Emperor directed the Duke of Otranto to examine them. Of this he
immediately repented, and sent for them again. Part fell to our share:
the rest were delivered to the Duke of Vicenza. Their examination
afforded nothing interesting. The Emperor, disappointed, accused M.
Fouche of having removed the important papers. Those we inspected
consisted only of private reports, and confidential and anonymous
notes. The hatred of the revolution pervaded every line, every word.
The writers did not dare to propose plainly the revocation of the
Charter, and the abolition of the new institutions; but they declared
without any circumlocution, that the dynasty of the Bourbons would
never be secure with the existing laws; and that it was necessary, to
distrust and get rid of the men of the revolution. More effectually to
know and persecute these, M. de Blacas had caused to be disinterred
from the archives of the cabinet, and of the ministers, the documents
that might serve to make known their conduct ever since 1789, and he
had directed biographical notices of each to be composed, which might
easily have been taken for indictments drawn up by M. Bellart[106].
[Footnote 106: Attorney-general to the king,
employed on certain occasions, to prosecute
political crimes and misdemeanors.]
We found also a number of minutes of laws and ordinances, written by
the hand of this minister, and attesting by their laborious
corrections, how destitute he was of readiness and of imagination.
Frequently he made three or four foul copies, before he could give any
consistency or connection to his ideas. His familiar style was dry and
turgid: if the style exhibit the man, how I pity M. de Blacas! He took
extreme pains to vary, himself, the form of his appointments
(_rendez-vous_): and the trouble he gave himself, to say the same
thing in several different ways, wonderfully reminded us of the
billet-doux of the Bourgeois Gentilhomme: "_Belle Marquise, vos beaux
yeux me font mourir d'amour; d'amour mourir me font, belle Marquise,
vos beaux yeux[107]._"
[Footnote 107: "Beautiful Marchioness, your
beautiful eyes make me die of love; of love make me
die, beautiful Marchioness, your beautiful eyes."]
In fine, we collected from the cabinet of this minister an ample
collection of royal denunciations, petitions, justifications, and
confessions, of those men, who, like Lockard, are always "the most
humble servants of circumstances."
These humble servants, when the Emperor returned from the island of
Elba, did not fail to prostrate themselves before him anew. They
assured him, after the example of a certain Marquis well known, that
they had denied, insulted, calumniated him, only that they might
remain faithful to him, without being suspected by the royal
government: they conjured him, to grant them the happiness and glory
of serving him; but he disdained their supplications, as he had
disdained their insults: they gained nothing but his contempt. Always
as devoid of shame as of faith, they were eager, immediately after the
fall of Napoleon, to turn round anew, and carry back to the King their
faded homage. Some, as M. the Count de M***, whose hands are still
reeking with the blood of his assistants (_administres_), contrived,
with the help of their lying fidelity, to surprise his easy
confidence. Others, as M. F***, became in their writings the virulent
persecutors of men, whose lot they had envied, and whose support they
had begged. All arrogated to themselves exclusively the title of pure
royalists: the title of honest men.... I know them ... the mask, with
which they cover themselves, the honours, the dignities, with which
they are invested, cannot disguise them to my eyes.... Shall I name
them? And the Emperor is accused of despising mankind! ah, where is
the sovereign, that can esteem them?
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.