CHAPTER 1.

TEN YEARS' EXILE;

Or

Memoirs of That Interesting Period

of the Life of the Baroness De Stael-Holstein,

Written by Herself, during the Years 1810, 1811, 1812, and 1813,

and Now First Published from the Original Manuscript,

by Her Son.

Translated from the French

London:

Printed for

Treuttel and Wurtz, Treuttel Jun. and Richter,

Foreign Booksellers to his Royal Highness Prince Leopold of

Saxe-Coberg,

30, Soho Square.

1821

Howlett & Brimmer, Printers,

10, Filth Street, Soho Square.

PREFACE BY THE EDITOR (Augustus, Baron de Stael-Holstein.)

The production which is now submitted to the reader, is not a

complete work, and ought not to be criticized as such. It consists

of Fragments of her Memoirs, which my mother had intended to

complete at her leisure, and which would have probably undergone

alterations, of the nature of which I am ignorant, if a longer life

had been allowed her to revise and finish them.

This reflection was sufficient to make me examine most scrupulously

if I was authorized to give them publicity. The fear of any sort of

responsibility cannot be present to the mind, when our dearest

affections are in question; but the heart is agitated by a painful

anxiety when we are left to guess at those wishes, the declaration

of which would have been a sacred and invariable rule. Nevertheless,

after having seriously reflected on what duty required of me, I am

satisfied that I have fulfilled my mother's intentions, in engaging

to leave out in this edition of her works*, no production

susceptible of being printed. My fidelity in adhering to this

engagement gives me the right of disavowing beforehand, all which at

any future period, persons might pretend to add to this collection,

which, I repeat, contains every thing, of which my mother had not

formally forbid the publication.

(* Les Oeuvres completes de Madame la Baronne de Stael, publiees par

son Fils. Precedees d'une notice sur le caractere et les ecrits de

Madame de Stael, par Madame Necker de Saussure. Paris, 17 vols. 8vo.

and 17 vols. in 12mo.)

The title of TEN YEARS' EXILE, is that of which the authoress

herself made choice; I have deemed it proper to retain it, although

the work, being unfinished, comprises only a period of seven years.

The narrative begins in 1800, two years previous to my mother's

first exile, and stops at 1804, after the death of M. Necker. It

recommences in 1810, and breaks off abruptly at her arrival in

Sweden, in the autumn of 1812. Between the first and second part of

these Memoirs there is therefore an interval of nearly six years. An

explanation of this will be found in a faithful statement of the

manner in which they were composed.

I will not anticipate my mother's narrative of the persecution to

which she was subjected during the imperial government: that

persecution, equally mean and cruel, forms the subject of the

present publication, the interest of which I should only weaken. It

will be sufficient for me to remind the reader, that after having

exiled her from Paris, and subsequently sent her out of France,

after having suppressed her work on Germany with the most arbitrary

caprice, and made it impossible for her to publish anything, even on

subjects wholly unconnected with politics; that government went so

far as to make her almost a prisoner in her own residence, to forbid

her all kind of travelling, and to deprive her of the pleasures of

society and the consolations of friendship. It was while she was in

this situation that my mother began her Memoirs, and one may readily

conceive what must have been at that time the disposition of her

mind.

During the composition of the work, the hope of one day giving it to

the world scarcely presented itself in the most distant futurity.

Europe was still bent to that degree under the yoke of Napoleon,

that no independent voice could make itself be heard: on the

Continent the press was completely chained, and the most rigorous

measures excluded every work printed in England. My mother

thought less, therefore, of composing a book, than of preserving the

traces of her recollections and ideas. Along with the narrative of

circumstances personal to herself, she incorporated with it various

reflections which were suggested to her, from the beginning of

Bonaparte's power, by the state of France, and the progress of

events. But if the printing such a work would at that time have

been an act of unheard of temerity, the mere act of writing it

required a great deal of both courage and prudence, particularly in

the position in which she was placed. My mother had every reason to

believe that all her movements were narrowly watched by the police:

the prefect who had replaced M. de Barante at Geneva, pretended to

be acquainted with every thing that passed in her house, and the

least pretence would have been sufficient to induce them to possess

themselves of her papers. She was obliged therefore, to take the

greatest precautions. Scarcely had she written a few pages, when she

made one of her most intimate friends transcribe them, taking care

to substitute for the proper names those of persons taken from the

history of the English Revolution. Under this disguise she carried

off her manuscript, when in 1812 she determined to withdraw herself

by flight from the rigors of a constantly increasing persecution.

On her arrival in Sweden, after having travelled through Russia, and

narrowly escaped the French armies advancing on Moscow, my mother

employed herself in copying out fairly the first part of her

Memoirs, which, as I have already mentioned, goes no farther than

1804. But prior to continuing them in the order of time, she wished

to take advantage of the moment, during which her recollections were

still strong, to give a narrative of the remarkable circumstances of

her flight, and of the persecution which had rendered that step in a

manner a duty. She resumed, therefore, the history of her life at

the year 1810, the epoch of the suppression of her work on Germany,

and continued it up to her arrival at Stockholm in 1812: from that

was suggested the title of Ten Years' Exile. This explains also,

why, in speaking of the imperial government, my mother expresses

herself sometimes as living under its power, and at other times, as

having escaped from it.

Finally, after she had conceived the plan of her Considerations

on the French Revolution, she extracted from the first part of Ten

Years Exile, the historical passages and general reflections which

entered into her new design, reserving the individual details for

the period when she calculated on finishing the memoirs of her life,

and when she flattered herself with being able to name all the

persons of whom she had received generous proofs of friendship,

without being afraid of compromising them by the expressions of her

gratitude.

The manuscript confided to my charge consisted therefore of two

distinct parts: the first, the perusal of which necessarily offered

less interest, contained several passages already incorporated in

the Considerations on the French Revolution; the other formed a sort

of journal, of which no part was yet known to the public. I have

followed the plan traced by my mother, by striking out of the first

part of the manuscript, all the passages which, with some

modifications, have already found a place in her great political

work. To this my labour as editor has been confined, and I have not

allowed myself to make the slightest addition.

The second part I deliver to the public exactly as I found it,

without the least alteration, and I have scarcely felt myself

entitled to make slight corrections of the style, so important did

it appear to me to preserve in this sketch the entire vividness of

its original character. A perusal of the opinions which she

pronounces upon the political conduct of Russia, will satisfy

every one of my scrupulous respect for my mother's manuscript; but

without taking into account the influence of gratitude on elevated

minds, the reader will not fail to recollect, that at that time

the sovereign of Russia was fighting in the cause of liberty and

independence. Was it possible to foresee that so few years would

elapse before the immense forces of that empire should become the

instruments of the oppression of unhappy Europe?

If we compare the Ten Years' Exile with the Considerations on the

French Revolution, it will perhaps be found that the reign of

Napoleon is criticized in the first of these works with greater

severity than in the other, and that he is there attacked with an

eloquence not always exempt from bitterness. This difference may be

easily explained: one of these works was written after the fall of

the despot, with the calm and impartiality of the historian; the

other was inspired by a courageous feeling of resistance to tyranny;

and at the period of its composition, the imperial power was at its

height.

I have not selected one moment in preference to another for the

publication of Ten Years' Exile; the chronological order has been

followed in this edition, and the posthumous works are naturally

placed at the end of the collection. In other respects, I am not

afraid of the charge of exhibiting a want of generosity, in

publishing, after the fall of Napoleon, attacks directed against his

power. She, whose talents were always devoted to the defence of the

noblest of causes, she, whose house was successively the asylum of

the oppressed of all parties, would have been too far above such a

reproach. It could only be addressed, at all events, to the editor

of the Ten Years' Exile; but I confess it would but very little

affect me. It would certainly be assigning too fine a part to

despotism, if, after having imposed the silence of terror during its

triumph, it could call upon history to spare it after its

destruction.

The recollections of the last government have no doubt afforded a

pretence for a great deal of persecution; no doubt men of integrity

have revolted at the cowardly invectives which are still permitted

against those, who having enjoyed the favors of that government,

have had sufficient dignity not to disavow their past conduct;

Finally, there is no doubt but fallen grandeur captivates the

imagination. But it is not merely the personal character of

Napoleon that is here in question; it is not he who can now be an

object of animadversion to generous minds; no more can it be those

who, under his reign, have usefully served their country in the

different branches of the public administration; but that which we

can never brand with too severe a stigma, is the system of

selfishness and oppression of which Bonaparte is the author. But

is not this deplorable system still in full sway in Europe? and have

not the powerful of the earth carefully gathered up the shameful

inheritance of him whom they have overthrown? And if we turn our

eyes towards our own country, how many of these instruments of

Napoleon do we not see, who, after having fatigued him with their

servile complaisance, have come to offer to a new power the tribute

of their petty machiavelism? Now, as then, is it not upon the basis

of vanity and corruption that the whole edifice of their paltry

science rests, and is it not from the traditions of the imperial

government that the counsels of their wisdom are extracted?

In painting in stronger colours, therefore, this fatal government,

we are not insulting over a fallen enemy, but attacking a still

powerful adversary; and if, as I hope, the Ten Years' Exile are

destined to increase the horror of arbitrary governments, I may

venture to indulge the pleasing idea, that by their publication I

shall be rendering a service to the sacred cause to which my mother

never ceased to be faithful.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface, by the Editor

Part The First

Chapter 1. Causes of Bonaparte's animosity against me

Chapter 2. Commencement of opposition in the Tribunate.--My first

Persecution on that account.--Fouche

Chapter 3. System of Fusion adopted by Bonaparte.--Publication of

my Work on Literature

Chapter 4. Conversation of my Father with Bonaparte.--Campaign of

Marengo

Chapter 5. The Infernal Machine.--Peace of Luneville

Chapter 6. Corps diplomatique during the Consulate.--Death of the

Emperor Paul

Chapter 7. Paris in 1801

Chapter 8. Journey to Coppet.--Preliminaries of Peace with

England

Chapter 9. Paris in 1802.--Bonaparte President of the Italian

Republic.--My return to Coppet

Chapter 10. New symptoms of Bonaparte's ill will to my Father and

Myself.--Affairs of Switzerland

Chapter 11. Rupture with England.--Commencement of my Exile

Chapter 12. Departure for Germany.--Arrival at Weimar

Chapter 13. Berlin.--Prince Louis-Ferdinand

Chapter 14. Conspiracy of Moreau and Pichegru

Chapter 15. Assassination of the Duke d'Enghien

Chapter 16. Illness and Death of M. Necker

Chapter 17. Trial of Moreau

Chapter 18. Commencement of the Empire

Part the Second

Chapter 1. Suppression of my Work on Germany.--Banishment from

France

Chapter 2. Return to Coppet--Different Persecutions.

Chapter 3. Journey in Switzerland with M. de Montmorency

Chapter 4. Exile of M. de Montmorency and Madame Recamier.--New

Persecutions

Chapter 5. Departure from Coppet

Chapter 6. Passage through Austria;--1812

Chapter 7. Residence at Vienna

Chapter 8. Departure from Vienna

Chapter 9. Passage through Poland

Chapter 10. Arrival in Russia

Chapter 11. Kiow

Chapter 12. Road from Kiow to Moscow

Chapter 13. Appearance of the Country--Character of the Russians

Chapter 14. Moscow

Chapter 15. Road from Moscow to Petersburg

Chapter 16. St. Petersburg

Chapter 17. The Imperial Family

Chapter 18. Manners of the great Russian Nobility

Chapter 19. Establishments for Public Education.--Institute of St.

Catherine

Chapter 20. Departure for Sweden.--Passage through Finland

TEN YEARS' EXILE

Part The First

CHAPTER 1.

Causes of Bonaparte's animosity against me.

It is not with the view of occupying the public attention with what

relates to myself, that I have determined to relate the

circumstances of my ten years' exile; the miseries which I have

endured, however bitterly I may have felt them, are so trifling in

the midst of the public calamities of which we are witnesses, that I

should be ashamed to speak of myself if the events which concern me

were not in some degree connected with the great cause of threatened

humanity. The Emperor Napoleon, whose character exhibits itself

entire in every action of his life, has persecuted me with a minute

anxiety, with an ever increasing activity, with an inflexible

rudeness; and my connections with him contributed to make him known

to me, long before Europe had discovered the key of the enigma.

I shall not here enter into a detail of the events that preceded the

appearance of Bonaparte upon the political stage of Europe; if I

accomplish the design I have of writing the life of my father, I

will there relate what I have witnessed of the early part of the

revolution, whose influence has changed the fate of the whole

world. My object at present is only to retrace what relates to

myself in this vast picture; in casting from that narrow point of

view some general surveys over the whole, I flatter myself with

being frequently overlooked, in relating my own history.

The greatest grievance which the Emperor Napoleon has against me, is

the respect which I have always entertained for real liberty. These

sentiments have been in a manner transmitted to me as an

inheritance, and adopted as my own, ever since I have been able to

reflect on the lofty ideas from which they are derived, and the

noble actions which they inspire. The cruel scenes which have

dishonored the French revolution, proceeding only from tyranny under

popular forms, could not, it appears to me, do any injury to the

cause of liberty: at the most, we could only feel discouraged with

respect to France; but if that country had the misfortune not to

know how to possess that noblest of blessings, it ought not on that

account to be proscribed from the face of the earth. When the sun

disappears from the horizon of the Northern regions, the inhabitants

of those countries do not curse his rays, because they are still

shining upon others more favored by heaven.

Shortly after the 18th Brumaire, Bonaparte had heard that I had been

speaking strongly in my own parties, against that dawning

oppression, whose progress I foresaw as clearly as if the future had

been revealed to me. Joseph Bonaparte, whose understanding and

conversation I liked very much, came to see me, and told me, "My

brother complains of you. Why, said he to me yesterday, why does not

Madame de Stael attach herself to my government? what is it she

wants? the payment of the deposit of her father? I will give orders

for it: a residence in Paris? I will allow it her. In short, what is

it she wishes?" "Good God!" replied I, "it is not what I wish, but

what I think, that is in question." I know not if this answer was

reported to him, but if it was, I am certain that he attached no

meaning to it; for he believes in the sincerity of no one's

opinions; he considers every kind of morality as nothing more than a

form, to which no more meaning is attached than to the conclusion of

a letter; and as the having assured any one that you are his most

humble servant would not entitle him to ask any thing of you, so if

any one says that he is a lover of liberty,--that he believes in

God,--that he prefers his conscience to his interest, Bonaparte

considers such professions only as an adherence to custom, or as

the regular means of forwarding ambitious views or selfish

calculations. The only class of human beings whom he cannot well

comprehend, are those who are sincerely attached to an opinion,

whatever be the consequences of it: such persons Bonaparte looks

upon as boobies, or as traders who outstand their market, that is to

say, who would sell themselves too dear. Thus, as we shall see in

the sequel, has he never been deceived in his calculations but by

integrity, encountered either in individuals or nations.

CHAPTER 2.

Commencement of opposition in the Tribunate--My first persecution

on that account--Fouche.

Some of the tribunes, who attached a real meaning to the

constitution, were desirous of establishing in their assembly an

opposition analogous to that of England; as if the rights, which

that constitution professed to secure, had anything of reality in

them, and the pretended division of the bodies of the state were

anything more than a mere affair of etiquette, a distinction between

the different anti-chambers of the first consul, in which

magistrates under different names could hold together, I confess

that I saw with pleasure the aversion entertained by a small number

of the tribunes, to rival the counsellors of state in servility. I

had especially a strong belief that those who had previously allowed

themselves to be carried too far in their love for the republic

would continue faithful to their opinions, when they became the

weakest, and the most threatened.

One of these tribunes, a friend of liberty, and endowed with one of

the most remarkable understandings ever bestowed upon man, M.

Benjamin Constant, consulted me upon a speech which he purposed to

deliver, for the purpose of signalizing the dawn of tyranny: I

encouraged him in it with all the strength of my conviction.

However, as it was well known that he was one of my intimate

friends, I could not help dreading what might happen to me in

consequence. I was vulnerable in my taste for society. Montaigne

said formerly, I am a Frenchman through Paris: and if he thought so

three centuries ago, what must it be now, when we see so many

persons of extraordinary intellect collected in one city, and so

many accustomed to employ that intellect in adding to the pleasures

of conversation. The demon of ennui has always pursued me; by the

terror with which he inspires me, I could alone have been capable of

bending the knee to tyranny, if the example of my father, and his

blood which flows in my veins, had not enabled me to triumph over

this weakness. Be that as it may, Bonaparte knew this foible of mine

perfectly: he discerns quickly the weak side of any one; for it is

by their weaknesses that he subjugates people to his sway. To the

power with which he threatens, to the treasures with which he

dazzles, he joins the dispensation of ennui, and that is a source

of real terror to the French. A residence at forty leagues from the

capital, contrasted with the advantages collected in the most

agreeable city in the world, fails not in the long run to shake the

greater part of exiles, habituated from their infancy to the charms

of a Parisian life.

On the eve of the day when Benjamin Constant was to deliver his

speech, I had a party, among whom were Lucien Bonaparte, MM. ------

and several others, whose conversation in different degrees

possesses that constant novelty of interest which is produced by the

strength of ideas and the grace of expression. Every one of these

persons, with the exception of Lucien, tired of being proscribed by

the directory, was preparing to serve the new government, requiring

only to be well rewarded for their devotion to its power. Benjamin

Constant came up and whispered to me, "Your drawing room is now

filled with persons with whom you are pleased: if I speak, tomorrow

it will be deserted:--think well of it." "We must follow our

conviction," said I to him. This reply was dictated by enthusiasm;

but, I confess, if I had foreseen what I have suffered since that

day, I should not have had the firmness to refuse M. Constant's

offer of renouncing his project, in order not to compromise me.

At present, so far as opinion is affected, it is nothing to incur

the disgrace of Bonaparte: he may make you perish, but he cannot

deprive you of respect. Then, on the contrary, France was not

enlightened as to his tyrannical views, and as all who had suffered

from the revolution expected to obtain from him the return of a

brother, or a friend, or the restoration of property, any one who

was bold enough to resist him was branded with the name of Jacobin,

and you were deprived of good society along with the countenance of

the government: an intolerable situation, particularly for a woman,

and of which no one can know the misery without having experienced

it.

On the day when the signal of opposition was exhibited in the

tribunate by my friend, I had invited several persons whose society

I was fond of, but all of whom were attached to the new government.

At five o'clock I had received ten notes of apology; the first and

second I bore tolerably well, but as they succeeded each other

rapidly, I began to be alarmed. In vain did I appeal to my

conscience, which advised me to renounce all the pleasures attached

to the favour of Bonaparte: I was blamed by so many honorable

people, that I knew not how to support myself on my own way of

thinking. Bonaparte had as yet done nothing exactly culpable; many

asserted that he preserved France from anarchy: in short, if at that

moment he had signified to me any wish of reconciliation, I should

have been delighted: but a step of that sort he will never take

without exacting a degradation, and, to induce that degradation, he

generally enters into such passions of authority, as terrify into

yielding every thing. I do not wish by that to say that Bonaparte

is not really passionate: what is not calculation in him is hatred,

and hatred generally expresses itself in rage: but calculation is in

him so much the strongest, that he never goes beyond what it is

convenient for him to show, according to circumstances and persons.

One day a friend of mine saw him storming at a commissary of war,

who had not done his duty; scarcely had the poor man retired,

trembling with apprehension, when Bonaparte turned round to one of

his aides-du-camp, and said to him, laughing, I hope I have given

him a fine fright; and yet the moment before, you would have

believed that he was no longer master of himself.

When it suited the first consul to exhibit his ill-humour against

me, he publicly reproached his brother Joseph for continuing to

visit me. Joseph felt it necessary in consequence to absent himself

from my house for several weeks, and his example was followed by

three fourths of my acquaintance. Those who had been proscribed on

the 18th Fructidor, pretended that at that period, I had been guilty

of recommending M. de Talleyrand to Barras, for the ministry of

foreign affairs: and yet, these people were then continually about

that same Talleyrand, whom they accused me of having served. All

those who behaved ill to me, were cautious in concealing that they

did so for fear of incurring the displeasure of the first consul.

Every day, however, they invented some new pretext to injure me,

thus exerting all the energy of their political opinions against a

defenceless and persecuted woman, and prostrating themselves at the

feet of the vilest Jacobins, the moment the first consul had

regenerated them by the baptism of his favor.

Fouche, the minister of police, sent for me to say, that the first

consul suspected me of having excited my friend who had spoken in

the tribunate. I replied to him, which was certainly the truth, that

M. Constant was a man of too superior an understanding to make his

opinions matter of reproach to a woman, and that besides, the speech

in question contained absolutely nothing but reflections on the

independence which every deliberative assembly ought to possess, and

that there was not a word in it which could be construed into a

personal reflection on the first consul. The minister admitted as

much. I ventured to add some words on the respect due to the liberty

of opinions in a legislative body; but I could easily perceive that

he took no interest in these general considerations; he already knew

perfectly well, that under the authority of the man whom he wished

to serve, principles were out of the question, and he shaped his

conduct accordingly. But as he is a man of transcendant

understanding in matters of revolution, he had already laid it down

as a system to do the least evil possible, the necessity of the

object admitted. His preceding conduct certainly exhibited little

feeling of morality, and he was frequently in the habit of talking

of virtue as an old woman's story. A remarkable sagacity, however,

always led him to choose the good as a reasonable thing, and his

intelligence made him occasionally do what conscience would have

dictated to others. He advised me to go into the country, and

assured me, that in a few days, all would be quieted. But at my

return, I was very far from finding it so.

CHAPTER 3

System of Fusion adopted by Bonaparte--Publication of my work

on Literature.

While we have seen the Christian kings take two confessors to

examine their consciences more narrowly, Bonaparte chose two

ministers one of the old and the other of the new regime, whose

business it was to place at his disposal the Machiavelian means of

two opposite systems. In all his nominations, Bonaparte followed

nearly the same rule, of taking, as it may be said, now from the

right, and now from the left, that is to say, choosing alternately

his officers among the aristocrats, and among the jacobins: the

middle party, that of the friends of liberty, pleased him less than

all the others, composed as it was of the small numbers of persons,

who in France, had an opinion of their own. He liked much better to

have to do with persons who were attached to royalist interests, or

who had become stigmatized by popular excesses. He even went so far

as to wish to name as a counsellor of state a conventionalist

sullied with the vilest crimes of the days of terror; but he was

diverted from it by the shuddering of those who would have had to

sit along with him. Bonaparte would have been delighted to have

given that shining proof that he could regenerate, as well as

confound, every thing.

What particularly characterizes the government of Bonaparte, is his

profound contempt for the intellectual riches of human nature;

virtue, mental dignity, religion, enthusiasm, these, these are in

his eyes, the eternal enemies of the continent, to make use of his

favorite expression; he would reduce man to force and cunning, and

designate every thing else as folly or stupidity. The English

particularly irritate him, as they have found the means of being

honest, as well as successful, a thing which Bonaparte would have us

regard as impossible. This shining point of the world has dazzled

his eyes from the very first days of his reign.

I do not believe, that when Bonaparte put himself at the head of

affairs, he had formed the plan of universal monarchy: but I

believe that his system was, what he himself described it a few days

after the 18th Brumaire to one of my friends: "Something new must

be done every three months, to captivate the imagination of the

French Nation; with them, whoever stands still is ruined." He

flattered himself with being able to make daily encroachments on the

liberty of France, and the independence of Europe: but, without

losing sight of the end, he knew how to accommodate himself to

circumstances; when the obstacle was too great, he passed by it, and

stopped short when the contrary wind blew too strongly. This man, at

bottom so impatient, has the faculty of remaining immoveable when

necessary; he derives that from the Italians, who know how to

restrain themselves in order to attain the object of their passion,

as if they were perfectly cool in the choice of that object. It is

by the alternate employment of cunning and force, that he has

subjugated Europe; but, to be sure, Europe is but a word of great

sound. In what did it then consist? In a few ministers, not one of

whom had as much understanding as many men taken at hap-hazard from

the nation which they governed.

Towards the spring of 1800, I published my work on Literature, and

the success it met with restored me completely to favor with

society; my drawing room became again filled, and I had once more

the pleasure of conversing, and conversing in Paris, which, I

confess has always been to me the most fascinating of all pleasures.

There was not a word about Bonaparte in my book, and the most

liberal sentiments were, I believe, forcibly expressed in it. But

the press was then far from being enslaved as it is at present; the

government exercised a censorship upon newspapers, but not upon

books; a distinction which might be supported, if the censorship had

been used with moderation: for newspapers exert a popular influence,

while books, for the greater part, are only read by well informed

people, and may enlighten, but not inflame opinion. At a later

period, there were established in the senate, I believe in derision,

a committee for the liberty of the press, and another for personal

liberty, the members of which are still renewed every three months.

Certainly the bishopricks in partibus, and the sinecures in England

afford more employment than these committees.

Since my work on Literature, I have published Delphine, Corinne, and

finally my work on Germany, which was suppressed at the moment it

was about to make its appearance. But although this last work has

occasioned me the most bitter persecution, literature does not

appear to me to be less a source of enjoyment and respect, even for

a female. What I have suffered in life, I attribute to the

circumstances which associated me, almost at my entry into the

world, with the interests of liberty, which were supported by my

father and his friends; but the kind of talent which has made me

talked of as a writer, has always been to me a source of greater

pleasure than pain. The criticisms of which one's works are the

objects, can be very easily borne, when one is possessed of some

elevation of soul, and when one is more attached to noble ideas for

themselves, than for the success which their promulgation can

procure us. Besides, the public, at the end of a certain time,

appears to me always equitable; self-love must accustom itself to do

credit to praise; for in due time, we obtain as much of that as we

deserve. Finally, if we should have even to complain long of

injustice, I conceive no better asylum against it than philosophical

meditation, and the emotion of eloquence. These faculties place at

our disposal a whole world of truths and sentiments, in which we can

breathe at perfect freedom.

CHAPTER 4.

Conversation of my father with Bonaparte.--Campaign of Marengo.

Bonaparte set out in the spring of 1800, to make the campaign of

Italy, which was distinguished by the battle of Marengo. He went by

Geneva, and as he expressed a desire to see M. Necker, my father

waited upon him, more with the hope of serving me, than from any

other motive. Bonaparte received him extremely well, and talked to

him of his plans of the moment, with that sort of confidence which

is in his character, or rather in his calculation; for it is thus we

must always style his character. My father, at first seeing him,

experienced nothing of the impression which I did; he felt no

restraint in his presence, and found nothing extraordinary in his

conversation. I have endeavoured to account to myself for this

difference in our opinions of the same person; and, I believe, that

it arose, first, because the simple and unaffected dignity of my

father's manners ensured him the respect of all who conversed with

him; and second, because the kind of superiority attached to

Bonaparte proceeding more from ability in evil action, than from the

elevation of good thoughts, his conversation cannot make us conceive

what distinguishes him; he neither could nor would explain his own

Machiavelian instinct. My father uttered not a word to him of his

two millions deposited in the public treasury; he did not wish to

appear interested but for me, and said to him, among other things,

that as the first consul loved to surround himself with illustrious

names, he ought to feel equal pleasure in encouraging persons of

celebrated talent, as the ornament of his power. Bonaparte replied

to him very obligingly, and the result of this conversation ensured

me, at least for some time longer, a residence in France. This was

the last occasion when my father's protecting hand was extended over

my existence; he has not been a witness of the cruel persecution I

have since endured, and which would have irritated him even more

than myself.

Bonaparte repaired to Lausanne to prepare the expedition of Mount

St. Bernard; the old Austrian general could not believe in the

possibility of so bold an enterprise, and in consequence made

inadequate preparations to oppose it. It was said, that a small body

of troops would have been sufficient to destroy the whole French

army in the midst of the mountainous passes, through which Bonaparte

led it; but in this, as well as in several other instances, the

following verses of J. B. Rousseau might be very well applied to the

triumphs of Bonaparte:

L'experience indecile

Du compagnon de Paul Emile,

Fit tout le succes d'Annibal.

(The unruly inexperience of the colleague of Paulus Emilius, was the

cause of all the victories of Hannibal).

I arrived in Switzerland to pass the summer according to custom with

my father, nearly about the time when the French army was crossing

the Alps. Large bodies of troops were seen continually passing

through these peaceful countries, which the majestic boundary of the

Alps ought to shelter from political storms. In these beautiful

summer evenings, on the borders of the lake of Geneva, I was almost

ashamed, in the presence of that beautiful sky and pure water, of

the disquietude I felt respecting the affairs of this world: but it

was impossible for me to overcome my internal agitation: I could

not help wishing that Bonaparte might be beaten, as that seemed the

only means of stopping the progress of his tyranny. I durst not,

however, avow this wish, and the prefect of the Leman, M. Eymar (an

old deputy to the Constituent Assembly), recollecting the period

when we cherished together the hope of liberty, was continually

sending me couriers to inform me of the progress of the French in

Italy. It would have been difficult for me to make M. Eymar (who was

in other respects a most interesting character,) comprehend that the

happiness of France required that her army should then meet with

reverses, and I received the supposed good news which he sent me,

with a degree of restraint which was very little in unison with my

character. Was it necessary since that to be continually hearing of

the triumphs of him who made his successes fall indiscriminately

upon the heads of all? and out of so many victories, has there ever

arisen a single gleam of happiness for poor France?

The battle of Marengo was lost for a couple of hours: the negligence

of General Melas, who trusted too much to the advantages he had

gained, and the audacity of General Desaix, restored the victory to

the French arms. While the fate of the battle was almost desperate,

Bonaparte rode about slowly on horseback, pensive, and looking

downward, more courageous against danger than misfortune, attempting

nothing, but waiting the turn of the wheel. He has behaved several

times in a similar way, and has found his advantage in it. But I

cannot help always thinking, that if Bonaparte had fairly

encountered among his adversaries a man of character and probity, he

would have been stopped short in his career. His great talent lies

in terrifying the feeble, and availing himself of unprincipled

characters. When he encounters honour any where, it may be said that

his artifices are disconcerted, as evil spirits are conjured by the

sign of the cross.

The armistice which was the result of the battle of Marengo, the

conditions of which included the cession of all the strong places in

the North of Italy, was most disadvantageous to Austria. Bonaparte

could not have gained more by a succession of victories. But it

might be said that the continental powers appeared to consider it

honorable to give up what would have been worth still more if they

had allowed them to be taken. They made haste to sanction the

injustice of Napoleon, and to legitimate his conquests, while they

ought, if they could not conquer, at least not to have seconded him.

This certainly was not asking too much of the old cabinets of

Europe; but they knew not how to conduct themselves in so novel a

situation, and Bonaparte confounded them so much by the union of

promises and threats, that in giving up, they believed they were

gaining, and rejoiced at the word peace, as much as if this word

had preserved its old signification. The illuminations, the

reverences, the dinners, and firing of cannon to celebrate this

peace, were exactly the same as formerly: but far from cicatrizing

the wounds, it introduced into the government which signed it a most

certain and effectual principle of dissolution.

The most remarkable circumstance in the fortune of Napoleon is the

sovereigns whom he found upon the throne. Paul I. particularly did

him incalculable service; he had the same enthusiasm for him that

his father had felt for Frederic the Second, and he abandoned

Austria at the moment when she was still attempting to struggle.

Bonaparte persuaded him that the whole of Europe would be pacified

for centuries, if the two great empires of the East and West were

agreed; and Paul, who had something chivalrous in his disposition,

allowed himself to be entrapped by these fallacies. It was an

extraordinary piece of good fortune in Bonaparte to meet with a

crowned head so easily duped, and who united violence and weakness

in such equal degrees: no one therefore regretted Paul more than he

did, for no one was it so important to him to deceive.

Lucien, the minister of the interior, who was perfectly acquainted

with his brother's schemes, caused a pamphlet to be published, with

the view of preparing men's minds for the establishment of a new

dynasty. This publication was premature, and had a bad effect;

Fouche availed himself of it to ruin Lucien. He persuaded Bonaparte

that the secret was revealed too soon, and told the republican

party, that Bonaparte disavowed what his brother had done. In

consequence Lucien was then sent ambassador to Spain. The system of

Bonaparte was to advance gradually in the road to power; he was

constantly spreading rumours of the plans he had in agitation, in

order to feel the public opinion. Generally even he was anxious to

have his projects exaggerated, in order that the thing itself, when

it took place, might be a softening of the apprehension which had

circulated in public. The vivacity of Lucien on this occasion

carried him too far, and Bonaparte judged it advisable to sacrifice

him to appearances for some time.

CHAPTER 5.

The infernal machine.--Peace of Luneville.

I returned to Paris in the month of November 1800. Peace was

not yet made, although Moreau by his victories had rendered it more

and more necessary to the allied powers. Has he not since regretted

the laurels of Stockach and Hohenlinden, when France has not been

less enslaved than Europe, over which he made her triumph? Moreau

recognized only his country in the orders of the first consul; but

such a man ought to have formed his opinion of the government which

employed him, and to have acted under such circumstances, upon his

own view of the real interests of his country. Still, it must be

allowed that at the period of the most brilliant victories of

Moreau, that is to say, in the autumn of 1800, there were but few

persons who had penetrated the secret projects of Bonaparte; what

was evident at a distance, was the improvement of the finances, and

the restoration of order in several branches of the administration.

Napoleon was obliged to begin by the good to arrive at the bad; he

was obliged to increase the French army, before he could employ it

for the purposes of his personal ambition.

One evening when I was conversing with some friends, we heard a very

loud explosion, but supposing it to be merely the firing of some

cannon by way of exercise, we paid no attention to it, and continued

our conversation. We learned a few hours afterwards that in going to

the opera, the first consul had narrowly escaped being destroyed by

the explosion of what has been called the infernal machine. As he

escaped, the most lively interest was expressed towards him:

philosophers proposed the re-establishment of fire and the wheel for

the punishment of the authors of this outrage; and he could see on

all sides a nation presenting its neck to the yoke. He discussed

very coolly at his own house the same evening what would have

happened if he had perished. Some persons said that Moreau would

have replaced him: Bonaparte pretended that it would have been

General Bernadotte. "Like Antony," said he, "he would have

presented to the inflamed populace the bloody robe of Caesar." I

know not if he really believed that France would have then called

Bernadotte to the head of affairs, but what I am quite sure of is,

that he said so for the purpose of exciting envy against that

general.

If the infernal machine had been contrived by the jacobins, the

first consul might have immediately redoubled his tyranny; public

opinion would have seconded him: but as this plot proceeded from

the royalist party, he could not derive much advantage from it. He

endeavoured rather to stifle, than avail himself of it, as he wished

the nation to believe that his enemies were only the enemies of

order, and not the friends of another order, that is to say, of the

old dynasty. What is very remarkable, is, that on the occasion of a

royalist conspiracy, Bonaparte caused, by a senatus consultum, one

hundred and thirty jacobins to be transported to the island of

Madagascar, or rather to the bottom of the sea, for they have never

been heard of since. This list was made in the most arbitrary manner

possible; names were put upon it, or erased, according to the

recommendations of counsellors of state, who proposed, and of

senators, who sanctioned it. Respectable people said, when the

manner in which this list had been made was complained of, that it

was composed of great criminals; that might be very true, but it is

the right and not the fact which constitutes the legality of

actions. When the arbitrary transportation of one hundred and thirty

citizens is submitted to, there is nothing to prevent, as we have

since seen, the application of the same treatment to the most

respectable persons.--Public opinion, it is said, will prevent this,

Opinion! what is it without the authority of law? what is it without

independent organs to express it? Opinion was in favor of the Duke

d'Enghien, in favor of Moreau, in favor of Pichegru:--was it able to

save them? There will be neither liberty, dignity, nor security in a

country where proper names are discussed when injustice is about to

be committed. Every man is innocent until condemned by a legal

tribunal; and the fate of even the greatest of criminals, if he is

withdrawn from the law, ought to make good people tremble in common,

with others. But, as is the custom in the English House of Commons,

when an opposition member goes out, he requests a ministerial member

to pair off with him, not to alter the strength of either party,

Bonaparte never struck the jacobins or the royalists without

dividing his blows equally between them: he thus made friends of

all those whose vengeance he served. We shall see in the sequel that

he always reckoned on the gratification of this passion to

consolidate his government: for he knows that it is much more to be

depended on than affection. After a revolution, the spirit of party

is so bitter, that a new chief can subdue it more by serving its

vengeance, than by supporting its interests: all abandon, if

necessary, those who think like themselves, provided they can

sacrifice those who think differently.

The peace of Luneville was proclaimed: Austria only lost in this

first peace the republic of Venice, which she had formerly received

as an indemnity for Belgium; and this ancient mistress of the

Adriatic, once so haughty and powerful, again passed from one master

to the other.

CHAPTER 6.

Corps diplomatique during the Consulate.--Death of the Emperor

Paul.

I passed that winter in Paris very tranquilly. I never went to the

first consul's--I never saw M. de Talleyrand. I knew Bonaparte did

not like me: but he had not yet reached the degree of tyranny which

he has since displayed. Foreigners treated me with distinction,--the

corps diplomatique were my constant visitors,--and this European

atmosphere served me as a safeguard.

A minister just arrived from Prussia fancied that the republic still

existed, and began by putting forward some of the philosophical

notions he had acquired in his intercourse with Frederick the Great:

it was hinted to him that he had quite mistaken his ground, and that

he must rather avail himself of his knowledge of courts. He took the

hint very quickly, for he is a man whose distinguished powers are in

the service of a character particularly supple. He ends the sentence

you begin, and begins that which he thinks you will end; and it is

only in turning the conversation upon the transactions of former

ages, on ancient literature, or upon subjects unconnected with

persons or things of the present day, that you discover the

superiority of his understanding.

The Austrian Ambassador was a courtier of a totally different stamp,

but not less desirous of pleasing the higher powers. The one had all

the information of a literary character; the other knew nothing of

literature beyond the French plays, in which he had acted the parts

of Crispin and Chrysalde. It is a known fact, that when ambassador

to Catherine II, he once received despatches from his court, when

he happened to be dressed as an old woman; and it was with

difficulty that the courier could be made to recognize his

ambassador in that costume. M. de C. was an extremely common-place

character; he said the same things to almost every one he met in a

drawing room: he spoke to every person with a kind of cordiality in

which sentiments and ideas had no part. His manners were engaging,

and his conversation pretty well formed by the world; but to send

such a man to negotiate * with the revolutionary strength and

roughness that surrounded Bonaparte, was a most pitiable spectacle.

An aide-de-camp of Bonaparte complained of the familiarity of M. de

C.; he was displeased that one of the first noblemen of the Austrian

monarchy should squeeze his hand without ceremony. These new

debutans in politeness could not conceive that ease was in good

taste. In truth, if they had been at their ease, they would have

committed strange inconsistencies, and arrogant stiffness was much

better suited to them in the new part they wished to play. Joseph

Bonaparte, who negociated the peace of Luneville, invited M. de C.

to his charming country seat of Morfontaine, where I happened to

meet him. Joseph was extremely fond of rural occupation, and would

walk with ease and pleasure in his gardens for eight hours in

succession. M. de C. tried to follow him, more out of breath than

the Duke of Mayenne, whom Henry IV. amused himself with making walk

about, notwithstanding his corpulence. The poor man talked very much

of fishing, among the pleasures of the country, because it allowed

him to sit down; he absolutely warmed in speaking of the innocent

pleasure of catching some little fish with the line.

When he was ambassador at Petersburg, Paul I. had treated him with

the greatest indignity. He and I were playing at backgammon in the

drawing room at Morfontaine, when one of my friends came in and

informed us of the sudden death of that Sovereign. M. de C.

immediately began making the most official lamentations possible on

this event. "Although I had reason to complain of him," said he, "I

shall always acknowledge the excellent qualities of this prince,

and I cannot help regretting his loss." He thought rightly that the

death of Paul was a fortunate event for Austria, and for Europe, but

he had in his conversation, a court mourning, that was really quite

intolerable. It is to be hoped, that the progress of time will rid

the world of the courtier spirit, the most insipid of all others, to

say nothing more.

Bonaparte was extremely alarmed at the death of Paul, and it is

said, that on that occasion he uttered the first--Ah, my God! that

was ever heard to proceed from his lips. He had no reason, however,

to disturb himself; for the French were then more disposed to endure

tyranny than the Russians.

I was invited to general Berthier's one day, when the first consul

was to be of the party; and as I knew that he expressed himself very

unfavourably about me, it struck me that he might perhaps accost me

with some of those rude expressions, which he often took pleasure in

addressing to females, even to those who paid their court to him; I

wrote down therefore as they occured to me, before I went to the

entertainment, a variety of tart and piquant replies which I might

make to what I supposed he might say to me. I did not wish to be

taken by surprise, if he allowed himself to insult me, for that

would have been to show a want both of character and understanding;

and as no person could promise themselves not to be confused in the

presence of such a man, I prepared myself before hand to brave him.

Fortunately the precaution was unnecessary; he only addressed the

most common questions possible to me; and the same thing happened to

all of his opponents, to whom he attributed the possibility of

replying to him: at all times, however, he never attacks, but when

he feels himself much the strongest. During supper, the first consul

stood behind the chair of Madame Bonaparte, and balanced himself

sometimes on one leg, and sometimes on the other, in the manner of

the princes of the house of Bourbon. I made my neighbour remark this

vocation for royalty, already so decided.

CHAPTER 7.

Paris in 1801

The opposition in the tribunate still continued; that is to say,

about twenty members out of a hundred, tried to speak out against

the measures of every kind, with which tyranny was preparing. A

grand question arose, in the law which gave to the government the

fatal power of creating special tribunals to try persons accused of

state crimes; as if the handing over a man to these extraordinary

tribunals, was not already prejudging the question, that is to say,

if he is a criminal, and a criminal of state; and as if, of all

crimes, political crimes were not those which required the greatest

precaution and independence in the manner of examining them, as the

government is in such causes almost always a party interested.

We have since seen what are the military commissions to try crimes

of state; and the death of the Duke d'Eughien marks to all the

horror which that hypocritical power ought to inspire, which covers

murder with the mantle of the law.

The resistance of the tribunate, feeble as it was, displeased the

first consul; not that it was any obstacle to his designs, but it

kept up the habit of thinking in the nation, which he wished to

stifle entirely. He put into the journals among other things, an

absurd argument against the opposition. Nothing is so simple or so

proper, was it there said, as an opposition in England, because the

king is the enemy of the people; but in a country, where the

executive government is itself named by the people, it is opposing

the nation to oppose its representative. What a number of phrases of

this kind have the scribes of Napoleon deluged the public with for

ten years! In England or America the meanest peasant would laugh in

your face at a sophism of this nature; in France, all that is

desired, is to have a phrase ready, with which to give to one's

interest the appearance of conviction.

Very few persons showed themselves strangers to the desire of having

places; a great number were ruined, and the interest of their wives

and children, or of their nephews and nieces, if they had no

children, or of their cousins, if they had no nephews, obliged

them, they said, to seek employment from the government. The

great strength of the heads of the state in France, is the

prodigious taste that the people have for places; vanity even makes

them more sought for, than the emolument attached to them. Bonaparte

received thousands of petitions for every office, from the highest

to the lowest. If he had not had naturally a profound contempt for

the human race, he would have conceived it in running over

petitions, signed by names illustrious from their ancestry, or

celebrated by revolutionary actions in complete opposition to the

new functions they were ambitious of fulfilling.

The winter of 1801 at Paris was made extremely agreeable to me, by

the readiness with which Fouche granted the applications I made to

him for the return of different emigrants: in this way he left me,

in the midst of my disgrace, the pleasure of being useful, and I

retain a most grateful recollection to him for it. It must be

confessed, that in the actions of women, there is always a little

coquetry, and that the greater part of their very virtues are mixed

with the desire of pleasing, and of being surrounded by friends,

whose attachment to them is heightened by the feeling of obligation.

In this point of view only, can our sex be pardoned for being fond

of influence: but there are occasions when we ought even to

sacrifice the pleasure of obliging to preserve our dignity: for we

may do every thing for the sake of others, excepting to degrade our

character. Our own conscience is as it were the treasure of the

Almighty, which we are not permitted to make use of for the

advantage of others.

Bonaparte was still at some expense on account of the Institute,

upon which he piqued himself so much when he was in Egypt: but there

was among the men of letters, and the savants, a petty philosophical

opposition, unfortunately of a very bad description, which was

entirely directed against the re-establishment of religion. By a

fatal caprice, the enlightened spirits in France wished to console

themselves for the slavery of this world, by endeavouring to destroy

the hopes of a better: this singular inconsistency would not have

happened under the protestant religion; but the catholic clergy had

enemies, whom their courage and misfortunes had not yet disarmed;

and perhaps, it is really difficult to make the authority of the

pope, and of priests subject to the pope, harmonize with the

independence of a state. Be that as it may, the Institute exhibited

for religion, independant of its ministers, none of that profound

respect, inseparable from a lofty combination of mind and genius;

and Bonaparte was left to support, against men of more value than

himself, opinions which were of more value than them.

In this year (1801), the first consul ordered the king of Spain to

make war upon Portugal, and the feeble monarch of that illustrious

nation condemned his army to this expedition, equally servile and

unjust, against a neighbour, who had no hostile intentions, and

whose only offence was his alliance with that England, which has

since shewn itself so true a friend to Spain: and all this in

obedience to the man who was preparing to deprive him of his very

existence. When we have seen these same Spaniards giving with so

much energy the signal of the resurrection of the world, we learn to

know what nations are, and what are the consequences of refusing

them a legal means of expressing their opinion, and regulating their

own destiny.

Towards the spring of 1801, the first consul took it into his head

to make a king, and a king of the house of Bourbon: he bestowed

Tuscany upon him, designating it by the classical name of Etruria,

for the purpose of commencing the grand masquerade of Europe. This

infanta of Spain was ordered to Paris for the purpose of exhibiting

to the French the spectacle of a prince of the ancient dynasty

humbled before the first consul; more humbled by his gifts than he

ever could have been by his persecution. Bonaparte tried upon this

royal lamb the experiment of making a king wait in his antechamber:

he allowed himself to be applauded at the theatre, upon the

recitation of this verse:

"J'ai fait des rois, madame, et n'ai pas voulu l'etre:"

(I have made kings, madam, and have not wished to be one:) promising

himself to be more than a king, when the opportunity should offer.

Every day some fresh blunder of this poor king of Etruria was the

subject of conversation: he was taken to the Museum, to the Cabinet

of Natural History, and some of his questions about quadrupeds and

fishes, which a well educated child of twelve years old would have

been ashamed to put, were quoted as proofs of intelligence. In the

evening, he was conducted to entertainments, where the female opera

dancers came and mixed with the ladies of the new court; the little

monarch, in spite of his devotion, preferred dancing with them, and

in return sent them next day presents of elegant and good books for

their instruction. This period of transition from revolutionary

habits to monarchical pretensions in France, was a most singular

one; as there was as little independence in the one, as dignity in

the other, their absurdities harmonised perfectly together; each of

them in their own way formed a group round the parti-coloured

potentate, who at the same time employed the forcible means of both

regimes.

For the last time, the 14th of July, the anniversary of the

revolution, was celebrated this year, and a pompous proclamation was

put forth to remind the people of the advantages resulting from that

day, not one of which advantages the first consul had not made up

his mind to destroy. Of all the collections that were ever made,

that of the proclamations of this man is the most singular: it is a

complete encyclopedia of contradictions; and if chaos itself were

employed to instruct the earth, it would doubtless, in a similar

way, throw at the heads of mankind, eulogiums of peace and war, of

knowledge and prejudices, of liberty and despotism, praises and

insults upon all governments and all religions.

It was at this period that Bonaparte sent General Leclerc to Saint

Domingo, and designated him in his decree our brother-in-law. This

first royal we, which associated the French with the prosperity of

this family, was a most bitter pill to me. He obliged his beautiful

sister to accompany her husband to Saint Domingo, where her health

was completely ruined: a singular act of despotism for a man who is

not accustomed to great severity of principles in those about his

person; but he makes use of morality only to harass some and dazzle

others. A peace was in the sequel concluded with the chief of the

negroes, Toussaint-Louverture. This man was, no doubt, a great

criminal, but Bonaparte had signed conditions with him, in complete

violation of which Toussaint was conducted to a prison in France,

where he ended his days in the most miserable manner. Perhaps

Bonaparte himself hardly recollects this crime, because he has been

less reproached with it than others.

In a great forge, we see with astonishment the violence of the

machines which are set in motion by a single will: these hammers,

those flatteners seem so many persons, or rather devouring animals.

Should you attempt to resist their force, they would annihilate you;

notwithstanding, all this apparent fury is calculated beforehand,

and a single mover gives action to these springs. The tyranny of

Bonaparte is represented to my eyes by this image; he makes

thousands of men perish, as these wheels beat the iron, and his

agents are the greater part of them equally insensible; the

invisible impulse of these human machines proceeds from a will at

once violent and methodical, which transforms moral life into its

servile instrument. Finally, to complete the comparison, it is

sufficient to seize the mover to restore every thing to a state of

repose.

CHAPTER 8.

Journey to Coppet.--Preliminaries of peace with England.

I went, according to my usual happy custom, to spend the summer with

my father. I found him extremely indignant at the state of affairs;

and as he had all his life been as much attached to real liberty as

he detested popular anarchy, he felt inclined to draw his pen

against the tyranny of one, after having so long fought against that

of the many. My father was fond of glory, and however prudent his

character, hazards of every kind did not displease him, when the

public esteem was to be deserved by incurring them, I was quite

sensible of the danger to which any work of his which should

displease the first consul, would expose myself; but I could not

resolve to stifle this song of the swan, who wished to make himself

heard once more on the tomb of French liberty. I encouraged him

therefore in his design, but we deferred to the following year the

question whether what he wrote should be published.

The news of the signature of the preliminaries of peace between

England and France, came to put the crown to Bonaparte's good

fortune. When I learned that England had recognised his power, it

seemed to me that I had been wrong in hating it; but circumstances

were not long in relieving me from this scruple. The most remarkable

article of these preliminaries was the complete evacuation of Egypt:

that expedition therefore had had no other result than to make

Bonaparte talked of. Several publications written in places beyond

the reach of Bonaparte's power, accuse him of having made Kleber be

assassinated in Egypt, because he was jealous of his influence; and

I have been assured by persons worthy of credit, that the duel in

which General D'Estaing was killed by General Regnier was provoked

by a discussion on this point. It appears to me, however, scarcely

credible that Bonaparte should have had the means of arming a Turk

against the life of a French general, at a moment when he was far

removed from the theatre of the crime. Nothing ought to be said

against him of which there are not proofs; the discovery of a single

error of this kind among the most notorious truths would tarnish

their lustre. We must not fight Bonaparte with any of his own

weapons.

I delayed my return to Paris to avoid being present at the great

fete in honour of the peace. I know no sensation more painful than

these public rejoicings in which the heart refuses to participate.

We feel a sort of contempt for this booby people which comes to

celebrate the yoke preparing for it: these dull victims dancing

before the palace of their sacrificer: this first consul designated

the father of the nation which he was about to devour: this mixture of

stupidity on one side, and cunning on the other: the stale hypocrisy

of the courtiers throwing a veil over the arrogance of the master:

all inspired me with an insurmountable disgust. It was necessary

however to constrain one's feelings, and during these solemnities

you were exposed to meet with official congratulations, which at

other times it was more easy to avoid.

Bonaparte then proclaimed that peace was the first want of the

world: every day he signed some new treaty, therein resembling the

care with which Polyphemus counted the sheep as he drove them into

his den. The United States of America also made peace with France,

and sent as their plenipotentiary, a man who did not know a word of

French, apparently ignorant that the most complete acquaintance with

the language was barely sufficient to penetrate the truth, in a

government which knew so well how to conceal it.

The first consul, on the presentation of Mr. Livingston,

complimented him, through an interpreter, on the purity of manners

in America, and added "the old world is very corrupt;" then turning

round to M. de ----, he repeated twice, "explain to him that the

old world is very corrupt: you know something of it, don't you?"

This was one of the most agreeable speeches he ever addressed in

public to this courtier, who was possessed of better taste than his

fellows, and wished to preserve some dignity in his manners,

although he sacrificed that of the mind to his ambition.

Meantime, however, monarchical institutions were rapidly advancing

under the shadow of the republic. A pretorian guard was organized:

the crown diamonds were made use of to ornament the sword of the

first consul, and there was observable in his dress, as well as in

the political situation of the day, a mixture of the old and new

regime: he had his dresses covered with gold, and his hair cropped,

a little body, and a large head, an indescribable air of awkwardness

and arrogance, of disdain and embarrassment, which altogether formed

a combination of the bad graces of a parvenu, with all the audacity

of a tyrant. His smile has been cried up as agreeable; my own

opinion is, that in any other person it would have been found

unpleasant; for this smile, breaking out from a confirmed serious

mood, rather resembled an involuntary twitch than a natural

movement, and the expression of his eyes was never in unison with

that of his mouth; but as his smile had the effect of encouraging

those who were about him, the relief which it gave them made it be

taken for a charm. I recollect once being told very gravely by a

member of the Institute, a counsellor of state, that Bonaparte's

nails were perfectly well made. Another time a courtier exclaimed,

"The first consul's hand is beautiful!" "Ah! for heaven's sake,

Sir," replied a young nobleman of the ancient noblesse, who was not

then a chamberlain, "don't let us talk politics." The same courtier,

speaking affectionately of the first consul, said, "He frequently

displays the most infantine sweetness." Certainly, in his own

family, he amused himself sometimes with innocent games; he has been

seen to dance with his generals; it is even said that at Munich, in

the palace of the king and queen of Bavaria, to whom no doubt this

gaiety appeared very odd, he assumed one evening the Spanish costume

of the Emperor Charles VII. and began dancing an old French country

dance, la Monaco.

CHAPTER 9.

Paris in 1802.--Bonaparte President of the Italian republic.--My

return to Coppet.

Every step of the first consul announced more and more openly his

boundless ambition. While the peace with England was negotiating at

Amiens, he assembled at Lyons the Cisalpine Consulta, consisting of

the deputies from Lombardy and the adjacent states, which had been

formed into a republic under the directory, and who now inquired

what new form of government they were to assume. As people were not

yet accustomed to the idea of the unity of the French republic being

transformed into the unity of one man, no one ever dreamt of the

same person uniting on his own head the first consulship of France

and the presidency of Italy; it was expected therefore that Count

Melzi would be nominated to the office, as the person most

distinguished by his knowledge, his illustrious birth, and the

respect of his fellow citizens. All of a sudden the report got

abroad that Bonaparte was to get himself nominated; and at this

news a moment of life seemed still perceptible in the public

feeling. It was said that the French constitution deprived of the

right of citizenship whoever accepted employment in a foreign

country; but was he a Frenchman, who only wanted to make use of the

great nation for the oppression of Europe, and vice versa? Bonaparte

juggled the nomination of president out of all these Italians, who

only learned a few hours before proceeding to the scrutiny, that

they must appoint him. They were told to join the name of Count

Melzi, as vice-president, to that of Bonaparte. They were assured

that they would only be governed by the former, who would always

reside among them, and that the latter was merely ambitious of an

honorary title. Bonaparte said to them himself in his usual emphatic

manner, "Cisalpines, I shall preserve only the great idea of your

interests." But the great idea meant the complete power. The day

after this election, they were seriously occupied in making a

constitution, as if any one could exist by the side of this iron

hand. The nation was divided into three classes; the possidenti, the

dotti, and the commerrianti. The landholders, to be taxed; the

literary men, to be silenced; and the merchants, to have all the

ports shut against them. These sounding words in Italian are even

better adapted to the purposes of quackery than the corresponding

French.

Bonaparte had changed the name of Cisalpine republic into that of

Italian republic, thereby giving Europe an anticipation of his

future conquests in the rest of Italy. Such a step was every thing

but pacific, and yet it did not prevent the signature of the treaty

of Amiens; so much did Europe, and even England itself, then desire

peace! I was at the English ambassador's at the moment of his

receiving the terms of this treaty. He read them aloud to the

persons who were dining with him, and it is impossible for me to

express the astonishment I felt at every article. England restored

all her conquests; she restored Malta, of which it had been said,

when it was taken by the French, that if there had been nobody in

the fortress, they would never have been able to enter it. In short,

she gave up every thing, and without compensation, to a power which

she had constantly beaten at sea. What an extraordinary effect of

the passion for peace! And yet this man, who had so miraculously

obtained such advantages, had not the patience to make use of them

for a few years, to put the French navy in a state to meet that of

England. Scarcely had the treaty of Amiens been signed, when

Napoleon, by a senatus-consultum, annexed Piedmont to France. During

the twelve months the peace lasted, everyday was marked by some new

proclamation, provoking to a breach of the treaty. The motives of

this conduct it is easy to penetrate; Bonaparte wished to dazzle the

French nation, now by unexpected treaties of peace, at other times

by wars which would make him necessary to it. He believed that a

period of disturbance was favourable to usurpation. The newspapers,

which were instructed to boast of the advantages of peace in the

spring of 1802, said then "We are approaching the moment when

systems of politics will become of no effect." If Bonaparte had

really wished it, he might at that period have easily bestowed

twenty years of peace upon Europe, in the state of terror and ruin

to which it was reduced.

The friends of liberty in the tribunate were still endeavouring to

struggle against the constantly increasing power of the first

consul; but they had not then the advantage of being seconded by

public opinion. The greater number of the opposition tribunes were

every way deserving of esteem: but there were three or four persons

who acted along with them, who had been guilty of revolutionary

excesses, and the government took especial care to throw upon all,

the blame which could only attach to a few. It is certain, however,

that men collected in a public assembly generally end in

electrifying themselves with the sparks of mental dignity; and this

tribunate, even such as it was, would, had it been allowed to

continue, have prevented the establishment of tyranny. Already the

majority of votes had nominated, as a candidate for the senate,

Daunou, an honest and enlightened republican, but certainly not a

man to be dreaded. This was sufficient, however, to determine the

first consul to the elimination of the tribunate; which means to

make twenty of the most energetic members of the assembly retire one

by one, on the designation of the senators, and to have them

replaced by twenty others, devoted to the government. The eighty who

remained, were each year to undergo the same operation by fourths. A

lesson was in this manner given them of what they were expected to

do, to retain their places, or in other words, their salary of

fifteen thousand francs; the first consul wishing to preserve some

time longer this mutilated assembly, which might serve for two or

three years more as a popular mask to his tyrannical acts.

Among the proscribed tribunes were several of my friends; but my

opinion was in this instance altogether independent of my

attachments. Perhaps, however, I might feel a greater degree of

irritation at the injustice which fell upon persons with whom I was

connected, and I have no doubt that I allowed myself the expression

of some sarcastic remarks on this hypocritical method of

interpreting the unfortunate constitution, into which they had

endeavoured to prevent the entrance of the smallest spark of

liberty.

There was at that time formed round general Bernadotte, a party of

generals and senators, who wished to have his opinion, if some means

could not be devised to stop the progress of the usurpation, which

was now rapidly approaching. He proposed a variety of plans, all

founded upon some legislative measure or other, considering any

other means as contrary to his principles. But to obtain any such

measure, it required a deliberation of at least some members of the

senate, and not one of them was found bold enough to subscribe such

an instrument. While this most perilous negociation continued, I was

in the habit of seeing general Bernadotte and his friends very

frequently; this was more than enough to ruin me, if their designs

were discovered. Bonaparte remarked that people always came away

from my house less attached to him than when they entered it; in

short he determined to single me out as the only culprit, among

many, who were much more so than I was, but whom it was of more

consequence to him to spare.

Just at this time I set out for Coppet, and reached my father's

house in a most painful state of anxiety and mental oppression. My

letters from Paris informed me, that after my departure, the first

consul had expressed himself very warmly on the subject of my

connections with general Bernadotte. There was every appearance of

his being resolved to punish me; but he paused at the idea of

sacrificing general Bernadotte; either because his military talents

were necessary to him; restrained by the family ties which connected

them; afraid of the greater popularity of Bernadotte with the French

army; or finally because there is a certain charm in his manners,

which renders it difficult even to Bonaparte to become entirely his

enemy. What provoked the first consul still more than the opinions

which he attributed to me, was the number of strangers who came to

visit me. The Prince of Orange, son of the Stadtholder, did me the

honour to dine with me, for which he was reproached by Bonaparte.

The existence of a woman, who was visited on account of her literary

reputation, was but a trifle; but that trifle was totally

independant of him, and was sufficient to make him resolve to crush

me.

In this year, 1802, the affair of the princes, who had possessions

in Germany was settled. The whole of that negociation was conducted

at Paris, to the great profit, it was said, of the ministers who

were employed in it. Be that as it may, it was at this period that

began the diplomatic spoliation of Europe, which was only stopped at

its very extremities.

All the great noblemen of feudal Germany, were seen at Paris

exhibiting their ceremonial, whose obsequious formalities were much

more agreeable to the first consul than the still easy manner of the

French; and asking back what belonged to them with a servility which

would almost make one lose the right to one's own property, so much

had it the air of regarding the authority of justice as nothing.

A nation singularly proud, the English, was not at this time

altogether exempt from a degree of curiosity about the person of the

first consul, approaching to homage. The ministerial party regarded

him in his proper light; but the opposition, which ought to have a

greater hatred of tyranny, as it is supposed to be more enthusiastic

for liberty, the opposition party, and Fox himself, whose talents

and goodness of heart one cannot recollect without admiration, and

the tenderest emotion, committed the error of shewing too much

attention to Bonaparte, thereby serving to prolong the mistake of

those, who wished still to confound with the French revolution, the

most decided enemy of the first principles of that revolution.

CHAPTER 10.

New symptoms of Bonaparte's ill will to my father and myself.

--Affairs of Switzerland.

At the beginning of the winter 1802-3, when I saw by the papers that

so many illustrious Englishmen, and so many of the most intelligent

persons in France were collected in Paris, I felt, I confess, the

strongest desire to be among them. I do not dissemble, that a

residence in Paris has always appeared to me the most agreeable of

all others; I was born there--there I have passed my infancy and

early youth--and there only could I meet the generation which had

known my father, and the friends who had with us passed through the

horrors of the revolution. This love of country, which has attached

the most strongly constituted minds, lays still stronger hold of us,

when it unites the enjoyments of intellect with the affections of

the heart, and the habits of imagination. French conversation exists

nowhere but in Paris, and conversation has been since my infancy, my

greatest pleasure. I experienced such grief at the apprehension of

being deprived of this residence, that my reason could not support

itself against it. I was then in the full vivacity of life, and it

is precisely the want of animated enjoyment, which leads most

frequently to despair, as it renders that resignation very

difficult, without which we cannot support the vicissitudes of life.

The prefect of Geneva had received no orders to refuse me my

passports for Paris, but I knew that the first consul had said in

the midst of his circle, that I would do well not to return; and he

was already in the habit, on subjects of this nature, of dictating

his pleasure in conversation, in order to prevent his being called

upon, by the anticipation of his orders. If he had in this manner

said, that such and such an individual ought to go and hang himself,

I believe that he would have been displeased, if the submissive

subject had not in obedience to the hint, bought a rope and prepared

the gallows. Another proof of his ill will to me, was the manner in

which the French journals criticized my romance of Delphine, which

appeared at this time; they thought proper to denounce it as

immoral, and the work which had received my father's approbation was

condemned by these courtier criticks. There might be found in that

book, that fire of youth, and ardour after happiness, which ten

years, and those years of suffering, have taught me to direct in

another manner. But my censors were not capable of feeling this sort

of error, and merely acted in obedience to that voice which ordered

them to pull to pieces the work of the father, prior to attacking

that of the daughter. In fact we heard from all quarters, that the

true reason of the first consul's anger, was this last work of my

father, in which the whole scaffolding of his monarchy was

delineated by anticipation. My father, and also my mother, during

her life-time, had both the same predilection for a Paris residence

that I had. I was extremely sorrowful at being separated from my

friends, and at being unable to give my children that taste for the

fine arts, which is acquired with difficulty in the country; and as

there was no positive prohibition of my return in the letter of the

consul Lebrun,* but merely some significant hints, I formed a

hundred projects of returning, and trying if the first consul, who

at that time was still tender of public opinion, would venture to

brave the murmurs which my banishment would not fail to excite. My

father, who condescended sometimes to reproach himself for being

partly the cause of spoiling my fortune, conceived the idea of going

himself to Paris, to speak to the first consul in my favor. I

confess, that at first I consented to accept this proof of my

father's attachment; I represented to myself such an idea of the

ascendancy which his presence would produce, that I thought it

impossible to resist him; his age, the fine expression of his looks,

and the union of so much noble mindedness, and refinement of

intellect, appeared to me likely even to captivate Bonaparte

himself. I knew not at that time, to what a degree the consul was

irritated against his book; but fortunately for me, I reflected that

these very advantages were only more likely to excite in the first

consul a stronger desire of humbling their possessor. Assuredly he

would have found means, at least in appearance, of accomplishing

that desire; as power in France has many allies, and if the spirit

of opposition has been frequently displayed, it has only been

because the weakness of the government has offered it an easy

victory. It cannot be too often repeated, that what the French love

above all things, is success, and that with them, power easily

succeeds in making misfortune ridiculous. Finally, thank God! I

awoke from the illusion to which I had given myself up, and

positively refused the noble sacrifice which my father proposed to

make for me. When he saw me completely decided not to accept it, I

perceived how much it would have cost him. I lost him fifteen months

afterwards, and if he had then executed the journey he proposed, I

should have attributed his illness to that cause, and remorse would

have still kept my wound festering.

* This letter is the same which is spoken of in the 4th part of the

Considerations on the French revolution, chap. 7.

Editor.

It was also during the winter of 1802-3, that Switzerland took arms

against the unitarian constitution which had been imposed upon her.

Singular mania of the French revolutionists to compel all countries

to adopt a political organization similar to that of France! There

are, doubtless, principles common to all countries, such as those

which secure the civil and political rights of free people; but of

what consequence is it whether there should be a limited monarchy,

as in England, or a federal republic, like the United States, or the

Thirteen Swiss Cantons? and was it necessary to reduce Europe to a

single idea, like the Roman people to a single head, in order to be

able to command and to change the whole in one day!

The first consul certainly attached no importance to this or that

form of constitution, or even to any constitution whatever; but what

was of consequence to him, was to make the best use he could of

Switzerland for his own interest, and with that view, he conducted

himself prudently. He combined the various plans which were offered

to him, and drew up a form of constitution which conciliated

sufficiently well the ancient habits with the modern pretensions,

and in causing himself to be named Mediator of the Swiss

Confederation, he drew more persons from that country, than he could

have driven from it, if he had governed it directly. He made the

deputies nominated by the cantons and principal cities of

Switzerland come to Paris; and on the 9th of January 1803, he had a

conference of seven hours with ten delegates, chosen from the

general deputation. He dwelt upon the necessity of re-establishing

the democratic cantons in their former state, pronouncing on this

occasion some declamations on the cruelty of depriving shepherds

dispersed among the mountains, of their sole amusement, namely,

popular assemblies; stating also, (what concerned him more nearly,)

the reasons he had for mistrusting the aristocratic cantons. He

insisted strongly on the importance of Switzerland to France. These

were his words, as they are given in a narrative of this conference:

"I can declare that since I have been at the head of this

government, no power has taken the least interest in Switzerland:

'twas I who made the Helvetic republic be acknowledged at Luneville:

Austria cared not the least for it. At Amiens I wished to do the

same, and England refused it: but England has nothing to do with

Switzerland. If she had expressed the least apprehension that I

wished to be declared your Landamann, I would have been so. It has

been said that England encouraged the last insurrection; if the

English cabinet had taken a single official step, or if there had

been a syllable said about it in the London Gazette, I would have

immediately united you with France." What incredible language! Thus,

the existence of a people who had secured their independence in the

midst of Europe by the most heroic efforts, and maintained it for

five centuries by wisdom and moderation, this existence would have

been annihilated by a movement of spleen which the least accident

might have excited in a being so capricious. Bonaparte added in this

same conference, that it was unpleasant to him to have a

constitution to make, because it exposed him to be hissed, which he

had no partiality for. This expression (etre siffle) bears the stamp

of the deceitfully affable vulgarity in which he frequently took

pleasure in indulging. Roederer and Desmeunier wrote the act of

mediation from his dictation, and the whole passed during the time

that his troops occupied Switzerland. He has since withdrawn them,

and this country, it must be confessed, has been better treated by

Napoleon than the rest of Europe, although both in a political and

military point of view more completely dependent upon him;

consequently it will remain tranquil in the general insurrection.

The people of Europe were disposed to such a degree of patience that

it has required a Bonaparte to exhaust it.

The London newspapers attacked the first consul bitterly enough; the

English nation was too enlightened not to perceive the drift of his

actions. Whenever any translations from the English papers were

brought to him, he used to apostrophize Lord Whitworth, who answered

him with equal coolness and propriety that the King of Great Britain

himself was not protected from the sarcasms of newswriters, and that

the constitution permitted no violation of their liberty on that

score. However, the English government caused M. Peltier to be

prosecuted for some articles in his journal directed against the

first consul. Peltier had the honour to be defended by Mr.

Mackintosh, who made upon this occasion one of the most eloquent

speeches that has been read in modern times; I will mention farther

on, under what circumstances this speech came into my hands.

CHAPTER 11.

Rupture with England.--Commencement of my Exile.

I was at Geneva, living from taste and from circumstances in the

society of the English, when the news of the declaration of war

reached us. The rumour immediately spread that the English

travellers would all be made prisoners: as nothing similar had ever

been heard of in the law of European nations, I gave no credit to

it, and my security was nearly proving injurious to my friends:

they contrived however, to save themselves. But persons entirely

unconnected with political affairs, among whom was Lord Beverley,

the father of eleven children, returning from Italy with his wife

and daughters, and a hundred other persons provided with French

passports, some of them repairing to different universities for

education, others to the South for the recovery of their health, all

travelling under the safeguard of laws recognised by all nations,

were arrested, and have been languishing for ten years in country

towns, leading the most miserable life that the imagination can

conceive. This scandalous act was productive of no advantage;

scarcely two thousand English, including very few military, became

the victims of this caprice of the tyrant, making a few poor

individuals suffer, to gratify his spleen against the invincible

nation to which they belong.

During the summer of 1803 began the great farce of the invasion of

England; flat-bottomed boats were ordered to be built from one end

of France to the other; they were even constructed in the forests on

the borders of the great roads. The French, who have in all things a

very strong rage for imitation, cut out deal upon deal, and heaped

phrase upon phrase: while in Picardy some erected a triumphal arch,

on which was inscribed, "the road to London," others wrote, "To

Bonaparte the Great. We request you will admit us on board the

vessel which will bear you to England, and with you the destiny and

the vengeance of the French people." This vessel, on board of which

Bonaparte was to embark, has had time to wear herself out in

harbour. Others put, as a device for their flags in the roadstead,

"a good wind, and thirty hours". In short, all France resounded with

gasconades, of which Bonaparte alone knew perfectly the secret.

Towards the autumn I believed myself forgotten by Bonaparte: I

heard from Paris that he was completely absorbed in his English

expedition, that he was preparing to set out for the coast, and to

embark himself to direct the descent. I put no faith in this

project; but I flattered myself that he would be satisfied if I

lived at a few leagues distance from Paris, with the small number of

friends who would come that distance to visit a person in disgrace.

I thought also that being sufficiently well known to make my

banishment talked of all over Europe, the first consul would wish to

avoid this eclat. I had calculated according to my own wishes; but I

was not yet thoroughly acquainted with the character of the man who

was to domineer over Europe. Far from wishing to keep upon terms

with persons who had distinguished themselves, in whatever line that

was, he wished to make all such merely a pedestal for his own

statue, either by treading them underfoot, or by making them

subservient to his designs.

I arrived at a little country seat, I had at ten leagues from Paris,

with the project of establishing myself during the winter in this

retreat, as long as the system of tyranny lasted. I only wished to

see my friends there, and to go occasionally to the theatre, and to

the museum. This was all the residence I wished in Paris, in the

state of distrust and espionnage which had begun to be established,

and I confess I cannot see what inconsistency there would have been

in the first consul allowing me to remain in this state of voluntary

exile. I had been there peaceably for a month, when a female, of

that description which is so numerous, endeavouring to make herself

of consequence at the expense of another female, more distinguished

than herself, went and told the first consul that the roads were

covered with people going to visit me. Nothing certainly could be

more false. The exiles whom the world went to see, were those who in

the eighteenth century were almost as powerful as the monarchs who

banished them; but when power is resisted, it is because it is not

tyrannical; for it can only be so by the general submission. Be that

as it may, Bonaparte immediately seized the pretext, or the motive

that was given him to banish me, and I was apprized by one of my

friends, that a gendarme would be with me in a few days with an

order for me to depart. One has no idea, in countries where routine

at least secures individuals from any act of injustice, of the

terror which the sudden news of arbitrary acts of this nature

inspires. It is besides extremely easy to shake me; my imagination

more readily lays hold of trouble than hope, and although I have

often found my chagrin dissipated by the occurrence of novel

circumstances, it always appears to me, when it does come, that

nothing can deliver me from it. In fact it is very easy to be

unhappy, especially when we aspire to the privileged lots of

existence.

I withdrew immediately on receiving the above intimation to the

house of a most excellent and intelligent lady*, to whom I ought to

acknowledge I was recommended by a person who held an important

office in the government*; I shall never forget the courage with

which he offered me an asylum himself: but he would have the same

good intentions at present, when he could not act in that manner

without completely endangering his existence. In proportion as

tyranny is allowed to advance, it grows, as we look at it, like a

phantom, but it seizes with the strength of a real being. I arrived

then, at the country seat of a person whom I scarcely knew, in the

midst of a society to which I was an entire stranger, and bearing in

my heart the most cutting chagrin, which I made every effort to

disguise. During the night, when alone with a female who had been

for several years devoted to my service, I sat listening at the

window, in expectation of hearing every moment the steps of a horse

gendarme; during the day I endeavoured to make myself agreeable, in

order to conceal my situation. I wrote a letter from this place to

Joseph Bonaparte, in which I described with perfect truth the extent

of my unhappiness. A retreat at ten leagues distance from Paris, was

the sole object of my ambition, and I felt despairingly, that if I

was once banished, it would be for a great length of time, perhaps

for ever. Joseph and his brother Lucien generously used all their

efforts to save me, and they were not the only ones, as will

presently be seen.

* Madame de Latour.

* Regnault de Saint-Jean-d'Angely.

Madame Recamier, so celebrated for her beauty, and whose character

is even expressed in her beauty, proposed to me to come and live at

her country seat at St. Brice, at two leagues from Paris. I accepted

her offer, for I had no idea that I could thereby injure a person so

much a stranger to political affairs; I believed her protected

against every thing, notwithstanding the generosity of her

character. I found collected there a most delightful society, and

there I enjoyed for the last time, all that I was about to quit. It

was during this stormy period of my existence, that I received the

speech of Mr. Mackintosh; there I read those pages, where he gives

us the portrait of a jacobin, who had made himself an object of

terror during the revolution to children, women and old men, and who

is now bending himself double under the rod of the Corsican, who

ravishes from him, even to the last atom of that liberty, for which

he pretended to have taken arms. This morceau of the finest

eloquence touched me to my very soul; it is the privilege of

superior writers sometimes, unwittingly, to solace the unfortunate

in all countries, and at all times. France was in a state of such

complete silence around me, that this voice which suddenly responded

to my soul, seemed to me to come down from heaven; it came from a

land of liberty. After having passed a few days with Madame

Recamier, without hearing my banishment at all spoken of, I

persuaded myself that Bonaparte had renounced it. Nothing is more

common than to tranquillize ourselves against a threatened danger,

when we see no symptoms of it around us. I felt so little

disposition to enter into any hostile plan or action against this

man, that I thought it impossible for him not to leave me in peace;

and after some days longer, I returned to my own country seat,

satisfied that he had adjourned his resolution against me, and was

contented with having frightened me. In truth I had been

sufficiently so, not to make me change my opinion, or oblige me to

deny it, but to repress completely that remnant of republican habit

which had led me the year before, to speak with too much openness.

I was at table with three of my friends, in a room which commanded

a view of the high road, and the entrance gate; it was now the end

of September. At four o'clock, a man in a brown coat, on horseback,

stops at the gate and rings: I was then certain of my fate. He asked

for me, and I went to receive him in the garden. In walking towards

him, the perfume of the flowers, and the beauty of the sun

particularly struck me. How different are the sensations which

affect us from the combinations of society, from those of nature!

This man informed me, that he was the commandant of the gendarmerie

of Versailles; but that his orders were to go out of uniform, that

he might not alarm me; he shewed me a letter signed by Bonaparte,

which contained the order to banish me to forty leagues distance

from Paris, with an injunction to make me depart within four and

twenty hours; at the same time, to treat me with all the respect due

to a lady of distinction. He pretended to consider me as a

foreigner, and as such, subject to the police: this respect for

individual liberty did not last long, as very soon afterwards, other

Frenchmen and Frenchwomen were banished without any form of trial. I

told the gendarme officer, that to depart within twenty four hours,

might be convenient to conscripts, but not to a woman and children,

and in consequence, I proposed to him to accompany me to Paris,

where I had occasion to pass three days to make the necessary

arrangements for my journey. I got into my carriage with my children

and this officer, who had been selected for this occasion, as the

most literary of the gendarmes. In truth, he began complimenting me

upon my writings. "You see," said I to him, "the consequences of

being a woman of intellect, and I would recommend you, if there is

occasion, to dissuade any females of your family from attempting

it." I endeavoured to keep up my spirits by boldness, but I felt the

barb in my heart.

I stopt for a few minutes at Madame Recamier's; I found there

General Junot, who from regard to her, promised to go next morning

to speak to the first consul in my behalf; and he certainly did so

with the greatest warmth. One would have thought, that a man so

useful from his military ardor to the power of Bonaparte, would have

had influence enough with him, to make him spare a female; but the

generals of Bonaparte, even when obtaining numberless favours for

themselves, have no influence with him. When they ask for money or

places, Bonaparte finds that in character; they are in a manner then

in his power, as they place themselves in his dependance; but if,

what rarely happens to them, they should think of defending an

unfortunate person, or opposing an act of injustice, he would make

them feel very quickly, that they are only arms employed to support

slavery, by submitting to it themselves.

I got to Paris to a house I had recently hired, but not yet

inhabited; I had selected it with care in the quarter and exposition

which pleased me; and had already in imagination set myself down in

the drawing room with some friends, whose conversation is in my

opinion, the greatest pleasure the human mind can enjoy. Now, I only

entered this house, with the certainty of quitting it, and I passed

whole nights in traversing the apartments, in which I regretted the

deprivation of still more happiness than I could have hoped for in

it. My gendarme returned every morning, like the man in Blue-beard,

to press me to set out on the following day, and every day I was

weak enough to ask for one more day. My friends came to dine with

me, and sometimes we were gay, as if to drain the cup of sorrow, in

exhibiting ourselves in the most amiable light to each other, at the

moment of separating perhaps for ever. They told me that this man,

who came every day to summon me to depart, reminded them of those

times of terror, when the gendarmes came to summon their victims to

the scaffold.

Some persons may perhaps be surprized at my comparing exile to

death; but there have been great men, both in ancient and modern

times, who have sunk under this punishment. We meet with more

persons brave against the scaffold, than against the loss of

country. In all codes of law, perpetual banishment is regarded as

one of the severest punishments; and the caprice of one man inflicts

in France, as an amusement, what conscientious judges only condemn

criminals to with regret. Private circumstances offered me an

asylum, and resources of fortune, in Switzerland, the country of my

parents; in those respects, I was less to be pitied than many

others, and yet I have suffered cruelly. I consider it, therefore,

to be doing a service to the world, to signalize the reasons, why no

sovereign should ever be allowed to possess the arbitrary power of

banishment. No deputy, no writer, will ever express his thoughts

freely, if he can be banished when his frankness has displeased; no

man will dare to speak with sincerity, if the happiness of his whole

family is to suffer for it. Women particularly, who are destined to

be the support and reward of enthusiasm, will endeavour to stifle

generous feelings in themselves, if they find that the result of

their expression will be, either to have themselves torn from the

objects of their affection, or their own existence sacrificed, by

accompanying them in their exile.

On the eve of the last day which was granted me, Joseph Bonaparte

made one more effort in my favour; and his wife, who is a lady of

the most perfect sweetness and simplicity, had the kindness to come

and propose to me to pass a few days at her country seat at

Morfontaine. I accepted her invitation most gratefully, for I could

not but feel sensibly affected at the goodness of Joseph, who

received me in his own house, at the very time that I was the object

of his brother's persecution. I passed three days there, and

notwithstanding the perfect politeness of the master and mistress of

the house, felt my situation very painfully.

I saw only men connected with the government and breathed only the

air of that authority which had declared itself my enemy; and yet

the simplest rules of politeness and gratitude forbid me from

shewing what I felt. I had only my eldest son with me, who was then

too young for me to converse with him on such subjects. I passed

whole hours in examining the gardens of Morfontaine, among the

finest that could be seen in France, and the possessor of which,

then tranquil, appeared to me really an object of envy. He has been

since exiled upon thrones, where I am sure he has often regretted

his beautiful retreat.

CHAPTER 12.

Departure for Germany.--Arrival at Weimar.

I hesitated about the course I was to adopt on quitting France.

Should I return to my father, or should I go into Germany? My father

would have welcomed his poor bird, ruffled by the storm, with

ineffable goodness; but I dreaded the disgust of returning, sent

back in this manner, to a country, which I was accused of finding

rather monotonous. I was also desirous of exhibiting myself, by the

kind reception which I had been promised in Germany, superior to the

outrage I had received from the first consul; and of placing in

public contrast the kind reception of the ancient dynasties, with

the rude impertinence of that which was preparing to subjugate

France. This movement of self-love triumphed, for my misfortune; I

should have again seen my father, if I had returned to Geneva.

I requested Joseph to ascertain if I might go into Prussia, for it

was necessary for me to be at least certain, that the French

ambassador would not reclaim me abroad as a Frenchwoman, while in

France I was proscribed as a foreigner. Joseph went in consequence

to St. Cloud. I was obliged to wait his answer at a public-house, at

two leagues from Paris, not daring to return to my own house in the

city. A whole day passed before this answer reached me. Not wishing

to attract notice by remaining longer at the house where I was, I

made a tour of the walls of Paris in search of another, at the same

distance of two leagues, but on a different road. This wandering

life, at a few steps from my friends and my own residence,

occasioned me such painful sensations as I cannot recollect without

shuddering. The room is still present to me; the window where I

passed the whole day, looking out for the messenger, a thousand

painful details, which misfortune always draws after it, the extreme

generosity of some friends, the veiled calculations of others,

altogether put my mind in such a cruel state of agitation, as I

could not wish to my greatest enemy. At last this message, on which

I still placed some hopes, arrived. Joseph sent me some excellent

letters of recommendation for Berlin, and bid me adieu in a most

noble and touching manner. I was obliged, therefore, to depart.

Benjamin Constant was good enough to accompany me; but as he also

was very fond of Paris, I felt extremely for the sacrifice he made

me. Every step the horses advanced made me ill, and when the

postillions boasted of having driven me quickly, I could not help

sighing at the disagreeable service they were rendering me. In this

way I travelled forty leagues without being able to regain my

self-possession. At last we stopped at Chalons, and Benjamin

Constant, rallying his spirits, relieved by his wonderful powers of

conversation, at least for some moments, the weight which oppressed

me. Next day we continued our route as far as Metz, where I wished

to stop to wait for news from my father. There I passed fifteen

days, and met one of the most amiable and intelligent men whom

France and Germany combined could produce, M. Charles Villers. I was

delighted with his society, but it renewed my regret for that first

of pleasures, a conversation, in which there reigns the most perfect

harmony in all that is felt, with all that is expressed.

My father was extremely indignant at the treatment I had received at

Paris; he considered that his family were in this manner proscribed,

and driven as criminals out of that country which he had so

faithfully served. He recommended me to pass the winter in Germany,

and not to return to him until the spring. Alas! alas! I calculated

on then carrying back to him the harvest of new ideas which I was

going to collect in this journey. For several years preceding he was

frequently telling me that my letters and conversation were all that

kept up his connection with the world. His mind had so much vivacity

and penetration, that one was excited to think by the pleasure of

talking to him. I made observations to report to him,--I listened,

to repeat to him. Ever since I have lost him, I see and feel only

half what I did, when I had the object in view of giving him

pleasure by the picture of my impressions. At Frankfort, my

daughter, then five years old, fell dangerously ill. I knew nobody

in that city, and was entirely ignorant of the language; even the

physician to whose care I entrusted my child scarcely spoke a word

of French. Oh! how much my father shared with me in all my trouble!

what letters he wrote me! what a number of consultations of

physicians, all copied with his own hand, he sent me from Geneva!

Never were the harmony of sensibility and reason carried further;

never was there any one like him, possessed of such lively emotion

for the sufferings of his friends, always active in assisting them,

always prudent in the choice of the means of being so; in short,

admirable in every thing. My heart absolutely requires this

declaration, for what is now to him even the voice of posterity!

I arrived at Weimar, where I resumed my courage, on seeing, through

the difficulties of the language, the immense intellectual riches

which existed out of France. I learned to read German; I listened

attentively to Goethe and Wieland, who, fortunately for me, spoke

French extremely well. I comprehended the mind and genius of

Schiller, in spite of the difficulty he felt in expressing himself

in a foreign language. The society of the duke and duchess of Weimar

pleased me exceedingly, and I passed three months there, during

which the study of German literature gave all the occupation to my

mind which it requires to prevent me from being devoured by my own

feelings.

CHAPTER 13.

Berlin.--Prince Louis-Ferdinand.

I left Weimar for Berlin, and there I saw that charming queen, since

destined to so many misfortunes. The king received me with great

kindness, and I may say that during the six weeks I remained in that

city, I never heard an individual who did not speak in praise of the

justice of his government. This, however does not prevent me from

thinking it always desirable for a country to possess constitutional

forms, to guarantee to it, by the permanent co-operation of the

nation, the advantages it derives from the virtues of a good king.

Prussia, under the reign of its present monarch, no doubt possessed

the greater part of these advantages; but the public spirit which

misfortune has developed in it did not then exist; the military

regime had prevented public opinion from acquiring strength, and the

absence of a constitution, in which every individual could make

himself known by his merit, had left the state unprovided with men

of talent, capable of defending it. The favor of a king, being

necessarily arbitrary, cannot be sufficient to excite emulation;

circumstances which are peculiar to the interior of courts, may keep

a man of great merit from the helm of affairs, or place there a very

ordinary person. Routine, likewise, is singularly powerful in

countries where the regal power has no one to contradict it; even

the justice of a king leads him to place barriers around him, by

keeping every one in his place; and it was almost without example in

Prussia, to find a man deprived of his civil or military employments

on account of incapacity. What an advantage therefore ought not the

French army to have, composed almost entirely of men born of the

revolution, like the soldiers of Cadmus from the teeth of the

dragon! What an advantage it had over those old commanders of the

Prussian fortified places and armies, to whom every thing that was

new was entirely unknown! A conscientious monarch who has not

the happiness, and I use the word designedly, the happiness to have

a parliament as in England, makes a habit of every thing, in order

to avoid making too much use of his own will: and in the present

times we must abandon ancient usages, and look for strength of

character and understanding, wherever they can be found. Be that as

it may, Berlin was one of the happiest and most enlightened cities

in the world.

The writers of the eighteenth century were certainly productive of

infinite good to Europe, by the spirit of moderation, and the taste

for literature, with which their works inspired the greater part of

the sovereigns: it must be admitted, however, that the respect

which the friends of knowledge paid to French intellect has been one

of the causes which has ruined Germany for such a length of time.

Many people regarded the French armies as the propagators of the

ideas of Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Voltaire; while the fact was,

that, if any traces of the opinions of these great men remained in

the instruments of the power of Bonaparte, it was only to liberate

them from what they called prejudices, and not to establish a single

regenerating principle. But there were at Berlin and in the North of

Germany, at the period of the spring of 1804, a great many old

partizans of the French revolution, who had not yet discovered that

Bonaparte was a much more bitter enemy of the first principles of

that revolution, than the ancient European aristocracy.

I had the honor to form an acquaintance with Prince Louis-Ferdinand,

the same whose warlike ardor so transported him, that his death was

almost the precursor of the first reverses of his country. He was a

man full of ardor and enthusiasm, but who, for want of glory,

cultivated too much the emotions which agitate life. What

particularly irritated him against Bonaparte was his practice of

calumniating all the persons he dreaded, and even of degrading in

public opinion those whom he employed, in order, at all risks, to

keep them more strongly dependant on him. Prince Louis said to me

frequently, "I will allow him to kill, but, moral assassination is

what revolts me." And in truth let us only consider the state in

which we have seen ourselves placed, since this great libeller

became master of all the newspapers of the European continent, and

could, as he has frequently done, pronounce the bravest men to be

cowards, and the most irreproachable women to be subjects of

contempt, without our having any means of contradicting or punishing

such assertions.

CHAPTER 14.

Conspiracy of Moreau and Pichegru.

The news had just arrived at Berlin of the great conspiracy of

Moreau, of Pichegru, and of George Cadoudal. There was certainly

among the principal heads of the republican and royalist parties a

strong desire to overturn the authority of the first consul, and to

oppose themselves to the still more tyrannical authority which he

resolved to establish on making himself be declared emperor: but it

has been said, and perhaps not without foundation, that this

conspiracy, which has so well served Bonaparte's tyranny, was

encouraged by himself, from his wish to take advantage of it, with a

Machiavelian art, of which it is of consequence to observe all the

springs. He sent an exiled jacobin into England, who could only

obtain his return to France by services to be performed for the

first consul. This man presented himself, like Sinon in the city of

Troy describing himself as persecuted by the Greeks. He saw several

emigrants who had neither the vices nor the faculties necessary to

detect a certain kind of villainy. He found it therefore a matter of

great ease to entrap an old bishop, an old officer, in short some of

the wrecks of a government, under which it was scarcely known what

factions were. In the sequel he wrote a pamphlet in which he

mystified, with a great deal of wit, all who had believed him, and

who in truth ought to have made up what they wanted in sagacity by

firmness of principle, that is to say, never to place the least

confidence in a man capable of bad actions. We have all our own way

at looking at things; but from the moment that a person has shewn

himself to be treacherous or cruel, God alone can pardon, for it

belongs to him only to read the human heart sufficiently to know if

it is changed; man ought to keep himself for ever at a distance from

the person who has lost his esteem. This disguised agent of

Bonaparte pretended that the elements of revolt existed in France to

a great extent; he went to Munich to find an English envoy, Mr. Drake,

whom he also contrived to deceive. A citizen of Great Britain ought

to have kept clear of this web of artifice, composed of the crossed

threads of jacobinism and tyranny.

George and Pichegru, who were entirely devoted to the Bourbon party,

came into France secretly, and concerted with Moreau, whose wish was

to rid France of the first consul, but not to deprive the French

nation of its right to choose that form of government by which it

desired to be ruled. Pichegru wished to have a conversation with

General Bernadotte, who refused it, being dissatisfied with the

manner in which the enterprise was conducted, and desiring first of

all, to have a guarantee for the constitutional freedom of France.

Moreau, whose moral character is most excellent, whose military

talent is unquestionable, and whose understanding is just and

enlightened, allowed himself in conversation, to go to great

lengths in blaming the first consul, before he could be at all

certain of overthrowing him. It is a defect very natural to a

generous mind to express its opinion, even inconsiderately; but

General Moreau attracted too much the notice of Bonaparte, not to

make such conduct the cause of his destruction. A pretext was

wanting to justify the arrest of a man who had gained so many

battles, and this pretext was found in his conversation, if it could

not be in his actions.

Republican forms were still in existence; people called each other

citizen, whilst the most terrible inequality, that which liberates

some from the yoke of the law, while others are under the dominion

of despotism, reigned over all France. The days of the week were

still reckoned according to the republican calendar; boasts were

made of being at peace with the whole of continental Europe; reports

were, (as they still continue to be,) continually presenting upon

the making of roads and canals, the building of bridges and

fountains; the benefits of the government were extolled to the

skies; in short, there was not the least apparent reason for

endeavouring to change a state of things, with which the nation was

said to be so perfectly satisfied. A plot therefore, in which the

English, and the Bourbons should be named, was a most desirable

event to the government, in order to stir up once more the

revolutionary elements of the nation, and to turn those elements to

the establishment of an ultra-monarchical power, under the pretence

of preventing the return of the ancient regime. The secret of this

combination, which appears very complicated, is in fact very

simple: it was necessary to alarm the revolutionists as to the

danger to which their interests would be exposed, and to propose to

complete their security, by a final abandonment of their principles;

and so it was done.

Pichegru was become a decided royalist, as he had formerly been a

republican; his opinion had been completely turned; his character

was superior to his understanding; but the one was as little

calculated as the other to draw men after him. George had more

elasticity about him, but he was not fitted either by nature or

education for the rank of chief. As soon as it was known that these

two were at Paris, Moreau was immediately arrested, the barriers

were shut, death was denounced to any one who should give an asylum

to Pichegru or George, and all the measures of jacobinism were put

in force to protect the life of one man. This man is not only of too

much importance in his own eyes to stick at any thing, when his own

interests are in question, but it likewise entered into his

calculations to alarm men's minds, to recall the days of terror, in

short to inspire the nation, if possible, with the desire of

throwing itself entirely upon him, in order to escape the troubles

which it was the tendency of all his measures to increase. The

retreat of Pichegru was discovered, and George was arrested in a

cabriolet; for, being unable to live longer in any house, he in this

manner traversed the streets night and day, to keep himself out of

sight of his pursuers. The police agent who seized him, was

recompensed with the legion of honour. I imagine that French

soldiers would have wished him any reward but that.

The Moniteur was filled with addresses to the first consul,

congratulating him on his escape from this danger; this incessant

repetition of the same phrases, bursting from every corner of

France, offers such a concord in slavery as is perhaps unexampled in

the history of any other people. You may in turning over the

Moniteur, find, according to the different epochs, exercises upon

liberty, upon despotism, upon philosophy, and upon religion, in

which the departments and good cities of France strive to say the

same thing in different terms; and one feels astonished that men so

intelligent as the French, should attach themselves entirely to

success in the style, and never once have had the desire of

exhibiting ideas of their own; one might say that the emulation of

words was all that they required. These hymns of dictation, however,

with the points of admiration which accompany them, announced that

France was completely tranquil, and that the small number of the

emissaries of perfidious Albion were seized. One general, it is

true, amused himself with reporting, that the English had thrown

bales of Levant cotton on the coast of Normandy, to give France the

plague; but these inventions of grave buffoonery were only regarded

as pieces of flattery addressed to the first consul; and the chiefs

of the conspiracy, as well as their agents, being in the power of

the government, there was reason for believing that calm was

restored in France; but Bonaparte had not yet attained his object.

CHAPTER 15.

Assassination of the Duke d'Enghien.

I resided at Berlin on the Spree Quay, and my apartment was on the

ground floor. One morning I was awoke at eight o'clock, and told

that Prince Louis-Ferdinand was on horseback under my windows, and

wished me to come and speak to him. Much astonished at this early

visit, I hastened to get up and go to him. He was a singularly

graceful horseman, and his emotion heightened the nobleness of his

countenance. "Do you know," said he to me, "that the Duke d'Enghien

has been carried off from the Baden territory, delivered to a

military commission, and shot within twenty four hours after his

arrival in Paris?" "What nonsense!" I answered, "don't you see that

this can only be a report spread by the enemies of France?" In fact

I confess that my hatred of Bonaparte, strong as it was, never went

the length of making me believe in the possibility of his committing

such an atrocity. "As you doubt what I tell you," replied Prince

Louis, "I will send you the Moniteur, in which you will read the

sentence." He left me at these words, and the expression of his

countenance was the presage of revenge or death. A quarter of an

hour afterwards, I had in my hands this Moniteur of the 21st March,

(30th Pluviose), which contained the sentence of death pronounced by

the military commission sitting at Vincennes, against the person

called Louis d'Enghien! It is thus that the French designated the

descendant of heroes, who were the glory of their country. Even if

they abjured all the prejudices of illustrious birth, which the

return of monarchical forms would necessarily recall, could they

blaspheme in thus manner the recollection of the battles of Lens and

Rocroi? This Bonaparte who has gained so many battles, does not even

know how to respect them; with him there is neither past nor future;

his imperious and contemptuous soul will recognize nothing for

opinion to hold sacred; he admits only respect for the force which

is in existence. Prince Louis wrote to me, beginning his note in

these words, "The person called Louis of Prussia begs to know of

Madame de Stael, &c." He felt the insult offered to the royal blood

from which he sprung, to the recollection of the heroes, in the roll

of whom he burned to place his name. How was it possible, after this

horrible action, for a single monarch in Europe to connect himself

with such a man? Necessity, will it be said? There is a sanctuary in

the soul to which his empire never ought to penetrate; if there were

not, what would virtue be upon this earth? a mere liberal amusement

which could only suit the peaceful leisure of private individuals.

A lady of my acquaintance related to me, that a few days after the

death of the Duke d'Enghien, she went to take a walk round the

castle of Vincennes; the ground, still fresh, marked the spot where

he had been buried; some children were playing with little quoits

upon this mound of turf, the only monument for the ashes of such a

man. An old invalid, with silvered locks, was sitting at a little

distance, and remained some time looking at these children; at last

he arose, and leading them away by the hand, said to them, shedding

some tears, "Do not play there, my children, I beseech you." These

tears were all the honors that were paid to the descendant of the

great Conde, and the earth did not long bear the impression of them.

For a moment at least, public opinion seemed to awaken in France,

and indignation, was general. But when these generous flames were

extinguished, despotism was but the more easily established, from

the vain efforts which had been made to resist it. The first consul

was for some days rather uneasy at the disposition of men's minds.

Fouche himself blamed this action; he made use of this expression,

so characteristic of the present regime: "It is worse than a crime;

it is a fault." There are many ideas in this short phrase; but

fortunately we may reverse it with truth, by affirming that the

greatest of faults is crime. Bonaparte asked an honest senator, what

was thought of the death of the Duke d'Enghien. "General," replied

he, "it has given great affliction." "I am not astonished at it,"

said Bonaparte, "a house which has long reigned in a country always

interests:" thus wishing to connect with motives of party interest

the most natural feeling that the human heart can experience.

Another time he put the same question to a tribune, who, from the

desire of pleasing him, answered: "Well, general, if our enemies

take measures against us, we are in the right to do the same against

them;" not perceiving that this was tantamount to a confession that

the deed was atrocious. The first consul affected to consider this

act as dictated by reasons of state. One day, about this period, in

a discussion with an intelligent man about the plays of Corneille,

he said, "You see that the public safety, or to express it better,

that state necessity, has with the moderns been substituted in the

place of the fatality of the ancients: there is, for instance, such

a man, who naturally would be incapable of a crime, but political

circumstances impose it upon him as a law. Corneille is the only one

who has shewn, in his tragedies, an acquaintance with state

necessity; on that account, if he had lived in my time, I would have

made him my prime minister." All this appearance of good humour in

the discussion was intended to prove that there was nothing of

passion in the death of the Duke d'Enghien, and that circumstances,

meaning such as the head of the state is exclusively the judge of,

might cause and justify every thing. That there was nothing of

passion in his resolution about the Duke d'Enghien, is perfectly

true; people would have it that rage inspired the crime,--it had

nothing to do with it. By what could this rage have been provoked?

The Duke d'Enghien had in no way provoked the first consul:

Bonaparte hoped at first to have got hold of the Duke de Berry, who

it was said, was to have landed in Normandy, if Pichegru had given

him notice that it was a proper time. This prince is nearer the

throne than the Duke d'Enghien, and besides, he would by coming into

France have infringed the existing laws. It therefore suited

Bonaparte in every way better to have sacrificed him than the Duke

d'Enghien; but as he could not get at the first, he chose the

second, in discussing the matter in cold blood. Between the order

for carrying him off, and that for his execution, more than eight

days had elapsed, and Bonaparte ordered the punishment of the Duke

d'Enghien long beforehand, as coolly, as he has since sacrificed

millions of men to the caprices of his ambition. We now ask, what

were the motives of this horrible action, and I believe it is very

easy to penetrate them. First, Bonaparte wished to secure the

revolutionary party, by contracting with it an alliance of blood. An

old jacobin, when he heard the news, exclaimed, "So much the better!

General Bonaparte is now become one of the convention." For a long

time the jacobins would only have a man who had voted for the death

of the king, for the first magistrate of the republic; that was what

they termed, giving pledges to the revolution. Bonaparte fulfilled

this condition of crime, substituted for that of property required

in other countries; he thus afforded the certainty that he would

never serve the Bourbons; and thus such of that party as attached

themselves to his, burnt their vessels, never to return.

On the eve of causing himself to be crowned by the same men who had

proscribed royalty, and of re-establishing a noblesse composed of

the partisans of equality, he believed it necessary to satisfy them

by the horrible guarantee of the assassination of a Bourbon. In the

conspiracy of Pichegru and Moreau, Bonaparte knew that the

republicans and royalists had united against him; this strange

coalition, of which the hatred he inspired was the sole bond, had

astonished him. Several persons who held places under him, were

marked out for the service of that revolution which was to break his

power, and it was of consequence to him that henceforward all his

agents should consider themselves ruined beyond redemption, if their

master was overturned; and, finally, above all, he wished at the

moment of his seizing the crown to inspire such terror, that no one

in future should think of resisting him. Every thing was violated in

this single action: the European law of nations, the constitution

such as it then existed, public shame, humanity, and religion.

Nothing could go beyond it; every thing was therefore to be dreaded

from the man who had committed it. It was thought for some time in

France, that the murder of the Duke d'Enghien was the signal of a

new system of revolution, and that the scaffolds were about to be

re-erected. But Bonaparte only wished to teach the French one thing,

and that was, that he dared do every thing; in order that they might

give him credit for the evil he abstained from, as others get it for

the good they do. His clemency was praised when he allowed a man to

live; it had been seen how easy it was for him to cause one to

perish. Russia, Sweden, and above all England, complained of this

violation of the Germanic empire; the German princes themselves were

silent, and the weak sovereign on whose territory the outrage had

been committed, requested in a diplomatic note, that nothing more

should be said of the event that had happened. Did not this gentle

and veiled expression, applied to such an act, characterize the

meanness of those princes, who made their sovereignty consist only

in their revenues, and treated a state as a capital, of which they

must get the interest paid as quietly as they could?

CHAPTER 16.

Illness and death of M. Necker.

My father lived long enough to hear of the assassination of the Duke

d'Enghien, and the last lines which I received, that were traced by

his own hand, expressed his indignation at this atrocity.

In the midst of the most complete security, I found one day upon my

table two letters, announcing to me that my father was dangerously

ill. The courier who brought them was concealed from me, as well as

the news of his death. I set out immediately with the strongest

hope, which I preserved in spite of all the circumstances which

ought to have extinguished it. When the real truth became known to

me at Weimar, I was seized with a mingled sensation of inexpressible

terror and despair. I saw myself without support in the world, and

compelled to rely entirely on myself for sustaining my soul against

misfortune. Many objects of attachment still remained to me, but the

sentiment of affectionate admiration which I felt for my father,

exercised a sway over me with which no other could come in

competition. Grief, which is the truest of prophets, predicted to me

that I should never more be happy at heart, as I had been, whilst

this man of all-powerful sensibility watched over my fate; and not a

single day has elapsed since the month of April 1804, in which I

have not connected all my troubles with his loss. So long as my

father lived, I suffered only from imagination; for in the affairs

of real life, he always found means to be of service to me; after I

lost him, I came in direct communication with destiny. It is

nevertheless still to the hope that he is praying for me in heaven,

that I am indebted for the fortitude I retain. It is not merely the

affection of a daughter, but the most intimate knowledge of his

character which makes me affirm that I have never seen human nature

carried nearer to perfection than it was in his soul; if I was not

convinced of the truth of a future state, I should become mad with

the idea that such a being could have ceased to exist. There was so

much of immortality in his thoughts and feelings, that it happens to

me a hundred times, whenever I feel emotions that elevate me above

myself, I believe I still hear him.

During my melancholy journey from Weimar to Coppet, I could not help

envying the existence of every object that circulated in nature,

even the birds and insects which were flying round me; I asked only

a day, a single day, to talk to him once more, to excite his

compassion; I envied those forest trees whose existence is

prolonged for centuries; but the inexorable silence of the grave has

something in it which confounds the human intellect; and although it

is the truth of all others the best known to us, the strength of the

impression it leaves can never be effaced. As I approached my

father's residence, one of my friends pointed out to me on the

mountain some clouds which bore the resemblance of an immense human

figure, which would disappear towards the evening: it seemed to me

that the heavens thus offered me the symbol of the loss I had just

sustained. He was a man truly great: a man, who in no circumstances

of his life ever preferred the most important of his interests to

the least of his duties;--a man, whose virtues were inspired to that

degree by his goodness, that he could have dispensed with

principles, and whose principles were so strict that he might have

dispensed with goodness.

On my arrival at Coppet, I learned that my father, during the

illness of nine days which had deprived me of him, had been

continually and anxiously occupying himself about my fate. He

reproached himself for his last book, as the cause of my exile; and

with a trembling hand, he wrote, during his fever, a letter to the

first consul, in which he assured him that I had nothing whatever to

do with the publication of his last work, but that on the contrary,

I had desired that it should not be printed. This voice of a dying

man had so much solemnity! this last prayer of a man who had played

so important a part in France, asking as an only favor, the return

of his children to the place of their birth, and an act of oblivion

to the imprudences which a daughter, then young, might have

committed,--all this appeared to me irresistible: and well as I

ought to have known the character of the man, that happened to me,

which I believe is in the nature of all who ardently desire the

cessation of a great affliction:--I hoped contrary to all

expectation. The first consul received this letter, and doubtless

must have thought me an extreme simpleton to flatter myself for a

moment that he would be in the least moved by it. Certainly, I am in

that point quite of his opinion.

CHAPTER 17.

Trial of Moreau.

The trial of Moreau still proceeded, and although the journals

preserved the most profound silence on the subject, the publicity of

the pleadings was sufficient to rouse the minds, and never did the

public opinion in Paris show itself so strongly against Bonaparte as

it did at that period. The French have more need than any other

people of a certain degree of liberty of the press; they require to

think and to feel in common; the electricity of the emotions of

their neighbours is necessary to make them experience the shock in

their turn, and their enthusiasm never displays itself in an

isolated manner. Whoever wishes to become their tyrant therefore

does well to allow no kind of manifestation to public opinion;

Bonaparte joins to this idea, which is common to all despots, an

artifice peculiar to the present time, to wit, the art of

proclaiming some factitious opinion in journals which have the

appearance of being free, they make so many phrases in the sense

which they are ordered. It must be confessed that our French writers

are the only ones who can in this manner every morning embellish the

same sophism, and who hug themselves in the very superfluity of

servitude. While the instruction of this famous affair was in

progress, the journals informed Europe that Pichegru had strangled

himself in the Temple; all the gazettes were filled with a surgical

report, which appeared very improbable, notwithstanding the care

with which it was drawn up. If it is true that Pichegru had perished

the victim of assassination, let us figure to ourselves the

situation of a brave general, surprised by cowards in the bottom of

his dungeon,--defenceless,--condemned for several days to that

prison solitude which sinks the courage of the soul,--ignorant even

if his friends will ever know in what manner he perished,--if his

death will be revenged,--if his memory will not be outraged!

Pichegru had, in his first interrogatory, exhibited a great deal of

courage, and threatened, it was said, to exhibit proofs of the

promises which Bonaparte had made to the Vendeans of effecting the

return of the Bourbons. Some persons pretend that he had been

subjected to the torture, as well as two other conspirators, (one of

whom, named Picot, shewed his mutilated hands at the tribunal), and

that they dared not expose to the eyes of the French people one of

its old defenders subjected to the torture of slaves. I give no

credit to this conjecture; we must always, in the actions of

Bonaparte, look for the calculation which has dictated them, and we

shall find none in this latter supposition: while it is, perhaps,

true, that the appearance of Moreau and Pichegru together at the bar

of a tribunal would have inflamed public opinion to its highest

pitch. Already the crowd in the tribunes was immense; several

officers, at the head of whom was a loyal man, General Lecourbe,

exhibited the most lively and courageous interest for General

Moreau. When he repaired to the tribunal, the gendarmes who guarded

him always respectfully presented arms to him. Already it had begun

to be felt that honor was on the side of the persecuted; but

Bonaparte, by his all at once making himself be declared emperor,

in the midst of this fermentation, entirely diverted mens' minds by

this new perspective, and concealed his progress better in the midst

of the storm by which he was surrounded, than he could have done in

the calm.

General Moreau pronounced before the tribunal one of the best

speeches which history presents to us; he recalled, with perfect

modesty, the battles which he had gained since Bonaparte governed

France; he excused himself for having frequently expressed himself,

perhaps with too much freedom, and contrasted in an indirect manner

the character of a Breton with that of a Corsican; in short, he

exhibited at Once a great deal of mind, and the most perfect

presence of mind, at a moment so critical. Regnier at that time

united the ministry of police with that of justice, in the room of

Fouchc, who had been disgraced. He repaired to Saint Cloud on

leaving the tribunal. The emperor asked him what sort of speech

Moreau had made: "Contemptible," said he. "In that case," said the

emperor, "let it be printed, and distributed all over Paris." When

Bonaparte found afterwards how much his minister had been mistaken,

he returned at last to Fouche, the only man who could really second

him, from his carrying, unfortunately for the world, a sort of

skilful moderation into a system that had no limits.

An old jacobin, one of Bonaparte's condemned spirits, was employed

to speak to the judges, to induce them to condemn Moreau to death.

"That is necessary" said he to them, "to the consideration due to

the emperor, who caused him to be arrested; but you ought to make

the less scruple in consenting to it, as the emperor is resolved to

pardon him." "And who will enable us to pardon ourselves, if we

cover ourselves with such infamy?" replied one of the judges,* whose

name I am not at liberty to mention, for fear of exposing him.

General Moreau was condemned to two years' imprisonment; George and

several others of his friends to death; one of the MM. de Polignac

to two, and the other to four years' imprisonment: and both of them

are still confined, as well as several others, of whom the police

laid hold, when the period of their sentence had expired. Moreau

requested to have his imprisonment commuted for perpetual

banishment; perpetual in this instance should be called for life,

for the misery of the world is placed on the head of one man.

Bonaparte readily consented to this banishment, which suited his

views in all respects. Frequently, on Moreau's passage to the place

where he was to embark, the mayors of the towns, whose business it

was to viser his passport of banishment, shewed him the most

respectful attention. "Gentlemen," said one of them to his audience,

"make way for General Moreau," and he made an obeisance to him as he

would have done to the emperor. There was still a France in the

hearts of men, but the idea of acting according to one's opinion had

already ceased to exist, and at present it is difficult to know if

there remains any, it has been so long stifled. When he arrived at

Cadiz, these same Spaniards, who were a few years after destined to

give so great an example, paid every possible homage to a victim of

tyranny. When Moreau passed through the English fleet, their vessels

saluted him as if he had been the commander of an allied army. Thus

the supposed enemies of France took upon them to acquit her debt to

one of her most illustrious defenders. When Bonaparte caused Moreau

to be arrested, he said, "I might have made him come to me, and have

told him: 'Listen, you and I cannot remain upon the same soil; go

therefore, as I am the strongest;' and I believe he would have gone.

But these chivalrous manners are puerile in public matters."

Bonaparte believes, and has had the art to persuade several of the

Machiavelian apprentices of the new generation, that every generous

feeling is mere childishness. It is high time to teach him that

virtue also has something manly in it, and more manly than crime

with all its audacity.

* M. Clavier.

CHAPTER 18.

Commencement of the Empire.

The motion to call Bonaparte to the Empire was made in the tribunate

by a conventionalist, formerly a jacobin, supported by Jaubert, an

advocate, and deputy from the merchants of Bourdeaux, and seconded

by Simeon, a man of understanding and good sense, who had been

proscribed as a royalist under the republic. It was Bonaparte's wish

that the partisans of the old regime, and those of the permanent

interests of the nation, should unite in choosing him. It was

settled that registers should be opened all over France, to enable

every one to express his wish regarding the elevation of Bonaparte

to the throne. But without waiting for the result of this, prepared

as it was before-hand, he took the title of emperor by a senatus

consultum, and this unfortunate senate had not even the strength to

put constitutional limits to this new monarchy. A tribune, whose

name I wish I dared mention,* had the honor to make a special motion

for that purpose. Bonaparte, in order to anticipate this idea,

adroitly sent for some of the senators, and told them, "I feel very

much at thus being placed in front; I like my present situation much

better. The continuation of the republic is, however, no longer

possible; people are quite tired out with it: I believe that the

French wish for royalty. I had at first thought of recalling the old

Bourbons, but that would have only ruined them, and myself. It is my

thorough conviction, that there must be at last a man at the head of

all this; perhaps, however, it would be better to wait some time

longer I have made France a century older in the last five years;

liberty, that is a good civil code, and modern nations care little

for any thing but property. However, if you will believe me, name a

committee, organise the constitution, and, I tell you fairly." added

he smiling, "take precautions against my tyranny; take them, believe

me." This apparent good nature seduced the senators, who, to say the

truth, desired nothing better than to be seduced. One of them, a men

of letters, of some distinction, but one of those philosophers who

are always finding philanthropic motives for being satisfied with

power, said to one of my friends, "It is wonderful! with what

simplicity the emperor allows himself to be told every thing! The

other day, I made him a discourse an hour long, to prove the

absolute necessity of founding the new dynasty on a charter which

should secure the rights of the nation." And what reply did he make

you? was asked. "He clapped me on the shoulder with the most perfect

good humour, and told me: 'You are quite right, my dear senator; but

trust me, this is not the moment for it'." And this senator, like

many others, was quite satisfied with having spoken, though his

opinion was not in the least degree acted upon. The feelings of

self-importance have a prodigiously greater influence over the

French than those of character.

* M. Gallois.

A very odd peculiarity in the French, and which Bonaparte has

penetrated with great sagacity, is, that they, who are so ready to

perceive what is ridiculous in others, desire nothing better than to

render themselves ridiculous, as soon as their vanity finds its

account in it in some other way. Nothing certainly presents a

greater subject for pleasantry, than the creation of an entirely new

noblesse, such as Bonaparte established for the support of his new

throne. The princesses and queens, citizenesses of the day before,

could not themselves refrain from laughing at hearing themselves

styled, your majesty. Others, more serious, delighted in having

their title of monseigneur repeated from morning to night, like

Moliere's City Gentleman. The old archives were rummaged for the

discovery of the best documents on etiquette; men of merit found a

grave occupation in making coats of armour for the new families;

finally, no day passed which did not afford some scene worthy of the

pen of Moliere; but the terror, which formed the back ground of the

picture, prevented the grotesque of the front from being laughed at

as it deserved to be. The glory of the French generals illustrated

all, and the obsequious courtiers contrived to slide themselves in

under the shadow of military men, who doubtless deserved the severe

honors of a free state, but not the vain decorations of such a

court. Valor and genius descend from heaven, and whoever is gifted

with them has no need of other ancestors. The distinctions which are

accorded in republics or limited monarchies ought to be the reward

of services rendered to the country, and every one may equally

pretend to them; but nothing savours so much of Tartar despotism as

this crowd of honors emanating from one man, and having his caprice

for their source.

Puns without end were darted against this nobility of yesterday;

and a thousand expressions of the new ladies were quoted, which

presumed little acquaintance with good manners. And certainly there

is nothing so difficult to learn, as the kind of politeness which is

neither ceremonious nor familiar: it seems a trifle, but it

requires a foundation in ourselves; for no one acquires it, if it is

not inspired by early habits or elevation of mind. Bonaparte himself

is embarrassed on occasions of representation; and frequently in his

own family, and even with foreigners, he seems to feel delighted in

returning to those vulgar actions and expressions which remind him

of his revolutionary youth. Bonaparte knew very well that the

Parisians made pleasantries on his new nobility; but he knew also

that their opinions would only be expressed in vulgar jokes, and not

in strong actions. The energy of the oppressed went not beyond the

equivoque of a pun; and as in the East they have been reduced to the

apologue, in France they sunk still lower, namely, to the clashing

of syllables. A single instance of a jeu de mots deserves, however,

to survive the ephemeral success of such productions; one day as the

princesses of the blood were announced, some one added, of the blood

of Enghien. And in truth, such was the baptism of this new dynasty.

Several of the old nobility who had been ruined by the revolution,

were not unwilling to accept employments at court. It is well known

by what a gross insult Bonaparte rewarded their complaisance. "I

proposed to give them rank in my army, and they declined it; I

offered them places in the administration, and they refused them;

but when I opened my anti-chambers, they rushed into them in

crowds." They had no longer any asylum but in his power. Several

gentlemen, on this occasion, set an example of the most noble

resistance; but how many others have represented themselves as

menaced before they had the least reason for apprehension! and how

many more have solicited for themselves or their families,

employments at court, which all of them, ought to have spurned at!

The military or the administrative careers are the only ones in

which we can flatter ourselves with being useful to our country,

whoever may be the chief who governs it; but employments at court

render you dependant on the man, and not on the state.

Registers were made to receive votes for the empire, like those

which had been opened for the consulship for life; even all those

who did not sign, were, as in the former instance, reckoned as

voting for; and the small number of individuals who thought proper

to write no, were dismissed from their employments. M. de Lafayette,

the constant friend of liberty, again exhibited an invariable

resistance; he had the greater merit, because already in this

country of bravery, they no longer knew how to estimate courage. It

is quite necessary to make this distinction, as we see the divinity

of fear reign in France over the most intrepid warriors. Bonaparte

would not even subject himself to the law of hereditary monarchy,

but reserved the power of adopting and choosing his successor in the

manner of the East. As he had then no children, he wished not to

give his own family the least right; and at the very moment of his

elevating them to ranks to which assuredly they had no pretensions,

he subjected them to his will by profoundly combined decrees, which

entwined the new thrones with chains.

The fourteenth of July was again celebrated this year, (1804)

because it was said the empire consecrated all the benefits of the

revolution. Bonaparte had said that storms had strengthened the

roots of government; he pretended that the throne would guarantee

liberty: he repeated in all manner of ways, that Europe would be

tranquillized by the re-establishment of monarchy in the government

of France. In fact, the whole of Europe, with the exception of

illustrious England, recognized his new dignity: he was styled my

brother, by the knights of the ancient royal brotherhood. We have

seen in what manner he has rewarded them for their fatal

condescension. If he had been sincerely desirous of peace, even old

King George himself, whose reign has been the most glorious in the

English annals, would have been obliged to recognize him as his

equal. But, a very few days after his coronation, Bonaparte

pronounced some words which disclosed all his purposes: "People

laugh at my new dynasty; in five years time it will be the oldest in

all Europe." And from that moment he has never ceased tending

towards this end.

A pretext was required, to be always advancing, and this pretext was

the liberty of the seas. It is quite incredible how easy it is to

make the most intelligent people on earth swallow any nonsense for

gospel. It is still one of those contrasts which would be altogether

inexplicable, if unhappy France had not been stripped of religion

and morality by a fatal concurrence of bad principles and

unfortunate events. Without religion no man is capable of any

sacrifice, and as without morality no one speaks the truth, public

opinion is incessantly led astray. It follows therefore, as we have

already said, that there is no courage of conscience, even when that

of honor exists: and that with admirable intelligence in the

execution, no one even asks himself what all this is to lead to?

At the time that Bonaparte formed the resolution to overturn the

thrones of the Continent, the sovereigns who occupied them were all

of them very honorable persons. The political and military genius of

the world was extinct, but the people were happy; although the

principles of free constitutions were not admitted into the

generality of states, the philosophical ideas which had for fifty

years been spreading over Europe had at least the merit of

preserving from intolerance, and mollifying the reign of despotism.

Catherine II. and Frederic II. both cultivated the esteem of the

French authors, and these two monarchs, whose genius might have

subjected the world, lived in presence of the opinion of enlightened

men and sought to captivate it. The natural bent of men's minds was

directed to the enjoyment and application of liberal ideas, and

there was scarcely an individual who suffered either in his person

or in his property. The friends of liberty were undoubtedly in the

right, in discovering that it was necessary to give the faculties an

opportunity of developing themselves; that it was not just that a

whole people should depend on one man; and that a national

representation afforded the only means of guaranteeing the

transitory benefits that might be derived from the reign of a

virtuous sovereign. But what came Bonaparte to offer? Did he bring a

greater liberty to foreign nations? There was not a monarch in

Europe who would in a whole year have committed the acts of

arbitrary insolence which signalized every day of his life. He came

solely to make them exchange their tranquillity, their independence,

their language, their laws, their fortunes, their blood, and their

children, for the misfortune and the shame of being annihilated as

nations, and despised as men. He began finally that enterprize of

universal monarchy, which is the greatest scourge by which mankind

can be menaced, and the certain cause of eternal war.

None of the arts of peace at all suit Bonaparte: he finds no

amusement but in the violent crises produced by battles. He has

known how to make truces, but he has never said sincerely, enough;

and his character, irreconcileable with the rest of the creation, is

like the Greek fire, which no strength in nature has been known to

extinguish.

END OF THE FIRST PART.

ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR.

There is at this place in the manuscript a considerable vacuum, of

which I have already given an explanation*, and which I am not

sufficiently informed to make the attempt to fill up. But to put the

reader in a situation to follow my mother's narrative, I will run

over rapidly the principal circumstances of her life during the five

years which separate the first part of these memoirs from the

second.

* See the Preface.

On her return to Switzerland after the death of her father, the

first desire she felt was to seek some alleviation of her sorrow in

giving to the world the portrait of him whom she had just lost, and

in collecting the last traces of his thoughts. In the Autumn of

1804, she published the MSS. of her father, with a sketch of his

public and private character.

My mother's health, impaired by misfortune, necessitated her to go

and breathe the air of the South. She set out for Italy. The

beautiful sky of Naples, the recollections of antiquity, and the

chefs-d'oeuvre of art, opened to her new sources of enjoyment, to

which she had been hitherto a stranger; her soul, overwhelmed with

grief, seemed to revive to these new impressions, and she recovered

sufficient strength to think and to write. During this journey, she

was treated by the diplomatic agents of France without favor, but

without injustice. She was interdicted a residence at Paris; she was

banished from her friends and her habits; but tyranny had not, at

least at that time, pursued her beyond the Alps; persecution had not

as yet been established as a system, as it was afterwards. I even

feel a real pleasure in mentioning that some letters of

recommendation sent her by Joseph Bonaparte, contributed to render

her residence at Rome more agreeable.

She returned from Italy in the summer of 1805, and passed a year at

Coppet and Geneva, where several of her friends were collected.

During this period she began to write Corinne.

During the following year, her attachment to France, that feeling

which had so much power over her heart, made her quit Geneva and go

nearer to Paris, to the distance of forty leagues from it, which was

still permitted to her. I was then pursuing my studies, preparatory

to entering into the Polytechnic school; and from her great goodness

to her children, she wished to watch over their education, as near

as her exile could allow her. She went in consequence to settle at

Auxerre, a little town where she had no acquaintance, but of which

the prefect, M. de la Bergerie, behaved to her with great kindness

and delicacy.

From Auxerre she went to Rouen: this was approaching some leagues

nearer the centre to which all the recollections and all the

affections of her youth attracted her. There she could at least

receive letters daily from Paris; she had penetrated without any

obstacle the inclosure, entrance into which had been forbidden to

her; she might hope that the fatal circle would progressively be

contracted. Those only who have suffered banishment will be able to

understand what passed in her heart. M. de Savoie-Rollin was then

prefect of the Lower Seine; it is well known by what glaring

injustice he was removed some years afterwards, and I have reason to

believe that his friendship for my mother, and the interest which he

shewed for her, during her residence at Rouen, were no slight causes

of the rigor of which he became the object.

Fouche was still minister of police. His system was, as my mother

has said, to do as little evil as possible, the necessity of the

object admitted. The Prussian monarchy had just fallen; there was no

longer any enemy upon the Continent to struggle with the government

of Napoleon; no internal resistance shackled his progress, or could

afford the least pretext for the employment of arbitrary measures;

what motive, therefore, could he have for prolonging the most

gratuitous persecution of my mother? Fouche then permitted her to

come and settle at the distance of twelve leagues from Paris, upon

an estate belonging to M. de Castellane. There she finished Corinne,

and superintended the printing of it. In other respects, the retired

life she there led, the extreme prudence of her whole conduct, and

the very small number of persons who were not prevented by the fear

of disgrace from coming to visit her, might have been sufficient to

tranquillize the most suspicious despotism. But all this did not

satisfy Bonaparte; he wanted my mother to renounce entirely the

employment of her talents, and to interdict her from writing even

upon subjects the most unconnected with politics. It will be seen

that even at a later period this abnegation was not sufficient to

preserve her from a continually increasing persecution.

Scarcely had Corinne made her appearance, when a new exile commenced

for my mother, and she saw all the hopes vanish, with which she had

for some months been consoling herself. By a fatality which rendered

her grief more pungent, it was on the 9th of April, the anniversary

of her father's death, that the order which again banished her from

her country, and her friends, was signified to her. She returned to

Coppet, with a bleeding heart, and the prodigious success of Corinne

afforded very little diversion to her sorrow.

Friendship, however, succeeded in accomplishing what literary glory

had failed to do; and, thanks to the proofs of affection which she

received on her return to Switzerland, the summer passed more

agreeably than she could have hoped. Several of her friends left

Paris to come to see her, and Prince Augustus of Prussia, to whom

peace had restored his liberty, did us the honor to stop several

months at Coppet, prior to his return to his native country.

Ever since her journey to Berlin, which had been so cruelly

interrupted by the death of her father, my mother had regularly

continued the study of the German literature and philosophy; but a

new residence in Germany was necessary to enable her to complete the

picture of that country, which she proposed to present to France. In

the autumn of 1807, she set out for Vienna, and she there once more

found, in the society of the Prince de Ligne, of the Princess

Lubomirski, &c. &c. that urbanity of manners and ease of

conversation, which had such charms in her eyes. The Austrian

government, exhausted by the war, had not then the strength to be an

oppressor on its own account, and notwithstanding preserved towards

France, an attitude which was not without dignity and independence.

The objects of Napoleon's hatred might still find an asylum at

Vienna; the year she passed in that city, was therefore, the most

tranquil one she had enjoyed since the commencement of her exile.

On her return to Switzerland, where she spent two years in writing

her reflections upon Germany, she was not long in perceiving the

progress which the imperial tyranny was every day making, and the

contagious rapidity with which the passion for places, and the fear

of disgrace, were spreading. No doubt several friends, both at

Geneva and in France, preserved to her during her misfortunes, a

courageous and unshaken fidelity; but, whoever had any connection

with the government, or aspired to any employment, began to keep at

a distance from her house, and to dissuade timid people from

approaching it. My mother suffered a great deal from all these

symptoms of servitude, which she detected with incomparable

sagacity; but the more unhappy she was, the more she felt the desire

of diverting from the persons who were about her, the miseries of

her situation, and of diffusing around her that life and

intellectual movement, which solitude seemed to exclude.

Her talent for declamation was the means of amusement which had the

greatest influence over herself, at the same time that it varied the

pleasures of her society. It was at this period, and while she was

still laboring on her great work on Germany, that she composed and

played at Coppet, the greater part of the little pieces which are

collected in the 16th volume of her works*, under the title of

Dramatic Essays.

* Or the Second Volume of her OEuvres inedites.

Finally, at the beginning of summer, 1810, having finished the three

volumes of Germany, she wished to go and superintend the printing of

them, at 40 leagues distance from Paris, a distance which was still

permitted to her, and where she might hope to see again those of her

old friends, whose affections had not bent before the disgrace of

the Emperor.

She went, therefore, to reside in the neighbourhood of Blois, in'

the old castle of Chaumont-sur-Loire, which had in former times been

inhabited by the Cardinal d'Amboise, Diana of Poitiers, and

Catherine de Medicis. The present proprietor of this romantic

residence, M. Le Ray, with whom my parents were connected by the

ties of friendship and business, was then in America. But just at

the time we were occupying his chateau, he returned from the United

States with his family, and though he was very urgent in wishing us

to remain in his house, the more he pressed us politely to do so,

the more anxiety we felt, lest we should incommode him. M. de

Salaberry relieved us from this embarrassment with the greatest

kindness, by placing at our disposal his house at Fosse. At

this period my mother's narrative recommences.

Part The Second

CHAPTER 1.

Suppression of my Work on Germany.--Banishment from France.

Being unable to remain longer in the castle of Chaumont, the

proprietors of which had returned from America, I went and fixed

myself at a farm called Fosse, which a generous friend lent me.* The

house was inhabited by a Vendean soldier, who certainly did not keep

it in the nicest order, but who had a loyal good nature that made

every thing easy, and an originality of character that was very

amusing. Scarcely had we arrived, when an Italian musician, whom I

had with me to give lessons to my daughter, began playing upon the

guitar; my daughter accompanied upon the harp the sweet voice of my

beautiful friend Madame Recamier; the peasants collected round the

windows, astonished to see this colony of troubadours, which had

come to enliven the solitude of their master. It was there I passed

my last days in France, with some friends, whose recollection lives

in my heart. Certainly this intimate assemblage, this solitary

residence, this agreeable occupation with the fine arts did no harm

to any one. We frequently sung a charming air composed by the Queen

of Holland, and of which the burden is: 'Do what you ought, happen

what may'. After dinner, we had imagined the idea of seating

ourselves round a green table and writing letters to each other,

instead of conversing. These varied and multiplied tetes-a-tete

amused us so much, that we were impatient to get from table, where

we were talking, in order to go and write to one another. When any

strangers came in accidentally, we could not bear the interruption

of our habits; and our penny post (it is thus we called it) always

went its round. The inhabitants of the neighbouring town were

somewhat astonished at these new manners, and looked upon them as

pedantic, while there was nothing in this game, but a resource

against the monotony of solitude. One day a gentleman of the

neighbourhood who had never thought of any thing in his life but the

chase, came to take my boys with him into the woods; he remained

sometime seated at our active but silent table; Madame Recamier

wrote a little note with her beautiful hand to this jolly sportsman,

in order that he might not be too much a stranger to the circle in

which he was placed. He excused himself from receiving it, assuring

us that he could never read writing by day-light: we laughed a

little at the disappointment which the benevolent coquetry of our

beautiful friend had met with, and thought that a billet from her

hand would not have always had the same fate. Our life passed in

this manner, without any of us, if I may judge from myself, finding

the time at all burdensome.

* M. de Salaberry.

The opera of Cinderella was making a great noise at Paris; I wished

to go and see it represented at a paltry provincial theatre at

Blois. Coming out of the theatre on foot, the people of the place

followed me in crowds from curiosity, more desirous of knowing me

because I was an exile, than from any other motive. This kind of

celebrity which I derived from misfortune, much more than from

talent, displeased the minister of police, who wrote sometime after

to the prefect of Loir and Cher, that I was surrounded by a court.

"Certainly," said I to the prefect* "it is not power at least which

gives it me."

* M. de Corbigny, an amiable and intelligent man.

I had always the intention of repairing to England by the way of

America; but I was anxious to terminate my work on Germany. The

season was now advancing; we were already at the fifteenth of

September, and I began to foresee that the difficulty of embarking

my daughter with me would detain me another winter, in some town, I

knew not where, at forty leagues from Paris. I was then desirous

that it should be Vendome, where I knew several clever people, and

where the communication with the capital was easy. After having

formerly had one of the most brilliant establishments in Paris, I

was now contented to anticipate considerable pleasure from

establishing myself at Vendome; fate however denied me even this

modest happiness.

On the 23d of September I corrected the last proof of Germany; after

six years' labor, I felt the greatest delight in putting the word

End to my three volumes. I made a list of one hundred persons to

whom I wished to send copies, in different parts of France and

Europe; I attached great importance to this book, which I thought

well adapted to communicate new ideas to France; it appeared to me

that a sentiment elevated without being hostile, had inspired it,

and that people would find in it a language which was no longer

spoken.

Furnished with a letter from my publisher, which assured me that the

censorship had authorised the publication of my work, I believed

that I had nothing to apprehend, and set out with my friends for an

estate of M. Mathieu de Montmorency, at five leagues from Blois. The

house belonging to this estate is situated in the middle of a

forest; there I walked about with the man whom I most respect in the

world, since I have lost my father. The fineness of the weather, the

magnificence of the forest, the historical recollections which the

place recalled, being the scene of the battle of Fretteval, fought

between Philip Augustus and Richard Coeur-de-Lion, all contributed

to fill my mind with the most quiet and delightful impressions. My

worthy friend, who is only occupied in this world with rendering

himself worthy of heaven, in this conversation, as in all those we

have had together, paid no attention to affairs of the day, and only

sought to do good to my soul. We resumed our journey the next day,

and in these plains of the Vendomois, where you meet not with a

single habitation, and which like the sea seem to present every

where the same appearance, we contrived to lose ourselves

completely. It was already midnight, and we knew not what road to

take, in a country every where the same, and where fertility is as

monotonous as sterility is elsewhere, when a young man on horseback,

perceiving our embarrassment, came and requested us to pass the

night in the chateau of his parents.* We accepted his invitation,

which was doing us a real service, and we found ourselves all of a

sudden in the midst of the luxury of Asia, and the elegance of

France. The masters of the house had spent a considerable time in

India, and their chateau was adorned with every thing they had

brought back from their travels. This residence excited my

curiosity, and I found myself extremely comfortable in it. Next day

M. de Montmorency gave me a note from my son which pressed me to

return home, as my work had met with fresh difficulties from the

censorship. My friends who were with me in the chateau conjured me

to go; I had not the least suspicion of what they were concealing

from me, and thinking there was nothing but what Augustus's letter

mentioned,* whiled away the time in examining the Indian curiosities

without any idea of what was in store for me. At last I got into the

carriage, and my brave and intelligent Vendean whom his own dangers

had never moved, squeezed my hand, with tears in his eyes: I guessed

immediately that they were making a mystery to me of some new

persecution, and M. de Montmorency, in reply to my interrogations,

at last acquainted me that the minister of the police had sent his

myrmidons to destroy the ten thousand copies which had been printed

of my book, and that I had received an order to quit France within

three days. My children and friends had wished me not to hear this

news while I was among strangers; but they had taken every possible

precaution to prevent the seizure of my manuscript, and they

succeeded in saving it, some hours before I was required to deliver

it up. This new blow affected me most severely, I had flattered

myself with an honorable success by the publication of my book: if

the censors had in the first instance refused to authorise its being

printed, that would have appeared to me very simple; but after

having submitted to all their observations, and made all the alterations

required of me, to learn that my work was destroyed, and that I must

separate my self from the friends who had supported my courage, all

this made me shed tears. But I endeavored once more to get the

better of my feelings, in order to determine what was best to be

done in a crisis where the step I was about to take might have so

much influence on the fortunes of my family. As we drew near my

habitation, I gave my writing desk, which contained some further

notes upon my book, to my youngest son; he jumped over a wall to get

into the house by the garden. An English lady*, my excellent friend,

came out to meet me and inform me of all that had happened. I

observed at a distance some, gendarmes who were wandering round

residence, but it did not appear that they were in search of me:

they were no doubt in pursuit of some other unfortunates, conscripts,

exiles, persons in surveillance, or, in short, of some of the

numerous classes of oppressed which the present government of France

has created.

* (Note of the Editor.)

Uneasy at not seeing my mother arrive, I took horse to go and meet

her, in order to soften as much as was in my power, the news which

she had to learn upon her return; but I lost myself like her, in the

uniform plains of the Vendomois, and it was only in the middle of

the night that a fortunate chance conducted me to the gate of the

chateau where the rites of hospitality had been given to her. I

caused M. de Montmorency to be awakened, and after having informed

him of this new instance of the persecution which the imperial

police directed against my mother, I set off again to finish putting

her papers in safety, leaving to M. de Montmorency the charge of

preparing her for the new blow with which she was threatened.

* Miss Randall.

The prefect of Loir and Cher came to require the delivery of my

manuscript: I gave him, merely to gain time, a rough copy which

remained with me, and with which he was satisfied. I have learned

that he was extremely ill-treated a few months afterwards, to punish

him for having shewn me some attention: and the chagrin he felt at

having incurred the disgrace of the emperor, was, it is said, one of

the causes of the illness which carried him off in the prime of

life. Unfortunate country, where the circumstances are such, that a

man of his understanding and talent should sink under the chagrin of

disgrace!

I saw in the papers, that some American vessels had arrived in the

ports of the Channel, and I determined to make use of my passport

for America, in the hope that it would be possible to touch at an

English port. At all events I required some days to prepare for this

voyage, and I was obliged to address myself to the minister of police

to ask for that indulgence. It has been already seen that the custom

of the French government is to order women, as well as soldiers, to

depart within twenty-four hours. Here follows the minister's reply:

it is curious to observe his style*.

* (Note of the Editor.)

This is the same letter which was printed in the Preface to Germany,

"GENERAL POLICE.

MINISTER'S CABINET.

Paris, 3d October, 1810.

"I have received the letter, madam, which you did me the honor to

write to me. Your son will have informed you that I saw no

impropriety in your delaying your departure for seven or eight days:

I hope they will be sufficient for the arrangements which you have

yet to make, as I cannot grant you any more.

"You must not seek for the cause of the order which I have signified

to you, in the silence which you have observed with regard to the

emperor in your last work; that would be a great mistake; he could

find no place there which was worthy of him; but your exile is a

natural consequence of the line of conduct you have constantly

pursued for several years past. It has appeared to me that the air

of this country did not at all agree with you, and we are not yet

reduced to seek for models in the nations whom you admire.

"Your last work is not at all French; it is by my orders that the

impression has been seized. I regret the loss which it will occasion

to the bookseller; but it is not possible for me to allow it to

appear.

"You know, madam, that you would not have been permitted to quit

Coppet but for the desire you had expressed to go to America. If my

predecessor allowed you to reside in the department of Loir and

Cher, you had no reason to look upon this license as any revocation of the

arrangements which had been fixed with regard to you. At present you

compel me to make them be strictly executed; for this you have no

one to blame but yourself.

"I have signified to M. Corbigny* to look to the punctual execution

of the order I have given him, as soon as the term I grant you is

expired.

* Prefect of Loir and Cher.

"I regret extremely, madam, that you have forced me to begin my

correspondence with you by an act of severity; it would have been

much more agreeable to me to have only had to offer you the

assurance of the high consideration with which I have the honor

to be, madam,

"Your most humble, and most obedient servant,

Signed the DUKE of ROVIGO.

"P. S, I have reasons, madam, for mentioning to you that the ports

of Lorient, La Rochelle, Bourdeaux, and Rochefort, are the only ones in

which you can embark. I request you to let me know which of them you

select*."

* This postscript is easily understood; its object was to prevent me

from going to England.

The stale hypocrisy with which I was told that the air of this

country did not agree with me, and the denial of the real cause of

the suppression of my book, are worthy of remark. In fact, the

minister of police had shown more frankness in expressing himself

verbally respecting me: he asked, why I never named the emperor or

the army in my work on Germany? On its being objected that the work

being purely literary, I could not well have introduced such

subjects, "Do you think," then replied the minister, "that we have

made war for eighteen years in Germany, and that a person of such

celebrity should print a book upon it, without saying a word about

us? This book shall be destroyed, and the author deserves to be sent

to Vincennes."

On receiving the letter of the minister of police, I paid no

attention to any part but that passage of it which interdicted me

the ports of the Channel. I had already learned, that suspecting my

intention of going to England, they would endeavour to prevent me.

This new mortification was really above my strength to bear; on

quitting my native country, I must go to that of my adoption; in

banishing myself from the friends of my whole life, I required at

least to find those friends of whatever is good and noble, with

whom, without knowing them personally, the soul always sympathises.

I saw at once all that supported my imagination crumbling to pieces;

for a moment longer I would have embarked on board any vessel bound

for America, in the hope of her being captured on her passage; but I

was too much shaken to decide at once on so strong a resolution; and

as the two alternatives of America and Coppet were the only ones

that were left me, I determined on accepting the latter; for a

profound sentiment always attracted me to Coppet, in spite of the

disagreeables I was there subjected to.

My two sons both endeavoured to see the emperor at Fontainbleau,

where he then was; they were told they would be arrested if they

remained there; a fortiori, I was interdicted from going to it myself.

I was obliged to return into Switzerland from Blois, where I was,

without approaching Paris nearer than forty leagues. The minister

of police had given notice, in corsair terms, that at thirty-eight

leagues I was a good prize. In this manner, when the emperor

exercises the arbitrary power of banishment, neither the exiled

persons, nor their friends, nor even their children, can reach

his presence to plead the cause of the unfortunates who are thus

torn from the objects of their affection and their habits; and these

sentences of exile, which are now irrevocable, particularly where

women are the objects, and which the emperor himself has rightly

termed proscriptions, are pronounced without the possibility of

making any justification be heard, supposing always that the crime

of having displeased the emperor admits of any.

Although the forty leagues were ordered me, I was necessitated to

pass through Orleans, a very dull town, but inhabited by several

very pious ladies, who had retired thither for an asylum. In walking

about the town on foot, I stopped before the monument erected to the

memory of Joan of Arc: certainly, thought I to myself, when she

delivered France from the power of the English, that same France was

much more free, much more France than it is at present. One feels a

singular sensation in wandering through a town, where you neither know,

nor are known to a soul. I felt a kind of bitter enjoyment in picturing

to myself my isolated situation in its fullest extent, and in still

looking at that France which I was about to quit, perhaps for ever,

without speaking to a person, or being diverted from the impression

which the country itself made upon me. Occasionally persons passing

stopped to look at me, from the circumstance I suppose of my

countenance having, in spite of me, an expression of grief; but they

soon went on again, as it is long since mankind have been accustomed

to witness persons suffering.

At fifty leagues from the Swiss frontier, France is bristled with

citadels, houses of detention, and towns serving as prisons; and

every where you see nothing but individuals deprived of their liberty

by the will of one man, conscripts of misfortune, all chained at a

distance from the places where they would have wished to live. At

Dijon, some Spanish prisoners, who had refused to take the oath,

regularly came every day to the market place to feel the sun at

noon, as they then regarded him rather as their countryman; they

wrapt themselves up in a mantle, frequently in rags, but which they

knew how to wear with grace, and they gloried in their misery, as it

arose from their boldness; they hugged themselves in their sufferings,

as associating them with the misfortunes of their intrepid country.

They were sometimes seen going into a coffee house, solely to read the

newspaper, in order to penetrate the fate of their friends through

the lies of their enemies; their countenances were then immoveable,

but not without expression, exhibiting strength under the command of

their will. Farther on, at Auxonne, was the residence of the English

prisoners, who had the day before saved from fire, one of the houses

of the town where they were kept confined. At Besancon, there were

more Spaniards. Among the French exiles to be met with in every part

of France, an angelic creature inhabited the citadel of Besancon, in

order not to quit her father. For a long period, and amidst every

sort of danger, Mademoiselle de Saint Simon shared the fortunes of

him who had given her birth.

At the entrance of Switzerland, on the top of the mountains which

separate it from France, you see the castle of Joux, in which

prisoners of state are detained, whose names frequently never reach

the ear of their relations. In this prison Toussaint Louverture

actually perished of cold; he deserved his fate on account of his

cruelty, but the emperor had the least right to inflict it upon him,

as he had engaged to guarantee to him his life and liberty. I passed

a day at the foot of this castle, during very dreadful weather, and

I

could not help thinking of this negro transported all at once into

the Alps, and to whom this residence was the hell of ice; I thought

of the more noble beings, who had been shut up there, of those who

were still groaning in it, and I said to myself also that if I was

there, I should never quit it with life. It is impossible to convey

an idea to the small number of free nations which remain upon the

earth, of that absence of all security, the habitual state of the

human creatures who live under the empire of Napoleon. In other

despotic governments there are laws, and customs, and a religion,

which the sovereign never infringes, however absolute he may be; but

in France, and in Europe France, as every thing is new, the past can

be no guarantee, and every thing may be feared as well as hoped

according as you serve, or not, the interests of the man who dares

to propose himself, as the sole object of the existence of the whole

human race.