4th.—To-day the Emperor received some captains of the China fleet. He
conversed a long time with them respecting their trade, the facility
of their intercourse with the Chinese, the manners of that people, &c.
The ships which trade to China are from 14 to 1500 tons’ burthen,
nearly equal to sixty-fours; and they draw from twenty-two to
twenty-three feet of water: they are laden almost exclusively with
tea. One of those just arrived had nearly 1500 tons on board. The
cargoes of the six ships which came into the road last night are
valued at about sixty millions; and as they will be subject to a duty
of 100 per cent., on their arrival in England, 120 millions will thus
at once be thrown into circulation in Europe.
Europeans are allowed very little liberty at Canton. Their residence
is chiefly limited to the suburbs. They are treated with the greatest
contempt by the Chinese, who assume an air of great superiority, and
conduct themselves in a very arbitrary manner. The Chinese are very
intelligent, industrious, and active; but they are great thieves and
extremely treacherous. They transact all business in the European
languages, which they speak with facility.
The arrival of fleets at St. Helena is a circumstance equally pleasing
to the crews and the inhabitants of the Island. The latter sell their
merchandize and purchase provisions; the seamen, on their part, are
enabled to set foot on land, and to refresh themselves. This state of
things usually continues for a fortnight or three weeks; but, on the
present occasion, the Admiral, to the great disappointment of every
body, limited the period of refreshment to two days only for the first
two ships that had anchored off the town. The others were ordered to
remain under sail, and to come up to the town in succession, two by
two. It must be supposed that he has received very strict orders, or
is under some very great apprehension, of which we are not aware.
The Emperor walked for some time in the garden before he got into his
calash. Among the trees in the neighbourhood, we perceived some
officers newly arrived at the Island, who were endeavouring to get a
peep at the Emperor, the sight of whom seemed to be an object of great
importance to them.
ETIQUETTE OF THE EMPEROR’S COURT.—CIRCUMSTANCE THAT TOOK PLACE AT
TARARE.—OFFICERS OF STATE.—CHAMBERLAINS.—UNEQUALLED SPLENDOUR OF THE
COURT OF THE TUILERIES.—ADMIRABLE REGULATION OF THE PALACE.—THE
EMPEROR’S LEVEES.—DINING IN STATE.—THE COURT AND THE CITY.
5th.—To-day the Emperor conversed a great deal about this Court and
the etiquette observed in it. The following is the substance of what
fell from him on this subject.
At the period of the Revolution, the Courts of Spain and Naples still
imitated the ceremony and grandeur of Louis XIV., mingled with the
pomp and exaggeration of the Castilians and Moors. They were insipid
and ridiculous. The court of St. Petersburg had assumed the tone and
forms of the drawing-room; that of Vienna had become quite
citizen-like; and there no longer remained any vestige of the wit, the
grace, and the good taste of the Court of Versailles.
When, therefore, Napoleon attained the sovereign power, he found a
clear road before him, and he had an opportunity of forming a Court
according to his own taste. He was desirous of adopting a rational
medium by accommodating the dignity of the throne to modern customs,
and, particularly, by making the creation of a Court contribute to
improve the manners of the great, and promote the industry of the mass
of the people. It certainly was no easy matter to re-construct a
throne on the very spot where a reigning monarch had been judicially
executed, and where the people had constitutionally sworn hatred to
kings. It was not easy to restore dignities, titles, and decorations,
among a people who for the space of fifteen years had waged a war of
proscription against them. Napoleon, however, who seemed always to
possess the power of effecting what he wished, perhaps because he had
the art of wishing for what was just and proper, after a great
struggle, surmounted all these difficulties. When he became Emperor,
he created a class of nobility, and formed a Court. Victory seemed all
on a sudden to do her utmost to consolidate and shed a lustre over
this new order of things. All Europe acknowledged the Emperor; and at
one period it might have been said that all the Courts of the
Continent had flocked to Paris to add to the splendour of the
Tuileries, which was the most brilliant and numerous Court ever seen.
There was a continued series of parties, balls, and entertainments;
and the Court was always distinguished for extraordinary magnificence
and grandeur. The person of the sovereign was alone remarkable for
extreme simplicity, which, indeed, was a characteristic that served to
distinguish him amidst the surrounding splendour. He encouraged all
this magnificence, he said, from motives of policy, and not because it
accorded with his own taste. It was calculated to encourage
manufactures and national industry. The ceremonies and festivities
which took place on the marriage of the Empress and the birth of the
King of Rome, far surpassed any which had preceded them, and probably
will never again be equalled.
The Emperor endeavoured to establish, in his foreign relations, every
thing that was calculated to place him in harmony with the other
Courts of Europe; but at home he constantly tried to adapt old forms
to new manners.
He established the _levers_ and _couchers_ of the old kings of France;
but with him they were merely nominal, and did not exist in reality,
as in former times. Instead of being occupied in the most minute and
indelicate details of the toilet, these hours under the Emperor were,
in fact, appropriated to receiving in the morning and dismissing in
the evening, such persons of his household as had to receive orders
directly from him, and who were privileged to pay their court to him
at those times.
The Emperor also established special presentations to his person and
admission to his Court: but instead of making noble birth the only
means of securing these honours, the title for obtaining them was
founded solely on the combined bases of fortune, influence, and public
services.
Napoleon, moreover, created titles, the qualifications for which were
nearly similar to those of the old feudal system. These titles,
however, possessed no real value, and were established for an object
purely national. Those which were unaccompanied by any prerogatives or
privileges might be enjoyed by persons of any rank or profession, and
were bestowed as rewards for all kinds of services. The Emperor
observed that abroad they had the useful effect of appearing to be an
approximation to the old manners of Europe, while at the same time
they served as a toy for amusing the vanities of many individuals at
home; “for,” said he, “how many superior men are children oftener than
once a day!”
The Emperor revived decorations of honour, and distributed crosses and
ribands. But instead of confining them to particular and exclusive
classes, he extended them to society in general as rewards for every
kind of talent and public service. By a happy privilege, perhaps
peculiar to Napoleon, it happened that the value of these honours was
enhanced in proportion to the number distributed. He estimated that he
had conferred about 25,000 decorations of the Legion of Honour; and
the desire to obtain the honour, he said, increased until it became a
kind of _mania_.
After the battle of Wagram, he sent the decoration of the Legion of
Honour to the Archduke Charles, and, by a refinement in compliment,
peculiar to Napoleon, he sent him merely the silver cross, which was
worn by the private soldiers.
The Emperor said that it was only by acting strictly and voluntarily
in conformity with these maxims that he had become the real national
monarch; and an adherence to the same course would have rendered the
fourth dynasty the truly constitutional one. Of these facts, said he,
the people of the lowest rank frequently evinced an instinctive
knowledge.
The Emperor related the following anecdote:—On returning from his
coronation in Italy, as he approached the environs of Lyons, he found
all the population assembled on the roads to see him pass, and he took
a fancy to ascend the hill of Tarare alone. He gave orders that nobody
should follow him, and, mingling with the crowd, he accosted an old
woman, and asked what all the bustle was about. She replied, that the
Emperor was expected. After some little conversation he said to her:
“My good woman, formerly you had the tyrant Capet; now you have the
tyrant Napoleon; what have you gained by the change?” The force of
this argument disconcerted the old woman for a moment; but she
immediately recollected herself, and replied, “Pardon me, sir, there
is a great difference. We ourselves chose this one; but we got the
other by chance.” “The old woman was right,” said the Emperor, “and
she exhibited more instinctive good sense than many men who are
possessed of great information and talent.”
The Emperor surrounded himself with great Crown officers. He
established a numerous household of chamberlains, equerries, &c. He
selected persons to fill these offices indiscriminately from among
those whom the Revolution had elevated, and from the ancient families
which it had ruined. The former considered themselves as standing on
ground which they had acquired; the latter on that which they thought
they had recovered. The Emperor had in view, by this mixture of
persons, the extinction of hatred and the amalgamation of parties. He
observed, however, that it was easy to perceive a variety of manners.
The individuals belonging to the ancient families performed their
duties with the greatest courtesy and assiduity. A Madame de
Montmorency would have stooped down to tie the Empress’s shoes; a lady
of the new school would have hesitated to do this, lest she should be
taken for a real waiting-woman; but Madame de Montmorency had no such
apprehension. These posts of honour were for the most part without
emolument; they were even attended with expense. But they brought the
individuals who filled them daily under the eye of the Sovereign—of an
all-powerful Sovereign, the source of honour and emoluments; and who
had declared that he would not have the lowest officer in his
household solicit a favour from any one but himself.
At the time of his marriage with the Empress Maria-Louisa, the Emperor
made an extensive recruit of chamberlains from among the highest ranks
of the old aristocracy; this he did with the view of proving to Europe
that there existed but one party in France, and rallying round the
Empress those individuals whose names must have been familiar to her.
It is understood that the Emperor even hesitated whether or not to
select the lady of honour from that class; but his fear lest the
Empress, with whose character he was unacquainted, might be imbued
with prejudices respecting birth, that might too much elate the old
party, induced him to make another choice.
From this moment until the period of our disasters, the most ancient
and illustrious families eagerly solicited places in the household of
the Emperor; and how could it be otherwise? The Emperor governed the
world: he had raised France and the French people above the level of
other nations. Power, glory, constituted his retinue. Happy were they
who inhaled the atmosphere of the Imperial Court. To be immediately
connected with the Emperor’s person, furnished, both abroad and at
home, a title to consideration, homage, and respect.
Upon the Restoration, a royalist, who had preserved himself pure, and
in whose sight I had found grace, said to me, in the most serious
tone, (for, what a difference in ideas does not difference of party
produce!) that with my name, and the openness of conduct I had
maintained, I ought not to despair of still obtaining a situation near
the King, or in the household of some of the Princes or Princesses.
How greatly was he astonished when I replied:—“My friend, I have
rendered that impossible: I have served the most powerful master upon
earth: I cannot in future, without degradation, stand in the same
relation to any other. Know, that when we conveyed the orders of the
Emperor to a distance, into foreign Courts, wearing his uniform, we
considered ourselves, and were every where treated, as upon an
equality with princes. He has presented to us the spectacle of not
fewer than seven Kings waiting in his saloons, in the midst of us, and
with us. On his marriage, four Queens bore the robe of the Empress, of
whom, moreover, one of us was the Gentleman Usher, another the
Equerry. Believe then, my friend, that a noble ambition is perfectly
satisfied with such honours.”
Besides, the magnificence and splendour that composed this unexampled
Court, rested on a system and a regularity of administration that has
excited the astonishment and admiration of those who have searched
amid its wrecks. The Emperor himself inspected the accounts several
times in the course of the year. All his mansions were found to be
repaired and decorated: they contained nearly forty millions in
household furniture, besides four millions in plate. If he had enjoyed
a few years of peace, imagination can scarcely fix limits, he said, to
what he would have accomplished.
The Emperor said he had conceived an excellent idea, which he was much
grieved at not having put in execution: it was to have commissioned
some persons to collect the most important petitions. “They should
have named, every day,” said he, “three or four individuals from the
provinces, who would have been admitted to my levee, and have
explained their business to me in person; I would have discussed it
with them immediately, and administered justice to them without
delay.”
I observed to the Emperor that the Commission he had created at a very
early period, under the name of “Commission of Petitions,” came very
near the idea in question, and was, in fact, productive of much good.
I was President of it on his return from Elba, and in the first month
I had already done justice to more than four thousand petitions. “It
is true,” I observed, “that circumstances originally, and custom
afterwards, had never allowed this establishment to enjoy the most
valuable prerogative with which its organization had been endowed,
that which would undoubtedly have produced the greatest effect on
public opinion; namely to present to him officially, at his great
audience on Sunday, the result of the week’s labours.” But the nature
of things, the constant expeditions of the Emperor, and, above all,
the jealousy of the Ministers, had concurred to deprive the Commission
of this high privilege.
The Emperor said, also, he was sorry he had not established it as part
of the etiquette of the Court that all persons who had been presented,
females particularly, who had any claim to obtain an audience of him,
should have the unquestioned right of entering the ante-chamber. The
Emperor, passing through it several times in the day, might have taken
the opportunity to satisfy some of their requests; and might in this
manner have spared the refusal of audiences, or the loss of time
occasioned by them. The Emperor had hesitated for some time, he said,
about re-establishing the _grand couvert_ of the kings of France, that
is, the dining in public, every Sunday, of the whole Imperial family.
He asked our opinion of it. We differed. Some approved of it,
represented this family spectacle as beneficial to public morals, and
fitted to produce the best effects on public spirit; besides, said
they, it afforded means for every individual to see his Sovereign.
Others opposed it, objecting that this ceremony involved something of
divine right and feudality, of ignorance and servility, which had no
place in our habits or the modern dignity of them. They might go to
see the Sovereign at the church or the theatre: there they joined at
least in the performance of his religious duties, or took part in his
pleasures; but to go to see him eat was only to bring ridicule on both
parties. The sovereignty having now become, as the Emperor had so well
said, a magistracy, should only be seen in full activity; conferring
favours, redressing injuries, transacting business, reviewing armies,
and above all, divested of the infirmities and the wants of human
nature, &c.... Its utility, its benefits, should form its new charm:
the image of the sovereign should be present continually and
unlooked-for, like Providence. Such was the new school:—such had been
ours.
“Well,” said the Emperor, “it may be true that the circumstances of
the time should have limited this ceremony to the Imperial heir, and
only during his youth; for he was the child of the whole nation; he
ought to become thenceforth the object of the sentiments and the sight
of all.”
On his return from Elba, the Emperor said he had an idea of dining
every Sunday in the _Galerie de Diane_ with four or five hundred
guests: this, said he, would undoubtedly have produced a great effect
on the public, particularly at the time of the _Champ de Mai_, on the
assembling of the Deputies from the departments at Paris; but the
rapidity and the importance of business prevented it. Besides, he was
apprehensive, perhaps, that there might have been observed in this
measure too great an affectation of popularity, and that his enemies
abroad might give it the semblance of fear on his part.
It is the custom, said the Emperor, to talk of the influence of the
tone and manners of the Court upon those of a nation; he was far from
having brought about any such result; but it was the fault of
circumstances and of several unperceived combinations: he had
reflected much on the subject, and he thought that it would have been
accomplished in time.
“The Court,” he continued, “taken collectively, does not exert this
influence; it is only because its elements, those who compose it, go
to communicate, each in his own sphere of action, that which they have
collected from the common source; the tone of the Court, then, is not
infused into a whole nation, but through intermediate societies. Now,
we had no such societies, nor could we yet have them. Those delightful
assemblies, where one enjoys so fully the advantages of civilization,
suddenly disappear at the approach of revolutions, and are
re-established but slowly, when the tempests dissipate. The
indispensable bases of society are indolence and luxury; but we were
all still in a state of agitation, and great fortunes were not yet
firmly established. A great number of theatres, a multitude of public
establishments, moreover, presented pleasures more ready, less
constrained, and more exciting. The women of the day, taken
collectively, were young; they liked better to be out, and to shew
themselves in public, than to remain at home and compose a narrower
circle. But they would have grown old, and with a little time and
tranquillity, every thing would have fallen into its natural course.
And then again,” he observed, “it would perhaps be an error to judge
of a modern Court by the remembrance of the old ones. The power
certainly resided in the old Courts; they said, the Court and the
City;—at the present day, if we desired to speak correctly, we were
obliged to say the City and the Court. The feudal lords, since they
have lost their power, seek to make themselves amends in their
enjoyments. Sovereigns themselves seemed to be, for the future,
subjected to this law: the throne, with our liberal ideas, insensibly
ceased to be a signory, and became purely a magistracy; the Prince
having only a simple practical character to sustain, always
sufficiently dull and tedious in the long run, must seek to withdraw
from it, to come as a mere citizen, and take his share in the
pleasures of society.”
Among a great number of new measures projected by the Emperor for a
more tranquil futurity, his favourite idea had been, peace being
obtained and repose secured, to devote his life to purifying the
administration and to local meliorations; to be occupied in perpetual
tours in the departments: he would have visited, not hurried over;
sojourned, not posted through: he would have used his own horses,
would have been surrounded by the Empress, the King of Rome, his whole
Court. At the same time he wished this great equipage not to be
burdensome to any, but rather a benefit to all: a suite of tapestry
hangings and all the other appendages, following the train, would have
furnished and decorated his places of rest. The other persons of the
Court, he said, would have been quartered on the citizens, who would
have looked upon their guests as a benefit rather than a burden,
because they would always have been the sure means of their acquiring
some advantage or some favours. “It is thus,” he continued, “that I
should have been able in every place to prevent frauds, punish
misappropriations, direct edifices, bridges, roads; drain marshes,
fertilize lands, &c.—If Heaven had then,” he continued, “granted me a
few years, I would certainly have made Paris the capital of the world,
and all France a real fairy-land.” He often repeated these last words:
how many people have already said this, or will repeat it after him!
SET OF CHESSMEN FROM CHINA.—PRESENTATION OF
THE CAPTAINS OF THE CHINA FLEET.
6th.—The Emperor mounted his horse at seven o’clock: he told me to
call my son to accompany us; this was a great favour. During our ride
the Emperor dismounted five or six times to observe, with the help of
a glass, some vessels that were in sight: he ascertained one to be a
Dutchman; the three colours are always, with us, an object of lively
emotion. On one of these occasions, the most mettlesome horse in the
company got loose, and occasioned a long pursuit; my son came up with
him, brought him back in triumph, and the Emperor observed that in a
tournament this would be a victory.
On our return, the Emperor breakfasted within doors: he detained us
all.
Before and after breakfast, the Emperor conversed with me in private
on serious matters which I cannot trust to paper.
The heat was become excessive: he retired. It was half-past four when
he sent for me again; he was finishing dressing. The Doctor brought
him a set of chessmen, which he had been buying on board the vessels
from China; the Emperor had wished to have one. For this he had paid
thirty Napoleons: it was an object of great admiration with the worthy
Doctor; and, at the same time, nothing seemed more ridiculous to the
Emperor. All the pieces, instead of resembling ours, were coarse and
clumsy images of the figures indicated by the names: thus, a knight
was armed at all points, and the castle rested on an enormous
elephant, &c. The Emperor could not make use of them, saying,
pleasantly, that every piece would require a crane to move it.
In the mean time many officers and others employed in the China fleet
were sauntering in the garden. Their curiosity had led them some hours
before to our dwelling; we had been literally invaded in our chambers.
One said, the pride of his life would be to have seen Napoleon:
another, that he durst not appear in his wife’s presence in England,
if he could not tell her that he had been fortunate enough to behold
his features; another, that he would willingly forego all the profits
of his voyage for a single glance, &c.
The Emperor caused them to be admitted: it would be difficult to
describe their satisfaction and joy: they had not ventured to expect
or to hope for so much. The Emperor, according to custom, proposed
many questions to them concerning China, its commerce, its
inhabitants: their revenues, their manners; the missionaries, &c. He
detained them above half an hour, before he dismissed them. At their
departure we described to him the enthusiasm we had witnessed in these
officers, and repeated all that had fallen from them relative to him.
“I believe it,” said he; “you do not perceive that they are our
friends. All that you have observed in them belongs to the commonalty
of England—the natural enemies, perhaps without giving themselves
credit for it, of their old and insolent Aristocracy.”
At dinner the Emperor ate little; he was unwell: after coffee, he
attempted a game at chess, but he was too much inclined to sleep, and
retired almost immediately.