of popular

feeling. A few of my soldiers might be murdered in isolated

situations, but the destruction of Spain would be the result. I

already perceive with regret that letters from the

Captain-General of Catalonia have been distributed about Madrid,

and that everything has been done to promote disturbance there.

“I have now fully explained myself to your Royal Highness; you

perceive that I am hesitating between various ideas, which

require confirmation. You may be assured that, in any case, I

shall treat you as I would treat the King, your father. I beg

you to believe in my desire for conciliation, and to grant me an

opportunity of proving my good will and high esteem.”

We see by this letter that the Emperor still reserved to himself the

right of judging of the validity of the abdication of Charles IV. It

appears, however, that Savary flattered the young King into the belief

of more positive approbation than was actually contained in the letter,

while Murat was secretly urging King Charles to retract. By thus writing

to the Prince of the Asturias, the Emperor contrived a means of saving

the Prince of the Peace, if necessary, from taking part with Charles

IV., and finally of blaming the first symptom of rebellion against his

father on the part of the Prince of the Asturias. It was known, however,

at this period that the ambassador of France had suggested to the Prince

the demand which he had made for the hand of a Princess of the Imperial

family in marriage. It was this demand which had most deeply offended

the favorite.

The Prince of the Asturias left Madrid on the 10th of April. He received

tokens of affection from his people on his way, and great anxiety was

everywhere displayed at his approach to the frontier. Savary reiterated

his assurances that by pushing on farther they must meet the Emperor,

and kept the Prince under strict guard. On reaching Burgos, the Prince’s

council began to take alarm; but they continued their route to Vittoria,

where the people unharnessed the horses from the carriage, the guard had

to force a passage, and this was done almost against the will of the

Prince, whose hopes were fading.

“At Vittoria,” Savary told me afterward, “I thought for an instant that

my prisoner was about to escape, but I took care he should not. I

frightened him.” “But,” I answered, “do you mean that, if he had

resisted, you would have killed him?” “Oh no,” he said; “but I protest

that I would never have let him go back.”

The Prince’s councilors, however, were reassured by the reflection that

a marriage would conciliate all parties, and, being unable to understand

the immensity of the Imperial projects, they looked upon such an

alliance, together with the sacrifice of a few men and of the liberty of

trade, as the conclusion of a definitive treaty. They yielded,

therefore, to the soldierly arguments of Savary, and finally crossed the

frontier.

The royal party entered Bayonne on the 21st of April. Those persons of

the household who were then in attendance on the Emperor discovered, by

the change in his temper, how important for the success of his projects

was the arrival of the Infantes. Until then he had seemed full of care,

confiding in no one, but dispatching courier after courier. He dared not

reckon on the success of his plan. He had invited the old King to come

to him, who, as well as the Queen and the favorite, had just then

nothing better to do; but it seemed so likely that the new King would

take advantage of the revolt about to break out in Spain and would rouse

the new-born enthusiasm of all classes for the deliverance of their

country, that, until the actual moment when he was informed that the

Prince had crossed the Pyrenees, the Emperor must have looked on the

event as wellnigh impossible. He has since said that, dating from this

blunder, he had no longer a doubt of the incapacity of King Ferdinand.

On the 20th of April the Queen of Holland gave birth to a son who was

named Louis.

At this time the painter Robert died. He was famous for his artistic

talent, his taste in architecture, and was, besides, an excellent and

very clever man.

The Abbé de Pradt has narrated all the circumstances of the arrival of

the Princes; and, as he witnessed it, I again refer to his work, without

feeling bound to quote from it here. He says that the Emperor came from

Marrac to Bayonne; that he treated the Prince of the Asturias as an

equal; that he invited him the same day to dinner, treating him with

royal honors; and that it was not until the evening of that day, when

the Prince had returned to his dwelling, that Savary again came to him,

with orders to inform him of Bonaparte’s intentions. These intentions

were to overthrow the reigning dynasty, in order to put his own in its

place, and consequently the abdication of the whole family was demanded.

The Abbé de Pradt is naturally astounded at the part which the Emperor

played during the day, and one can hardly conceive why he gave himself

the trouble to act a character in the morning so contrary to that of the

evening.

Whatever were his motives, one can understand the amazement of the

Spanish Princes, and what must have been their regret, having thus

delivered themselves into the hands of their inflexible enemy. From that

time they made efforts, not to fly—for they quickly perceived that

flight was impossible—but to inform the Junta, sitting at Madrid, of

their captivity and of the intentions which would cause the ruin of the

last Bourbons. The greater number of their messengers were stopped, but

some few got away safely; the news they carried excited indignation in

Madrid, and thence throughout Spain. Some provinces protested; in

several towns the people rose in revolt; in Madrid the safety of the

French army was endangered. Murat redoubled his severity, and became an

object of hatred, as well as terror, to all the inhabitants.

Every one knows now how greatly the Emperor deceived himself as to the

condition of Spain and the character of the Spaniards. He was influenced

in this odious undertaking by those same defects of character and

judgment which had on other occasions led him into such grave errors:

first, his determination to prevail by sheer force, and his thirst for

instant submission, which made him neglect intermediaries, who are not

always to be despised with impunity; and, secondly, an obstinate

conviction that men are but very slightly influenced by their mode of

government, and that national differences are so unimportant that the

same policy will answer equally well in the north or in the south, with

Germans, Frenchmen, or Spaniards. He has since admitted that he was

greatly mistaken in this. When he learned that there existed in Spain a

higher class, aware of the bad government under which it lived, and

anxious for some changes in the constitution, he did not doubt but that

the people too would swallow the bait if a revolution like that of

France were offered to them. He believed that in Spain, as elsewhere,

men would be easily roused against the temporal power of the priesthood.

His keen perception appreciated the movement which had caused the revolt

of Aranjuez, and had placed the reins of power in the hands of a weak

Prince, too evidently lacking ability to make or control a revolution;

and he imagined, overleaping time and the obstacles or circumstances

which cause delay, that, the first impulse of movement having been given

to Spanish institutions, a complete change would ensue. He believed

himself to be even rendering a service to the nation in thus

forestalling events, in seizing on the Spanish revolution beforehand,

and in guiding it at once to the goal which he thought it destined to

reach.

But even were it possible to persuade a whole nation, and to induce it

to accept, as the outcome of a wise foresight, those things which it can

never understand except through the teaching of facts and often of

misfortune, the hatefulness of the means employed by the Emperor blasted

him in the eyes of those he wished to win, and whom he believed he was

serving; “_for the heart of Jehu was not upright, nor his hands clean_,”

that Spain should receive him as the reformer whom she needed. Moreover,

a foreign yoke was offensive to Spanish pride; while secret

machinations, the imprisonment of the sovereigns, unconcealed contempt

for religious beliefs, the threats that were used, the executions that

followed on them, and, later, the exactions and cruelties of war, all

concurred to prevent any concord. The two contending parties, each

inflamed against the other, were soon filled with a furious longing for

mutual destruction. The Emperor himself sacrificed everything rather

than yield; he was lavish of men and money only that he might prove

himself the strongest, for he could not endure the shame of defeat

before the eyes of Europe, and a bloody war, terrible disasters, were

the result of his wounded pride and his tyrannical will. All he did,

therefore, was to throw Spain into a state of anarchy. The people,

finding themselves without an army, believed that the defense of the

soil devolved upon them; and Bonaparte, who took pride in being the

elect of the people, and who also felt that therein lay his

security—Bonaparte, who, to be consistent in his theories, should never

have waged war except on kings—found himself, after a few years, cut

adrift from that policy on which he had founded his power while he

revealed to the whole world that he used that power for his personal

advantage only.

Although he was conscious of some of these future difficulties, he

continued to tread the devious path on which he had entered. The Prince

of the Asturias refused to sign an act of abdication, and this caused

him great perplexity. Fearing that the Prince might escape him, he

caused him to be strictly watched; he tried him by every kind of

persuasion and threat, and all who surrounded the Emperor soon became

aware of the state of perturbation into which he had again fallen.

Duroc, Savary, and the Abbé de Pradt were enjoined to bribe, to

persuade, or to terrify the Prince’s councilors. But how is it possible

to persuade people to consent to their own fall from power? If we abide

by the Emperor’s opinion, that every member of the reigning family was

equally stupid and incapable, the wiser course would still have been to

have left them in possession of the throne; for the necessity of taking

action in times that were becoming so difficult must have led them into

many faults, of which their enemy might have taken advantage. But, by

the outrageous insults put upon them, by the violation of every human

right in their regard, by the inaction to which they were forced, by

imposing on them the simple and pathetic character of victims, their

part was made so easy to play that they became objects of interest

without having to take the smallest pains to excite that sentiment. With

respect to the Spanish Princes and the Pope, the Emperor committed the

same blunder and incurred the same penalty.

Meanwhile, he was determined to end this state of mental anxiety, and he

decided on sending for King Charles IV. to Bayonne, and on openly

espousing the cause of the dethroned old monarch. He foresaw that this

course of action must be followed by war, but he flattered himself—his

vivid imagination was always ready to flatter him when he had fully

decided on any step—that this war would resemble all the others. “Yes,”

he said, “I feel that I am not doing right; but why do not they declare

war on me?” And when it was pointed out to him that he could scarcely

expect a declaration of war from persons removed from their own

territory and deprived of their liberty, he exclaimed: “But why did they

come, then? They are inexperienced young men, and have come here without

passports. I consider this enterprise as very important, for my navy is

defective, and it will cost me the six vessels I have now at Cadiz.” On

another occasion he said: “If this were to cost me eighty thousand men,

I would not undertake it; but I shall not need twelve thousand. It is a

mere trifle. The people here don’t know what a French brigade means. The

Prussians were just the same, and we know how they fared in consequence.

Depend upon it, this will soon be over. I do not wish to harm any one,

but, when my big political car is started, it must go on its way. Woe to

those who get under the wheels!”

Toward the end of April the Prince of the Peace arrived at Bayonne.

Murat had released him from the captivity in which he was held at

Madrid. The Junta, under the presidency of Don Antonio, brother to

Charles IV., gave him up unwillingly, but the time for resistance was

over. The favorite had lost any hope of future sovereignty, his life was

in danger in Spain, and the Emperor’s protection was his only resource;

therefore there was little doubt but that he would agree to anything

required of him. He was instructed to guide King Charles in the path the

Emperor wished him to follow, and he acquiesced without a word.

I can not refrain from transcribing some reflections of the Abbé de

Pradt, which seem to me to be very sensible and appropriate here.

“At this period,” he says, “that part of the scheme which concerned the

translation of Joseph to Madrid was not as yet made public. It may have

been discerned, but Napoleon had not disclosed it. In the interviews

with Napoleon which the negotiation with M. Escoiquiz procured for me he

never made any allusion to it. He left to time the task of unfolding

each feature of a plan which he revealed cautiously and by slow degrees,

and after he had cherished it for a long succession of days in his own

mind, without relieving himself of the burden by one indiscreet word.

This was sad misuse of moral strength, but it proves how great is the

self-mastery of a man who can thus control his words, especially when

naturally inclined to indiscretion, as Napoleon was, particularly when

he was angry.”

King Charles IV. reached Bayonne on the 1st of May, accompanied by his

wife, their youngest son, the daughter of the Prince of the Peace, and

the Queen of Etruria and her son. Shortly afterward Don Antonio arrived

also; he had been obliged to leave the Junta and to join his relatives.

CONCLUSION

THE Memoirs of my grandmother came to an end here, and general regret

will, no doubt, be felt that she was prevented by death from continuing

them, at any rate so far as the divorce from the Emperor, which, from

the very beginning, hangs threateningly over the head of the

fascinating, lovable, and yet somewhat uninteresting Josephine. No one

can supply what is wanting here; even the correspondence of the author

affords little political information respecting the succeeding period,

and during the latter part of her life she seldom spoke of what she had

witnessed or endured. My father entertained at times the idea of

continuing her narrative, by putting together what he had heard from his

parents, anecdotes of expressions of their opinions in the last days of

the Empire, and what he himself knew concerning their lives. He did not

carry out his plan in its entirety, nor did he leave anything on the

subject complete. His notes, however, seem to me to be valuable, and

give the ending of the great drama which has been described in the

foregoing pages. It will be interesting to read them as a continuation

of the Memoirs, which they complete, although he has recorded his

opinions concerning the latter days of the Empire, and the period when

he himself entered political life, in a more extensive work. His

political views and clear definition of the conduct of officials and of

citizens in times of difficulty deserves to be made known. I have added

this chapter to the Memoirs, and published the notes of which I speak in

their original unstudied form, confining myself to the slight

modifications necessary to make the narrative succinct and clear.

The Spanish sovereigns arrived at Bayonne in May, 1808. The Emperor

dispatched them to Fontainebleau, and sent Ferdinand VII. to Valençay,

an estate belonging to M. de Talleyrand. Then he himself returned, after

having traveled through the southern and western departments, and made a

political journey into La Vendée, where his presence produced a great

effect. He reached Paris about the middle of August. Count de Rémusat

writes:

“My father, who was then First Chamberlain, was appointed to

receive the Spanish Bourbons at Fontainebleau. He accomplished

his task with the attention and courtesy habitual to him.

Although on his return he gave us an account which conveyed no

exalted idea of the King, the Queen, or the Prince of the Peace,

who accompanied them, he had treated these dethroned Princes

with the respect due to rank and misfortune. It would seem that

some of the other Court officials had behaved in a different

fashion, rather from ignorance than from ill feeling. Charles

IV. noticed this, and said, ‘Rémusat, at any rate, knows that I

am a Bourbon.’

“M. de Talleyrand happened to be actually staying at Valençay

when the Emperor sent him orders to proceed thither, with an

evident intention of committing him to the Spanish affair, to

receive the three Infantes. He was not altogether pleased with

the task, nor on his return did he refrain from sarcastic

remarks concerning these strange descendants of Louis XIV. He

used to tell us that they bought children’s toys at all the

booths at the neighboring fairs, and when a poor person begged

an alms of them they would give him a doll. He afterward accused

them of dilapidations at Valençay, and cleverly mentioned the

fact to Louis XVIII., who, being desirous to dismiss him from

Court, while he had not the courage to order him to go, took

occasion to praise the beauty and splendor of his seat at

Valençay. ‘Yes, it is pretty fair,’ he said, ‘but the Spanish

Princes entirely spoiled it with the fireworks on St. Napoleon’s

Day.’

“Although M. de Talleyrand was aware that his position with the

Emperor was altered, yet he found Bonaparte when he joined him

well disposed and inclined to trust him. There was no

perceptible cloud between them. The Emperor had need of him for

the conference at Erfurt, to which they went together at the end

of September. My father was in attendance on the Emperor. The

letters which he doubtless wrote thence to my mother have not

been found; but their correspondence was so strictly watched,

and must therefore have been so reserved, that its loss is, I

fancy, of little importance. My father’s general letters

referred to the good understanding between the two Emperors,

their mutual finessing, and the fine manners of the Emperor

Alexander.

“M. de Talleyrand composed a narrative of this Erfurt

conference, which he was in the habit of reading aloud. He used

to boast, on his return, that as the two Emperors entered their

respective carriages, each about to journey in a different

direction, he had said to Alexander, while attending him, ‘If

you could only get into the wrong carriage!’ He had discerned

some fine qualities in the Czar, and had endeavored to win

favor, by which he profited in 1814; but, at the time of which I

am writing, he looked on a Russian alliance as a merely

accidental necessity during a war with England, and he

persistently held that friendship with Austria, which would

eventually become a basis for an alliance with England, was the

true system for France in Europe. His conduct of political

affairs, whether at the time of Napoleon’s marriage, or in 1814,

in 1815, or, again, in the reign of Louis Philippe, was always

consistent with this theory. He often spoke of it to my mother.

“My mother, in order to complete the history of the year 1808,

would have had to narrate, first, the Erfurt conference,

according to the narratives of M. de Talleyrand and of my

father; and, secondly, the reaction of the Spanish affair on the

Court of the Tuileries and on Parisian society. The Royalist

section of the Court and society was deeply moved by the

presence of the ancient Bourbons at Fontainebleau. Here, I

think, she would have placed the disgrace and exile of Mme. de

Chevreuse.

“The Emperor came back from Erfurt in October, but he merely

passed through Paris, and started immediately for Spain, whence

he returned at the beginning of 1809, after an indecisive

campaign.

“Public opinion was far from favorable to his policy. For the

first time the possibility of his loss had occurred to the minds

of men, especially of his sudden death in the course of a war in

which a motive of patriotism might nerve an assassin’s hand.

Various reports, partly loyal and partly malicious, had made the

progress of disapprobation and discontent known to him.

Talleyrand and Fouché had not hesitated to confirm those

reports. The former, especially, was always bold, and even

imprudent, as are all men who are proud of their powers of

conversation and believe in them as in a force. Fouché, who was

more reserved, or less often quoted in society, probably went

further in fact. After his positive fashion, he had been

practically considering the hypothesis of the opening up of the

Imperial succession, and this consideration had brought him

nearer to M. de Talleyrand’s opinions.

“The Emperor returned in an angry mood, and vented his

irritation on the Court, and especially at the Ministerial

Council, in the celebrated scene in which he dismissed M. de

Talleyrand from his post of Grand Chamberlain, and put M. de

Montesquiou in his place.

“That important functionaries of the Empire, such as Talleyrand

and Fouché, as well as other less prominent persons, should have

behaved as they did on this occasion, has been severely

commented on. I am ready to admit that vanity and talkativeness

may have led Talleyrand and Fouché to say more than was prudent;

but I maintain that, under an absolute government, it is

necessary that men holding important offices should, in the case

of public danger, or on perceiving that affairs are being badly

directed, not be afraid to encourage, by a prudent opposition,

the moral resistance which alone can slacken or even divert the

mistaken course of authority. Still more, if they foresee the

possibility of disaster, against which no preparations have been

made, they should take thought concerning what may yet be done.

That the pride of absolute power should be mortified, that

endeavors should be made to overcome and to suppress that

resistance when it is too isolated to avail, I understand. But

it would be none the less a boon to the state and for the ruler,

if this opposition were sufficiently powerful to oblige him to

modify his plans and to reform his life.

“With regard to the case in point, let us suppose that, instead

of imputing the disapprobation of Talleyrand or of Fouché to

intrigue or treason, Napoleon had received reports from Dubois,

or others who had presented it as a proof of the universal

discontent; that his Prefect of Police, himself sharing them,

had pointed out to him that these sentiments were felt and

expressed by Cambacérès, by Maret, by Caulaincourt, by Murat,

lastly by the Due de Gaëta, whom Thiers quotes on this

occasion—in short, by every important personage in the Court

and the Government—would the service rendered to the Emperor

have been an evil one? And would not this unanimous opposition

have been the only means likely to enlighten him, to arrest his

steps, to turn him from the way of perdition at a period when it

was not yet too late?

“As to the reproach addressed to Talleyrand or others, that they

censured the Government after having approved and served it,

that is a natural one in the mouth of Napoleon, who, moreover,

did not hesitate to exaggerate it by falsehood. But in itself it

is foolish; otherwise all honest men must hold themselves

forbidden, because they have once belonged to a certain

government, because they have formerly supported, cloaked, or

even justified its faults, either in error or from weakness, to

grow wiser as dangers thicken and circumstances become

developed. Unless we are resolved on unceasing opposition or on

unlimited submission, a time must come when we no longer approve

what we approved yesterday, when we feel bound to speak although

hitherto we have been silent, and when, drawbacks striking us

more forcibly than advantages, we recognize defects which we had

hitherto endeavored or pretended to ignore, and faults which for

a long time we have palliated! After all, this is what happened

in France with regard to Napoleon, and the change took place in

the mind of officials and citizens alike, except when the former

were blinded by servility or corrupted by a base ambition.

“In our own modest sphere we never had to decide under the

Empire, except upon the direction of our wishes and feelings,

for we never took any part in politics; yet we had to solve for

ourselves that question which continually recurs to me when I

re-peruse the Memoirs or the letters in which my mother has

preserved her impressions and her thoughts.

“My mother would have had to allude, at any rate indirectly, to

this grave subject in narrating the disgrace of M. de

Talleyrand. She saw him, at that time, at least as often as

formerly; she heard his own statements. Nothing was better known

just then to the public than the cold silence (equally far

removed from weakness and from insolence) with which, leaning

against a console on account of his lameness, he listened to the

Emperor’s philippic. As is the custom under absolute monarchy,

he swallowed the affront, and continued to present himself at

Court with a coolness which was not to be mistaken for humility;

and I have no recollection that his attitude under the Empire

was ever accused of weakness from that day forth. It must, of

course, be understood that the rules of the point of honor are

not in this case as they are understood in a free country, nor

the philosophic laws of moral dignity as they are understood

outside the world of courts and politics.

“My mother would, after this, have had to relate our own little

episode in the drama. I am not sure whether the Emperor, on his

arrival, felt or showed any displeasure toward my father. I do

not know whether it was not subsequent reports which caused our

disgrace. In any case, my father did not become immediately

aware of the truth, either because it was so far from his

thoughts that he suspected nothing, or because the Emperor did

not think of him at first. He was a friend of M. de

Talleyrand’s, and in his confidence up to a certain point: this

in itself was a motive for suspicion and a cause of disfavor. We

had written no letter and taken no step that could tell against

us, and I remember that even our speech was very guarded, and

that, could the police spies have witnessed the interviews with

M. de Talleyrand in my mother’s little drawing-room, where my

parents habitually received him alone, they could have

discovered nothing whereon to found a police report. Such

reports were made, however; my father felt no doubt about that,

although the Emperor never displayed his resentment by any

outbreak, nor did he even enter into any serious explanation.

But he acted toward him with a cold malevolence and harshness

which made his service intolerable. Thenceforth my parents felt

themselves in a painful position with the sovereign, which

might, perhaps, lead to their quitting the Court.

“There was no amelioration in this state of things when

Napoleon, who had gone to Germany in April, 1809, came back to

Fontainebleau on the 6th of October, the conqueror of Wagram,

and proud of the peace just signed at Vienna. Victories, however

dearly bought, did not make him more generous or kindly. He was

still performing work important enough to be vain of his power,

and, if it had been put to severe tests, that was a stronger

reason why he desired it to be respected. However, he found, in

reverting to the recent souvenir of the descent of the English

upon Walcheren, a state of things in Spain quite unsatisfactory,

a quarrel with the Holy See pushed to its last extremities, and

public opinion more restless about his inclination for war than

reassured by his victories—defiant, sad, even critical, and

besetting with its suspicions the man whom it had so long

environed with its fallacies.

“This time Fouché was the object of his thoughts. Fouché had

acted in his own way at the moment of the descent of the

English. He had assumed authority, he had made an appeal to

public sentiment, he had reorganized the national guard, and

employed Bernadotte on our side. Everything in these

proceedings, both the conception and the details, had greatly

displeased the Emperor. All his ill-temper was concentrated upon

Fouché; and, besides, as he had come back resolved upon the

divorce, it was difficult to hold M. de Talleyrand aloof from a

deliberation in which the knowledge of the condition of Europe

should have a decisive weight. In this must be still seen one of

those proofs, at that time less frequent each day, of the almost

impartial justice of his mind. He was sometimes heard to say:

‘It is Talleyrand alone who understands me; it is only

Talleyrand with whom I can talk.’ He consulted him, and at other

moments spoke of placing him at Vincennes. Thus he did not fail

to call him when he deliberated upon his marriage. M. de

Talleyrand strongly insisted that he should unite himself to an

Archduchess. He even thought that the Emperor had sought an

interview with him because his intervention in this matter would

contribute to decide Austria. What is certain is the fact that

he has always alluded to his conduct in this instance as one of

the guarantees he had given of his fundamental opinion in regard

to the alliances of France and the conditions of the

independence of Europe.

“It is seen how, in all these matters—the state of opinion

during the campaign of the Danube, the deliberations relative to

the divorce, those which preceded the marriage with Marie

Louise—the Memoirs of my mother would have been instructive and

interesting. It is unhappily impossible to supply this last

link. I am only able to recall that she said that the Empress

was wrong in doubting her fidelity on one occasion, probably

relative to the divorce. She has announced that this matter was

explained. I can not explain it in its place, and I have no

recollection that she ever spoke to me of it. At the moment of

the divorce her devotion was appreciated, and Queen Hortense

went so far as to consult with her in regard to it twice before

enlisting her irrevocably in favor of her mother. I have no wish

to over-estimate the value of what she did in that matter; the

most refined delicacy dictated her conduct; and, besides, with

her deplorable health, her forced inactivity, her former

relations to Josephine, and our new situation near the Emperor,

she would have had in a renovated Court, near a new Empress, a

most awkward and painful position. It may be conceived, indeed,

that nothing in all that I am going to recall restored our

credit at the Court, and my family remained there irreparably

lessened in its influence. The Emperor, however, approved of my

mother’s remaining with the Empress Josephine. He even praised

her for it; this suited her. He regarded her as a person on the

retreat, with whom he no longer needed to concern himself.

Having less to expect from him, less to demand from him, he

reproached us less in his thought for omitting to do anything on

our part to please him. He left my father in the circle of his

official duties, to which his character and a certain mingling

of discontent and fear kept him closely enough confined. It was

almost established in the mind of Napoleon that he had nothing

more to do for us, and he no longer thought of us.

“This new situation makes it evident that the Memoirs of my

mother would have lost their interest. She no longer visited the

Court, going once only to be presented to the Empress Marie

Louise; then she had later an audience of the Emperor, who wrote

to her asking it. She would, therefore, have had nothing to

relate of which she had been a witness in the imperial palace.

She was no longer placed under obligations by any relations with

the great personages of the state—at least she considered

herself relieved of them; and yielding, perhaps too readily, to

her tastes, and her sufferings, she gradually isolated herself

from everything that would remind her of the Court and of the

Government.

“However, as my father did not cease to frequent the palace to

the end, as the confidence in M. de Talleyrand seemed not to

diminish, and, finally, as the rapid and declining steps in the

affairs of the Emperor more and more affected public opinion,

and soon stirred up the restless attention of the nation, my

mother had still much with which to become acquainted, and much

to observe, and she would have been able to give to the painting

of the last five years of the Empire a positive historic value.

“Some reflections on many events of those five years will be

taken, if it is desired, as a remembrance of what I have heard,

during this same time, from the lips of my parents.

“Among the events of that year, 1809, one of the most important,

and which made the least noise, was the action of the Emperor in

regard to the Pope. The facts were not well understood when they

took place, and, it is necessary to say, that among the nation

that Louis XIII. put under the protection of the Holy Virgin no

one thought of them. The Emperor had begun by causing the Roman

States to be occupied, then went on by dismembering them, then

by demanding from the Pope that he should make war upon England,

then by driving him from the city of Rome, then by depriving him

of all temporal power, then, finally, by causing him to be

arrested and guarded as a prisoner. How strange all this,

assuredly! And yet it seemed that no government of Catholic

Europe seriously offered assistance to the common father of the

faithful. The Pope certainly, deliberating in 1804 whether he

should crown Napoleon, had not objected on the ground that it

was he who, in that year, had caused the Duc d’Enghien to be

shot. The Emperor of Austria, deliberating in 1809 whether he

should give his daughter to Napoleon, did not object on the

ground that it was he who, in that same year, had placed the

Pope in prison. It is true that at that time all the sovereigns

of Europe had, in that which relates to pontifical authority,

entirely different ideas from those ascribed to them, and from

those attributed to them to-day. The house of Austria, in

particular, had for a traditional rule that political testament

in which the Duke of Lorraine, Charles V., recommends that the

Pope should be reduced to the single domain of the court of

Rome, and makes sport ‘of the delusion of excommunications, when

the real point is that Jesus Christ never established the

temporal power of the Church, and that the latter can possess

nothing without contradicting his example and without

compromising his Gospel.’

“In a letter of my mother she advised my father, in the autumn

of 1809, not to allow ‘Athalie’ to be represented at Court, at a

moment when it might be said that there were some allusions to

papal affairs in that struggle of a queen and a priest, and in

presence of a prince so pious as the King of Saxony, who was

preparing to visit the Emperor. In this incident was the

_maximum_ of evidence of the direction of her thoughts excited

by a tyrannic act of which so much would now be heard, and in

regard to which public opinion would certainly be no more

divided. I have not heard it said that a single officer in this

immense empire would have separated himself from a government of

which the head was excommunicated, if not by name, at least

impliedly, by the bull launched against all the authors or

abettors of the attempts against pontifical authority. I can not

refrain from alluding to the Duc de Cadore. He was a man not

without intelligence nor without honesty; but, accepting as

indisputable laws the intentions of the Emperor, after having

employed his ministry in the spoliation of the Spanish dynasty,

he concurred with the same docility in that of the sovereign

Pontiff, and, himself excommunicated as a _mandatory, abettor,

and counselor_, he maintained with great composure that Napoleon

could resume that which Charlemagne had given, and that now

France was in the presence of Rome by the rights of the Gallic

Church.

“The situation of the Empire at the end of 1809 is summarized in

these words by the great historian of the Empire: ‘The Emperor

had made himself, at Vincennes, the rival of the regicides; at

Bayonne, the peer of those who would declare war on Europe to

establish a universal republic; at the Quirinal, the peer

certainly of those who had dethroned Pius VI. to create the

Roman Republic.’

“I am not one of those who assist by declamation in intensifying

the odium of these acts. I do not regard them as unheard-of

monstrosities reserved to our century; I know that history is

full of examples with which it is not difficult to compare them,

and that analogous outrages can be found in the life of

sovereigns for whom posterity has preserved some respect. It

would not be difficult to find in the history of the severities

of the reign of Louis XIV. executions which are not incomparable

with the death of the Duc d’Enghien. The affair of the Man in

the Iron Mask, especially if, as it is difficult not to believe,

this man was a brother of the King, is nothing that the murder

of Vincennes need be envious of; and power and deception are not

less worthily arrayed in the act by which Louis XIV. seized

Lorraine in 1661 than in the fraudulent dismemberment of Spain

in 1808. I see in the abduction of the Pope hardly more than its

equivalent if we revert to the middle ages. I will add that,

even after these acts, for ever to be condemned, it was still

possible, by the use of a little wisdom, to have assured the

repose, the prosperity, and the grandeur of France to the extent

that no name in history would have been more honored than that

of Napoleon. But if any one imagines that this is what he has

not done; that all the wars thereafter undertaken were no more

than the mad preparatory steps to the ruin of the country; and

that thenceforward the character of the man already loaded with

such misdeeds was afflicted with a superciliousness and a

harshness which were discouraging to his best servants, it is

essential to clearly understand that, even at Court, all those

whom the servile complaisance of false judgment had not led

astray, sadly disabused, could rightly serve without confidence,

admire without affection, fear more than hope, desire lessons of

opposition to a terrible power, in his successes to dread his

intoxication, and in his misfortunes to weep for France rather

than him.

“Such, in fact, is the spirit in which these Memoirs would have

been continued, and it will even be found that, by a kind of

retroactive effect, this spirit is shown in the recitals

anterior to 1809. At the epoch in which history was enacting,

this spirit was slow in manifesting itself, as I have now

described it. Years glided away in sadness timid and defiant,

but without hate, and each time that a happy circumstance or a

wise measure gave their light to them, the star of hope resumed

the ascendant, and one tried to believe that the progress in the

direction of evil would have an end.

“The years 1810 and 1811 are the two tranquil years of the

Empire. The marriage in the one and the birth of the King of

Rome in the other seemed pledges of peace and stability. The

hope would have been without shadows, the security entire, if

the torn veil through which the Emperor could be seen had not

revealed passions and errors, seeds always productive of

gratuitous mistakes and senseless attempts. It was seen that the

love of excess had taken possession of him, and was carrying all

before it. Besides the interminable duration of a war with

England, with no possibility of gloriously conquering her, or of

doing her any injury that was not damaging to us, and the

continuation of a struggle in Spain difficult and unfortunate,

were two trials that the pride of the Emperor could not long

endure in peace. It was necessary that he should preserve his

reputation at all cost, and that by some astounding successes he

should cause to be forgotten those obstinate checks to his

fortune. Sound judgment pointed out that the Spanish question

was the one to end, I do not say by a return to justice and by a

generous concession—the Bonapartes are not among those to whom

such measures suggest themselves—but by force. It can readily

be believed that, had the Emperor concentrated all the resources

of his genius and of his Empire upon the resistance of the

Peninsula, he would have conquered it. Unjust causes are not

always destined to fail in this world, and the Emperor ought to

have seen that, in humiliating Spain, he was preparing the

occasion, so vainly sought, for striking England, since that

nation rendered itself vulnerable by landing her armies on the

Continent. Such an occasion made it worth while that something

should be risked. Napoleon should have gone there in person, and

himself entered the lists with Arthur Wellesley. What glory, on

the other hand, and what fortune did he not reserve to himself

and to his nation, in persistently adjourning the struggle, and

in confronting them both finally on the mournful plains of

Waterloo!

“But the Emperor had no relish for the Spanish question; he was

tired of it. It had never yielded a pleasant or glorious moment.

He half understood that he had begun it unjustly and conducted

it feebly; that he had singularly misconceived its difficulty

and importance. He tried to have a contempt for it, in order not

to be humiliated by it; he neglected it, in order to avoid its

anxieties. He had a childish repugnance, if it was nothing

worse, to risking himself in a war which did not appeal to his

imagination. Shall we dare say that he was not absolutely sure

of doing the work well, and that the dangers of reverses turned

him from an enterprise which, even well carried to its

conclusions, would have gone too slowly and with too many

difficulties to have increased his grandeur? A ready

extemporizer, his plan seemed to be to allow everything to die

of old age that displeased him, and to build up his fortune and

fame in some new enterprise. These causes, joined to the logical

developments of an absurd system, and to the developments

natural to an uncontrollable temper, annulled all the guarantees

of prudence and safety that the events of the years 1810 and

1811 seemed to have given, turned him from Spain to Russia, and

brought about that campaign of 1812 which logically drew him on

to his destruction.

“Two years in which hope had the ascendency of fear, and three

years in which fear left very little place for hope—here we

have the division of the five last years of the reign of

Napoleon.

“In speaking of 1810 and 1811, my mother would have had to show

how the two events, which ought to have inspired in the Emperor

the spirit of conservation and of wisdom, his marriage and the

birth of his son, served in the sequel only to exalt his pride.

In the interval all the obstacles between him and the execution

of his will are seen to be removed. For instance, since, long

ago, he does not pardon Fouché for having a will of his own.

Fouché showed that he desired peace. A violent scene occurs to

recall that of which Talleyrand had been the object, and the Duc

de Rovigo becomes Minister of Police, a choice which beguiles,

without doubt, the hopes of the Emperor and the fears of the

public, but which seems, however, to expand still more the area

in which arbitrary power has sway. The existence of Holland and

the indocible character of its King are still an obstacle, at

least a limit. The King is compelled to abdicate, and Holland is

declared French. Rome itself becomes the capital of a

department, and the domain of St. Peter is united, as formerly

Dauphiné was, to furnish a title for the heir to the Empire. The

clerical order, driven with a high hand, is violated in its

customs and in its traditions. An appearance of a council is

attempted and broken up, and prison and exile impose silence on

the Church. A councilor, submissive but modest, executes the

wishes of his master, but does not glorify him; he lacks

enthusiasm in his servitude: Champagny is set aside for Maret

and the lion is let loose in Europe, and no voice is heard which

rouses it to madness. And as, during this time, the fortune of

the conqueror and the liberty of the people have found the one

its limit, the other its bulwark in those immortally celebrated

lines of Torres-Vedras, it becomes essential that this restless

and maddened force should dash itself in pieces upon Moscow.

“This last period, so rich for the political historian in its

terrible pictures, has but little value to the simple observer

of the interior scenes of the government. The cloud became dense

around power, and France knew as little what was done as if she

had been lost by a throw of dice. Nevertheless, there was still

the work of drawing the instructive picture of hearts and of

minds ignorant and restless, indignant and submissive,

desolated, reassured, imposed upon, unconcerned, depressed—all

that at intervals, and sometimes concentrated into an hour; for

despotism, which always feigns to be happy, ill prepares the

masses of the people for misfortune, and believes in courage

only when it has deceived it.

“It is, I think, to this description of public sentiments that

my mother would have been able to consecrate the end of her

Memoirs, for she knew something of what everybody saw. M.

Pasquier, whom she saw every day, observed, by taste as well as

by a sense of duty, the discretion prescribed to his functions.

Accustomed to conversations with the class of persons whom he

ruled without restraint, he was during a great length of time

careful to take political notes, when all the world was free to

talk politics. The Duc de Rovigo, less discreet, divulged his

opinions rather than the facts; and the conversations of M. de

Talleyrand, more frank and more confident, were hardly more than

the disclosure of his judgments and of his predictions.”

POSTSCRIPT

IN the first volume of these Memoirs I attempted to retrace the chief

events of my grandmother’s life, and I also narrated the circumstances

which induced her to rewrite the manuscript unhappily destroyed in 1815.

I considered it necessary to a right comprehension and appreciation of

her views that the reader should learn how she had been brought up, what

were the position and circumstances of her parents, for what reasons she

accepted a place at Bonaparte’s Court, through what phases of

enthusiasm, hope, and disenchantment she passed, how by degrees liberal

opinions gained a hold upon her, and what influence her son, when he

began to make a figure both in society and in political life, exercised

over her.

However strong may be his confidence in the success of a publication, it

is the duty of an editor to avail himself of every aid, and to make

sure, or nearly so, that the author shall in everything be understood.

This was all the more necessary in the present instance, because the

editor, brought up to entertain the same sentiments, and accustomed to

hear the same opinions and the same anecdotes repeated around him, might

well be afraid of deceiving himself respecting the worth or the success

of these reminiscences. Relatives are seldom good judges either of the

intellectual or physical attributes of their kin. Family beauties or

prodigies, admired by the fireside or in select coteries, are frequently

found to be insignificant personages on a larger stage, and when seen in

broader daylight. I therefore thought it well to relate all that might

be needed for the instruction of the reader, and, by introducing him

into the private life of the author, to account for a mixture of

admiration and severity in these Memoirs which sometimes appears

contradictory. I should have been excused for adding my own comments

upon the ability of the writer and the character of her hero; indeed,

such comments would have furnished the subject of a preface, of the kind

that we are told ought to precede every work of serious importance. But

I carefully avoided writing any such preface, because I had one to offer

which would enhance the value of the book to the public, as it enhances

it to myself—a preface written by my father more than twenty years ago.

I may print that preface now, for success has justified his previsions

and our hopes.

When my father wrote the pages that I am about to lay before the reader,

the Second Empire was still in existence, and to all appearance secure.

Nothing short of a persistent trust in the undeviating principles of

justice and liberty could have led any one to believe that its fall was

possible or probable. Since then the fullness of time has come, and

events have marched with a rapidity which could not have been foreseen.

Similar errors have brought about similar reverses; the moody and

wavering mind of Napoleon III. has led him to adopt the same course

which ruined the brilliant and resolute genius of the great Emperor. My

father for the third time beheld the foreigner in France, and vanquished

France seeking in liberty a consolation for defeat. He suffered by our

misfortunes, as he had suffered by them fifty years earlier, and he had

the melancholy honor of repairing a portion of those misfortunes, of

hastening the day of the final deliverance of our soil. He contributed

to the foundation of a liberal and popular Government on a heap of

ruins. The last years of the Empire, the War, the Commune, the difficult

accession of the Republic through so many perils, had no power to change

his convictions; and he would think to-day just what he wrote twenty-two

years ago of the vices of absolute power, of the necessity for teaching

nations what conquerors cost them, of the right of his mother to set

down her impressions, and of the duty of his son to publish them.

PAUL DE RÉMUSAT.

II

LAFFITTE, _November, 1857_.

“I have once more taken up, after a long lapse of time, the

manuscript of these Memoirs, which my mother composed nearly

forty years ago; and, having attentively reperused it, I now

leave it to my sons and to their children, with an injunction to

publish it. I believe that it will prove a useful historical

testimony, and, combined with her correspondence, will be a most

interesting monument to the intellect and the heart of a gifted

and good woman. This work will perpetuate the memory of my

mother.

“At whatever epoch these Memoirs may appear, I foresee that they

will not find the public ready to receive them entirely without

protest, and with satisfaction complete at all points. Even

should the Imperial restoration which we now witness not be

destined to a prolonged future—should it not be, as I hope it

may not be, the final government of the France of the

Revolution—I suspect that, whether through pride, weakness, or

imagination, France, as a whole, will continue to entertain a

tolerably exalted opinion of Napoleon, which it will be

reluctant to submit to the free examination of politics and

philosophy. He was one of those great men who are placed from

the beginning in the sphere of fancy rather than in that of

reason, and in his case poetry has taken the lead of history. A

somewhat puerile sympathy, a somewhat weak generosity, has

almost always made the nation refuse to impute to Bonaparte

those awful ills which he brought down upon France. The nation

has pitied him the most for its own misfortunes, and thought of

him as the noblest victim of the calamities of which he was the

author. I know that the sentiments which have led France to make

this strange mistake are excusable and even praiseworthy; but I

also know that national vanity, the lack of seriousness of mind,

levity which takes little heed of reason and justice, are the

sources of this patriotic error. Let us lay aside the question

of principle—since the nation chooses to resolve that question

differently at different times, and glories in despising liberty

at intervals—and let us speak only the language of national

independence. How can he be in the eyes of the people the hero

of that independence who twice brought the foreign conqueror

into the capital of France, and whose government is the only one

which, for five hundred years, since the time of the mad King

Charles VI., left French territory smaller than it found it?

Even Louis XV. and Charles X. did better than that.

Nevertheless, I am convinced the multitude will abide in its

error, and _non auferetur ab ea_.

“It is, then, very unlikely that the spirit in which my mother

has written will ever be popular, or that all her readers will

be convinced. I am prepared for this, but I also think that

among thoughtful people the truth will make its way. Infatuation

will not have an endless duration, and, notwithstanding certain

obstinate prejudices, public opinion—especially if liberty be

at length restored to us and remain with us—will be

enlightened, and will never again sacrifice the rights of reason

and those of the public conscience to glory. Will my mother

appear sufficiently impartial to these more impartial judges? I

believe she will, if they take account of the time at which she

wrote, and also of the sentiments and ideas which inspired her;

and so I have no hesitation in delivering up her Memoirs to the

judgment of the world.

“‘The further I go,’ wrote my mother to me, ‘the more I am

resolved that, until my death, you shall be my only reader, and

that is enough for me.’ And again: ‘Your father says he knows no

one to whom I could show what I am writing. He says nobody

carries so far as I do “the talent of being true.” That is his

expression. Well, then, I do write for no one, but one day you

will find this among my effects, and you may do with it what you

will.’ She was not without some apprehensions. ‘There is a

thought which sometimes troubles me. I say to myself, “If one

day my son should publish all this, what will be thought of me!”

The idea that I may be supposed to be evil-minded, or, at least,

ill-natured, makes me uneasy. I exhaust myself with the effort

to find something to praise, but this man was such an

exterminator (_assommateur_) of worth, and we were brought so

low, that I grow utterly disheartened, and the cry of truth

utters itself irresistibly. I know no one but you to whom I

would intrust such confidences.’

“I hold myself formally authorized by these passages to bequeath

the work which my mother confided to me to the public. As for

the opinions which it expresses, taking them upon myself, I will

explain myself freely respecting the Emperor and the Empire, but

not from the purely political point of view. All that I might

say on the subject of despotism (which I hate) would be without

importance in this case, since the question is, What would be a

just judgment of the Emperor and the Empire formed by one who

had witnessed the 18th Brumaire, and shared the confident

readiness of the nation to divest itself of the charge of its

own destinies, by placing them in the hands of one man? I deal

with the moral, and not the political, aspect of the matter.

“Let us first consider the Emperor, and discuss him with those

only who, while finding much to admire in him, are willing to

exercise their judgment upon what they admire. It was commonly

said, under his reign, that he despised men. The motives by

which he defended his policy in his conversations were not taken

from among the noble qualities of the human heart, but from that

which he thoroughly understood, the imagination of the people.

Now, imagination is naturally captivated by grand and beautiful

things, and the imagination of the Emperor, which was vivid and

daring, was accessible to this kind of charm. His extraordinary

faculties rendered him capable of great things, and he employed

them, with others, to captivate France, the world, and

posterity. Thence came what was thoroughly admirable in his

power and his life; and, if we were to consider that only, we

could not place him too high. Nevertheless, a close observer

will discern that it was by that intelligence and imagination,

rather than the purely moral sentiments of justice and of right,

that all was done. Take, for example, religion. It was not the

truth of religion, it was its influence and its prestige, which

dictated what he did for its cause; and so with all the rest. In

his contemptuous estimate of humanity, he recognized only two

springs of action—vanity and self-interest; and to the masterly

handling of these he applied himself with remarkable ability.

While by the _éclat_ of his acts, by the glory of his arms, by a

permanent embellishment of conservative social principles, he

gave to his government what was essential to prevent self-love

from blushing at the fact of its connection with it, he

carefully manipulated, he caressed, he even exalted other

sentiments more humble, which may oftentimes be harmless, but

which are not noble and virtuous principles. Love of repose,

fear of responsibility, preoccupation with the pleasures of

private life, the desire of personal comfort, the taste of

riches, as well in the individual as in the family; finally, all

the weaknesses which usually accompany these sentiments when

they are exclusive, found in him a protector. It is from this

point of view that he was everywhere recognized as essential to

the preservation of order. But, when men are governed by the

springs I am about to call to mind, and when the governor is not

upheld or restrained by the sentiment of pure and true glory, by

the instinct of a soul naturally frank and generous, it is an

easy step to the thought that imagination, vanity, interest are

paid with counterfeit as well as good money; that abuses of

power, appearances of grandeur, success attained at all cost,

tranquillity maintained by oppression, riches distributed by

favor, prosperity realized by force or made to seem to exist by

falsehood—that, finally, all the triumphs of artifice or of

violence, all that despotism can wrest from credulity and fear,

are things which also prosper among men; and that the world is

often, without serious objection, the plaything of the strongest

and most shrewd. But nothing in the nature of the Emperor

preserved him from the temptation of employing such means for

the advancement of his power. Not satisfied with meriting power,

he consented, when he could not merit it, to take it by force or

to steal it. He made no distinction between prudence and

cunning, or between true statesmanship and Machiavellism.

Finally, policy is always in the path of deception, and Napoleon

was always a deceiver.

“It is deception which, in my judgment, most degraded the

Emperor, and, unhappily, with him his empire. For this reason,

it is to be regretted that France yielded obedience to him, that

men rendered him service, whatever glory the nation has gained,

whatever probity and whatever talent the men have shown. One can

not wholly ignore the misfortune of having been the dupe or the

accomplice, in all cases the instrument, of a system in which a

cunning deception plays as great a part as wisdom, and violence

as genius; of a system in which cunning deception and violence

must lead on to the desperate extremes of an unwise policy. To

such a policy France will not consent, and it is only in the

interest of self-love that France exalts the glory of Napoleon.

“As to his associates, they likewise ought certainly not to have

been humiliated by what they did or what they silently

sustained. They were right in not publicly denouncing what the

nation did not denounce, and in presenting services loyally

rendered, honesty, zeal, devotion, capacity, the patriotism

which they had displayed in the performance of public duties, as

an offset to the bitter denunciations of their adversaries, to

the trifling or corrupt parties, who had done less or who had

done worse. The recollections of the Convention or those of the

emigration could not be brought against them to any advantage,

and, after all, they did well not to blush at their cause. Their

justification is found in the language of Tacitus, who, even

under a despotism, thinks that praise is due a capable and

efficient officer, though he may practice what he calls

_obsequium et modestia_.

“These last words are applicable to persons of high character

who, like the members of my family, served the Emperor without

mean selfishness and without special distinction. But still,

when, under his reign itself, eyes were opened to the character

of his despotism—when the wail of the dying nation had been

heard, when later, in reflecting upon the fall of a dictatorial

power and on the succession of a constitutional power, that

policy was brought up for consideration which does not place

government and liberty in the hands of enemies, it was

impossible not to revert with some embarrassment, with some

bitterness of heart, to those days in which example, confidence,

admiration, thoughtlessness, a justifiable ambition, had united

to urge good citizens to place themselves among the supporters

of absolute power. For he who does not seek to make himself

blind, he who is ready to be honest with himself, will find it

impossible to conceal the fact that dignity of mind and

character is lost under the pressure of a despotism even

glorious and necessary, and more completely under one that is

harsh and maintained without reason. There is no cause of

self-reproach without doubt; but neither can one praise his own

acts, or be satisfied with what he has done or what he has seen;

and the more the soul is opened to the convictions of liberty,

the more one turns his eyes with grief to the days in which

liberty was shut out from it—days of voluntary servitude, as

Boëtius characterizes it.

“What it has not been either necessary or proper to say of one’s

self to his contemporaries and of the latter to themselves, it

is a duty to frankly avow when one writes for himself and for

the future. What conscience has felt and revealed, what

experience and reflection have taught, it is necessary to

delineate, or not write at all. Unbiased truth, disinterested

truth, is the controlling thought of the Memoirs. This is the

basis of those of my mother.

“She had suffered intensely during the years in which her

opinions were in opposition to her interests, and during which

the former could have triumphed over the latter only _per

abrupta_, as Tacitus says, speaking of this same thing, _sed in

nullum reipublicæ usum_. Attempts of this kind, besides, never

fall to the lot of a woman; and, in a remarkable letter that my

mother wrote to one of her friends, she said to her that women

at least had always the expedient of saying in the palace of

Cæsar:

‘Mais le cœur d’Emilie est hors de ton pouvoir.’

And she declared to her that this line had been her secret

consolation.

“Her correspondence will reveal in its lightest shades, in its

deepest recesses, the sentiments of a pure and active soul. It

will there be seen how she united a generous kindness to a

penetrating observation of all those weaknesses, of all those

unhappy circumstances of our nature, which give opportunity to

the painters of morals to display their talents. It will there

also be seen how, after having caused her much suffering,

Napoleon had kept a place in her thoughts; how this memory still

moved her; and how, when the unhappiness of his exile at St.

Helena was described, she was deeply affected. When, in the

summer of 1821, the news of the death of Napoleon was brought to

Paris, I saw her melt with tears, and she always became sad when

uttering his name. As to the men of her time, I will say only

one thing: she had learned to know them at Court. The

recollection she had preserved of it left her no pleasure. I

have somewhere seen related a little circumstance that greatly

interested those who witnessed it. It was the time when the

French imitation of Schiller’s ‘Marie Stuart’ was in fashion.

There was a scene in which Leicester repels, by pretending not

to know him, a devoted young man who, relying on his secret

thoughts, comes to him with a proposal to save the Queen of

Scotland. Talma represented admirably the haughty cowardice of

the courtier, who disavows his own affection for fear of being

compromised, and insolently repels the man who makes him afraid:

‘What do you want of me? I do not know you.’ The act terminated,

and in the box in which we were seated the entire company was

struck with this scene, and my mother in her agitation suffered

some words to escape whose import was: ‘That was it precisely! I

have seen the same thing!’ When suddenly appeared at the

entrance of the box M. de B——, to whom no special application

could assuredly have been made, but who had been chamberlain of

the Emperor, my mother could no longer restrain herself. She

said to Mme. de Catellan, ‘If you knew, madame!’ . . . and she

wept!

“It may be said that this condition of her mind has influenced

her in coloring her pictures. I do not think it so. Saint-Simon

has also painted a Court, and the despotism in it was more

becoming, more natural, and the characters, perhaps, a little

more strong in our days. What does he do, however, if not

justify, in his truthful painting, what the teachers of his time

and the moralists of all times have said of Courts in general?

The exaggeration of Saint-Simon is in the language. Of a fault

he makes a vice; of a weakness, a cowardice; of a negligence, a

treason; and of a hesitation, a crime. The expression is never

strong enough for his thought, and it is his style which is

unjust rather than his judgment.

“Let us mention a person of a less impulsive mind, more reserved

in her language, and who certainly had her reasons for seeing

with more indulgence than Saint-Simon the people over whom Louis

XIV. reigned. How did Mme. de Maintenon speak of the Court? ‘As

to your friends of the Court,’ she wrote to Mlle. de Glapion,

‘they are always with you, and, if you could see what we see,

you would find yourself seeing (at Saint-Cyr) only

irregularities, wayward conduct, want of light; while we see

murders, jealousies, hatreds, treacheries, insatiable desires,

degradations, which are covered up by the name of grandeur, of

courage, etc., for I fly into a passion in merely permitting

myself to think of them.’ The judgments of my mother are not

characterized by such vivid expressions. But, like Saint-Simon,

like Mme. de Maintenon, she had good reason to think that a

constant personality, which betrays itself by fear, jealousy,

complaisance, flattery, forgetfulness of others, contempt of

justice, and desire to injure others, reigns at the Court of

absolute kings, and that self-love and interest are the two keys

of every Court secret. My mother has said no more; and her

diction, without being cold and tame, never exaggerates the

facts with which she deals, and allows, in almost everything she

has been compelled to relate, that excuse demanded by human

weakness in its struggle with bad example, with the temptation

of fortune, and with the seductions of a power that does not

find itself compelled to respect its promises. It is not without

reason that, when we speak of the Empire, our eulogies are

almost exclusively addressed to its armies, because, at least,

in the business of war, intrepid contempt of death and of

suffering is such a triumphant victory over the selfishness of

ordinary life, that it covers up whatever this selfishness can

suggest, even to the soldiers themselves, of bitter sacrifices

to pride, to envy, to cupidity, to ambition.

“Look through the centuries in which historians and moralists

endeavor to paint in its true colors every evil that incessantly

increases within the sphere of government, especially in the

shadow, or, if Louis XIV. demands it, in _the sun_ of absolute

power. It is strange, in fact, how that which ought to bring

into play only devotion, and to place the benefit of all above

personal interest—I mean the service of the state—furnishes to

human selfishness occasions to make mistakes and means of being

satisfied by the art of concealing itself. But it is apparent

that this has not been said often enough, for I have not

discovered that the evil is soon to end, or even become less

conspicuous. Truth alone, incessantly presented to public

opinion, can arm it against falsehoods, of which party spirit

and state government raise a cloud concealing the misfortunes of

the body politic. The masses of the people can never know too

well at what price human insolence sells them the necessary

service of a government. In times of revolution especially,

misfortune sometimes renders it indulgent to the forms of

government which have fallen, and the system which triumphs

covers with a deceptive veil everything which makes its victory

odious. Truthful books must, some time or other, cause all masks

to fall, and leave to all our weaknesses the salutary fear of

being some day revealed.”

THE END

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected including

Schônbrunn to Schönbrunn and cortége to cortège throughout both volumes.

Inconsistencies in punctuation have been maintained.

Some illustrations were moved to facilitate page layout.

The Table of Contents and List of Illustrations from Volume I was added

to this volume.

[The end of _Memoirs of the Empress Josephine, Vol. II_, by Madame de

Rémusat.]