After walking some time in the garden, the Emperor got into his calash.
The weather was delightful: we made two turns at full gallop. I was
alone with him. He spoke much of my son, and his future prospects, with
a degree of interest and kindness which went to my heart. He said that,
considering his age, the circumstance of being sent to St. Helena was of
inestimable value to his future life; that it must be like a hot-house
for bringing forward his character.
After dinner, the Emperor resumed the subject of the 18th Brumaire, and
related it to us with an infinite number of minor details. As he has
long since dictated it to General Gourgaud, I shall refer to his
publication for the mass of the particulars of that event. I shall only
give here some little anecdotes or accessories which possibly may not be
found there.
Napoleon’s situation on his return from Egypt was unprecedented. He had
found himself immediately applied to by all parties, and had been
entrusted with all their secrets. There were three which were
particularly distinct; the _Manege_, of which General J. was one of the
leaders; the _Moderates_, directed by Sieyes; and the _Rotten_ party,
with Barras at their head.
The determination which Napoleon formed to ally himself with the
Moderates, exposed him, he said, to great danger. With the Jacobins he
would have risked nothing; they offered to name him Dictator. “But,
after conquering with them,” observed the Emperor, “it would have been
necessary, almost immediately, to conquer against them. A club cannot
endure a permanent chief; it wants one for every successive passion. Now
to make use of a party one day, in order to attack it the next, under
whatever pretext it is done, is still a piece of treachery; it was
inconsistent with my principles.”
“My dear Sir,” said the Emperor to me, at another moment, after having
again run over the events of the 18th of Brumaire, "that is a far
different thing, you will allow, from the conspiracy of St. Real, in
which there is much more plotting, and much less result; ours was struck
at a single blow. It is certain that there never was a great revolution
which caused less inconvenience; it was so generally desired; it was
accordingly crowned with universal applause.
"For my own part, all my share in the plot, for effecting this change,
was confined to the assembling the whole crowd of my visitors at the
same hour in the morning, and marching at their head to seize on power.
It was from the threshold of my door, from the top of my own steps, and
without my friends having any previous knowledge of my intentions, that
I led them to this conquest; it was amidst the brilliant escort they
formed, their lively joy, and unanimous ardour, that I presented myself
at the bar of the ancients, to thank them for the Dictatorship with
which they invested me.
“Metaphysicians have disputed, and will long dispute, whether we did not
violate the laws, and whether we were not criminal; but these are mere
abstractions, at best fit for books and tribunes, and which ought to
disappear before imperative necessity: one might as well blame a sailor
for waste and destruction, when he cuts away his masts to avoid being
upset. The fact is that, had it not been for us the country must have
been lost: and we saved it. The authors and chief agents of that
memorable state transaction may and ought, instead of attempting denials
or justifications, to answer their accusers proudly, like the Roman, _We
protest that we have saved our country; come with us and return thanks
to the gods_.”
On the completion of the Revolution of the 18th Brumaire, three
provisional consuls were appointed; Napoleon, Sieyes, and Ducos. A
president was to be chosen, the moment was critical, and rendered the
General highly necessary; he accordingly seized the arm-chair, and his
two acolytes did not venture to dispute it with him. Besides, Ducos
declared himself that moment, once for all. The General alone could save
them, he said: and thenceforth he was of his opinion in every thing.
Sieyes was greatly mortified, but he was obliged to do the same.
Sieyes was a man of a very selfish disposition. On the first meeting of
the three Consuls in Council, and as soon as they were alone, Sieyes
went in a mysterious manner to the doors of the apartment, to see
whether any person was within hearing; then, returning to Napoleon, he
said to him with complacency, and in an under-tone, shewing him, at the
same time, a sort of cabinet. “Do you see that pretty piece of
furniture? You do not, perhaps, suspect how valuable it is?” Napoleon
thought he was directing his attention to some appendage of the crown,
which had, perhaps, been used by Louis XVI. “That is not the matter;"
said Sieyes, seeing his mistake, “I am going to let you into the secret;
it contains 800,000 francs!” and his eyes opened wide. “In our
Directorial magistracy, we reflected that a Director going out of office
might very possibly go back to his family without a denier; a very
unbecoming thing: we therefore invented this little chest from which we
drew a sum for every Director going out of office. There are now no more
Directors; we are therefore the possessors of the remainder. What shall
we do with it?” Napoleon, who had paid great attention, and began, at
length, to understand, said: “If it comes to my knowledge, the sum shall
go to the public treasury; but if I should not hear of it (and I know
nothing of it yet), you and Ducos, being two old Directors, can divide
it between you: only make haste, for to-morrow it may perhaps, be too
late. The colleagues did not wait to be told twice,” observed the
Emperor. "Sieyes hastily undertook the operation, and divided the spoil
like the lion in the fable. He made several lots; he took one as the
eldest Director; another, because he was to have continued in office
longer than his colleague; a third, because he had suggested the idea of
this happy change, &c. In short he adjudged 600,000 francs to himself,
and only sent 200,000 to poor Ducos, who, when his first emotions had
subsided, insisted on revising this calculation, and seemed bent on
quarrelling with Sieyes. Both of them reverted to the subject every
moment, wishing their third colleague to arbitrate between them; but the
latter always replied—Settle it between yourselves. Above all, be quiet,
for if the matter should come to my ears, you would have to give up the
whole.
“When we were about to fix on a constitution,” said the Emperor, “Sieyes
treated us with another very entertaining scene. Circumstances and
public opinion had made him a sort of oracle in these matters; he
accordingly unfolded his various propositions in the committees of the
two councils, with great mystery, importance and method; they were all
adopted, good, bad, and indifferent. Finally, he crowned the work by
displaying the upshot which had been expected with lively and anxious
impatience: he proposed a Grand Elector, who was to reside at
Versailles, to enjoy six millions per annum, to represent the national
dignity, and to have no other duty than the nomination of two Consuls,
one for peace and the other for war; entirely independent in their
functions. Moreover, if this Elector should make a bad choice, the
Senate was to _absorb_ him himself. This was the technical expression,
meaning, to remove him, by replacing him, as a punishment, in the crowd
of private citizens.”
Napoleon, for want of experience in assemblies, and also through a
degree of circumspection which the circumstances of the moment required,
had taken little or no share in what had preceded; but now, at this
decisive point, he began, he said, to laugh in Sieyes’s face, and to cut
up all his metaphysical nonsense without mercy. Sieyes did not like to
defend himself, said the Emperor, nor did he know how to do it. He made
the attempt, however, saying that, after all, a king was nothing more.
Napoleon replied, “But you take the abuse for the principle, the shadow
for the body. And how can you imagine, M. Sieyes, that a man of any
talent or the least honour, will make up his mind to act the part of a
pig fattening on a few millions?” After this sally, which, said the
Emperor, made those who were present laugh immoderately, Sieyes remained
overwhelmed; it was no longer in his power to resume the subject of his
Grand Elector; and a First Consul was determined on, who was to have the
supreme decision and the nomination of all offices: with two accessory
Consuls, who were to have deliberate voices only. It was in fact, from
that moment, a unity of power. The First Consul was precisely the
President of America, veiled under the forms which the irritable spirit
of the times still rendered necessary. The Emperor accordingly said that
his reign began in reality from that day.
The Emperor in some measure regretted that Sieyes had not been nominated
one of the consuls. Sieyes, who at first refused the appointment,
afterwards regretted it himself, but not until it was too late. “He had
fallen into a mistake respecting the nature of these Consuls,” said
Napoleon; “he was fearful of mortification, and of having the First
Consul to contend with at every step; which would have been the case, if
all the Consuls had been equal; we should then have all been enemies:
but, the constitution having made them subordinate, there was no room
for the struggles of obstinacy, no cause of enmity, but a thousand
reasons for a genuine unanimity. Sieyes discovered this, but too late.”
The Emperor said he might have been very useful in council—better,
perhaps, than the others, because he had occasionally novel and most
luminous ideas; but that, in other respects, he was wholly unfit to
govern. “After all,” said the Emperor, “in order to govern it is
necessary to be a military man; one can only rule in boots and spurs.
Sieyes, without being fearful, was always in fear; his police spies
disturbed his rest.”
At the Luxembourg, during the provisional consulate, he often awakened
his colleague Napoleon, and harassed him about the new plots which he
heard of every moment from his private police. “But have they corrupted
our guard?” Napoleon used to say. “No.” “Then go to bed.—In war, as in
love, my dear Sir, we must come to close quarters to conclude matters.
It will be time enough to be alarmed when our 600 men are attacked.”
The Emperor said that, for the permanent government, he had chosen, in
Cambacérès and Lebrun, two distinguished characters; both prudent,
moderate, and able, but of completely opposite principles—the one the
advocate of abuses, prejudices, old institutions, the revival of honours
and distinctions, &c.—the other cold, austere, insensible, contending
against all these ideas, yielding to them without illusion, and
naturally falling into ideology.
In resuming, he observed that Sieyes might perhaps have contributed to
give a different colour, another characteristic, to the imperial
administration; but it was observed to him that this variation could not
have been otherwise than injurious, for Napoleon’s choice had been much
approved of at the time. The men he had selected, it was said, were not
liable to be objected to by Europe. They had greatly contributed to
conciliate public opinion in France, which ran wholly against Sieyes.
His name and the recollections attending it would, in the eyes of many
people, have disgraced the acts in which he might have taken part; and
there was an anecdote eagerly repeated at the time, which shews all the
ill-will that was borne towards him. It was said that, whilst he was
talking with the Emperor, at the Tuileries, about Louis XIV. he had
suffered the word _tyrant_ to escape him. "M. l’Abbé," the Emperor was
said to have replied, “if Louis XVI. had been a tyrant, you would now be
saying mass, and I should not be here.” The Emperor smiled at this
anecdote, without confirming or denying it. It will hereafter appear
that it was false.
FRESH AGGRAVATIONS FROM THE GOVERNOR.—HIS
ABSURDITIES.
Saturday 6th to Monday 8th.—I have not mentioned the Governor for some
time. We endeavour to keep him as much as possible out of our thoughts;
we now scarcely ever adverted to him. His ill-manners, and the vexations
we endure from him oblige me to notice him to-day: they seem to have
increased. He has just withheld from us some letters from Europe,
although they came open, and in the most ostensible manner—merely
because they had not passed through the hands of the Secretary of State;
without considering that a want of formality can easily be rectified in
England, but that it is irremediable at a distance of two thousand
leagues. If, however, in thus rigorously and literally fulfilling his
instructions, he had only had the humanity to let us know that he has
received these letters, and from whom they come, he might set our minds
at ease with regard to those respecting whose health, or whose attention
to ourselves, we suffer so much anxiety: but he has the barbarity to
make a mystery of the affair. It is not many days since, the Countess
Bertrand having written to town, he had the note seized, and sent it
back to her as having been written without his permission. He
accompanied this insult with an official letter, by which he prohibited
us, for the future, from all written or even verbal communication with
the inhabitants, without submitting it to his approbation; and what is
particularly absurd and incredible is, that he imposed this restriction
on our intercourse with people whom he nevertheless permits us to visit
at our own pleasure. He accompanied the publication of the act relating
to us with commentaries which spread terror amongst the inhabitants; he
complains of the excessive expense of the Emperor’s table, and insists
on great reductions.—It had not been understood that General Bonaparte
would have so many people about him. Ministers, he told us ingenuously,
had never doubted that the permission they had sent us to go away would
have induced us to quit the Emperor. All this shuffling produced an
exchange of pretty sharp notes. To one of the Governor’s communications,
in which he said, that if the restrictions imposed on us seemed too
hard, we might relieve ourselves from them by going away, the Emperor
himself dictated the following addition to the answer we had already
written:—"That, having been honoured by him during his prosperity, we
considered it our chief pleasure to serve him, now that he could do
nothing for us; and if there were persons to whom this conduct was
incomprehensible, so much the worse for them."
NEW VEXATIONS.—THE EMPEROR SELDOM STIRS OUT.—TRISTAN.—LA FONTAINE’S
FABLES.—THE BELLY RULES THE WORLD.—DIFFICULTY OF JUDGING OF MEN.
Tuesday 9th to Thursday 11th.—The Governor continues to annoy us, and is
incessantly aggravating the misery of our situation. He seems resolved
to place us in close confinement. He has published a proclamation in the
town, ordering that all letters and notes addressed by us to the
inhabitants, on any occasion whatever, shall be sent to him within
twenty-four hours. He has also forbidden them to visit the Grand Marshal
and his wife, who live at the entrance of our enclosure. In the
beginning of this blockade of Madame Bertrand, it was so rigorously
enforced that some medicines sent hence by the doctor for one of the
Grand Marshal’s people, who was dying, could not be delivered; and it
was only as an accommodation that the officer at last took upon him to
let them pass over the wall.
The Governor, having read in a letter, sent by one of us to Europe, that
the writer wanted several articles of clothing, linen, &c., came and
told him that he might have most of those articles out of the stores
sent by Government for Napoleon: and the individual replying that he
preferred purchasing them, being unwilling to incur any obligation, the
Governor drily answered that he might pay for them if he had a fancy to
do so. To which the other replied, “Excuse me, Sir, I like to choose my
shops myself.” In consequence of this, the Governor afterwards sent him
word, by the Doctor, that he should complain of him, for having
_contemptuously_ refused the gifts of Government. The other instantly
replied that he should be much obliged to him; being much happier to
give him an opportunity of transmitting refusals than requests, to the
ministers he served.
All these petty tricks, the length and interest of our readings, and the
continuance of the bad weather, which is dreadful, confine the Emperor
more closely than ever to the house, and overwhelm him with melancholy:
he now never stirs abroad. His amusement is now limited to going
occasionally, about five o’clock, to visit Madame de Montholon, who has
not yet gone abroad since her lying-in. We all meet there, and the
Emperor converses for half an hour, or three-quarters, before he returns
to his own apartment.
To-day he met little Tristan, the eldest son of M. de Montholon, who is
only seven or eight years old, and runs about all day. The Emperor
placed him between his knees, and tried to make him recite some fables,
of which the poor child did not understand two words out of ten. The
Emperor laughed heartily, blaming the practice of putting La Fontaine
into the hands of children who cannot understand him; and began to
explain these fables to Tristan; endeavouring to render their meaning
more palpable to him; nor could any thing be more curious than the
simplicity, justice, and logic of his illustrations.
Whilst he was explaining the fable of the Wolf and the Lamb, it was
extremely laughable to hear the poor child say _Sire_, and _your
Majesty_, and in speaking of the wolf, and to the Emperor, confuse all
his expressions; whilst his ideas were probably in still greater
confusion.
The Emperor thought this fable had far too much irony in it to be within
the comprehension of children. It was likewise defective, he observed,
in its principle and its moral; and this was the first time that he had
been struck with these defects. It was false that the argument of the
stronger was always the best; and if it sometimes happened so, in fact,
that, he said, was the very evil, the abuse, which was to be condemned.
The wolf, ought, therefore, to have been strangled in devouring the
lamb.
Tristan is very idle. He confessed to the Emperor that he did not work
every day. “Do you not eat every day?” said the Emperor to him, “Yes,
Sire.” “Well, then, you ought to work every day; no one should eat who
does not work.” “Oh! if that be the case, I will work every day,” said
the child, quickly. “Such is the influence of the belly,” said the
Emperor, patting that of little Tristan. "It is hunger that makes the
world move. Come, my little man, if you are a good boy, we’ll make a
page of you." "But I won’t be one," said Tristan, pouting and looking
sulky.
Our afternoons were occupied in reading something selected in hopes of
enabling us to kill time for an hour or two. At this period we were
reading a voyage to Spitzbergen; the shipwreck of the Dutch at Nova
Zembla; the _Causes celébres_, the trial of Calas; those of Martinguerre
and the Marchioness of Brinvilliers. The author observed, in some part
of the work, that the face often gave a false idea of the character. The
Emperor paused, laid down the book, and said, with a look and tone that
denoted conviction: “It is most true, and it is also true that no study
will enable us to avoid this deception. How many proofs of this kind
have I had! For instance, I had a person about me; his countenance
undoubtedly.... But after all he had a mischievous eye; I ought to have
guessed something from that.” He then went into some particulars of the
character of the person in question. They had known each other from
infancy, he said; he had long placed his entire confidence in this
individual, who had talent and resources; the Emperor even thought that
he had been attached and faithful—"But he was much too covetous," said
he, “he was too fond of money. When I was dictating to him, and he
sometimes had to write _millions_, it was never without a peculiar
change of countenance, a smacking of his lips, and restlessness on his
chair, which several times induced me to ask what ailed him.”
The Emperor said this vice was too glaring to allow of his retaining
this person about him; but that, considering his other qualities, he
ought, perhaps, to have contented himself with removing him into a
different situation.