7th.—The Emperor mounted his horse at a very early hour; he told me
again to call my son to accompany him. The evening before, the Emperor
seeing him on horseback, had asked me if I did not make him learn to
groom his horse; that nothing was more useful; that he had given
particular orders for it in the military school at St. Germain. I was
vexed that such an idea had escaped me; I seized it eagerly, and my
son still more so. He was at this moment on a horse that no one had
touched but himself. The Emperor, whom I informed of it, seemed
pleased, and condescended to make him go through a sort of little
examination. Our ride lasted nearly two hours and a half, rambling all
the time about Longwood.
At our return the Emperor had breakfast in the garden, to which he
detained us all.
A short time before dinner, I presented myself as usual in the
drawing-room: the Emperor was playing at chess with the Grand Marshal.
The valet-de-chambre in waiting at the door of the room brought me a
letter, on which was written _Very urgent_. Out of respect to the
Emperor, I went aside to read it: it was in English; it stated that I
had composed an excellent work; that, nevertheless, it was not without
faults; that if I would correct them in a new edition, no doubt the
work would be more valuable for it; and then went on to pray that God
would keep me in his gracious and holy protection. Such a letter
excited my astonishment, and made me rather angry; the colour rushed
to my face: I did not, at first, give myself time to consider the
writing. In reading it over again I recognised the hand,
notwithstanding its being much better written than usual, and I could
not help laughing a good deal to myself. But the Emperor, who cast a
side-glance at me, asked me from whom the letter came that was given
to me. I replied, that it was a paper that had caused a very different
feeling in me at first from that which it would leave permanently. I
said this with so much simplicity, the mystification had been so
complete, that he laughed till tears came in his eyes. The letter was
from him; the pupil had a mind to jest with his master, and try his
powers at his expense. I carefully preserve this letter; the gaiety,
the style, and the whole circumstance, render it more valuable to me
than any diploma the Emperor could have put into my hands when he was
in power.
AN OPPORTUNITY FOR THE EMPEROR TO MAKE USE OF HIS ENGLISH.—ON
MEDICINE.—CORVISART.—DEFINITION.—ON THE PLAGUE.—MEDICAL PRACTICE IN
BABYLON.
8th.—The Emperor had had no sleep during the night; he had, therefore,
amused himself with writing me another letter in English; he sent it
to me sealed; I corrected the errors in it, and sent him an answer
also in English, by the return of the courier. He understood me
perfectly: this convinced him of the progress he had made, and
satisfied him that for the future he could, strictly speaking,
correspond in his new tongue.
For nearly a fortnight past, General Gourgaud had been unwell; his
indisposition had turned to a very malignant dysentery, which
occasioned some alarm. The Admiral now sent him the Surgeon of the
Northumberland (Dr. Warden); the Emperor detained this gentleman to
dinner. During the repast, and for a long time afterwards, the
conversation was exclusively on medicine; sometimes lively, sometimes
serious and profound. The Emperor was in good spirits: he talked with
great volubility; he overwhelmed the Doctor with questions, and with
ingenious and subtle arguments, that perplexed him much: the latter
was much dazzled by this brilliancy; so that, after dinner, he took me
aside to ask me how it happened that the Emperor was so well informed
on these matters: he did not doubt but they were his usual topics of
conversation. “Not more than any thing else,” I said, with truth; “but
there are few subjects with which the Emperor is unacquainted, and he
treats them all in a new and engaging manner.”
The Emperor has no faith in medicine, or its remedies, of which he
makes no use. “Doctor,” said he, “our body is a machine for the
purpose of life: it is organized to that end—that is its nature. Leave
the life there at its ease, let it take care of itself, it will do
better than if you paralyze it by loading it with medicines. It is
like a well-made watch, destined to go for a certain time; the
watch-maker has not the power of opening it, he cannot meddle with it
but at random, and with his eyes bandaged. For one who, by dint of
racking it with his ill-formed instruments, succeeds in doing it any
good, how many blockheads destroy it altogether!”
The Emperor, then, did not admit the utility of medicine but in a few
cases, in disorders that were known and distinctly ascertained by time
and experience: and he then compared the art of the physician with
that of the engineer in regular sieges, where the maxims of Vauban,
and the rules of experience, have brought all the chances within the
scope of known laws. In accordance, too, with these principles, the
Emperor had conceived the idea of a law which should have allowed to
the mass of medical practitioners in France the use of simple
medicines only, and forbidden them to employ _heroic_ remedies, that
is, such as may cause death, unless they made three or four thousand
francs, at least, by their profession; which, said he, afforded
grounds for supposing them to have education, judgment, and a certain
public reputation. “This measure,” said he, “was certainly just and
beneficent; but in my circumstances it was unseasonable: information
was not yet sufficiently diffused. No doubt the mass of the people
would have seen only an act of tyranny in the law, which,
nevertheless, would have rescued them from their executioners.”
The Emperor had frequently attacked the celebrated Corvisart, his
physician, upon the subject of medicine. The latter, waving the honour
of the profession and of his colleagues, confessed that he entertained
nearly the same opinions, and even acted upon them. He was a great
enemy to medicines, and employed them very sparingly: the Empress
Maria-Louisa, suffering much during her pregnancy, and teazing him for
relief, he artfully gave her some pills composed of crumb of bread,
which she observed did her a great deal of good.
The Emperor said he had brought Corvisart to admit that medicine was
a resource available only for the few; that it might be of some
benefit to the rich, but that it was the scourge of the poor. “Now,
do you not believe,” said the Emperor, “seeing the uncertainty of
the art itself, and the ignorance of those who practise it, that its
effects, taken in the aggregate, are more fatal than useful to the
people?” Corvisart assented without hesitation. “But have you never
killed any body yourself?” continued the Emperor, “that is to say,
have not some patients died evidently in consequence of your
prescriptions?”—“Undoubtedly,” replied Corvisart; “but I ought no
more to let that weigh upon my conscience than would your Majesty,
if you had caused the destruction of some troops, not from having
made a bad movement, but because their march was impeded by a ditch
or a precipice, which it was impossible for you to be aware of.”
Thence the Emperor went on to some problems and definitions, which he
proposed to the Doctor. “What is life?” said he to him; “when and how
do we receive it? Is that any thing but mystery yet?” Then he defined
harmless madness to be a chasm or incoherence of judgment between just
ideas and the application of them: an insane man eats grapes in a
vineyard that is not his own; and, in reply to the expostulations of
the owner says:—“Here are two of us; the sun sees both of us;
therefore I have a right to eat the grapes.” The dangerous madman was
he in whom this chasm or incoherence of judgment occurred between
ideas and actions: it was he who cut off the head of a sleeping man,
and concealed himself behind a hedge, to enjoy the perplexity of the
dead body when it should awake.
The Emperor next asked the Doctor what was the difference between
sleep and death; and answered the question himself by saying that
sleep was the momentary suspension of the faculties within the power
of our volition; and death the lasting suspension, not only of these
faculties, but also of those over which our will has no control.
From that, the conversation turned upon the plague. The Emperor
maintained that it was taken by inspiration as well as by contact: he
said that it was rendered most dangerous and most extensively
propagated, by fear: its principal seat was in the imagination. In
Egypt, all those in whom that (the imagination) was affected,
perished. The most prudent remedy was moral courage. He had touched
with impunity, he said, some infected persons at Jaffa, and had saved
many lives by deceiving the soldiers, during two months, as to the
nature of the disease: it was not the plague, they were told, but a
fever accompanied with ulcers. Moreover, he had observed that the best
means to preserve the army from it were to keep them on the march, and
give them, plenty of exercise: fatigue, and the employment of the mind
upon other subjects, were found the surest protection.[32]
Footnote 32:
It is mentioned in the Memoirs of M. Larre, as a phenomenon, or at
least something remarkable, that the pressure of circumstances
during the retreat from Saint-Jean-d’Acre, having rendered it
necessary to reduce the food of the sick to some plain thin
biscuits, and their dressings to some brackish water, these invalids
traversed sixty leagues of Desert without accidents, and with so
much advantage that the greater part found themselves well when they
arrived in Egypt. He attributes this species of prodigy to the
exercise, direct or indirect, to the dry heat of the Desert, and
above all to the joy of returning to a country which had become a
sort of new home to the soldiers.
The Emperor also said to the Doctor—“If Hippocrates were on a sudden
to enter your hospital, would he not be much astonished? would he
adopt your maxims and your methods? would he not find fault with you?
On your part should you understand his language? should you at all
comprehend each other?”—He concluded by pleasantly extolling the
practice of medicine in Babylon, where the patients were exposed at
the door, and the relations, sitting near them, stopped the passengers
to enquire if they had ever been afflicted in a similar way, and what
had cured them. One had at least the certainty, said he, of escaping
all those whose remedies had killed them.
9th.—I was breakfasting with the Emperor, after our English lesson,
when I received a letter from my wife that filled me with joy and
gratitude. She said, that neither fear, fatigue, nor distance, could
prevent her joining me; that, separated from me, she could experience
no happiness, and that she was only waiting for the proper season.
Admirable devotion! superior to all that we have manifested here,
inasmuch as it is exerted with a perfect knowledge of all its
consequences. I cannot think that in England they will have the
cruelty to refuse her: what does she solicit? favours, interest? No;
she begs to share the lot of an exile on a solitary rock; to fulfil a
duty, and to testify her affection!—How far was I from forming a just
estimate of the hearts and minds of those who detained us! Madame de
Las Cases found herself constantly repulsed: sometimes under various
pretexts; sometimes even without an answer. At last, and as if to rid
himself of her importunity, Lord Bathurst caused her to be informed,
in the beginning of 1817, that she should be permitted to go to the
Cape of Good Hope (500 leagues beyond St. Helena), whence “if the
Governor of St. Helena (Sir Hudson Lowe) sees no objection, she shall
be allowed to join her husband.”
I leave, without comment, this specimen of ill-timed pleasantry to the
consideration of any one who has the feelings of a man. This letter
came by the Owen Glendower frigate, which arrived from the Cape, and
brought us at the same time the European papers to December 4.
TRIAL OF NEY.—THE EMPEROR’S CARRIAGE TAKEN AT WATERLOO.—THE INTERVIEW AT
DRESDEN.—ON THE CAPRICE OF WOMEN.
10th—12th. The weather had now changed to those miserable pelting
rains which scarcely permitted us to walk in the garden; fortunately
we had newspapers to occupy our time. At length I had the satisfaction
of seeing the Emperor read them without assistance.
These papers contained many details relating to the trial of Marshal
Ney, which was at that time in progress. With reference to this, the
Emperor said that the horizon was gloomy; that the unfortunate Marshal
was certainly in great danger; but that we must not however despair.
“The King undoubtedly believes himself quite sure of the Peers,” said
he; “they are certainly violent enough, firmly resolved, highly
incensed; but for all that, suppose the slightest incident, some new
rumour, or I know not what: then you would see, in spite of all the
efforts of the King, and of what they believe to be the interest of
their cause, the Chamber of Peers would, all on a sudden, take it into
their heads not to find him guilty; and thus Ney may be saved.”
This led the Emperor to dilate upon our volatile, fickle, and
changeable disposition. “All the French,” said he, “are turbulent, and
disposed to rail; but they are not addicted to seditious combinations,
still less to actual conspiracy. Their levity is so natural to them,
their changes so sudden, that it may be said to be a national
dishonour. They are mere weathercocks, the sport of the winds, it is
true; but this vice is with them free from the calculations of
interest, and that is their best excuse. But we must only be
understood to speak here of the mass, of that which constitutes public
opinion; for individual examples to the contrary have swarmed in our
latter times, that exhibit certain classes in the most disgusting
state of meanness.”
It was this knowledge of the national character, the Emperor
continued, that had always prevented his having recourse to the High
Court. It was instituted by our Constitution; the Council of State had
even decreed its organization; but the Emperor felt all the danger of
the bustle and agitation that such spectacles always produce. “Such a
proceeding,” he said, “was in reality an appeal to the public, and was
always highly injurious to authority, when the accused gained the
cause. A Ministry in England might sustain, without inconvenience, the
effects of a decision against it under such circumstances; but a
sovereign like me, and situated as I was, could not have suffered it
without the utmost danger to public affairs: for this reason, I
preferred having recourse to the ordinary tribunals. Malevolence often
started objections to this; nevertheless, among all those whom it was
pleased to call victims, which of them, I ask you, has retained his
popularity in our late struggles? They have taken care to justify me:
all of them are faded in the national estimation.”
The Emperor had reserved one article in the papers, that he might have
my assistance in reading it; it referred to the carriage he lost at
Waterloo: the great number of technical expressions rendered it too
difficult for him. The editor gave a very circumstantial account of
this carriage, with a minutely detailed inventory of all its contents;
to this he sometimes added the most frivolous reflections. In
mentioning a small liquor-case, he observed that the Emperor never
forgot _himself_, but took care to want nothing; in noticing certain
elegant appendages to his dressing-case, he added that it might be
seen he made his toilet _comme il faut_ (the expression was in
French). These last words produced a sensation in the Emperor, which
certainly would not have been excited by a more important subject.
“How!” said he to me, with a mixture of disgust and pain; “these
people of England, then, take me for some wild animal; have they
really been led so far as this? or their ——, who is a kind of Ox Apis,
as I am assured, does he not pay that attention to his toilet that is
considered proper by every person of any education among us?”
It is certain that I should have been a good deal puzzled to explain
to him the writer’s meaning. Besides, it is known that the Emperor, of
all people in the world, set the least value on his personal
convenience, and studied it the least; but, on the other hand, and he
acknowledged it with pleasure, there never was one for whom the
devotion and attention of servants had been so diligent in that
particular. As he ate at very irregular hours, they contrived, in the
course of his journeys and campaigns, to have his dinner, similar to
what he was accustomed to at the Tuileries, always ready within a few
paces of him. He had but to speak, and he was instantly served; he
himself said it was magic. During fifteen years he constantly drank a
particular sort of Burgundy (Chambertin), which he liked and believed
to be wholesome for him: he found this wine provided for him
throughout Germany, in the remotest part of Spain, everywhere, even at
Moscow; and it may truly be said that art, luxury, the refinement of
elegance and good taste, contended around him, as if without his
knowledge, to afford him gratification. The English journalists,
therefore, described a multitude of objects that were undoubtedly in
the carriage; but of which the Emperor had not the slightest notion:
not that he was at all surprised at it, he observed.
The bad weather which continued to confine us within doors, had no
influence on the disposition of the Emperor, who at this particular
time seemed more unreserved and talked more than usual. He spoke at
length, and with the most minute details, of the famous interview at
Dresden. The following are extracts from his conversation:—
This was the epoch when the power of Napoleon was at its height: he
there appeared as the _king of kings_; he was actually obliged to
observe that some attention ought to be paid to the Emperor of
Austria, his father-in-law. Neither this Sovereign nor the King of
Prussia had any household establishment attending them; Alexander had
none either at Tilsit or Erfurt. There, as at Dresden, they lived at
Napoleon’s table.—“These Courts,” said the Emperor, “were paltry and
vulgar.” It was he who regulated the etiquette, and took the lead in
them; he made Francis take precedence of him, to his unbounded
satisfaction. The luxury and magnificence of Napoleon must have made
him appear to them like an Asiatic prince: there, as well as at
Tilsit, he loaded all who came near him with diamonds. We informed him
that at Dresden he had not a single French soldier about him: and that
his Court was sometimes not without apprehensions for the safety of
his person. He could scarcely believe us;—but we assured him that it
was a fact; that the Saxon body-guard was the only one he had. “It is
all one,” he said; “I was then in so good a family, with such worthy
people, that I ran no risk; I was beloved by all; and, at this very
time, I am sure the good King of Saxony repeats every day a _Pater_
and an _Ave_ for me.” He added, “I ruined the fortunes of that poor
Princess Augusta, and I acted very wrong in so doing. Returning from
Tilsit, I received, at Marienwerder, a chamberlain of the King of
Saxony, who delivered me a letter from his master; he wrote thus: ‘I
have just received a letter from the Emperor of Austria, who desires
my daughter in marriage; I send this to you, that you may inform me
what answer I ought to return.’—‘I shall be at Dresden in a few
days,’” was the reply of the Emperor; and, on his arrival, he set his
face against the match, and prevented it. “I was very wrong,” repeated
he; “I was fearful the Emperor Francis would withdraw the King of
Saxony from me: on the contrary, the Princess Augusta would have
brought over the Emperor Francis to my side, and I should not now have
been here.”
At Dresden, Napoleon was much occupied in business, and Maria-Louisa,
anxious to avail herself of the smallest intervals of leisure to be
with her husband, scarcely ever went out, lest she should miss them.
The Emperor Francis, who did nothing, and tired himself all day with
going about the town, could not at all comprehend this family
seclusion; he fancied that it was to affect reserve and importance.
The Empress of Austria endeavoured to prevail on Maria-Louisa to go
out; she represented to her that her constant assiduity was
ridiculous. She would willingly have given herself the airs of a
step-mother with Maria-Louisa, who was not disposed to suffer it,
their ages being nearly the same. She came frequently in the morning
to her toilet, ransacking among the luxurious and magnificent objects
displayed there: she seldom went out empty-handed.
“The reign of Maria-Louisa was very short,” said the Emperor; “but it
must have been full of enjoyment for her; she had the world at her
feet.” One of us took the liberty to ask if the Empress of Austria was
not the sworn enemy of Maria-Louisa. “Nothing more,” said the Emperor,
“than a little regular court-hatred; a thorough detestation in the
heart, but glossed over by daily letters of four pages, full of
coaxing and tenderness.”
The Empress of Austria was particularly attentive to Napoleon, and
took great pains to make much of him while he was present; but no
sooner was his back turned, than she endeavoured to detach
Maria-Louisa from him by the most mischievous and malicious
insinuations; she was vexed that she could not succeed in obtaining
some influence over her. “She has, however, address and ability,” said
the Emperor, “and that sufficient to embarrass her husband, who had
acquired a conviction that she entertained a poor opinion of him. Her
countenance was agreeable, engaging, and had something very peculiar
in it; she was a pretty little nun.
“As to the Emperor Francis, his good-nature is well known, and makes
him constantly the dupe of the designing. His son will be like him.
“The King of Prussia, as a private character, is an honourable, good,
and worthy man; but, in his political capacity, he is naturally
disposed to yield to necessity: you are his master so long as you have
power on your side, and your arm is uplifted to strike.
“As for the Emperor of Russia, he is a man infinitely superior to
these: he possesses wit, grace, information; he is fascinating, but he
is not to be trusted: he is devoid of candour, a true _Greek of the
Lower Empire_. At the same time he is not without ideology, real or
assumed:—after all, it may only be a smattering derived from his
education and his preceptor. Would you believe,” said the Emperor,
“what I had to discuss with him? He maintained that inheritance is an
abuse in monarchy, and I had to spend more than an hour, and employ
all my eloquence and logic, in proving to him that this right
constitutes the peace and happiness of the people. It may be, too,
that he was mystifying; for he is cunning, false, and expert . . .
. . . . . .; he will push his fortunes. If I die here, he will be my
real heir in Europe. I alone was able to stop him with his deluge of
Tartars. The crisis is great, and will have lasting effects upon the
Continent of Europe, especially upon Constantinople: he was solicitous
with me for the possession of it. I have had much coaxing on this
subject; but I constantly turned a deaf ear to it. It was necessary
that that empire, shattered as it appeared, should constantly remain a
point of separation between us; it was the marsh that prevented my
right from being turned. As to Greece, it is another matter!” And,
after talking awhile upon that country, he renewed the subject:
“Greece awaits a liberator! There will be a brilliant crown of glory!
He will inscribe his name for ever with those of Homer, Plato, and
Epaminondas!—I perhaps was not far from it, when, during my campaign
in Italy, arrived on the shores of the Adriatic, I wrote to the
Directory, that I had before my eyes the kingdom of Alexander!—Still
later I entered into engagements with Ali Pacha; and when Corfu was
taken from us, they must have found there ammunition and a complete
equipment for an army of forty or fifty thousand men. I had caused
maps to be made of Macedonia, Servia, Albania, &c. Greece, the
Peloponnesus at least, must be the lot of that European power which
shall possess Egypt. It should be ours.”