Return to Coppet.--Different persecutions.
In returning to Coppet, dragging my wing like the pigeon in
Lafontaine, I saw the rainbow rise over my father's house; I dared
take my part in this token of the covenant; there had been nothing
in my sorrowful journey to prevent me from aspiring to it. I was
then almost resigned to living in this chateau, renouncing the idea
of ever publishing more on any subject; but it was at least
necessary, in making the sacrifice of talents, which I flattered
myself with possessing, to find happiness in my affections, and this
is the manner in which my private life was arranged, after having
stript me of my literary existence.
The first order received by the prefect of Geneva, was to intimate
to my two sons, that they were interdicted going into France without
a new permission of the police. This was to punish them for having
wished to speak to Bonaparte in favor of their mother. Thus the
morality of the present government is to loosen family ties, in
order to substitute in all cases the emperor's will. Several
generals have been mentioned as declaring, that if Napoleon ordered
them to throw their wives and children into the river, they would
not hesitate to obey him. The translation of this is, that they
prefer the money which the emperor gives them, to the family which
they have from nature. There are many instances of this way of
thinking, but there are few who would have impudence enough to give
utterance to it. I felt a mortal grief at seeing for the first time
my situation bear upon my sons, scarcely entered into life. We feel
ourselves very firm in our own conduct, when it is founded on
sincere conviction; but when others begin to suffer on our account,
it is almost impossible to keep from reproaching ourselves. Both my
sons, however, most generously diverted this feeling from me, and we
supported each other mutually by the recollection of my father.
A few days afterwards the prefect of Geneva wrote me a second
letter, to require me, in the name of the minister of police, to
deliver up the proof sheets of my book which were still in my hands;
the minister knew exactly the number I had sent and kept, and his
spies had done their duty well. In my answer, I gave him the
satisfaction of admitting that he had been correctly informed; but I
told him at the same time that this copy was not in Switzerland, and
that I neither could nor would give it up. I added, however, that I
would engage never to have it printed on the Continent, and I had no
great merit in making this promise, for what Continental government
would then have suffered the publication of any book forbidden, by
the emperor?
A short time afterwards, the prefect of Geneva* was dismissed, and
it was generally believed on my account; he was one of my friends,
yet he had not deviated one iota from the orders he had received:
although he was one of the most honorable and enlightened men in
France, his principles led him to the scrupulous obedience of the
government, whose servant he was; but no ambitious view, or personal
calculation gave him the zeal required. It was another great source
of chagrin to be, or to be regarded as being, the cause of the
dismissal of such a man. He was generally regretted in his
department, and from the moment it was believed that I was the cause
of his disgrace, all who had any pretensions to places avoided my
house as they would the most fatal contagion. There still remained
to me, however at Geneva, more friends than any other provincial
town in France could have offered me; for the inheritance of liberty
has left in that city much generous feeling; but it is impossible to
have an idea of the anxiety one feels, when one is afraid of
compromising those who come to visit you. I made a point of getting
the most exact information of all the relations of any lady before I
invited her; for if she had only a cousin who wanted a place, or had
one, it was demanding an act of Roman heroism to expect her to come
and dine with me.
At last, in the month of March 1811, a new prefect
arrived from Paris. He was a man admirably well adapted to the
reigning system: that is to say, having a very general acquaintance
with facts, coupled with a total absence of principles in matters of
government; calling every fixed rule mere abstraction, and placing
his conscience in devotion to the reigning power. The first time I
saw him, he told me that talents like mine were made to celebrate
the emperor, who was a subject well worthy of the kind of enthusiasm
which I had shown in Corinna. I gave him for answer, that persecuted
as I was by the emperor, any thing like praise of him coming from
me, would have the air of a petition, and that I was persuaded that
the emperor himself would find my eulogiums very ridiculous under
such circumstances. He combatted this opinion very strongly: he
returned to my house several times to beg me, in the name of my own
interest, as he styled it, to write something in favor of the
emperor, were it but a sheet of four pages; that would be
sufficient, he assured me, to put an end to all the disagreeables I
suffered. He repeated what he told me to every person of my
acquaintance. Finally, one day he came to propose to me to celebrate
in verse the birth of the king of Rome; I told him, laughing, that I
had not a single idea on the subject, and that I should confine
myself to wishes for his having a good nurse. This joke put an end
to the prefect's negociations with me, upon the necessity of my
writing in favor of the present government.
* M. de Barante, father of M. Prosper de Barante, member of the
* Chamber of Peers.
A short time afterwards the physicians ordered my youngest son the
baths of Aix, in Savoy, at twenty leagues from Coppet. I chose the
early part of May to go there, a time of the year when the waters
are quite deserted. I gave the prefect notice of this little
journey, and went to shut myself up in a kind of village, where
there was not at the time a single person of my acquaintance. I had
hardly been there ten days, before a courier arrived from the
prefect of Geneva to order me to return. The prefect of Mont-Blanc,
in whose department I was, was also afraid lest I should leave Aix
to go to England, as he said, to write against the emperor; and
although London was not very near to Aix in Savoy, he sent his
gendarmes every where about, to forbid my being furnished with post
horses on the road. I am at present tempted to laugh at all this
prefectorial activity against a poor thing like myself; but at that
time the very sight of a gendarme was enough to make me die with
fright. I was always alarmed lest from a banishment so rigorous the
change might shortly be to a prison, which was to me more terrible
than death itself. I knew that if I was once arrested, that if this
eclat were once got over, the emperor would not allow himself again
to be spoken to about me, even if any one had the courage to do so;
which was not very probable at that court, where terror was the
prevailing sentiment every minute of the day, and in the most
trifling concerns of life.
On my return to Geneva, the prefect signified to me not only that he
forbid me from going under any pretence to the countries united to
France, but that he advised me not to travel in Switzerland, and
never to go in any direction beyond two leagues from Coppet. I
objected to him that being domiciliated in Switzerland, I did not
clearly understand by what right a French authority could forbid me
from travelling in a foreign country. The prefect no doubt thought
me rather a simpleton to discuss at that moment a point of right,
repeated his advice to me in a tone singularly approaching to an
order. I confined myself my protest: but the very next day I learned
that one of the most distinguished literati of Germany, M. Schlegel,
who had for eight years been employed in the education of my sons,
had received an order not only to leave Geneva, but to quit Coppet.
I wished still to represent that in Switzerland the prefect of
Geneva had no orders to give; but I was told, that if I liked better
to receive this order through the French ambassador, I might be
gratified: that the ambassador would address the landamann, and the
landamann would apply to the canton of Vaud, who would immediately
send M. Schlegel from my house. By making despotism go this
roundabout, I might have gained ten days, but nothing more. I then
wished to know why I was deprived of the society of M. Schlegel, my
own friend, and that of my children. The prefect, who was
accustomed, like the greater part of the emperor's agents, to couple
very smooth words with very harsh acts, told me that it was from
regard to me that the government banished M. Schlegel from my house
as he made me an Anti-gallican. Much affected by this proof of the
paternal care of the government, I asked what Mr. S. had ever done
against France: the prefect objected to his literary opinions, and
referred among other things to a pamphlet of his, in which, in a
comparison between the Phedra of Euripides and that of Racine, he
had given the preference to the former. How very delicate for a
Corsican monarch to take in this manner act and cause (sic) for the
slightest shades of French literature! But the real truth was, M.
Schlegel was banished because he was my friend, because his
conversation animated my solitude, and because the system was now
begun to be acted upon, which soon became evident, of making a
prison of my soul, in tearing from me every enjoyment of intellect
and friendship.
I resumed the resolution of leaving Switzerland, which the pain of
quitting my friends and the ashes of my parents had made me so often
give up; but there remained a very difficult problem to solve, and
that was to find the means of departure. The French government threw
so many difficulties in the way of a passport for America, that I
durst no longer think of that plan. Besides, I had reason to be
afraid lest at the moment of my embarkation they should pretend to
have discovered that I was going to England, and that the decree
might be applied to me, which condemned to imprisonment all who
attempted to go there without the authority of the government. It
seemed to me, therefore, much preferable to go to Sweden, that
honorable country, whose new chief already gave indications of the
glorious conduct which he has since known how to sustain. But by
what road to get to Sweden? The prefect had given me to understand
in all ways, that wherever France commanded, I should be arrested,
and how was I to reach the point where she did not command? I must
necessarily pass through Russia, as the whole of Germany was under
the French dominion. But to get to Russia, I must cross Bavaria and
Austria. I could trust my self in the Tyrol, although it was united
to a state of the confederation, on account of the courage which its
unfortunate inhabitants had shewn. As to Austria, in spite of the
fatal debasement into which she had sunk, I had sufficient
confidence in her monarch to believe that he would not deliver me
up; but I knew also that he could not defend me. After having
sacrificed the ancient honor of his house, what strength remained to
him of any kind? I spent my days, therefore, in studying the map of
Europe to escape from it, as Napoleon studied it to make himself its
master, and my campaign, as well as his, always had Russia for its
field. This power was the last asylum of the oppressed; it was
therefore that which the conqueror of Europe wished to overthrow.