1802.
The intoxication of great men--Unlucky zeal--MM. Maret, Champagny,
and Savary--M. de Talleyrand's real services--Postponement of the
execution of orders--Fouche and the Revolution--The Royalist
committee--The charter first planned during the Consulate--Mission
to Coblentz--Influence of the Royalists upon Josephine--The statue
and the pedestal--Madame de Genlis' romance of Madame de la
Valliere--The Legion of Honour and the carnations--Influence of the
Faubourg St. Germain--Inconsiderate step taken by Bonaparte--Louis
XVIII's indignation--Prudent advice of the Abbe Andre--Letter from
Louis XVIII. to Bonaparte--Council held at Neuilly--The letter
delivered--Indifference of Bonaparte, and satisfaction of the
Royalists.
Perhaps one of the happiest ideas that ever were expressed was that of
the Athenian who said, "I appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober."
The drunkenness here alluded to is not of that kind which degrades a man
to the level of a brute, but that intoxication which is occasioned by
success, and which produces in the heads of the ambitious a sort of
cerebral congestion. Ordinary men are not subject to this excitement,
and can scarcely form an idea of it. But it is nevertheless true that
the fumes of glory and ambition occasionally derange the strongest heads;
and Bonaparte, in all the vigour of his genius, was often subject to
aberrations of judgment; for though his imagination never failed him, his
judgment was frequently at fault.
This fact may serve to explain, and perhaps even to excuse the faults
with which the First Consul has been most seriously reproached. The
activity of his mind seldom admitted of an interval between the
conception and the execution of a design; but when he reflected coolly on
the first impulses of his imperious will, his judgment discarded what was
erroneous. Thus the blind obedience, which, like an epidemic disease,
infected almost all who surrounded Bonaparte, was productive of the most
fatal effects. The best way to serve the First Consul was never to
listen to the suggestions of his first ideas, except on the field of
battle, where his conceptions were as happy as they were rapid. Thus,
for example, MM. Maret, de Champagny, and Savary evinced a ready
obedience to Bonaparte's wishes, which often proved very unfortunate,
though doubtless dictated by the best intentions on their part. To this
fatal zeal may be attributed a great portion of the mischief which
Bonaparte committed. When the mischief was done, and past remedy,
Bonaparte deeply regretted it. How often have I heard him say that Maret
was animated by an unlucky zeal! This was the expression he made use of.
M. de Talleyrand was almost the only one among the ministers who did not
flatter Bonaparte, and who really served both the First Consul and the
Emperor. When Bonaparte said to M. de Talleyrand, "Write so and so, and
send it off by a special courier," that minister was never in a hurry to
obey the order, because he knew the character of the First Consul well
enough to distinguish between what his passion dictated and what his
reason would approve: in short, he appealed from Philip drunk to Philip
sober. When it happened that M. de Talleyrand suspended the execution of
an order, Bonaparte never evinced the least displeasure. When, the day
after he had received any hasty and angry order, M. de Talleyrand
presented himself to the First Consul, the latter would say, "Well, did
you send off the courier?"--"No," the minister would reply, "I took care
not to do so before I showed you my letter." Then the First Consul would
usually add, "Upon second thoughts I think it would be best not to send
it." This was the way to deal with Bonaparte. When M. de Talleyrand
postponed sending off despatches, or when I myself have delayed the
execution of an order which I knew had been dictated by anger, and had
emanated neither from his heart nor his understanding, I have heard him
say a hundred times, "It was right, quite right. You understand me:
Talleyrand understands me also. This is the way to serve me: the others
do not leave me time for reflection: they are too precipitate." Fouche
also was one of those who did not on all occasions blindly obey
Bonaparte's commands. His other ministers, on the other hand, when told
to send off a courier the next morning, would have more probably sent him
off the same evening. This was from zeal, but was not the First Consul
right in saying that such zeal was unfortunate?
Of Talleyrand and Fouche, in their connections with the First Consul, it
might be said that the one represented the Constituent Assembly, with a
slight perfume of the old regime, and the other the Convention in all its
brutality. Bonaparte regarded Fouche as a complete personification of
the Revolution. With him, therefore, Fouche's influence was merely the
influence of the Revolution. That great event was one of those which had
made the most forcible impression on Bonaparte's ardent mind, and he
imagined he still beheld it in a visible form as long as Fouche continued
at the head of his police. I am now of opinion that Bonaparte was in
some degree misled as to the value of Fouche's services as a minister.
No doubt the circumstance of Fouche being in office conciliated those of
the Revolutionary party who were his friends. But Fouche cherished an
undue partiality for them, because he knew that it was through them he
held his place. He was like one of the old Condottieri, who were made
friends of lest they should become enemies, and who owed all their power
to the soldiers enrolled under their banners.
Such was Fouche, and Bonaparte perfectly understood his situation. He
kept the chief in his service until he could find an opportunity of
disbanding his undisciplined followers. But there was one circumstance
which confirmed his reliance on Fouche. He who had voted the death of
the King of France, and had influenced the minds of those who had voted
with him, offered Bonaparte the best guarantee against the attempts of
the Royalists for raising up in favour of the Bourbons the throne which
the First Consul himself had determined to ascend. Thus, for different
reasons, Bonaparte and Fouche had common interests against the House of
Bourbon, and the master's ambition derived encouragement from the
supposed terror of the servant.
The First Consul was aware of the existence in Paris of a Royalist
committee, formed for the purpose of corresponding with Louis XVIII.
This committee consisted of men who must not be confounded with those
wretched intriguers who were of no service to their employers, and were
not unfrequently in the pay of both Bonaparte and the Bourbons.
The Royalist committee, properly so called, was a very different thing.
It consisted of men professing rational principles of liberty, such as
the Marquis de Clermont Gallerande, the Abbe de Montesqiou, M. Becquet,
and M. Royer Collard. This committee had been of long standing; the
respectable individuals whose names I have just quoted acted upon a
system hostile to the despotism of Bonaparte, and favourable to what they
conceived to be the interests of France. Knowing the superior wisdom of
Louis XVIII., and the opinions which he had avowed and maintained in the
Assembly of the Notables, they wished to separate that Prince from the
emigrants, and to point him out to the nation as a suitable head of a
reasonable Constitutional Government. Bonaparte, whom I have often heard
speak on the subject, dreaded nothing so much as these ideas of liberty,
in conjunction with a monarchy. He regarded them as reveries, called the
members of the committee idle dreamers, but nevertheless feared the
triumph of their ideas. He confessed to me that it was to counteract the
possible influence of the Royalist committee that he showed himself so
indulgent to those of the emigrants whose monarchical prejudices he knew
were incompatible with liberal opinions. By the presence of emigrants
who acknowledged nothing short of absolute power, he thought he might
paralyse the influence of the Royalists of the interior; he therefore
granted all such emigrants permission to return.
About this time I recollect having read a document, which had been
signed, purporting to be a declaration of the principles of Louis XVIII.
It was signed by M. d'Andre, who bore evidence to its authenticity.
The principles contained in the declaration were in almost all points
conformable to the principles which formed the basis of the charter.
Even so early as 1792, and consequently previous to the fatal 21st of
January, Louis XVI., who knew the opinions of M. de Clermont Gallerande,
sent him on a mission to Coblentz to inform the Princes from him, and the
Queen, that they would be ruined by their emigration. I am accurately
informed, and I state this fact with the utmost confidence. I can also
add with equal certainty that the circumstance was mentioned by M. de
Clermont Gallerande in his Memoirs, and that the passage relative to his
mission to Coblentz was cancelled before the manuscript was sent to
press.
During the Consular Government the object of the Royalist committee was
to seduce rather than to conspire. It was round Madame Bonaparte in
particular that their batteries were raised, and they did not prove
ineffectual. The female friends of Josephine filled her mind with ideas
of the splendour and distinction she would enjoy if the powerful hand
which had chained the Revolution should raise up the subverted throne.
I must confess that I was myself, unconsciously, an accomplice of the
friends of the throne; for what they wished for the interest of the
Bourbons I then ardently wished for the interest of Bonaparte.
While endeavours were thus made to gain over Madame Bonaparte to the
interest of the royal family, brilliant offers were held out for the
purpose of dazzling the First Consul. It was wished to retemper for him
the sword of the constable Duguesclin; and it was hoped that a statue
erected to his honour would at once attest to posterity his spotless
glory and the gratitude of the Bourbons. But when these offers reached
the ears of Bonaparte he treated them with indifference, and placed no
faith in their sincerity. Conversing on the subject one day with M. de
La Fayette he said, "They offer me a statue, but I must look to the
pedestal. They may make it my prison." I did not hear Bonaparte utter
these words; but they were reported to me from a source, the authenticity
of which may be relied on.
About this time, when so much was said in the Royalist circles and in the
Faubourg St. Germain, of which the Hotel de Luynes was the headquarters,
about the possible return of the Bourbons, the publication of a popular
book contributed not a little to direct the attention of the public to
the most brilliant period of the reign of Louis XIV. The book was the
historical romance of Madame de la Valloire, by Madame de Genlis, who had
recently returned to France. Bonaparte read it, and I have since
understood that he was very well pleased with it, but he said nothing to
me about it. It was not until some time after that he complained of the
effect which was produced in Paris by this publication, and especially by
engravings representing scenes in the life of Louis XIV., and which were
exhibited in the shop-windows. The police received orders to suppress
these prints; and the order was implicitly obeyed; but it was not
Fouche's police. Fouche saw the absurdity of interfering with trifles.
I recollect that immediately after the creation of the Legion of Honour,
it being summer, the young men of Paris indulged in the whim of wearing a
carnation in a button-hole, which at a distance had rather a deceptive
effect. Bonaparte took this very seriously. He sent for Fouche, and
desired him to arrest those who presumed thus to turn the new order into
ridicule. Fouche merely replied that he would wait till the autumn; and
the First Consul understood that trifles were often rendered matters of
importance by being honoured with too much attention.
But though Bonaparte was piqued at the interest excited by the engravings
of Madame de Genlis' romance he manifested no displeasure against that
celebrated woman, who had been recommended to him by MM. de Fontanes and
Fievee and who addressed several letters to him. As this sort of
correspondence did not come within the routine of my business I did not
see the letters; but I heard from Madame Bonaparte that they contained a
prodigious number of proper names, and I have reason to believe that they
contributed not a little to magnify, in the eyes of the First Consul, the
importance of the Faubourg St. Germain, which, in spite of all his
courage, was a scarecrow to him.
Bonaparte regarded the Faubourg St. Germain as representing the whole
mass of Royalist opinion; and he saw clearly that the numerous erasures
from the emigrant list had necessarily increased dissatisfaction among
the Royalists, since the property of the emigrants had not been restored
to its old possessors, even in those cases in which it had not been sold.
It was the fashion in a certain class to ridicule the unpolished manners
of the great men of the Republic compared with the manners of the
nobility of the old Court. The wives of certain generals had several
times committed themselves by their awkwardness. In many circles there
was an affectation of treating with contempt what are called the
parvenus; those people who, to use M. de Talleyrand's expression, do not
know how to walk upon a carpet. All this gave rise to complaints against
the Faubourg St. Germain; while, on the other hand, Bonaparte's brothers
spared no endeavours to irritate him against everything that was
calculated to revive the recollection of the Bourbons.
Such were Bonaparte's feelings, and such was the state of society during
the year 1802. The fear of the Bourbons must indeed have had a powerful
influence on the First Consul before he could have been induced to take a
step which may justly be regarded as the most inconsiderate of his whole
life. After suffering seven months to elapse without answering the first
letter of Louis XVIII., after at length answering his second letter in
the tone of a King addressing a subject, he went so far as to write to
Louis, proposing that he should renounce the throne of his ancestors in
his, Bonaparte's, favour, and offering him as a reward for this
renunciation a principality in Italy, or a considerable revenue for
himself and his family.
--[Napoleon seems to have always known, as with Cromwell and the
Stuarts, that if his dynasty failed the Bourbons must succeed him.
"I remember," says Metternich, "Napoleon said to me, 'Do you know
why Louis XVIII. is not now sitting opposite to you? It is only
because it is I who am sitting here. No other person could maintain
his position; and if ever I disappear in consequence of a
catastrophe no one but a Bourbon could sit here.'" (Metternich, tome
i. p. 248). Farther, he said to Metternich, "The King overthrown,
the Republic was master of the soil of France. It is that which I
have replaced. The old throne of France is buried under its
rubbish. I had to found a new one. The Bourbons could not reign
over this creation. My strength lies in my fortune. I am new, like
the Empire; there is, therefore, a perfect homogeneity between the
Empire and myself."--"However," says Metternich, "I have often
thought that Napoleon, by talking in this way, merely sought to
study the opinion of others, or to confuse it, and the direct
advance which he made to Louis XVIII., in 1804 seemed to confirm
this suspicion. Speaking to me one day of this advance he said,
'Monsieur's reply was grand; it was full of fine traditions. There
is something in legitimate rights which appeals to more than the
mere mind. If Monsieur had consulted his mind only he would have
arranged with me, and I should have made for him a magnificent
future'" (Metternich, tome i, p. 276). According to Iung's Lucien
(tome ii. p. 421), the letter written and signed by Napoleon, but
never sent, another draft being substituted, is still in the French
archives. Metternich speaks of Napoleon making a direct advance to
Louis XVIII. in 1804. According to Colonel Iung (Lucien Bonaparte,
tome ii. pp. 4211-426) the attempt was made through the King of
Prussia in 1802, the final answer of Louis being made on the 28th
February 1803, as given in the text, but with a postscript of his
nephew in addition, "With the permission of the King, my uncle, I
adhere with heart and soul to the contents of this note.
"(signed) LOUIS ANTOINE, Due d'Angouleme."
The reader will remark that there is no great interval between this
letter and the final break with the Bourbons by the death of the Duc
d'Enghien. At this time, according to Savory (tome iii. p. 241),
some of the Bourbons were receiving French pensions. The Prince de
Conti, the Duchesse de Bourbon, and the Duchesse d'Orleans, when
sent out of France by the Directory, were given pensions of from
20,000 to 26,000 francs each. They lived in Catalonia. When the
French troops entered Spain in 1808 General Canclaux, a friend of
the Prince de Conti, brought to the notice of Napoleon that the
tiresome formalities insisted on by the pestilent clerks of all
nations were observed towards these regal personages. Gaudin, the
Minister of Finance, apparently on his own initiative, drew up a
decree increasing the pensions to 80,000 francs, and doing away with
the formalities. "The Emperor signed at once, thanking the Minister
of Finance." The reader, remembering the position of the French
Princes then, should compare this action of Napoleon with the
failure of the Bourbons in 1814 to pay the sums promised to
Napoleon, notwithstanding the strong remonstrances made at Vienna to
Talleyrand by Alexander and Lord Castlereagh. See Talleyrand's
Correspondence with Louis XVIII., tome ii. pp. 27, 28; or French
edition, pp. 285, 288.]--
The reader will recollect the curious question which the First Consul put
to me on the subject of the Bourbons when we were walking in the park of
Malmaison. To the reply which I made to him on that occasion I attribute
the secrecy he observed towards me respecting the letter just alluded to.
I am indeed inclined to regard that letter as the result of one of his
private conferences with Lucien; but I know nothing positive on the
subject, and merely mention this as a conjecture. However, I had an
opportunity of ascertaining the curious circumstances which took place at
Mittau, when Bonaparte's letter was delivered to Louis XVIII.
That Prince was already much irritated against Bonaparte by his delay in
answering his first letter, and also by the tenor of his tardy reply;
but on reading the First Consul's second letter the dethroned King
immediately sat down and traced a few lines forcibly expressing his
indignation at such a proposition. The note, hastily written by Louis
XVIII. in the first impulse of irritation, bore little resemblance to the
dignified and elegant letter which Bonaparte received, and which I shall
presently lay before the reader. This latter epistle closed very happily
with the beautiful device of Francis I., "All is lost but honour." But
the first letter was stamped with a more chivalrous tone of indignation.
The indignant sovereign wrote it with his hand supported on the hilt of
his sword; but the Abbe Andre, in whom Louis XVIII. reposed great
confidence, saw the note, and succeeded, not without some difficulty,
in soothing the anger of the King, and prevailing on him to write the
following letter:
I do not confound M. Bonaparte with those who have preceded him.
I esteem his courage and his military talents. I am grateful for
some acts of his government; for the benefits which are conferred on
my people will always be prized by me.
But he errs in supposing that he can induce me to renounce my
rights; so far from that, he would confirm them, if they could
possibly be doubtful, by the step he has now taken.
I am ignorant of the designs of Heaven respecting me and my
subjects; but I know the obligations which God has imposed upon me.
As a Christian, I will fulfil my duties to my last breath--as the
son of St. Louis, I would, like him, respect myself even in chains--
as the successor of Francis I., I say with him--'Tout est perdu fors
l'honneur'.
MITTAU, 1802. LOUIS.
Louis XVIII.'s letter having reached Paris, the Royalist committee
assembled, and were not a little embarrassed as to what should be done.
The meeting took place at Neuilly. After a long deliberation it was
suggested that the delivery of the letter should be entrusted to the
Third Consul, with whom the Abby de Montesqiou had kept up acquaintance
since the time of the Constituent Assembly. This suggestion was adopted.
The recollections of the commencement of his career, under Chancellor
Maupeou, had always caused M. Lebrun to be ranked in a distinct class by
the Royalists. For my part, I always looked upon him as a very honest
man, a warm advocate of equality, and anxious that it should be protected
even by despotism, which suited the views of the First Consul very well.
The Abbe de Montesquiou accordingly waited upon M. Lebrun, who undertook
to deliver the letter. Bonaparte received it with an air of
indifference; but whether that indifference were real or affected, I am
to this day unable to determine. He said very little to me about the ill
success of the negotiation with Louis XVIII. On this subject he dreaded,
above all, the interference of his brothers, who created around him a
sort of commotion which he knew was not without its influence, and which
on several occasions had excited his anger.
The letter of Louis XVIII. is certainly conceived in a tone of dignity
which cannot be too highly admired; and it may be said that Bonaparte on
this occasion rendered a real service to Louis by affording him the
opportunity of presenting to the world one of the finest pages in the
history of a dethroned King. This letter, the contents of which were
known in some circles of Paris, was the object of general approbation to
those who preserved the recollection of the Bourbons, and above all, to
the Royalist committee. The members of that committee, proud of the
noble spirit evinced by the unfortunate monarch, whose return they were
generously labouring to effect, replied to him by a sort of manifesto, to
which time has imparted interest, since subsequent events have fulfilled
the predictions it contained.