demeanour of the company at the last levee which Madame Napoleon
Bonaparte held, previous to her departure with her husband to meet the
Pope at Fontainebleau. I had heard from good authority that "to those
whose propensities were known, Duroc's information that the Empress was
visible was accompanied with a kind of admonitory or courtly hint, that
the strictest decency in dress and manners, and a conversation chaste,
and rather of an unusually modest turn, would be highly agreeable to
their Sovereigns, in consideration of the solemn occasion of a Sovereign
Pontiff's arrival in France,--an occurrence that had not happened for
centuries, and probably would not happen for centuries to come." I went
early, and was well rewarded for my punctuality.
There came the Senator Fouche, handing his amiable and chaste spouse,
walking with as much gravity as formerly, when a friar, he marched in a
procession. Then presented themselves the Senators Sieyes and Roederer,
with an air as composed as if the former had still been an Abbe and the
confessor of the latter. Next came Madame Murat, whom three hours before
I had seen in the Bois de Boulogne in all the disgusting display of
fashionable nakedness, now clothed and covered to her chin. She was
followed by the pious Madame Le Clerc, now Princesse Borghese, who was
sighing deeply and loudly. After her came limping the godly Talleyrand,
dragging his pure moiety by his side, both with downcast and edifying
looks. The Christian patriots, Gravina and Lima, Dreyer and Beust,
Dalberg and Cetto, Malsburgh and Pappenheim, with the Catholic
Schimmelpenninck and Mohammed Said Halel Effendi,--all presented
themselves as penitent sinners imploring absolutions, after undergoing
mortifications.
But it would become tedious and merely a repetition, were I to depict
separately the figures and characters of all the personages at this
politico-comical masquerade. Their conversation was, however, more
uniform, more contemptible, and more laughable, than their accoutrements
and grimaces were ridiculous. To judge from what they said, they
belonged no longer to this world; all their thoughts were in heaven, and
they considered themselves either on the borders of eternity or on the
eve of the day of the Last Judgment. The truly devout Madame Napoleon
spoke with rapture of martyrs and miracles, of the Mass and of the
vespers, of Agnuses and relics of Christ her Saviour, and of Pius VII.,
His vicar. Had not her enthusiasm been interrupted by the enthusiastic
commentaries of her mother-in-law, I saw every mouth open ready to cry
out, as soon as she had finished, "Amen! Amen! Amen!"
Napoleon had placed himself between the old Cardinal de Bellois and the
not young Cardinal Bernier, so as to prevent the approach of any profane
sinner or unrepentant infidel. Round him and their clerical chiefs, all
the curates and grand vicars, almoners and chaplains of the Court, and
the capitals of the Princess, Princesses, and grand officers of State,
had formed a kind of cordon. "Had," said the young General Kellerman to
me, "Bonaparte always been encompassed by troops of this description, he
might now have sung hymns as a saint in heaven, but he would never have
reigned as an Emperor upon earth." This indiscreet remark was heard by
Louis Bonaparte, and on the next morning Kellerman received orders to
join the army in Hanover, where he was put under the command of a general
younger than himself. He would have been still more severely punished,
had not his father, the Senator (General Kellerman), been in so great
favour at the Court of St. Cloud, and so much protected by Duroc, who had
made, in 1792, his first campaign under this officer, then
commander-in-chief of the army of the Ardennes.
When this devout assembly separated, which was by courtesy an hour
earlier than usual, I expected every moment to hear a chorus of
horse-laughs, because I clearly perceived that all of them were tired of
their assumed parts, and, with me, inclined to be gay at the expense of
their neighbours. But they all remembered also that they were watched by
spies, and that an imprudent look or an indiscreet word, gaiety instead
of gravity, noise when silence was commanded, might be followed by an
airing in the wilderness of Cayenne. They, therefore, all called out,
"Coachman, to our hotel!" as if to say, "We will to-day, in compliment to
the new-born Christian zeal of our Sovereigns, finish our evening as
piously as we have begun it." But no sooner were they out of sight of
the palace than they hurried to the scenes of dissipation, all
endeavouring, in the debauchery and excesses so natural to them, to
forget their unnatural affectation and hypocrisy.
Well you know the standard of the faith even of the members of the
Bonaparte family. Two days before this Christian circle at Madame
Napoleon's, Madame de Chateaureine, with three other ladies, visited the
Princesse Borghese. Not seeing a favourite parrot they had often
previously admired, they inquired what was become of it.
"Oh, the poor creature!" answered the Princess; "I have disposed of it,
as well as of two of my monkeys. The Emperor has obliged me to engage an
almoner and two chaplains, and it would be too extravagant in me to keep
six useless animals in my hotel. I must now submit to hearing the
disgusting howlings of my almoner instead of the entertaining chat of my
parrot, and to see the awkward bows and kneelings of my chaplains instead
of the amusing capering of my monkeys. Add to this, that I am forced to
transform into a chapel my elegant and tasty boudoir, on the
ground-floor, where I have passed so many delicious tete-a-tetes. Alas!
what a change! what a shocking fashion, that we are now all again to be
Christians!"
LETTER IX.
PARIS, August, 1805.
MY LORD:--Notwithstanding what was inserted in our public prints to the
contrary, the reception Bonaparte experienced from his army of England in
June last year, the first time he presented himself to them as an
Emperor, was far from such as flattered either his vanity or views. For
the first days, some few solitary voices alone accompanied the "Vive
l'Empereur!" of his generals, and of his aides-de-camp. This
indifference, or, as he called it, mutinous spirit, was so much the more
provoking as it was unexpected. He did not, as usual, ascribe it to the
emissaries or gold of England, but to the secret adherents of Pichegru
and Moreau amongst the brigades or divisions that had served under these
unfortunate generals. He ordered, in consequence, his Minister Berthier
to make out a list of all these corps. Having obtained this, he
separated them by ordering some to Italy, others to Holland, and the rest
to the frontiers of Spain and Germany. This act of revenge or jealousy
was regarded, both by the officers and men, as a disgrace and as a doubt
thrown out against their fidelity, and the murmur was loud and general.
In consequence of this, some men were shot, and many more arrested.
Observing, however, that severity had not the desired effect, Bonaparte
suddenly changed his conduct, released the imprisoned, and rewarded with
the crosses of his Legion of Honour every member of the so lately
suspected troops who had ever performed any brilliant or valorous
exploits under the proscribed generals. He even incorporated among his
own bodyguards and guides men who had served in the same capacity under
these rival commanders, and numbers of their children were received in
the Prytanees and military free schools. The enthusiastic exclamation
that soon greeted his ears convinced him that he had struck upon the
right string of his soldiers' hearts. Men who, some few days before,
wanted only the signal of a leader to cut an Emperor they hated to
pieces, would now have contended who should be foremost to shed their
last drop of blood for a chief they adored.
This affected liberality towards the troops who had served under his
rivals roused some slight discontent among those to whom he was chiefly
indebted for his own laurels. But if he knew the danger of reducing to
despair slighted men with arms in their hands, he also was well aware of
the equal danger of enduring licentiousness or audacity among troops who
had, on all occasions, experienced his preference and partiality; and he
gave a sanguinary proof of his opinion on this subject at the grand
parade of the 12th of July, 1804, preparatory to the grand fete of the
14th.
A grenadier of the 21st Regiment (which was known in Italy under the name
of the Terrible), in presetting arms to him, said: "Sire! I have served
under you four campaigns, fought under you in ten battles or engagements;
have received in your service seven wounds, and am not a member of your
Legion of Honour; whilst many who served under Moreau, and are not able
to show a scratch from an enemy, have that distinction."
Bonaparte instantly ordered this man to be shot by his own comrades in
the front of the regiment. The six grenadiers selected to fire, seeming
to hesitate, he commanded the whole corps to lay down their arms, and
after being disbanded, to be sent to the different colonial depots. To
humiliate them still more, the mutinous grenadier was shot by the
gendarmes. When the review was over, "Vive l'Empereur!" resounded from
all parts, and his popularity among the troops has since rather increased
than diminished. Nobody can deny that Bonaparte possesses a great
presence of mind, an undaunted firmness, and a perfect knowledge of the
character of the people over whom he reigns. Could but justice and
humanity be added to his other qualities, but, unfortunately for my
nation, I fear that the answer of General Mortier to a remark of a friend
of mine on this subject is not problematical: "Had," said this Imperial
favourite, "Napoleon Bonaparte been just and humane, he would neither
have vanquished nor reigned."
All these scenes occurred before Bonaparte, seated on a throne, received
the homage, as a Sovereign, of one hundred and fifty thousand warriors,
who now bowed as subjects, after having for years fought for liberty and
equality, and sworn hatred to all monarchical institutions; and who
hitherto had saluted and obeyed him only as the first among equals. What
an inconsistency! The splendour and show that accompanied him
everywhere, the pageantry and courtly pomp that surrounded him, and the
decorations of the stars and ribands of the Legion of Honour, which he
distributed with bombastic speeches among troops--to whom those political
impositions and social cajoleries were novelties--made such an impression
upon them, that had a bridge been then fixed between Calais and Dover,
brave as your countrymen are, I should have trembled for the liberty and
independence of your country. The heads and imagination of the soldiers,
I know from the best authority, were then so exalted that, though they
might have been cut to pieces, they could never have been defeated or
routed. I pity our children when I reflect that their tranquillity and
happiness will, perhaps, depend upon such a corrupt and unprincipled
people of soldiers,--easy tools in the hands of every impostor or
mountebank.
The lively satisfaction which Bonaparte must have felt at the pinnacle of
grandeur where fortune had placed him was not, however, entirely unmixed
with uneasiness and vexation. Except at Berlin, in all the other great
Courts the Emperor of the French was still Monsieur Bonaparte; and your
country, of the subjugation of which he had spoken with such lightness
and such inconsideration, instead of dreading, despised his boasts and
defied his threats. Indeed, never before did the Cabinet of St. James
more opportunely expose the reality of his impotency, the impertinence of
his menaces, and the folly of his parade for the invasion of your
country, than by declaring all the ports containing his invincible armada
in a state of blockade. I have heard from an officer who witnessed his
fury when in May, 1799, he was compelled to retreat from before St. Jean
d'Acre, and who was by his side in the camp at Boulogne when a despatch
informed him of this circumstance, that it was nothing compared to the
violent rage into which he flew upon reading it. For an hour afterwards
not even his brother Joseph dared approach him; and his passion got so
far the better of his policy, that what might still have long been
concealed from the troops was known within the evening to the whole camp.
He dictated to his secretary orders for his Ministers at Vienna, Berlin,
Lisbon, and Madrid, and couriers were sent away with them; but half an
hour afterwards other couriers were despatched after them with other
orders, which were revoked in their turn, when at last Joseph had
succeeded in calming him a little. He passed, however, the whole
following night full dressed and agitated; lying down only for an
instant, but having always in his room Joseph and Duroc, and deliberating
on a thousand methods of destroying the insolent islanders; all equally
violent, but all equally impracticable.
The next morning, when, as usual, he went to see the manoeuvres of his
flotilla, and the embarkation and landing of his troops, he looked so
pale that he almost excited pity. Your cruisers, however, as if they had
been informed of the situation of our hero, approached unusually near, to
evince, as it were, their contempt and, derision. He ordered instantly
all the batteries to fire, and went himself to that which carried its
shot farthest; but that moment six of your vessels, after taking down
their sails, cast anchors, with the greatest sang-froid, just without the
reach of our shot. In an unavailing anger he broke upon the spot six
officers of artillery, and pushed one, Captain d' Ablincourt, down the
precipice under the battery, where he narrowly escaped breaking his neck
as well as his legs; for which injury he was compensated by being made an
officer of the Legion of Honour. Bonaparte then convoked upon the spot a
council of his generals of artillery and of the engineers, and, within an
hour's time, some guns and mortars of still heavier metal and greater
calibre were carried up to replace the others; but, fortunately for the
generals, before a trial could be made of them the tide changed, and your
cruisers sailed.
In returning to breakfast at General Soult's, he observed the
countenances of his soldiers rather inclined to laughter than to wrath;
and he heard some jests, significant enough in the vocabulary of
encampments, and which informed him that contempt was not the sentiment
with which your navy had inspired his troops. The occurrences of these
two days hastened his departure from the coast for Aix-la-Chapelle, where
the cringing of his courtiers consoled him, in part, for the want of
respect or gallantry in your English tars.
LETTER X.
PARIS, August, 1805.
MY LORD:--According to a general belief in our diplomatic circles, it was
the Austrian Ambassador in France, Count von Cobenzl, who principally
influenced the determination of Francis II. to assume the hereditary
title of Emperor of Austria, and to acknowledge Napoleon Emperor of the
French.
Johann Philipp, Count von Cobenzl, enjoys, not only in his own country,
but through all Europe, a great reputation as a statesman, and has for a
number of years been employed by his Court in the most intricate and
delicate political transactions. In 1790 he was sent to Brabant to treat
with the Belgian insurgents; but the States of Brabant refusing to
receive him, he retired to Luxembourg, where he published a proclamation,
in which Leopold II. revoked all those edicts of his predecessor, Joseph
II., which had been the principal cause of the troubles; and
reestablished everything upon the same footing as during the reign of
Maria Theresa. In 1791 he was appointed Ambassador to the Court of St.
Petersburg, where his conduct obtained the approbation of his own Prince
and of the Empress of Russia.
In 1793 the Committee of Public Safety nominated the intriguer, De
Semonville, Ambassador to the Ottoman Porte. His mission was to excite
the Turks against Austria and Russia, and it became of great consequence
to the two Imperial Courts to seize this incendiary of regicides. He was
therefore stopped, on the 25th of July, in the village of Novate, near
the lake of Chiavenne. A rumour was very prevalent at this time that
some papers were found in De Semonville's portfolio implicating Count von
Cobenzl as a correspondent with the revolutionary French generals. The
continued confidence of his Sovereign contradicts, however, this
inculpation, which seems to have been merely the invention of rivalry or
jealousy.
In October, 1795, Count von Cobenzl signed, in the name of the Emperor, a
treaty with England and Russia; and in 1797 he was one of the Imperial
plenipotentiaries sent to Udine to negotiate with Bonaparte, with whom,
on the 17th of October, he signed the Treaty of Campo Formio. In the
same capacity he went afterwards to Rastadt, and when this congress broke
up, he returned again as an Ambassador to St. Petersburg.
After the Peace of Lunwille, when it required to have a man of experience
and talents to oppose to our so deeply able Minister, Talleyrand, the
Cabinet of Vienna removed him from Russia to France, where, with all
other representatives of Princes, he has experienced more of the frowns
and rebukes, than of the dignity and good grace, of our present
Sovereign.
Count von Cobenzl's foible is said to be a passion for women; and it is
reported that our worthy Minister, Talleyrand, has been kind enough to
assist him frequently in his amours. Some adventures of this sort, which
occurred at Rastadt, afforded much amusement at the Count's expense.
Talleyrand, from envy, no doubt, does not allow him the same political
merit as his other political contemporaries, having frequently repeated
that "the official dinners of Count von Cobenzl were greatly preferable
to his official notes."
So well pleased was Bonaparte with this Ambassador when at
Aix-la-Chapelle last year, that, as a singular favour, he permitted him,
with the Marquis de Gallo (the Neapolitan Minister and another
plenipotentiary at Udine), to visit the camps of his army of England on
the coast. It is true that this condescension was, perhaps, as much a
boast, or a threat, as a compliment.
The famous diplomatic note of Talleyrand, which, at Aix-la-Chapelle
proscribed en masse all your diplomatic agents, was only a slight revenge
of Bonaparte's for your mandate of blockade. Rumour states that this
measure was not approved of by Talleyrand, as it would not exclude any of
your Ambassadors from those Courts not immediately under the whip of our
Napoleon. For fear, however, of some more extravagant determination,
Joseph Bonaparte dissuaded him from laying before his brother any
objections or representations. "But what absurdities do I not sign!"
exclaimed the pliant Minister.
Bonaparte, on his arrival at Aix-la-Chapelle, found there, according to
command, most of the members of the foreign diplomatic corps in France,
waiting to present their new credentials to him as Emperor. Charlemagne
had been saluted as such, in the same place, about one thousand years
before,--an inducement for the modern Charlemagne to set all these
Ambassadors travelling some hundred miles, without any other object but
to gratify his impertinent vanity. Every spot where Charlemagne had
walked, sat, slept, talked, eaten or prayed, was visited by him with
great ostentation; always dragging behind him the foreign
representatives, and by his side his wife. To a peasant who presented
him a stone upon which Charlemagne was said to have once kneeled, he gave
nearly half its weight in gold; on a priest who offered him a small
crucifix, before which that Prince was reported to have prayed, he
bestowed an episcopal see; to a manufacturer he ordered one thousand
louis for a portrait of Charlemagne, said to be drawn by his daughter,
but which, in fact, was from the pencil of the daughter of the
manufacturer; a German savant was made a member of the National Institute
for an old diploma, supposed to have been signed by Charlemagne, who many
believed was not able to write; and a German Baron, Krigge, was
registered in the Legion of Honour for a ring presented by this Emperor
to one of his ancestors, though his nobility is well known not to be of
sixty years' standing. But woe to him who dared to suggest any doubt
about what Napoleon believed, or seemed to believe! A German professor,
Richter, more a pedant than a courtier, and more sincere than wise,
addressed a short memorial to Bonaparte, in which he proved, from his
intimacy with antiquity, that most of the pretended relics of Charlemagne
were impositions on the credulous; that the portrait was a drawing of
this century, the diploma written in the last; the crucifix manufactured
within fifty, and the ring, perhaps, within ten years. The night after
Bonaparte had perused this memorial, a police commissary, accompanied by
four gendarmes, entered the professor's bedroom, forced him to dress, and
ushered him into a covered cart, which carried him under escort to the
left bank of the Rhine; where he was left with orders, under pain of
death, never more to enter the territory of the French Empire. This
expeditious and summary justice silenced all other connoisseurs and
antiquarians; and relics of Charlemagne have since poured in in such
numbers from all parts of France, Italy, Germany, and even Denmark, that
we are here in hope to see one day established a Museum Charlemagne, by
the side of the museums Napoleon and Josephine. A ballad, written in
monkish Latin, said to be sung by the daughters and maids of Charlemagne
at his Court on great festivities, was addressed to Duroc, by a Danish
professor, Cranener, who in return was presented, on the part of
Bonaparte, with a diamond ring worth twelve thousand livres--L 500. This
ballad may, perhaps, be the foundation of future Bibliotheque or Lyceum
Charlemagne.
LETTER XI.
PARIS, August, 1805.
MY LORD:--On the arrival of her husband at Aix-la-Chapelle, Madame
Napoleon had lost her money by gambling, without recovering her health by
using the baths and drinking the waters; she was, therefore, as poor as
low-spirited, and as ill-tempered as dissatisfied. Napoleon himself was
neither much in humour to supply her present wants, provide for her
extravagances, or to forgive her ill-nature; he ascribed the inefficacy
of the waters to her excesses, and reproached her for her too great
condescension to many persons who presented themselves at her
drawing-room and in her circle, but who, from their rank in life, were
only fit to be seen as supplicants in her antechambers, and as associates
with her valets or chambermaids.
The fact was that Madame Napoleon knew as well as her husband that these
gentry were not in their place in the company of an Empress; but they
were her creditors, some of them even Jews; and as long as she continued
debtor to them she could not decently--or rather, she dared not prevent
them from being visitors to her. By confiding her situation to her old
friend, Talleyrand, she was, however, soon released from those
troublesome personages. When the Minister was informed of the occasion
of the attendance of these impertinent intruders, he humbly proposed to
Bonaparte not to pay their demands and their due, but to make them
examples of severe justice in transporting them to Cayenne, as the only
sure means to prevent, for the future, people of the same description
from being familiar or audacious.
When, thanks to Talleyrand's interference, these family arrangements were
settled, Madame Napoleon recovered her health with her good-humour; and
her husband, who had begun to forget the English blockade, only to think
of the papal accolade (dubbing), was more tender than ever. I am assured
that, during the fortnight he continued with his wife at Aix-la-Chapelle,
he only shut her up or confined her twice, kicked her three times, and
abused her once a day.