16th.—About three o’clock the Emperor desired me to come and converse
with him whilst he was dressing himself; we afterwards took a few
turns in the garden. He observed, accidentally, that it was a shame he
could not yet read English. I assured him that, if he had continued
his lessons after the two that I had given when we were off Madeira,
he would now be able to read every kind of English books. He was
thoroughly persuaded of this, and ordered me to oblige him henceforth
to take a lesson every day. The conversation then led me to observe
that I had just given my son his first lesson in mathematics. It is a
branch of knowledge which the Emperor is very fond of, and in which he
is particularly skilled. He was astonished that I could teach my son
so much without the help of any work, and without any copy-book; he
said, he did not know that I was so learned in this way, and
threatened me with examining, when I did not expect it, both the
master and the scholar. At dinner he attacked what he called the
Professor of Mathematics, who was very near being posed by him: one
question did not wait for another, and they were frequently very keen.
He never ceased to regret that the mathematics were not taught at a
very early age in the Lyceums. He said that all the intentions he had
formed respecting the Universities had been frustrated, complained
bitterly of M. de Fontanes, lamenting that, whilst he was obliged to
be at a distance, carrying on the war, they spoiled all he had done at
home, &c. This led the Emperor back to the first years of his life, to
father Patrault, his Professor of Mathematics, whose history he gave
us: I have already introduced it.
FIRST ENGLISH LESSON, &c.
17th.—The Emperor took his first lesson in the English language
to-day. And as it was my intention to put him at once in a situation
to read the papers with readiness, this first lesson consisted of
nothing more than getting acquainted with an English newspaper; in
studying the form and plan of it; in learning the places that are
always given to the different subjects which it contains; in
separating the notices and gossip of the town from politics; and, in
the latter, in learning to distinguish what is authentic from what is
mere report or conjecture.
I have engaged that, if the Emperor could endure being annoyed every
day with such lessons, he would be able to read the papers in a month
without the assistance of any of us. The Emperor wished afterwards to
do some exercises; he wrote some sentences which were dictated to him,
and translated them into English, with the assistance of a little
table, which I made for him, of the auxiliary verbs and articles, and
aided by the dictionary for other words which I made him look out
himself. I explained to him the rules of syntax and grammar, as they
came before us: in this manner he formed various sentences, which
amused him more than the versions which we also attempted. After the
lesson, at two o’clock, we took a walk in the garden.
Several musquet shots were fired: they were so near us that they
appeared to have been fired in the garden itself. The Emperor observed
to me that my son (we thought it was he) seemed to have good sport: I
replied that it was the last time he should enjoy it so near the
Emperor. “Really,” said he, “you may as well go and tell him that he
is only to come within cannon-shot of us.” I ran: we had accused him
wrongfully, for the guns were fired by the people who were training
the Emperor’s horses.
After dinner, during coffee, the Emperor, taking me to the corner of
the chimney-piece, put his hand upon my head to measure my height, and
said, “I am a giant to you.”—“Your Majesty is a giant to so many
others,” I observed to him, “that I am not at all concerned at it.” He
spoke immediately of something else; for he does not like to dwell on
expressions of this kind.
OUR DAILY HABITS.—CONVERSATION WITH GOVERNOR
WILKS.—ARMIES.—CHEMISTRY.—POLITICS.—REMARKS ON INDIA.—DELPHINE, BY
MAD. DE STAËL.—NECKER, CALONNE.
18th—20th. We led a life of great uniformity. The Emperor did not go
out in the mornings. The English lesson was very regularly taken about
two o’clock; then followed either a walk in the garden, or some
presentations, which, however, were very rare; afterwards a little
excursion in the calash, as the horses were at last arrived. Before
dinner we proceeded with the revision of the Campaigns of Italy or
Egypt: after dinner we read romances.
On the 20th, the Emperor received Governor Wilks, with whom he had a
profound discussion on the army, the sciences, government, and the
Indies. Speaking of the organization of the English army, he dwelt
much on the principles of promotion in it; expressing his surprise
that, in a country in which equality of rights is maintained, the
soldiers so seldom become officers.
Colonel Wilks admitted that the English soldiers were not formed to
become officers; and said that the English were equally astonished at
the great difference they had remarked in the French army, where
almost every soldier shewed the nascent talents of an officer. “That,”
observed the Emperor, “is one of the great results of the
Conscription; it has rendered the French army the best constituted
that ever existed. It is an institution,” he continued, “eminently
national, and already strongly interwoven with our habits; it had
ceased to be a cause of grief, except to mothers; and the time was at
hand, when a girl would not have listened to a young man who had not
acquitted himself of this debt to his country. And it would have been
only when arrived at this point,” added he, “that the Conscription
would have manifested the full extent of its advantages. When the
service no longer bears the appearance of punishment or compulsory
duty, but is become a point of honour, on which all are jealous, then
only is the nation great, glorious and powerful; it is then that its
existence is proof against reverses, invasions—even the hand of time!
“Besides,” continued he, “it may be truly said that there is nothing
that may not be obtained from Frenchmen by the excitement of danger;
it seems to animate them; it is an inheritance which they derive from
their Gallic forefathers.... Courage, the love of glory, are, with the
French, an instinct, a kind of sixth sense. How often in the heat of
battle has my attention been fixed on my young conscripts, rushing,
for the first time, into the thickest of the fight: honour and valour
bursting forth at every pore.”
After this, the Emperor, knowing that Governor Wilks was well informed
in chemistry, attacked him on that subject. He spoke of the immense
progress in all our manufactures occasioned by this science. He said,
that both England and France, undoubtedly, possessed great chemists;
but that chemistry was more generally diffused in France, and more
particularly directed to useful results; that in England it remained a
science, while in France it was becoming entirely practical. The
Governor admitted that these observations were perfectly correct, and,
with a liberality of sentiment, added that it was to him, the Emperor,
that all these advantages were owing, and that, wherever science was
led by the hand of power, it would produce great and happy effects
upon the well-being of society. The Emperor observed that of late
France had obtained sugar from the beet-root, as good and cheap as
that extracted from the sugar-cane. The Governor was astonished; he
had not even suspected it. The Emperor assured him that it was an
established fact, opposed, as it was, to the rooted prejudices of all
Europe, France itself not excepted. He added that it was the same with
woad, the substitute for indigo, and with almost all the colonial
produce except the dye-woods. This led him to conclude that if the
invention of the compass had produced a revolution in commerce, the
progress of chemistry bade fair to produce a counter-revolution.
The conversation then turned on the present numerous emigrations of
the artisans of France and England to America. The Emperor observed
that this favoured country grew rich by our follies. The Governor
smiled, and replied, that those of England would occupy the first
place in the list, from the numerous errors of administration, which
had led to the revolt and subsequent emancipation of the Colonies. The
Emperor said that their emancipation was inevitable; that when
children had attained the size of their fathers, it was difficult to
retain them long in a state of obedience.
They then spoke of India; the Governor had resided there many years,
and had filled high situations; he had made important researches; he
was able to reply to a multitude of questions proposed to him by the
Emperor, respecting the laws, the manners, the usages of the Hindoos,
the administration of the English, the nature and construction of the
existing laws, &c.
The English are governed according to the laws of England; the natives
by local acts made by the several Councils in the service of the
Company, with whom it is a fundamental principle to render them as
nearly similar as possible to the laws of the people themselves.
Hyder Aly was a man of genius; Tippoo, his son, was arrogant,
ignorant, and rash. The former had upwards of 100,000 men; the latter
scarcely ever more than 50,000. These people are not deficient in
courage, but they do not possess our physical strength, and have
neither discipline nor any knowledge of tactics. Seventeen thousand
men in the English service, of whom only 4000 were Europeans, were
sufficient to destroy the empire of Mysore. It was, however, to be
presumed that, sooner or later, the national spirit would rescue these
regions from the dominion of the Europeans. The intermixture of
European blood with that of the natives, was producing a mixed race,
whose numbers and disposition certainly prepared the way for a great
revolution. Nevertheless, in their actual condition, the people were
happier than they had been previously to the dominion of the English:
an impartial administration of justice, and the mildness of the
government were, for the present, the strongest supports of the power
of the parent state. It was also considered expedient to prohibit the
English and other Europeans from buying lands there, or forming
hereditary establishments, &c.
Madame de Staël’s _Delphine_ was at this time a subject of
conversation at our evening parties. The Emperor analyzed it: few
things in it escaped his censure. The irregularity of mind and
imagination which pervades it excited his criticism: there were
throughout, said he, the same faults which had formerly made him keep
the authoress at a distance, notwithstanding the most pointed advances
and the most unremitting flattery on her part. No sooner had victory
immortalized the young General of the Army of Italy, than Madame de
Staël, unacquainted with him, from the mere sympathy of glory,
instantly professed for him sentiments of enthusiasm worthy of her own
_Corinne_; she wrote him long and numerous epistles, full of wit,
imagination, and metaphysical erudition: it was an error, she
observed, arising only from human institutions, that could have united
him with the meek, the tranquil, Madame Bonaparte; it was a soul of
fire like her’s (Madame de Staël’s) that nature had undoubtedly
destined to be the companion of a hero like him.
I refer to the Campaigns in Italy to shew that this forwardness on the
part of Madame de Staël was not checked by the circumstance of meeting
with no return. With a perseverance never to be disheartened, she
succeeded, at a later period, in forming some degree of acquaintance,
so far even as to be allowed to visit; and she used this privilege,
said the Emperor, to a disagreeable extent. It is unquestionably true,
as has been reported, that the General, wishing to make her sensible
of it, one day caused her to be told, by way of excuse, that he was
scarcely dressed; and that she replied promptly and seriously, that it
was unimportant, for that genius was of no sex.
From Madame de Staël we were naturally led to her father, M. Necker.
The Emperor related, that at Geneva, in his way to Marengo, he
received a visit from him, wherein he made known, in an awkward manner
enough, his desire to be admitted again to the Administration—a
desire, by the by, which M. Calonne, his rival, subsequently came to
Paris to express with a degree of levity beyond conception. M. Necker
afterwards wrote a dangerous work upon the policy of France, which he
attempted to prove could no longer exist either as a monarchy or a
republic, and in which he called the First Consul _l’homme
necessaire_.
The First Consul proscribed the work, which, at that time, might have
been highly prejudicial to him, and committed the task of refuting it
to the Consul Lebrun, “who in his elegant prose,” said the Emperor,
executed prompt and ample justice upon it. The Necker _coterie_ was
irritated, and Madame de Staël, engaging in some intrigues, received
an order to quit France: thenceforth she became an ardent and
strenuous enemy. Nevertheless, on the return from the Island of Elba,
she wrote or sent to the Emperor, to express, in her peculiar way, the
enthusiasm which this wonderful event had excited in her; that she was
overcome; that this last act was not that of a mortal; that it had at
once raised its author to the skies. Then, returning to herself, she
concluded by hinting that, if the Emperor would condescend to allow
the payment of the two millions, for which an order in her favour had
already been signed by the King, her pen and her principles should be
devoted for ever after to his interest.—The Emperor desired she might
be informed, in answer, that nothing could flatter him more highly
than her approbation, because he fully appreciated her talents; but
that he really was not rich enough to purchase it at that price.