CHAPTER XXIX

(1808.)

The War with Spain—The Prince of the Peace—The Prince of the

Asturias—The Abdication of King Charles IV.—The Departure of

the Emperor—His Sojourn at Bayonne—Letter of the

Emperor—Arrival of the Princes in France—Birth of the Second

Son of the Queen of Holland—Abdication of the Prince of the

Asturias 723

CONCLUSION 742

POSTSCRIPT 760

INTRODUCTION

THE clear and interesting “Preface” of Paul de Rémusat, grandson of the

author of these Memoirs, renders unnecessary a lengthy introduction on

the part of the publishers. The reader will find there a sympathetic

sketch of the talented lady-in-waiting, and through her eyes a vivid

portrait not only of Josephine and Napoleon, but of surrounding Court

life.

Madame de Rémusat, born Claire de Vergennes, was a woman of superior

descent and endowments; her grandson may feel a pardonable pride in

setting forth her virtues. Her father and grandfather were among the

many political victims of the Revolution, perishing in 1794 upon the

same scaffold, three days before the fall of Robespierre. Her mother

took the young girl and her sister to a retired spot in the valley of

Montmorency, whither they were followed by a friend of the family,

Augustin de Rémusat, who won the hand of Claire.

Among the neighbours, during the months of retirement from political

storm, was Madame de Beauharnais, who in 1796 became the wife of

Bonaparte, and later the famous Empress Josephine. A warm friendship

sprang up between the two families, and when Josephine removed to Paris

to take her exalted place, Madame de Rémusat went with her as a

lady-in-waiting; while M. de Rémusat was made Prefect of the Palace, in

1802.

These Memoirs are an exact record of the life of the author, as well as

a survey of the first years of the nineteenth century. They show us what

changes the establishment of the Empire effected at Court, and how life

there constantly shifted to reflect the changing fortunes of its master.

The figure of Napoleon stands out boldly, albeit sketched with an

unsympathetic pen. The lady-in-waiting’s loyalty was entirely upon the

side of her mistress in the latter’s struggle against the Bonaparte

family; and when the downfall of Josephine occurred, Madame de Rémusat

followed her into retirement. It was then that she took up her pen to

write of historic people and affairs. Her first manuscripts, however,

were destroyed, in 1815, the author fearing that they would compromise

her family politically by their outspoken criticisms. Napoleon had

escaped from Elba, and none could prophesy what a day might bring forth.

In 1818 she began the subject afresh, inspired, as she says, by her

“love of truth,” and desiring to refute certain opinions advanced by

Madame de Staël’s newly published “Considerations upon the French

Revolution.” The circumstances of the renewed literary labour are set

forth interestingly in Paul de Rémusat’s story. The Memoirs, he says,

were to have been divided into five parts, treating of five distinct

epochs. Only three were completed, treating of the important interval

between the years 1802 and 1809. This manuscript left unfinished at

Madame de Rémusat’s death, in 1821, awaited publication for sixty years,

when the people and the events which it described so freely had long

since passed away. It was not until 1881, that the grandson of the

author gave them to the world. His reasons therefor and the story of the

manuscript itself are an appetising foretaste of this work written by a

person famed for her sincerity, clear vision, and “talent for being

true.”

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME I

CORONATION OF THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE

_from the painting by Louis David_

“BONAPARTE LIKED WOMEN TO DRESS WELL,” ETC.

_from the painting by F. Simm_

“SOVEREIGNS, PRINCES, MILITARY OFFICERS, PRIESTS, WOMEN”

_from the painting by Adrien Moreau_

VOLUME II

“MY POOR JOSEPHINE, I CANNOT LEAVE YOU”

_from the painting by L. J. Pott_

“FOR TWELVE HOURS THEY FOUGHT WITHOUT EITHER

SIDE BEING ABLE TO CLAIM THE VICTORY”

_from the painting by F. Schommer_

QUEEN LOUISE TRYING TO WIN FAVOR FROM NAPOLEON

FOR PRUSSIA

_from the painting by R. Eichstadt_

P R E F A C E

I

MY father bequeathed to me the manuscript of the memoirs of my

grandmother, who was lady-in-waiting to the Empress Josephine,

accompanied by an injunction that I should publish them. He regarded

those memoirs as extremely important to the history of the first portion

of the present century, and had frequently contemplated publishing them

himself; but he was always hindered from doing so, either by his other

duties, by his many labors, or by certain scruples. He deferred the

moment at which the public was to be made acquainted with these valuable

reminiscences of an epoch—recent, indeed, but respecting which the

present generation is so ill informed—precisely because that epoch was

recent, and many persons who had been involved in its important events

were still living. Although the author of these memoirs can not be

accused of intentional malice, she passes judgment upon persons and

things very freely. A certain consideration, which is not always

consonant with the verity of history, is due, not only to the living,

but to the children of the dead; the years passed on, however, and the

reasons for silence diminished with the lapse of time.

About 1848 my father would perhaps have allowed this manuscript to see

the light; but the empire and the Emperor returned, and then the book

might have been regarded either as a piece of flattery tendered to the

son of Queen Hortense, who is very gently handled by the writer, or as a

direct insult, on other points, to the dynasty. Circumstances had thus

given a polemic character—an aspect of actuality, as the phrase

goes—to a work which should be regarded as a candid and impartial

history, the narrative of a remarkable woman, who relates with simple

sincerity that which she witnessed at the court and during the reign of

the Emperor, and who records her estimate of him as an individual. In

any case, it is probable that the book would have been prosecuted, and

its publication interdicted. I may add, lest any should consider these

reasons insufficient, that my father, who was always willing that his

politics, his opinions, and his personal conduct should be discussed by

the critics and the press, who lived in the full glare of publicity, yet

shrank with great reluctance from placing names which were dear to him

before the public. That they should incur the slightest censure, that

they should be uttered with any severity of tone, he dreaded extremely.

He was timid when either his mother or his son was in question. His love

for his mother had been the “grand passion” of his life. To her he

ascribed all the happiness of his youth, every merit which he possessed,

and all the success of every kind that had come to him throughout his

whole existence. He derived from her his qualities alike of heart and

mind; he was bound to her by the tie of close similarity of ideas, as

well as by that of filial affection. Her memory, her letters, her

thoughts occupied a place in his life which few suspected, for he seldom

spoke of her, precisely because he was always thinking of her, and he

would have feared imperfect sympathy from others in his admiration of

her who was incomparable in his eyes. Who among us does not know what it

is to be united by a passionate, almost fierce affection to one who is

no more; ceaselessly to think of that beloved one, to question, to

dream, to be always under the impression of the vanished presence—of

the silent counsels; to feel that the life gone from us is mixed up with

our own life, every day, not only on great occasions, and in all our

actions, whether public or private; and yet, that we can not bear to

speak to others of the ever-present occupant of our thoughts—no, not

even to our dearest friends—and can not even hear the dear name uttered

without secret pain and disquiet? Rarely, indeed, can even the sweetness

of praise lavished upon that name by a friend or a stranger avail to

soothe our deep, mysterious trouble, or render it endurable.

While, however, a proper and natural sentiment dictates that memoirs

should not appear until a considerable time has elapsed, it is equally

desirable that their publication should not be delayed until all trace

of the facts related, of the impressions made, or of the eye-witnesses

of events has passed away. In order that the accuracy, or at least the

sincerity of memoirs may not be disputed, each family should be in a

position to substantiate them by its own recollections; and it is well

that the generation which reads them should follow that which they

depict. The records they contain are all the more useful because the

times which they chronicle have not yet become altogether historic. This

is our case at the present moment, and the great name of Napoleon is

still a party battle-cry. It is interesting to introduce a new element

into the strife which rages around that majestic shade. Although the

epoch of the First Empire has been much discussed by the writers of

memoirs, the inner life of the imperial palace has never been handled

freely, and in detail; and for this good reasons have existed. The

functionaries or the frequenters of the court of Napoleon I. did not

care to reveal with entire unreserve the story of the time they had

passed in his service. The majority, having joined the Legitimist ranks

after the Restoration, were humiliated by the remembrance that they had

served the usurper, especially in offices which are generally held to be

ennobled only by the hereditary greatness of him who confers them; and

their descendants would have been disconcerted had such manuscripts been

left to them, by their authors, with the obligation of giving them to

the world. It would, perhaps, be difficult to find another editor, also

a grandson, who could publish such a work so willingly as I. The talent

of the writer and the utility of her book affect me much more than the

difference between the opinions of my grandmother and those of her

descendants. My father’s life, his renown, the political creed which is

his most precious bequest to me, absolve me from any necessity for

explaining how and why it is that I do not necessarily adopt all the

views of the author of these Memoirs. On the contrary, it would be easy

to find in this book the first traces of that liberal spirit which

animated my grandparents in the first days of the Revolution, which was

transmitted to and happily developed in their son. It was almost being

liberal already not to regard the principles of political liberty with

hatred at the end of the last century, when so many people were ready to

lay crimes which tarnished the Revolution to the charge of that liberty,

and to pass judgment, notwithstanding the true admiration and the deep

gratitude with which they regarded the Emperor, on the defects of his

character and the evils of despotism.

Such valuable impartiality was rare indeed among the contemporaries of

the great Emperor, nor have we met with it in our own time among the

servants of a sovereign far less likely to dazzle those who approached

him. Such a sentiment is, however, easy at the present day. Events have

brought France into a state in which she is ready to receive everything

with equanimity, to judge every one with equity. We have observed many

changes of opinion concerning the early years of the present century.

One need not have reached a very advanced stage of life to recall a time

when the legend of the Empire was accepted even by the enemies of the

Empire; when it might be admired with impunity; when children believed

in an Emperor, who was at once a grand personage and a good fellow,

somewhat like the notion of God entertained by Béranger, who indeed

turned both God and Napoleon into heroes for his odes. The most

determined adversaries of despotism, those who were themselves destined

to undergo persecution by a new Empire, brought back to France the

mortal remains of Napoleon the Great—his “ashes,” as, lending an

antique coloring to a modern ceremony, it was the fashion to say just

then. At a later date, experience of the Second Empire opened the eyes,

even of those who do not admit passion into politics, to the truth

respecting the first. The disasters brought upon France in 1870, by

Napoleon III., have reminded us that it was the other Emperor who

commenced that fatal work; and an almost general malediction rises to

the lips of the nation at that name—Bonaparte—which was once uttered

with respectful enthusiasm. So fluctuating is the justice of nations! It

is, however, allowable to say that the justice of France to-day comes

nearer to true justice than at the time when, swayed by the longing for

rest and the dread of liberty, she surrendered herself to the passion

for military glory. Between these two extremes how many modes of opinion

have arisen, and gone through their several phases of triumph and

decline! It will be evident to all readers, I hope, that the author of

the following Memoirs, who came to the Court in her youth, regarded

those problems which were then and still are in debate, although General

Bonaparte thought he had solved them, with an entire absence of

prejudice. Her opinions were formed by degrees, like the opinions of

France itself, which was also very young in those days. She was at first

dazzled and aroused to enthusiasm by the great genius of the age, but

she afterward recovered the balance of her judgment by the aid of events

and of contact with other minds. More than one of our contemporaries may

find in these Memoirs an explanation of the conduct or the state of mind

of some persons of their kin whose Bonapartism or Liberalism at

different epochs has hitherto appeared inexplicable to them. And

also—not their least merit in my eyes—these Memoirs will reveal to the

reader the first germs of a remarkable talent, which was developed in

the writer’s son to a supreme degree.

A brief summary of the life of my grandmother, or at least of the period

which preceded her arrival at Court, is indispensable to the reader’s

comprehension of the impressions and the remembrances which she brought

thither. My father had frequently projected a complete biography of his

parents, and had, indeed, sketched out some portions of the work. He did

not leave any of it in a finished condition; but a great number of notes

and fragments written by his own hand, concerning the members of his

family, his own youthful opinions, and persons whom he had known, render

it easy to narrate the incidents of my grandmother’s early years, the

feelings with which she entered upon her life at Court, and the

circumstances that led her to write her Memoirs. It is also in my power

to add some comments upon her by her son, which will lead the reader to

know and esteem her. It was my father’s strong desire that her readers

should be inspired with kindly sentiments toward the object of his own

devotion, love and admiration; and I believe that the perusal of her

reminiscences, and especially of her correspondence, which is also to be

given to the public in due time, can not fail to secure the realization

of his wish.

II

Claire Elisabeth Jeanne Gravier de Vergennes was born on the 5th of

January, 1780. Her father was Charles Gravier de Vergennes, Counselor to

the Parliament of Burgundy, Master of Requests, afterward Intendant of

Auch, and finally Director of the Vingtièmes.[1] My great-grandfather

was not, therefore, as it has been frequently but erroneously stated,

the minister who was so well known as the Comte de Vergennes. That

minister had an elder brother who was called “the Marquis,” the first of

the family, I believe, who bore such a title. This marquis had quitted

the magistracy to enter upon a diplomatic career. He was acting as

minister in Switzerland in 1777, when the French treaties with the

Helvetian Republic were renewed. Afterward he was given the title of

ambassador. His son, Charles Gravier de Vergennes, who was born at Dijon

in 1751, married Adelaide Françoise de Bastard, born about 1760. This

lady’s family came originally from Gascony, and a branch of it, whose

members distinguished themselves at the bar and in the magistracy, was

settled at Toulouse. Her father, Dominique de Bastard, born at Laffitte

(Haute-Garonne), had been one of the counselors to the parliament, and

was the senior counselor at the time of his death. His bust is in the

Salle des Illustres in the Capitol. He took an active part in the

measures of Chancellor Maupeou. His daughter’s husband, M. de Vergennes,

being a member of the legal profession, bore, as was the custom under

the old _régime_, no title. It is said that he was a man of only

ordinary ability, who took his pleasure in life without much

discrimination, but also that he had good sense and was a useful

official. He belonged to that administrative school of which MM. de

Trudaine were the leaders.

Madame de Vergennes, of whom my father constantly spoke, was a person of

more individuality of character; she was both clever and good. When he

was quite a child, my father was on most confidential terms with her, as

grandsons frequently are with their grandmothers. In his bright and

kindly nature, his pleasant raillery, which was never malicious, he

resembled her; and from her he also inherited his musical gifts, a good

voice for singing, and a quick memory for the airs and couplets of the

vaudevilles of the day. He never lost his habit of humming the popular

songs of the old _régime_. Madame de Vergennes had the ideas of her

time—a touch of philosophy, stopping short of incredulity, and a

certain repugnance to the Court, although she regarded Louis XVI. with

affection and respect. Her intellect, which was bright, practical, and

independent, was highly cultivated; her conversation was brilliant and

sometimes very free, after the manner of the period. Nevertheless, she

gave her two daughters, Claire and Alix, a strict and indeed rather

solitary education, for it was the fashion of that day that parents

should see but little of their children. The two sisters studied in a

large, fireless room, apart from the rest of the house, under the

inspection of a governess, and were instructed in what may be called the

frivolous arts—music, drawing, and dancing. They were seldom taken to

see a play, but they were occasionally indulged with a visit to the

opera, and now and then with a ball.

M. de Vergennes had not desired or foreseen the Revolution; but he was

neither displeased nor alarmed by it. He and his friends belonged to

that citizen class, ennobled by holding public offices, which seemed to

be the nation itself, and he can not have found himself much out of his

place among those who were called “the electors of ’89.” He was elected

a member of the Council of the Commune, and made a major in the National

Guard. M. de Lafayette, whose granddaughter was to become the wife of M.

de Vergennes’s grandson, forty years after, and M. Royer-Collard, whom

that grandson was to succeed at the French Academy, treated him like one

of themselves. His opinions were more in accordance with those of M.

Royer-Collard than with those of M. de Lafayette, and the French

Revolution soon shot far ahead of him. He did not, however, feel any

inclination to emigrate. His patriotism, as well as his attachment to

Louis XVI., led him to remain in France; and thus he was unable to elude

that fate which, in 1793, threatened all who were in positions similar

to his and of the same way of thinking. He was falsely accused of

intending to emigrate, by the Administration of the Départment of Saône

et Loire; his property was placed under sequestration; and he was

arrested in Paris, at the house in the Rue Saint Eustache which he had

inhabited since 1788. The man who arrested him had no warrant from the

Committee of Public Safety except for the arrest of M. de Vergennes’s

father. He took the son because he lived with the father, and both died

on the same scaffold on the 6th Thermidor (24th July, 1794), three days

before the fall of Robespierre.

M. de Vergennes’s death left his unhappy wife and daughters unprotected,

and in straitened circumstances, as he had sold his estate in Burgundy a

short time previously, and its price had been confiscated by the nation.

There remained to them, however, one friend, not powerful, indeed, but

full of zeal and good will. This was a young man with whom M. de

Vergennes had become acquainted in the early days of the Revolution,

whose family had formerly been of some importance in the commercial

world, and also in the civic administration of Marseilles, so that the

younger members were taking their places in the magistracy and in the

army, in short, among “the privileged,” as the phrase then went. This

young man, Augustin Laurent de Rémusat, was born at Valensoles, in

Provence, on the 28th of August, 1762. After having studied, with great

credit, at Juilly, the former seat of that Oratorian College which still

exists near Paris, he was nominated, at twenty years of age,

advocate-general to the _Cour des Aides_ and the _Chambre des Comptes

Réunies_ of Provence. My father has sketched the portrait of that young

man, his arrival in Paris, and his life in the midst of the new society.

The following note tells, better than I could, how M. de Rémusat loved

and married Mademoiselle Claire de Vergennes:

“The society of Aix, a city in which nobles dwelt and a

parliament assembled, was of the brilliant order. My father

lived a great deal in society. He was of an agreeable presence,

had a great deal of pleasant humor, fine and polished manners,

high spirits, and a reputation for gallantry. He sought and

obtained all the social success that a young man could desire.

Nevertheless, he attended sedulously to his profession, which he

liked, and he married, in 1783, Mademoiselle de Sannes, the

daughter of the _Procureur-Général_ of his _Compagnie_. This

marriage was dissolved by the death of Madame de Rémusat, who

died shortly after the birth of a daughter.

“The Revolution broke out; the supreme courts were suppressed;

and the settling of their business was a serious and important

affair. In order to carry it through, the _Cour des Aides_ sent

a deputation to Paris. My father was one of the delegates. He

has often told me that he then had occasion to see M. de

Mirabeau, deputy for Aix, on the business of his mission; and,

notwithstanding his prejudices as an adherent of the old

parliaments, he was charmed with Mirabeau’s pompous politeness.

My father never told me details of his manner of living, so that

I do not know what were the circumstances under which he went to

the house of my grandfather Vergennes. He passed through the

terrible years of the Revolution alone and unknown in Paris, and

without any personal mishaps. Society no longer existed. His

company was therefore all the more agreeable, and even the more

useful to my grandmother (Madame de Vergennes), who was involved

in great anxieties and misfortunes. My father used to tell me

that my grandfather was a commonplace sort of man, but he soon

learned to appreciate my grandmother very highly, and she

conceived a liking for him. She was a wise, moderate-minded

woman, who entertained no fancies, cherished no prejudices, and

gave way to no impulses. She distrusted everything in which

there was any exaggeration, and detested affectation of every

kind, but she was readily touched by solid worth and by genuine

feeling; while her clear-headedness and her practical, somewhat

sarcastic turn of mind preserved her from everything that lacked

prudence or morality. Her head was never betrayed by her heart;

but, as she had suffered from the neglect of a husband to whom

she was superior, she was disposed to make inclination and

choice the ruling motives of marriage.

“Immediately after the death of my grandfather, a decree was

issued, by which all nobles were ordered to quit Paris. Madame

de Vergennes retired to Saint Gratien, in the valley of

Montmorency, with her two daughters, Claire and Alix; and she

gave my father permission to follow her thither. His presence

was precious to them. His bright and cheerful nature, his

amiability, and careful attentions to those he loved, made him a

charming companion. His taste for a quiet life, the country, and

seclusion, and his cultivated mind, exactly fitted him for a

family circle composed of intelligent persons, and in which

education was always going on. I can not believe that my

grandmother did not early foresee and acquiesce in that which

was destined to happen, even supposing there was not at that

time anything to read in the heart of her daughter. It is

certain, for my mother says so in several of her letters, that,

although she was then only a child, her prematurely serious turn

of mind, her sensitive and emotional nature, her vivid

imagination, and finally, the combined influences of intimacy,

solitude, and misfortune, all united to inspire her with an

interest in my father, which had from the first all the

characteristics of a lofty and abiding sentiment, I do not think

I have ever met a woman in whom so much moral strictness was

combined with so much romantic sensibility as in my mother. Her

youth, her extreme youth, was, as it were, steadied by those

fortunate circumstances which bound her to duty by ties of

passion, and procured for her that rare combination, peace of

soul and the delightful agitation of the heart.

“She was not tall, but her figure was elegant and well

proportioned. She was fair and plump; indeed, it used to be

feared that she would grow too fat. Her eyes were fine and

expressive, black, like her hair; her features were regular, but

rather too large. Her countenance was grave, almost imposing;

but the intelligent kindliness of her glance tempered the

gravity of her features very pleasantly. Her strong,

well-trained, fertile intellect, had certain virile qualities,

with which the extreme vividness of her imagination frequently

clashed. She possessed sound judgment and keen powers of

observation, and she was entirely unaffected in her manners and

in her modes of expression, although she was not without a

certain subtlety of ideas. In reality, she was profoundly

reasonable, but she was headstrong; her intellect was more

reasonable than herself. In her youth she lacked gayety and

probably ease, may have appeared to be pedantic because she was

serious, affected because she was silent, absent-minded, and

indifferent to almost all the small things of every-day life.

But, with her mother, whose cheerful moods she sometimes

crossed, with her husband, whose simple tastes and easy temper

she never crossed, she was not wanting in richness and freedom.

She had even a kind of gayety of her own, which developed as she

grew older, when, having been very absent and absorbed in her

own thoughts while she was very young, she became more like her

mother. I have often thought that, if she had lived long enough

to share the house in which I am writing to-day, she would have

been the merriest of us all.”

My father wrote these lines in 1857, at Laffitte (Haute-Garonne), where

all those whom he loved were assembled, and we were gay and happy. In

quoting them I am somewhat outrunning my narrative, for he speaks here

of his mother as of a woman and not as of a young girl, and Claire de

Vergennes, when she married, early in the year 1796, was hardly sixteen

years old.

M. and Mme. de Rémusat—for thus I shall designate them henceforth, for

the sake of clearness in my story—lived sometimes in Paris, and

sometimes in a modest country house at Saint Gratien, a residence which

had two strong recommendations—the beauty of the landscape and the

attraction of the neighborhood.

Nearest and pleasantest of neighbors were the owners of Sannois, with

whom Madame de Vergennes was very intimate. Jean Jacques Rousseau’s

“Confessions,” Madame d’Epinay’s “Mémoires,” and a hundred works of the

last century as well, have made the place and the persons known to the

world. Madame d’Houdetot (Sophie de Lalive) had lived peacefully, in her

old age, throughout the troublous time of the Revolution in that country

house, in the society of her husband and of M. de Saint Lambert. Between

the famous trio and the young couple at Saint Gratien so close an

intimacy was formed that, when the house at Saint Gratien was sold, my

grandparents hired one within a shorter distance of the residence of

their friends, and a way of communication was made between the gardens

of their respective abodes. By degrees, however, M. de Rémusat got into

the habit of going to Paris more and more frequently; and, as the times

became quieter, he began to think of emerging from obscurity, and from

the narrow circumstances to which he was reduced by the confiscation of

the property of his wife’s father and the loss of his own place in the

magistracy. As is always the case in France, it was of employment in

some public function that he thought. He had no relations with the

Government, or even with M. de Talleyrand, who was then Foreign

Minister, but he directed his efforts toward that department, and

obtained, if not exactly a place, at least an occupation, which was

likely to lead to a place, in the office of the solicitors to the

Ministry.

Besides the agreeable and intellectual relations which they maintained

with Sannois, M. and Mme. de Rémusat had formed an intimacy no less

close, but which was destined to exercise a much greater influence over

their fortunes, with Madame de Beauharnais, who, in 1796, became the

wife of Bonaparte. When her friend had acquired power through her

all-powerful husband, Madame de Vergennes applied to her on behalf of

her son-in-law, who wished to enter the Council of State or the

Administration. The First Consul, however, or his wife, had a different

idea of what ought to be done. The consideration and respect in which

Madame de Vergennes was held, her social station, her name—which was

allied both to the old _régime_ and to the new ideas—gave a certain

value to the relations of her family with the consular palace, which at

that time had but little intercourse with Parisian society. Quite

unexpectedly, M. de Rémusat was appointed Prefect of the Palace, in

1802; and shortly afterward Madame de Rémusat became Lady-in-Waiting

(_Dame pour Accompagner_) to Madame Bonaparte, a title which was soon

changed into the better sounding one of Lady of the Palace (_Dame du

Palais_).

III

Persons of the way of thinking of M. and Mme. de Rémusat had no

sacrifice to make in casting in their lot with the new _régime_. They

had neither the extravagant sentiments of the Royalists, nor the

austerity of the Republicans. No doubt their attitude of mind approached

more nearly to that of the Royalists than to that of the Republicans,

but their royalism reduced itself to pious veneration for Louis XVI. The

misfortunes of that unhappy prince rendered his memory sacred, and his

person had always been regarded in the family of M. de Vergennes with

peculiar respect; but “Legitimacy” had not yet been invented, and those

persons who most deeply deplored the fall of the old _régime_, or rather

that of the ancient dynasty, did not hold themselves under any

obligation to believe that everything done in France in the absence of

the Bourbons was null and void. Pure and unalloyed admiration was

inspired by the young general who was reëstablishing material, if not

moral order, with such brilliant success, in a society which was

disturbed after a fashion very different from that of those successive

later times, in which so many worthless “saviours” have turned up.

Public functionaries in those days adhered to the opinion which was very

natural under the old _régime_, that an official is responsible only for

what he does, and not for either the acts or the origin of the

Government. The sense of “solidarity” does not exist in absolute

monarchies. The parliamentary _régime_ has happily rendered us more

sensitive, and all honest people now admit the collective responsibility

of all the agents of a power. One could not nowadays serve a government

whose tendency and general policy one did not approve; but it was

otherwise in former times. My father—who had more right than any one

else to be strict in these matters, and who, perhaps, owed somewhat of

his extreme political scrupulousness to the difficult position in which

he had seen his parents placed during his own childhood, between their

private impressions and their official duties—explains these shades of

difference in an unpublished letter to M. Sainte Beuve, to whom he had

communicated certain biographical details for an article in the “Revue

des Deux Mondes.”

“It was not a _pis aller_, from necessity, weakness, or as a

temporary expedient, that my parents attached themselves to the

new _régime_. Of their free will and with entire confidence they

united themselves with its fortunes. If you add to that all the

pleasures of an easy and prominent position to be stepped into

from one of poverty and obscurity, the curiosity which a court

of so novel a kind inspired, the incomparable interest of the

spectacle of a man like the Emperor at an epoch when he was

irreproachable, young, and still amiable, you can easily

conceive the attraction which induced my parents to overlook all

that was in reality opposed to their tastes, their reason, and

even their true interests in this new position. At the end of

two or three years, they had learned too well that a court is

always a court, and that all is not pleasure in the personal

service of an absolute master, even though he may charm and

dazzle. But this did not prevent their being for a long time

well enough satisfied with their lot. My mother especially was

much amused with all that passed before her eyes, and she was on

very good terms with the Empress, who was extremely kind and

generous, while she enthusiastically admired the Emperor. He

treated my mother with flattering distinction. She was almost

the only woman with whom he ever talked. My mother would

sometimes say, after the Empire had ceased to exist:

‘Va, je t’ai trop aimé pour ne pas te haïr!’”

Of the impressions made by the new Court upon the new Lady of the Palace

we have no record. The security of the Post-office was very doubtful.

Madame de Vergennes burned all her daughter’s letters, and the

correspondence of the latter with her husband does not commence until

some years later, during the Emperor’s journeys in Italy and Germany.

Nevertheless, we can perceive from her Memoirs, although they do not

abound in personal details, how strange and novel everything seemed to

so very young a woman, transplanted all of a sudden into this palace,

and an eye-witness of the private life of the glorious chief of an

unknown government. She was very serious, as, when they are not very

frivolous the young are apt to be, and much disposed to observation and

reflection. She seems to have had no taste for display, no great

solicitude about external things, no turn for gossip or the running down

of other people, no love of talking or display. What was thought of her

at that time? We can not tell. We only know, from certain passages in

sundry letters and memoirs, that she was considered clever, and that

people were a little afraid of her. Probably, however, her companions

thought her pedantic rather than dangerous. She had a considerable

“success,” especially at first; for in its early days the Court was not

numerous—there were few distinctions or favors to be schemed for,

rivalry was not very brisk or ardent. Little by little, however, this

little society became a real court. Now, courtiers are always afraid of

intellect, and especially of that disposition, unintelligible to them,

which clever people have to interest themselves in a disinterested

manner, so to speak, in knowing things and judging characters, without

even thinking of turning their knowledge to their own advantage.

Courtiers always suspect that every opinion has a hidden aim. Persons of

quick intellect are very strongly impressed by the spectacle of human

affairs, even when they are merely looking on at them. And that faculty

is the most incomprehensible to those who do not possess it, and who

attribute its effects to some personal motive, or interested

calculation. They suspect intrigue or resentment every time that they

observe a movement in any direction, but they have no idea of the

spontaneous and gratuitous action of the mind. Every one has been

exposed to mistrust of this kind, which is more to be dreaded when a

woman, endowed with excessive activity of imagination, and drawn on by

her intelligence to form opinions on matters out of her sphere, is in

question. Many persons, especially in that somewhat coarse society,

would detect egotism and pretension in her life and conversation, and

accuse her unduly of ambition.

That her husband was entirely devoid of ambition, and free from any

disposition to intrigue, was evident to all. The position in which the

favor of the First Consul had placed him did not suit him; he would, no

doubt, have preferred some laborious administrative function to one

which demanded nothing of him but suavity and a graceful demeanor. From

the “Memoirs,” from his own letters, and from my father’s account of

him, we gather that M. de Rémusat was a man of discreet conduct, with

keen wits, and a cheerful and even temper—not at all a person

calculated to make enemies. Indeed, he would never have had any, but for

a certain shyness, which, little as it seems to harmonize with

conversational powers and an agreeable manner, is, nevertheless,

occasionally allied with them. His taste for quiet life, and some

indolence and timidity of character, had impelled him more and more

toward retirement and isolation. Modesty and self-esteem mingled in his

nature; and, without rendering him insensible to the honors of the post

which he had obtained, they sometimes made him ashamed of the solemn

trifles to which that very post forced him to devote his life. He

believed himself to be made for better things, but he did not care for

toiling in search of that which did not come to him of itself. He took

but little pleasure in expressing the art, in which he was probably not

deficient, of managing men. He did not love to put himself forward, and

his indolent temperament induced him to let things take their chance. He

afterward became a hard-working prefect, but he was a negligent and

inactive courtier. He employed his skill simply to avoid disputes, and

he discharged his official functions with quiet good taste. After having

had many friends, and entered into numerous relations, he let them drop

through, or at least he never seemed to do anything to retain them.

Unless great care be taken, ties are loosened, recollections are

effaced, rivalries are formed, and all the chances of ambition escape

one’s grasp. M. de Rémusat had no skill in playing a part, forming

connections, bringing people together, or contriving the opportunities

of fortune or success. He seems never to have regretted this. It would

be easy for me to trace his motives—to depict his character in detail,

and to narrate his errors, his grievances, and even his sufferings; for

was he not my grandfather?

The first severe trial which M. and Mme. de Rémusat had to endure in

their new position was the murder of the Duc d’Enghien. How profound was

the grief which they felt when the man whom they ardently admired, as

the express image of power and genius, and whom they strove to love,

stained his hands with innocent blood, and they were forced to recognize

that such a deed was simply the result of a cold and inhuman

calculation, the following narrative will prove. It will, indeed, be

seen that the impression made by the crime upon all honest persons at

the Court was even deeper than that which it produced outside among the

general public, who had become almost indifferent, through custom, to

deeds of this kind. Even among the Royalists, who were absolutely

inimical to the Government, the event caused more sorrow than

indignation, so perverted had the public mind become in political

matters and respecting State expedients! Where could the men of that day

have acquired principles? Was it the old _régime_ or the Terror which

could have instructed them? A short time afterward, the Sovereign

Pontiff came to Paris, and, among the reasons which made him hesitate to

crown the new Charlemagne, it is very doubtful whether this one was ever

even weighed for a moment. The press was dumb, and men must be possessed

of information before they are aroused to anger. Let us hope that

civilization has now made so much progress that a repetition of similar

incidents would be impossible. We should, however, be restrained from

optimism on this point by the remembrance of what we have witnessed in

our own time.

The following Memoirs are an exact record of the life of the author, and

the history of the early years of the present century. They show us what

changes the establishment of the Empire effected at the Court, and how

life there and its relations became more difficult and embarrassing; how

by degrees the prestige of the Emperor declined, in proportion as he

misused his great gifts, his power, and his chances. Mistakes, reverses,

and failures were multiplied; and at the same time the adhesion of the

earliest admirers of the Emperor became less fervent, and the manner of

serving reflected the mode of thinking. Two parties, the Beauharnais and

the Bonapartes, disputed the favor of the sovereign master with each

other; and M. and Mme. de Rémusat were regarded as belonging to the

former, by reason of their natural feelings and their family relations.

Their position was consequently affected in no small degree by the

downfall and departure of the Empress Josephine. Everything was,

however, much changed, and, when her lady-in-waiting followed her into

her retirement, the Emperor seems to have made but little effort to

detain Mme. de Rémusat. Perhaps he was glad that a person of good sense

and quick intelligence should watch over his forsaken and somewhat

imprudent wife; but it must also be taken into account that my

grandmother’s delicate health, her love of quiet, and her distaste for

all festivities, had isolated her almost entirely from court life.

Her husband, wearied and disgusted, gave way every day more and more to

his discontent, and to his inability to lay himself out to please the

great personages who were either cold or hostile to him. He neglected

his functions as Chamberlain in order to concentrate himself on his

duties as “Administrator of Theatres,” but the latter he fulfilled

admirably. A great part of the actual organization of the Théâtre

Français is due to him. My father, born in 1797, and very young when his

father was Chamberlain to the Emperor, was remarkable as a child for his

intelligence and his observation, and he retained a very distinct

recollection of that period of discouragement and ennui. He has told me

that he frequently knew his father to return from Saint Cloud utterly

worn out, and tried beyond his patience by the burden which the

arbitrariness and the ill temper of the Emperor laid upon all who

approached him. That the child was an eye- and ear-witness of his

complaints at those moments in which restraints are cast off is evident,

for, when he was more master of himself, he was fain to represent

himself as satisfied with his master and his position, and he endeavored

to conceal his vexations from his son. Perhaps he was better calculated

to serve the simple, tranquil, sober, intellectual Bonaparte, while

still a novice in the pleasures of sovereignty, than the _blasé_ and

intoxicated Napoleon, who exhibited the worse taste possible on all

State occasions, and became more exacting every day in the matter of

ceremonial and adulatory observance.

An apparently trifling circumstance, whose gravity was not at first

perceived by those whom it concerned, increased the difficulties of the

situation, and hurried on the inevitable catastrophe. Although the

history of the affair is insignificant, it will not be read without

interest, and it sheds a light upon times now happily far removed from

us, and which Frenchmen, if the lessons of the past are to avail, will

not suffer to return.

The celebrated Lavoisier was very intimate with M. de Vergennes. He

died, as every one knows, on the scaffold on the 19th Floreal, year 2

(9th May, 1794). His widow, who contracted a second marriage with M.

Rumford, a German _savant_, or at least a commercial man aiming at

science—for he was the inventor of the Prussian stoves, and also of the

thermometer that bears his name—remained on terms of close friendship

with Madame de Vergennes and her family. This second marriage had not

been happy, and compassion was, very justly, excited on behalf of the

ill-treated wife, who was compelled to invoke the protection of the law

against unendurable tyranny and exaction. As M. Rumford was a foreigner,

it was in the power of the police to procure information respecting him

from his own country, to reprimand him severely, and even to oblige him

to leave France. This, I believe, was eventually done, and it was at the

request of my grandmother that M. de Talleyrand and M. Fouché took up

the matter. Madame Rumford was anxious to evince her gratitude to those

personages, and the following is my father’s account of the results of

her wish:

“My mother consented to invite Madame Rumford to dinner, to meet

M. de Talleyrand and M. Fouché. Surely, it was not an act of

opposition to entertain the High Chamberlain and the Minister of

Police at her table! Nevertheless, that meeting—so naturally

brought about, the motive of which was as insignificant as it

was harmless, but which was, I acknowledge, unusual, and never

occurred again—was represented to the Emperor, in the reports

that were sent out to him in Spain, as a political conference,

and the proof of an important coalition. Although I do not

contend that it was impossible for M. de Talleyrand and M.

Fouché to have taken advantage of the opportunity of talking

together; or deny that my mother, perceiving the respective

inclinations of the two, or put upon the scent by something that

was said by M. de Talleyrand, might have regarded the occasion

as a favorable one for bringing about an interview which amused

herself at the same time that it was useful to one of her

friends, I have not the slightest reason for supposing that such

was the case. I am, on the contrary, perfectly certain of having

heard my father and mother quote this incident, when reverting

to it some years afterward, as an instance of the unexpected

importance which may be assumed by a fortuitous and

insignificant matter, and say, smilingly, that Madame Rumford

little knew what she had cost them.

“They added that on that occasion the word ‘triumvirate’ had

been uttered, and my mother had said, laughingly, ‘My dear, I am

sorry for it; but your lot could only be that of Lepidus.’ My

father also said that certain persons of the Court, not enemies

of his, had sometimes spoken of ‘the Conference’ to him as a

fact, and had said, though without any hostile intention, ‘Now

that it is all over, tell us what it was about, and what it was

you really meant to do?’”

This narrative gives us an insight into the life of Courts, and also

testifies to the intimacy of my grandparents with M. de Talleyrand.

Although the former Bishop of Autun does not seem to have been actuated

in this particular instance by that kind of feeling which he habitually

carried into his relations with women, he both liked and admired Mme. de

Rémusat I have found amusing evidence of his sentiments in a sketch of

her which he wrote, on the official paper of the Senate, during the

leisure time of a sitting at which he presided as “Vice-Grand Elector,”

probably in 1811:

“CONSERVATIVE SENATE, }

“LUXEMBOURG, _April 29th_. }

“I have a fancy for commencing the portrait of Clari. She is not

what the world calls a beauty, but every one agrees in

pronouncing her an agreeable woman. She is twenty-eight or

twenty-nine years old, and she is neither more nor less blooming

than she ought to be at twenty-eight. Her figure is good, her

carriage is graceful and unaffected. Clari is not thin; she is

only slight and refined. Her complexion is not brilliant, but

she has the special charm of looking fairer in proportion as she

is in a stronger light. To describe Clari in a sentence, let me

say that the better she is known the more amiable she appears.

“Clari has large, black eyes; their long lids give an expression

of mingled tenderness and vivacity which is striking, even when

her mind is inactive and she does not want to express anything.

Those occasions are, however, very rare. Lively ideas, quick

perception, a vivid imagination, exquisite sensibility, and

constant kindness are expressed in her glance. To give an idea

of that, it would be necessary to paint the soul which depicts

itself in it, and then Clari would be the most beautiful of

beings. I am not sufficiently well versed in the rules of

drawing to know whether Clari’s features are quite regular. I

believe her nose is too thick; but I know that she has beautiful

eyes, lips, and teeth. A great part of her forehead is generally

hidden by her hair, and that is a pity. Her smile is rendered as

arch as it is sweet by her two dimples. Her dress is often

careless, but never in bad taste, and she is scrupulously neat.

That neatness forms part of the system of order and decorum from

which Clari never deviates. Clari is not rich, but as she is

moderate in her tastes and above caprice and fancy, she despises

extravagance, and has never perceived that her fortune is

limited, except when she has been obliged to restrain her

benevolence. But, besides the art of giving, she has a thousand

other ways of conferring kindnesses. Always ready to commend

good deeds and to excuse faults, her mind is always bent on

beneficent purposes. Clari affords us a striking proof of how

much superior a kindly wit is to talent which produces only

severity, criticism, and satire. She is more ingenious in her

manner of passing favorable judgments than ever was malignity in

the art of suggesting the false and suppressing the true.

“Clari always vindicates those whose part she takes, but without

offending those whom she confutes. Clari has a large and

cultivated mind. I know no one who can talk better than she; but

she exhibits her superior information only when she is giving

one a proof of her confidence and friendship. Clari’s husband

knows that he possesses a treasure, and has the good sense to

appreciate it. Clari is a good mother; that is her reward.”

The Emperor was displeased at the intimacy between the Grand Chamberlain

and the First Chamberlain, and these Memoirs will show that he tried

more than once to set the two at variance. He even succeeded for a time

in alienating them. But their intimacy was unbroken when M. de

Talleyrand fell into disgrace.

It is well know that honorable motives on his part led to a violent

altercation between himself and his imperial master in January, 1809, at

the period of the Spanish war, which was the beginning of the

misfortunes of the empire, and the result of the Emperor’s errors. Both

M. de Talleyrand and M. Fouché predicted, or at least foreboded, that

public disapprobation and suspicion would be aroused. “Throughout the

whole empire,” writes M. Thiers, “hate was beginning to take the place

of love.” This change was taking place among officials as well as

citizens. Moreover, M. de Montesquiou, a member of the Legislature, who

succeeded M. de Talleyrand in his place at court, was a less important

personage than the latter, who had relegated to the First Chamberlain

not only the troublesome portions of the duties of his post, but also

those which were agreeable, and which conferred distinction. It was a

“come-down” to lose a chief whose own importance enhanced that of the

position next below him. Truly this was a strange time!

Talleyrand, though in disgrace as a minister, and as the holder of one

of the highest posts at Court, had not forfeited the Emperor’s

confidence. The latter would send for him every now and then, and freely

disclose the secret of the question or the circumstance on which he

desired his advice. These consultations went on to the end, even at

those times when the Emperor was talking of sending M. de Talleyrand to

Vincennes. In return, M. de Talleyrand would enter into his views, and

advise him with perfect frankness; and so this strange intercourse was

carried on as if nothing had happened between them.

State policy and the greatness of his own position afforded certain

privileges and consolations to M. de Talleyrand which were beyond the

reach of a chamberlain or a lady-in-waiting. Those who are in close

contact with absolute power do not foresee that the day must come when

their feelings will clash with their interests, and some of their duties

with others. They forget that there are principles of government which

must be guarded by constitutional guarantees. They yield to the natural

desire to be “somebodies” in the state, to serve the established

authority; they do not study the nature and conditions of that

authority. So long as it exacts nothing against their conscience, they

serve it in the sphere to which it has appointed them. But the hour

comes when, without exacting anything new from them, it carries

extravagance, violence, and injustice to such a height that it becomes

hard to obey it, even in things of no moment; they remain, nevertheless,

bound to obedience, while in their inmost soul they are full of

indignation and of pain. Then comes actual desire for its fall. It may

be said that their course is simple; let them resign. But they are

afraid of giving rise to rumor and scandal, of being neither understood

nor approved by public opinion. Moreover, no contract binds the servants

of the state to the conduct of the chief of the state. Having no rights,

they would seem to have no duties. They are powerless for prevention,

and are, therefore, not afraid of having to expiate errors. Thus people

thought in the reign of Louis XIV., and thus they still think in a great

part of Europe; it was thus they thought under Napoleon, and perhaps

they will be of the same opinion again. So shameful and wretched a thing

is absolute power! It paralyzes both the honest scruples and the real

duties of honest men.

IV

Traces of these convictions, or at least of their germ, may be discerned

in the correspondence of M. and Madame de Rémusat, and all things

contributed to confirm them. Direct communication with the Emperor

became more and more infrequent, and his charm of manner, though still

powerful, failed to weaken the impression made by his policy. The

divorce of the Empress restored to Madame de Rémusat, in great part, her

freedom of judgment and the disposal of her time. She attached herself

to the Empress Josephine in her disgrace, a proceeding not calculated to

raise her in the estimation of the Court. Her husband soon after retired

from the post of Keeper of the Wardrobe, under circumstances which are

detailed in these Memoirs, and the coolness increased. I use the word

“coolness” advisedly, because in certain pamphlets written against my

father it was alleged that his family had been guilty of grave offenses,

at which the Emperor was much incensed. That this was quite untrue is

amply proved by the fact that although M. de Rémusat resigned the post

of Keeper of the Wardrobe, he continued to be Chamberlain and Supervisor

of Theatres. He merely gave up the most troublesome and most onerous of

his offices. No doubt those habits of intimacy and confidence which

arise in common every-day life were weakened by his relinquishment of

that post; but, on the other hand, he gained greater freedom and more

frequent intercourse, both with his family and with society, and, as

they were no longer restricted to the drawing-rooms of the Tuileries and

St. Cloud, both husband and wife were enabled to bring more

clear-sightedness and independence of judgment to bear upon the policy

of their sovereign. Before the final disasters, aided by the advice and

predictions of M. de Talleyrand, they foresaw the fall of the Empire,

and were enabled to choose between the possible solutions of the problem

then in course of working out. There was no hope that the Emperor would

be satisfied with a peace more humiliating to himself than to France,

and indeed Europe was no longer in the humor to gratify him even to that

extent.

The public mind turned naturally toward the return of the Bourbons,

notwithstanding certain drawbacks, which were but dimly apprehended. The

_salons_ of Paris, without being actually Royalist, were

anti-revolutionary. At this epoch the plan of making the Bonapartes

heads of the Conservative and Catholic party had not yet been invented.

To bring back the Bourbons was a very momentous resolution, and it was

not adopted without struggles, anxieties, and apprehensions of all

sorts. My father regarded the painful recollection which he always

retained of the attitude of his family in 1814—a family so simple, so

honorable, and so unpretending—as a useful political lesson, one which

contributed, as much as his own reflections, to lead him to believe that

simplicity and straightforwardness are the truest policy. He records in

the following words his own observations on the state of feeling that

prevailed at the fall of the Empire:

“Policy alone reconciled my family to the Restoration. My father

never for a moment regarded his own acquiescence otherwise than

as an absolute necessity, of which he voluntarily accepted the

consequences. It would have been foolish to conceal the nature

of those consequences, or to have endeavored to avoid them

altogether; but they might have been more firmly resisted, or at

least some effort might have been made to reduce their

proportions. My mother, as a woman, was influenced by the

sentimental aspect of Bourbonism, and allowed herself to be

carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment. In every great

political movement there is a fascination, unless one is

preserved from it by party spirit; and this sympathy, combined

with the national taste for declamation, has a large share in

the absurdities which accompany every change of government. My

mother was, however, disgusted from the first by the

exaggeration of sentiment, of opinion, and of ridiculous

language, that prevailed. The humiliating and insolent side of

the Restoration, as indeed of every restoration, is what shocks

me the most; but, if the Royalists had not gone too far, a great

deal would have been overlooked. The things of this kind which

sensible folk will endure are surprising. I still feel grateful

to my father because, in the very first days of the Monarchy, he

somewhat sharply rebuked a person who was advocating in our

_salon_ the extreme doctrines of Legitimacy. Nevertheless, we

had to accept this Legitimacy under a more politic form. The

word itself was, I believe, sanctioned by M. de Talleyrand, and

thence ensued an inevitable train of consequences which speedily

developed themselves.”

This is not merely an historical judgment of my father’s; at that time

he was beginning, notwithstanding his youth, to think for himself, and

to guide, or at least to influence, the political opinions of his

parents. As I shall soon be in a position to publish the reminiscences

of his youth, I will not dwell upon them here. I must, however, mention

him in connection with the memoirs of his mother, as he had more to do

with them than might be supposed.

I have not hitherto alluded to one of the most characteristic traits of

her whose life I have undertaken to narrate. She was a tender, careful,

and admirable mother. Her son Charles, born on the 24th Ventose, year 5

(March 14, 1797), cheered her from his childhood with the hopes which he

afterward realized, and, as he grew in years and intelligence, aroused

in her intellectual tastes similar to his own. Her second son, Albert,

was born five years later than Charles, and died in 1830. His faculties

were never completely developed; he remained a child until the end. She

had tender compassion for him, and lavished upon him care so unceasing

and devoted that it was admirable even in a mother. But her great love

was for her first-born, and never was filial or maternal affection

founded on more striking resemblance in mind and character. Her letters

are full of her maternal tenderness. The following is addressed to her

beloved son, when he was just sixteen. I think it will convey a

favorable impression of both, and throw a light on the history of their

after lives:

VICHY, _July 25, 1813_.

“I have been suffering from a severe sore throat for the last

few days, and time has hung heavily, my child; to-day I feel a

little better, and I am going to amuse myself by writing to you.

Besides, you have been scolding me for my silence, and

reproaching me too often with your four letters. I will no

longer be behindhand with you, and this letter, I think, will

entitle me to scold you in my turn, if an opportunity offers. My

dear boy, I follow you step by step in all your studies, and I

see you are full of work during this month of July, which I am

passing so monotonously. I know pretty well, too, all you say

and do on Thursdays and Sundays. Madame de Grasse tells me of

your little talks, and amuses me with it all. For instance, she

told me that the other day you had praised me to her, and said

that when you and I talk together you are sometimes tempted to

think me too clever. But you need not be checked by any fear of

that, for you, my dear child, have at least as much wit as I. I

tell you so frankly, because that gift, although an advantage,

needs many other things to support it, and therefore you may

take my words rather as warning than as praise. If my

conversation with you often takes a serious turn, you must

impute it to the fact that I am your mother, and have not

relinquished that _rôle_; to my discovery of some wise thoughts

in my own head, and wanting to put them into yours; and to my

desire to make good use of the quickly passing time that will

soon bear you far from me. When I need no longer advise and warn

you, we shall talk together quite at our ease, interchanging our

reflections, our remarks, and our opinions on everything and

everybody quite frankly, without fear of vexing one another; in

fact, with all that sincere and intimate friendship which, I

believe, may perfectly well exist between a mother and a son.

There are not so many years between us as to prevent me from

sympathizing with your youth, or sharing some of your feelings.

Women’s shoulders wear young heads for a long time, and in the

head of a mother one side is always just the same age as her

child’s.

“Madame de Grasse told me also that you want to amuse yourself

during these holidays by writing some of your notions on various

subjects. I think you are right. It will be interesting for you

to read them again in a few years. Your father would say I want

to make you a scribbler like myself—for he does not stand on

ceremony with me—but I do not care. There can be no harm in

setting down one’s thoughts in writing for one’s self alone, and

I think both taste and style may be formed in this way. It is

just because your father is lazy, and only writes one letter a

week; true, it is a very pleasant one, but still that is not

much. . . . But there! I must not run on about him.

“During my retirement I thought I should like to draw your

portrait, and if I had not had a sore throat, I would have tried

to do so. While I was thinking it over, I found that in order

not to be insipid, and, indeed, to be correct, I should have to

point out a few faults, and I do believe the hard words have

stuck in my throat and given me quinsy. While planning this

portrait, I assure you I took you to pieces very carefully, and

I found many good qualities well developed, a few just beginning

to bud, and then some slight congestions which hinder certain

others from exhibiting themselves. I beg your pardon for using a

medical expression; it is because I am in a place where nothing

but congestions and the way to get rid of them is talked about.

I will explain all this some day when I am in the vein, but

to-day I will touch only on one point—your behavior to others.

You are polite—more so, indeed, than is customary at your age:

you have a pleasant manner in addressing people, and you are a

good listener. Do not let this last quality slip. Madame de

Sévigné says that an appreciative silence is a mark of superior

sense in young people. ‘But, mother, what are you driving at?

You promised to point out a fault, and hitherto I see nothing

like one. A father’s blow turns aside. Let us come to the fact,

my dear mother.’ So I will, my son, in one moment; you forget

that I have a sore throat, and can only speak slowly. Well,

then, you are polite. When you are _asked_ to do something which

will gratify those you love, you consent willingly; but, when an

opportunity of so doing is merely pointed out to you, natural

indolence and a certain love of self make you hesitate; and,

when left to yourself, you do not seek such opportunities, for

fear of the trouble they might entail. Can you understand these

subtle distinctions? While you are still partly under my

authority, I can influence and guide you: but you will soon have

to answer for yourself, and I should wish you to think a little

about other people, notwithstanding the claims of your own

youth, which are naturally engrossing. I am not sure that I have

expressed my self clearly. As my ideas have to find their way

through a headache and all my bandages, and for the last four

days I have not sharpened my wits by contact with those of

Albert, the quinsy may possibly have got into my discourse.

“You must make the best of it. At any rate, it is a fact that

you have polished manners, in other words, you are kind.

Kindness is the politeness of the heart. But enough.

* * * * *

“Your little brother makes a good figure at the village dances.

He has become quite a rustic. In the morning he fishes and takes

long walks about the country. He understands more about trees

and agriculture than you do. In the evening he shines among our

big Auvergne shepherdesses, to whom he shows off all those

little airs and graces which you know so well.

“Adieu, my dear son; I leave off because I have come to the end

of my paper. Writing all this to you relieves me a little of my

_ennui_, but I must not quite overwhelm you by pouring out too

much at a time. My respects to Griffon, and best compliments to

M. Leclerc.”

In this confidential strain the mother and the son carried on their

correspondence. One year later, in 1814, the son left school, destined

to fulfil all the promise of his childhood, and to hold thenceforth a

more important place in the life and occupations of his parents. His

influence soon began to tell on theirs, the more so that there existed

no absolute divergence in their opinions. But he was more positive and

bolder than his parents, because he was not fettered by the ties of old

memories and old affection. He felt no regret for the Emperor, and,

although deeply moved by the sufferings of the French army, he witnessed

the fall of the Empire, if not with joy, at least with indifference. To

him, as to most talented young men of his time, it came as an

emancipation. He eagerly embraced the first notions of constitutional

order, which made their reappearance with the Bourbons. But he was

struck by the ridiculous side of Royalist society. Many of the revived

fashions and phrases seemed to him to be mere foolery; he was disgusted

by the abuse lavished upon the Emperor and the men of the Empire, but

neither his parents nor he, although still a little suspicious of the

new order of things, was seriously opposed to it. Neither the personal

vexations which resulted from it, such as the deprivation of employment,

the necessity of selling to great disadvantage a library which was the

delight of my grandfather, and which lives in the recollection of lovers

of books, nor a thousand other annoyances, could prevent their

experiencing a sense of relief. They almost verified a celebrated saying

of the Emperor, who, when at the zenith of his power, once asked those

surrounding him what would be said after his death. They all hastened to

answer in phrases of compliment or of flattery. But he interrupted them

by exclaiming, “What! you are at a loss to know what people will say?

They will say ‘Ouf!’”

V

It was difficult to attend to personal interests in those days; one

could hardly help being diverted from them, and engrossed solely by the

spectacle of France and Europe. Curiosity would naturally outweigh

ambition in a family such as we are depicting. My grandfather did

nevertheless think of entering the administration, and once more revived

his project, hitherto doomed to disappointment, of gaining admittance to

the Council of State; but he was as supine about it as before. Had he

entered the administration, he would only have been following the

example of the majority of the former officials of the Empire, for the

Bonapartist Opposition did not come into existence until the latter days

of the Monarchy. The members of the Imperial family lived in constant

and friendly intercourse with the new _régime_, or rather with the

reinstated old _régime_. The Empress Josephine was treated with great

respect, and the Emperor Alexander frequently visited her at Malmaison.

She wished to take up a dignified and fitting position, and she confided

to her lady-in-waiting that she thought of asking the title of High

Constable for her son Eugène, showing thereby that she scarcely

understood the spirit of the Restoration. Queen Hortense, who afterward

became the bitter enemy of the Bourbons, and was concerned in numerous

conspiracies, obtained the Duchy of Saint Leu, for which she intended to

return thanks in person to Louis XVIII. All projects of this kind had,

however, to be abandoned; for the Empress Josephine was suddenly carried

off by malignant sore throat in March, 1814, and the last link that

bound my kinsfolk to the Bonaparte family was sundered for ever.

The Bourbons seemed to make a point of annoying and depressing those

very persons whom their Government should have endeavored to conciliate,

and by slow degrees a belief gained ground that their reign would be of

short duration, and that France, just then more in love with equality

than with liberty, would demand to be placed once more under the yoke

which had seemed to be shattered; in fact, that the days of Imperial

splendor and misery would return. It was, therefore, with less amazement

than might be supposed that my grandfather learned one day from a friend

that the Emperor had escaped from Elba and landed at Cannes. Historical

events seem more astounding to those who read of them than to

eye-witnesses. Those who knew Bonaparte could readily believe him

capable of again putting France and Frenchmen in peril for the sake of a

selfish scheme. His return was, however, a tremendous event, and every

one had to think not only of the political future, but also of his own.

Even those who, like M. de Rémusat, had not publicly taken any political

side, and who only wanted to be left in repose and obscurity, had

everything to lose, and were bound to provide against eventualities. The

general suspense did not last long; even before the Emperor’s entry into

Paris, M. Réal came to announce to M. de Rémusat that he was sentenced

to exile together with twelve or fifteen others, among whom was M.

Pasquier.

An event still more serious than exile, and which left a deeper trace in

my father’s memory, occurred between the first news of the return of

Napoleon and his arrival at the Tuileries. On the day after that on

which the landing was publicly announced, Mme. de Nansouty hurried to

her sister’s house, full of dismay at all that she had been told of the

persecution to which the opponents of the vindictive and all-powerful

Emperor were about to be exposed. She told my grandparents that a

rigorous inquisition by the police was to be put in action; that M.

Pasquier apprehended molestation, and that everything in the house which

could give rise to suspicion must be got rid of. My grandmother, who

might not otherwise have thought of danger, remembered with alarm that a

manuscript highly calculated to compromise her husband, her sister, her

brother-in-law, and her friends, was in the house. For many years,

probably from her first appearance at Court, she had been in the habit

of taking notes daily of the events and conversations which came under

her notice, while her memory of them was fresh. She had recorded nearly

everything she saw and heard, at Paris, at St. Cloud, and at Malmaison.

For twelve years she had transferred, not only events and circumstances,

but studies of character and disposition, to the pages of her journal.

This journal was kept in the form of a correspondence. It consisted of a

series of letters, written from Court to a friend from whom nothing was

concealed. The author well knew all the value of these fictitious

letters, which recalled her whole life, with its most precious and most

painful recollections. Ought she to risk, for what would appear to

others only literary or sentimental selfishness, the peace, the liberty,

nay, even the life of those she loved? No one was aware of the existence

of this manuscript, except her husband and Mme. Chéron, the wife of the

Prefect of that name, a very old and attached friend. Her thoughts

turned to this lady, who had once before taken charge of the dangerous

manuscript, and she hastened to seek her. Unfortunately Mme. Chéron was

from home, and not likely to return for a considerable time. What was to

be done? My grandmother came back, greatly distressed, and, without

further reflection or delay, threw her manuscripts into the fire. My

father came into the room just as she was burning the last sheets,

somewhat cautiously, lest the flame should reach too high. He was then

seventeen, and has often described the scene to me—the remembrance of

it was most painful to him. He thought at first that his mother was

merely destroying a copy of the memoirs, which he had never read, and

that the precious original manuscript was safely concealed. He threw the

last sheets into the fire with his own hand, attaching but little

importance to the action. “Few deeds,” he used to say, “after I learned

all the truth, have I ever so bitterly regretted.”

From the very first, the author and her son so deeply lamented what they

had done—for they learned almost immediately that the sacrifice was

uncalled for—that for years they could not speak of it between

themselves or to my grandfather. The latter bore his exile with much

philosophy. He was not forbidden to dwell in France, but only in Paris

and its neighborhood, and it was decided that they should all await the

passing of the storm in Languedoc, where he possessed an estate which he

had bought back from the heirs of M. de Bastard, his wife’s grandfather,

and which had long been neglected. The family removed, therefore, to

Laffitte, where my father afterward passed so many years, now in the

midst of political agitation, again in quiet study. In after days he

again came thither from exile; for the sufferings of good citizens from

absolute power were not to be restricted to the year 1815, and Napoleons

have returned to France from a greater distance than the Isle of Elba.

My grandfather started for Laffitte on March 13th, and his family joined

him there a few days afterward. At Laffitte they passed the three months

of that reign, shorter but still more fatal than the first, which has

been called “The Hundred Days.” There my father entered upon his

literary career, not as yet producing original works, but translating

Pope, Cicero, and Tacitus. His only original writings were his songs.

The family lived quietly, unitedly, and almost happily, waiting the end

of a tragedy of which they foresaw the _dénouement_, and at Laffitte

they received the news of Waterloo. They heard at the same time of the

abdication of Napoleon, and that M. de Rémusat was appointed Prefect of

Haute-Garonne, by a decree of July 12, 1815. This appointment was quite

to the taste of my grandfather, for it placed him once more in office,

without involving him in the parade of a court; but it was less pleasing

to his wife, who regretted Paris and her old friends there, and who

dreaded the disturbances at Toulouse, at that time a prey to the

violence of southern Royalism—“the White Terror,” as it was then

called.

The new Prefect immediately set out for Toulouse, and was greeted on his

arrival with the news that General Ramel, notwithstanding that he had

hoisted the white flag on the Capitol, had been assassinated. Such are

the injustice and violence of party spirit, even when victorious; nay,

especially when victorious!

But, however interesting this episode of our national troubles may be,

it is not necessary to dwell on them here. The principal personage in

these Memoirs is not the Prefect, but Mme. de Rémusat. My grandmother,

anxious about the course of events, and perhaps afraid of the vehemence

of her son’s opinions, which were little suited to his father’s official

position, sent him back to Paris, to his great satisfaction.

Then ensued a correspondence between them which will make both of them

known to us, and will perhaps depict the writer of these Memoirs more

clearly than do the Memoirs themselves.

As, however, the latter work only is in question at present, it is not

necessary to give in detail the history of the period subsequent to

1815. The administration of the department, which commenced under such

gloomy auspices, was, for a period of nineteen months, extremely

difficult. While the son, mixing in very Liberal society in Paris,

adopted the opinions of advanced constitutional Royalism, which did

little more than tolerate the Bourbons, the father, amid totally

different surroundings, underwent a similar mental process, and placed

himself by word and deed in the front rank of those officials of the

King’s Government who were the least Royalist and the most Liberal. He

was a just and moderate man, a lover of law, neither an aristocrat nor a

bigot. The people of Toulouse were all that he was not; nevertheless he

was successful there, and left behind him a kindly memory, which lapsed

as the men of his time disappeared, but of which my father has more than

once found traces. These early days of constitutional liberty, even in a

province which did not afterward put its theories boldly in practice,

are curious to contemplate.

The light of that liberty illumined all that the Empire had left in

darkness. Opinions, ideas, hatred, passions, came to life. The

Government of the Bourbons was represented by a married priest, M. de

Talleyrand, and a regicide Jacobin, M. Fouché; but even they could not

oppose the reactionary tendency of the time, and the Liberal policy did

not triumph until the accession of MM. Decazes, Pasquier, Molé, and

Royer-Collard to the ministry, and the passing of the famous decree of

the 5th of September. The new policy was of course advantageous to those

who had practiced it beforehand, and there could be no ill will toward

the Prefect on account of the failure of the Liberal party in the

elections of Haute-Garonne. So soon as the ministry was firmly

established, and as M. Lainé had succeeded M. de Vaublanc, my

grandfather was appointed Prefect of Lille. My father records in a

letter already quoted the effect of these events on the mind of Mme. de

Rémusat:

“The nomination of my father to Lille brought my mother back

into the midst of the great stir of public opinion, which was

soon to declare itself as it had not done since 1789. Her

intelligence, her reason all her feelings and all her

convictions, were about to make a great step in advance. The

Empire, after awakening her interest in public affairs and

enabling her to understand them, subsequently directed her mind

toward a high moral aim, by inspiring her with a horror of

tyranny. Hence came her desire for a government of order,

founded on law, reason, and the spirit of the nation; hence a

certain leaning toward the forms of the English constitution.

Her stay at Toulouse and the reaction of 1815 gave her such a

knowledge of social realities as she could never have acquired

in the _salons_ of Paris, enlightening her as to the results and

the causes of the Revolution, and the needs and sentiments of

the nation. She understood, in a general way, on which side lay

true help, strength, life, and right. She learned that a new

France had been called into existence, and what it was, and that

it was for and by this new France that government must be

carried on.”

VI

My grandmother’s stay at Lille was occasionally varied by visits to her

son in Paris. The pleasures of society were but a prelude to the

literary success that he achieved a few months later; and indeed he was

already practicing composition in his frequent letters to his mother on

politics and literature. Mme. de Rémusat had more leisure at Lille than

in Paris, and, although her health was still delicate, she indulged her

taste for intellectual pursuits. Hitherto she had written nothing but

the Memoirs that she had afterward destroyed, and a few short tales and

essays. In the leisure of a country life she now attempted a romance in

the form of letters, called “Les Lettres Espagñols, ou l’Ambitieux.”

While she was working at this with ardor and success, the posthumous

work of Mme. de Staël, “Considérations sur la Revolution Française,”

came out in 1818, and made a great impression on her. Now that sixty

years have elapsed, it is difficult for us to realize the extraordinary

effect of Mme. de Staël’s eloquent dissertation on the principles of the

Revolution. The opinions of the author, then quite novel, are now merely

noble truisms obvious to all. But in the days that immediately followed

the Empire they were something more. Everything was then new, and the

younger generation, who had undergone twenty years of tyranny, had to

learn over again that which their fathers had known so well in 1789.

My grandmother was especially struck by the eloquent pages in which the

author gives somewhat declamatory expression to her hatred of Napoleon.

Mme. de Rémusat felt a certain sympathy with the author’s sentiments,

but she could not forget that at one time she had thought differently.

People who are fond of writing are easily tempted into explaining their

conduct and feelings on paper. She conceived a strong desire to arrange

all her reminiscences, to describe the Empire as she had seen it, and

how she had at first loved and admired, next condemned and dreaded,

afterward suspected and hated, and finally renounced it. The Memoirs she

had destroyed in 1815 would have been the most accurate exposition of

this succession of events, situations, and feelings. It was vain to

think of rewriting them, but it was possible, with the help of a good

memory and an upright intention, to compose others which should be

equally sincere. Full of this project, she wrote to her son (May 27,

1818):

“I have taken up a new notion. You must know that I wake every

morning at six o’clock, and that I write regularly from that

hour until half-past nine. Well, I was sitting up with the

manuscript of my ‘Lettres Espagñols’ all scattered about me,

when certain chapters of Mme. de Staël’s book came into my head.

I flung my romance aside, and took up a clean sheet of paper,

bitten with the idea that I must write about Bonaparte. On I

went, describing the death of the Duke d’Enghien and that

dreadful week I spent at Malmaison; and, as I am an emotional

person, I seemed to be living all through that time over again.

Words and events came back of themselves; between yesterday and

to-day I have written twenty pages, and am somewhat agitated in

consequence.”

The same circumstance which reawakened the recollections of the mother

aroused the literary tastes of the son; and while he was publishing an

article on Mme. de Staël in the “Archives,” his first appearance in

print, he wrote as follows to his mother on the same date, May 27, 1818.

Their respective letters crossed on the road:

“‘All honor to the sincere!’ This book, my dear mother, has

renewed my regret that you have burned your Memoirs, and has

made me most anxious that you should retrieve that loss. You

really owe this to yourself, to us, to the interests of truth.

Read up the old almanacs; study the ‘Moniteur’ page by page; get

back your old letters from your friends, and go over them,

especially those to my father. Try to remember not only the

details of events, but your own impressions of them. Try to

resuscitate the views you formerly held, even the illusions you

have lost; recall your very errors. Show how you, with many

other honorable and sensible people, indignant and disgusted

with the horrors of the Revolution, were carried away by natural

aversions, and beguiled by enthusiasm for one man, which was in

reality highly patriotic. Explain how we had all of us become,

as it were, strangers to political life. We had no dread of the

empire of an individual; we went out to meet it. Then show how

this man either became corrupt, or else displayed his true

character as his power increased. Tell how it unfortunately

happened that, as you lost one by one your illusions concerning

him, you became more and more dependent, and how the less you

submitted to him in heart, the more you were obliged to obey him

in fact; how at last, after having believed in the uprightness

of his policy because you were mistaken in himself, your

discovery of his true character led you to a correct view of his

system; and how moral indignation finally brought you by degrees

to what I may call a _political hatred_ of him. This, my dear

mother, is what I entreat of you to do. You see what I mean, do

you not? and you will do it.”

Two days after, on the 30th of May, my grandmother replied as follows:

“Is it not wonderful how perfectly we understand each other? I

am reading the book, and I am as much struck by it as you are. I

regret my poor Memoirs for new reasons, and I take up my pen

again without quite knowing whither it will lead me; for, my

dear child, this task which you have set me, and which of itself

is tempting, is also formidable. I shall, however, set about

reviving my impressions of certain epochs, at first without

order or sequence, just as things come back to me. You may trust

me to set down the very truth. Yesterday, when I was alone and

at my desk, I was trying to recall my first meeting with this

wretched man. A tide of remembrance rushed over me, and that

which you so justly call my _political_ hatred was ready to fade

away and give place to my former illusions.”

A few days later, on the 8th of June, 1818, she dwells on the

difficulties of her task:

“Do you know that I need all my courage to do as you tell me? I

am like a person who, having spent ten years at the galleys, is

asked to write an account of how he passed his time. My heart

sinks when I recall old memories. There is pain both in my past

fancies and in my present feelings. You are right in saying I

love truth; but it follows that I can not, like so many others,

recall the past with impunity, and I assure you that, for the

last week, I have risen quite saddened from the desk at which

you and Mme. de Staël have placed me. I could not reveal these

feelings to any one but you. Others would not understand, and

would only laugh at me.”

On the 28th of September and the 8th of October of the same year, she

writes to her son:

“If I were a man, I should certainly devote a part of my life to

studying the League; being only a woman, I confine myself to

verbal utterances about you know whom. What a man! what a man!

It terrifies me to retrace it all. It was my misfortune to be

very young when I was placed near him; I did not reflect on what

passed before me; but now that we are both older, I and the

generation to which I belong, my memories move me more than did

events at that time. If you come . . . I think you will find

that I have not lost much time this summer. I have already

written nearly five hundred pages, and I was going to write much

more; the task lengthens as I work at it. Afterward much time

and patience will be required to put all this material in order.

Perhaps I shall never have either one or the other; if so, that

will be your business when I shall be no longer here.”

“Your father,” she writes again, “says that he does not know of any one

to whom I could show what I am writing. He declares that no one excels

me in ‘the talent for being true’ as he expresses it. So, therefore, I

write for nobody in particular. Some day you will find my manuscripts

among my effects, and you can do what you like with them.”

On the 8th of October, 1818, she writes: “There is a thought that

sometimes troubles me. I say to myself, ‘Suppose some day my son

publishes this, what will be said of me?’ Then the fear seizes me that I

shall be held to have been malicious, or at least ill-natured, and I

rack my brain for something to praise. But this man (Bonaparte) was such

a ruthless destroyer of all worth and we were brought so low that I am

straitened by the demands of truth, and I grow quite disheartened.”

These fragments of her letters indicate the spirit in which the Memoirs

of Mme. de Rémusat were written; and it was not that of a literary

pastime, nor a pleasure of the imagination. Her motive was neither

ambition to be an author, nor the desire to put forward an apology. The

love of truth, the political spectacle before her eyes, and the

influence of a son who became day by day more strongly confirmed in

those Liberal opinions which were destined to be the delight and the

honor of his life—these things gave her courage to persevere in her

task for more than two years. She understood that noble policy which

places the rights of man above the rights of the State. Nor was this

all. As often happens to persons deeply engaged in intellectual work,

her task became plain and easy, and she led a more active life than at

any previous time. In spite of failing health, she constantly traveled

from Lille to Paris; she acted the part of Elmire in “Tartuffe” at M.

Molé’s house at Champlâtreux; she commenced a work on the Women of the

Seventeenth Century, which she afterward expanded into her “Essai sur

l’Education des Femmes;” she supplied Dupuytren with material for a

panegyric on Corvisart, and she even published a tale in the “Lycée

Français.”

In the midst of the happiness which she derived from her quiet life and

her busy mind, from her husband’s official and her son’s literary

success, her health failed. First came a weakness of the eyes, which,

without actually threatening her sight, occasioned her both pain and

inconvenience; then followed a general delicacy of the system, in which

the stomach was chiefly affected. After alternate changes for the better

and the worse, her son brought her to Paris on the 28th of November,

1821, in a suffering condition, which was alarming to those who loved

her, but did not appear to the doctors to indicate immediate danger.

Broussais, however, took a desponding view of her case, and my father

was then first struck by the power of induction to which the discoveries

and the errors of that eminent man are alike due. Notwithstanding her

illness, she occupied herself on her return to Lille with literary and

historical work, and received company, including a great number of

political personages. She was still able to feel interested in the fall

of the Duke Decazes, and she foresaw that the coming into power of M. de

Villèle—that is to say, of the ultras or reactionaries, as they are now

called—would render it impossible for her husband to retain the

Prefecture of Lille; and, in fact, he was superseded on the 9th of

January, 1822. Before this occurred, Mme. de Rémusat was no more. She

expired suddenly in the night, December 16, 1821, aged forty-one years.

She bequeathed to her son a lifelong sorrow, and to her friends the

memory of a remarkable and charming woman. Not one of those friends is

now living; M. Pasquier, M. Molé, M. Guizot, and M. Leclerc have

recently passed away. I render her memory the truest homage in my power

by the publication of these unfinished Memoirs, which, with the

exception of a few chapters, she was unable to read over or correct. The

work was to have been divided into five parts, corresponding with five

distinct epochs. She completed only three, which treat of the interval

between 1802 and 1808; that is to say, from her first appearance at

Court to the breaking out of the war in Spain. The unwritten portions

would have described the period that elapsed between that war and the

divorce (1808-1809), and the five following years, ending with the fall

of the Emperor. I am well aware that a work of the nature of this one is

calculated to bring down upon both its author and its editor much blame,

many insinuations, and a great deal of political animosity. Its apparent

contradictions will be held up to observation, rather than the

interesting analogy of the opinions of three generations which it sets

forth, and the difference in the times. It will be a theme for wonder

that any man could be a chamberlain and any woman a lady-in-waiting, and

yet that both could be so far from servile, so liberal, so little

shocked by the 18th Brumaire, so patriotic, so much fascinated by that

man of genius, Bonaparte, and so severe upon his faults, so

clear-sighted respecting the majority of the members of the Imperial

family, so indulgent or so blind with regard to others who have left an

equally fatal impress on our national history. It will, however, be

difficult to avoid doing justice to the sincerity, the honesty, and the

intelligence of the author, or to read the book without deriving from it

an increased aversion to absolute power, a keener perception of its

sophistry, and the hollowness of the apparent prosperity with which it

dazzles public opinion. These impressions I have especially derived from

it, and I desire to retain them. It would have been sufficient preface

to this book had I written only those words which my father uttered,

sixty years ago, when, on reading Mme. de Staël, he asked his mother to

tell him the story of the cruel years of the First Empire: “All honor to

the sincere!”

PAUL DE RÉMUSAT.

-----

[1] The _Vingtième_ was a tax imposed under the _ancien régime_, on land

and house property, and which amounted to a twentieth of the revenue.

MEMOIRS OF THE

EMPRESS JOSEPHINE

INTRODUCTION

PORTRAITS AND ANECDOTES

NOW that I am about to commence these Memoirs, I think it well to

precede them by some observations on the character of the Emperor, and

the various members of the family respectively. These observations will

help me in the difficult task I am about to undertake, by aiding me to

recall the impressions of the last twelve years. I shall begin with

Bonaparte himself. I am far from saying that he always appeared to me in

the light in which I see him now; my opinions have progressed, even as

he did; but I am so far from being influenced by personal feelings, that

I do not think it is possible for me to deviate from the exact truth.

Napoleon Bonaparte is of low stature, and rather ill-proportioned; his

bust is too long, and so shortens the rest of his figure. He has thin

chestnut hair, his eyes are grayish blue, and his skin, which was yellow

while he was slight, became in later years a dead white without any

color. His forehead, the setting of his eye, the line of his nose—all

that is beautiful, and reminds one of an antique medallion. His mouth,

which is thin-lipped, becomes agreeable when he laughs; the teeth are

regular. His chin is short, and his jaw heavy and square. He has

well-formed hands and feet; I mention them particularly, because he

thought a good deal of them.

He has an habitual slight stoop. His eyes are dull, giving in his face

when in repose a melancholy and meditative expression. When he is

excited with anger his looks are fierce and menacing. Laughter becomes

him; it makes him look more youthful and less formidable. It is

difficult not to like him when he laughs, his countenance improves so

much. He was always simple in his dress, and generally wore the uniform

of his own guard. He was cleanly rather from habit than from a liking

for cleanliness; he bathed often, sometimes in the middle of the night,

because he thought the practice good for his health. But, apart from

this, the precipitation with which he did everything did not admit of

his clothes being put on carefully; and on gala days and full-dress

occasions his servants were obliged to consult together as to when they

might snatch a moment to dress him.

He could not endure the wearing of ornaments; the slightest constraint

was insupportable to him. He would tear off or break anything that gave

him the least annoyance; and sometimes the poor valet who had occasioned

him a passing inconvenience would receive violent proof of his anger. I

have said there was a sort of fascination in the smile of Bonaparte;

but, during all the time I was in the habit of seeing him, he rarely put

forth that charm. Gravity was the foundation of his character; not the

gravity of a dignified and noble manner, but that which arises from

profound thought. In his youth he was a dreamer; later in life he became

a moody, and later still an habitually ill-tempered man. When I first

began to know him well, he was exceedingly fond of all that induces

reverie—Ossian, the twilight, melancholy music. I have seen him

enraptured by the murmur of the wind, I have heard him talk with

enthusiasm of the moaning of the sea, and he was tempted sometimes to

believe that nocturnal apparitions were not beyond the bounds of

possibility; in fact, he had a leaning to certain superstitions. When,

on leaving his study in the evening, he went into Mme. Bonaparte’s

drawing-room, he would sometimes have the candles shaded with white

gauze, desire us to keep profound silence, and amuse himself by telling

or hearing ghost stories: or he would listen to soft, sweet music

executed by Italian singers, accompanied only by a few instruments

lightly touched. Then he would fall into a reverie which all respected,

no one venturing to move or stir from his or her place. When he aroused

himself from that state, which seemed to procure him a sort of repose,

he was generally more serene and more communicative. He liked then to

talk about the sensations he had experienced. He would explain the

effect music had upon him; he always preferred that of Paisiello,

because he said it was monotonous, and that impressions which repeat

themselves are the only ones that take possession of us. The geometrical

turn of his mind disposed him to analyze even his emotions. No man has

ever meditated more deeply than Bonaparte on the “wherefore” that rules

human actions. Always aiming at something, even in the least important

acts of his life, always laying bare to himself a secret motive for each

of them, he could never understand that natural nonchalance which leads

some persons to act without a project and without an aim. He always

judged others by himself, and was often mistaken, his conclusions and

the actions which ensued upon them both proving erroneous.

Bonaparte was deficient in education and in manners; it seemed as if he

must have been destined either to live in a tent where all men are

equal, or upon a throne where everything is permitted. He did not know

how either to enter or to leave a room; he did not know how to make a

bow, how to rise, or how to sit down. His questions were abrupt, and so

also was his manner of speech. Spoken by him, Italian loses all its

grace and sweetness. Whatever language he speaks, it seems always to be

a foreign tongue to him; he appears to force it to express his thoughts.

And then, as any rigid rule becomes an insupportable annoyance to him,

every liberty which he takes pleases him as though it were a victory,

and he would never yield even to grammar. He used to say that in his

youth he had liked reading romances as well as studying the exact

sciences; and probably he was influenced by so incongruous a mixture.

Unfortunately, he had met with the worst kind of romances, and retained

so keen a remembrance of the pleasure they had given him that, when he

married the Archduchess Marie Louise, he gave her “Hippolyte, Comte de

Douglas,” and “Les Contemporains,” so that, as he said, she might form

an idea of refined feeling, and also of the customs of society.

In trying to depict Bonaparte, it would be necessary, following the

analytical forms of which he was so fond, to separate into three very

distinct parts his soul, his heart, and his mind; for no one of these

ever blended completely with the others. Although very remarkable for

certain intellectual qualities, no man, it must be allowed, was ever

less lofty of soul. There was no generosity, no true greatness in him. I

have never known him to admire, I have never known him to comprehend, a

fine action. He always regarded every indication of a good feeling with

suspicion; he did not value sincerity; and he did not hesitate to say

that he recognized the superiority of a man by the greater or less

degree of cleverness with which he used the art of lying. On the

occasion of his saying this, he added, with great complacency, that when

he was a child one of his uncles had predicted that he should govern the

world, because he was an habitual liar. “M. de Metternich,” he added,

“approaches to being a statesman—he lies very well.”

All Bonaparte’s methods of government were selected from among those

which have a tendency to debase men. He dreaded the ties of affection;

he endeavored to isolate every one; he never sold a favor without

awakening a sense of uneasiness, for he held that the true way to attach

the recipients to himself was by compromising them, and often even by

blasting them in public opinion. He could not pardon virtue until he had

succeeded in weakening its effect by ridicule. He can not be said to

have truly loved glory, for he never hesitated to prefer success to it;

thus, although he was audacious in good fortune, and although he pushed

it to its utmost limits, he was timid and troubled when threatened with

reverses. Of generous courage he was not capable; and, indeed, on that

head one would hardly venture to tell the truth so plainly as he has

told it himself, by an admission recorded in an anecdote which I have

never forgotten. One day, after his defeat at Leipsic, and when, as he

was about to return to Paris, he was occupied in collecting the remains

of his army for the defense of our frontiers, he was talking to M. de

Talleyrand of the ill success of the Spanish war, and of the difficulty

in which it had involved him. He spoke openly of his own position, not

with the noble frankness that does not fear to own a fault, but with

that haughty sense of superiority which releases one from the necessity

of dissimulation. At this interview, in the midst of his plain speaking,

M. de Talleyrand said to him suddenly, “But how is it? You consult me as

if we had not quarreled.”

Bonaparte answered, “Ah, circumstances! circumstances! Let us leave the

past and the future alone. I want to hear what you think of the present

moment.”

“Well,” replied M. de Talleyrand, “there is only one thing you can do.

You have made a mistake: you must say so; try to say so nobly. Proclaim,

therefore, that being a King by the choice of the people, elected by the

nations, it has never been your design to set yourself against them. Say

that, when you began the war with Spain, you believed you were about to

deliver the people from the yoke of an odious minister, who was

encouraged by the weakness of his prince; but that, on closer

observation, you perceive that the Spaniards, although aware of the

faults of their King, are none the less attached to his dynasty, which

you are therefore about to restore to them, so that it may not be said

you ever opposed a national aspiration. After that proclamation, restore

King Ferdinand to liberty, and withdraw your troops. Such an avowal,

made in a lofty tone, and when the enemy are still hesitating on our

frontier, can only do you honor; and you are still too strong for it to

be regarded as a cowardly act.”

“A cowardly act!” replied Bonaparte; “what does that matter to me?

Understand that I should not fail to commit one, if it were useful to

me. In reality, there is nothing really noble or base in this world; I

have in my character all that can contribute to secure my power, and to

deceive those who think they know me. Frankly, I am base, essentially

base. I give you my word that I should feel no repugnance to commit what

would be called by the world a dishonorable action; my secret

tendencies, which are, after all, those of nature, opposed to certain

affectations of greatness with which I have to adorn myself, give me

infinite resources with which to baffle every one. Therefore, all I have

to do now is to consider whether your advice agrees with my present

policy, and to try and find out besides,” he added (says M. de

Talleyrand), with a satanic smile, “whether you have not some private

interest in urging me to take this step.”

Another anecdote which bears on the same characteristic will not be out

of place here. Bonaparte, when on the point of setting out for Egypt,

went to see M. de Talleyrand, then Minister of Foreign Affairs under the

Directory. “I was in bed, being ill,” said M. de Talleyrand. “Bonaparte

sat down near me, and divulged to me all the dreams of his youthful

imagination. I was interested in him because of the activity of his

mind, and also on account of the obstacles which I was aware would be

placed in his way by secret enemies of whom I knew. He told me of the

difficulty in which he was placed for want of money, and that he did not

know where to get any. ‘Stay,’ I said to him; ‘open my desk. You will

find there a hundred thousand francs that belong to me. They are yours

for the present; you may repay the money when you return,’ Bonaparte

threw himself on my neck, and I was really delighted to witness his joy.

When he became Consul, he gave me back the money I had lent him; but he

asked me one day, ‘What interest could you have had in lending me that

money? I have thought about it a hundred times since then, and have

never been able to make out your object.’ ‘I had none,’ I replied. ‘I

was feeling very ill: it was quite possible I might never see you again;

but you were young, you had impressed me very strongly, and I felt

impelled to render you a service without any afterthought whatsoever.’

‘In that case,’ said Bonaparte, ‘and if it was really done without any

design, you acted a dupe’s part.’”

According to the order I have laid down, I ought now to speak of

Bonaparte’s heart; but, if it were possible to believe that a being, in

every other way similar to ourselves, could exist without that portion

of our organization which makes us desire to love and to be loved, I

should say that in his creation the heart was left out. Perhaps,

however, the truth was that he succeeded in suppressing it completely.

He was always too much engrossed by himself to be influenced by any

sentiment of affection, no matter of what kind. He almost ignored the

ties of blood and the rights of nature; I do not know that even

paternity weighed with him. It seemed, at least, that he did not regard

it as his primary relation with his son. One day, at breakfast, when, as

was often the case, Talma had been admitted to see him, the young

Napoleon was brought to him. The Emperor took the child on his knee,

and, far from caressing, amused himself by slapping him, though not so

as to hurt him; then, turning to Talma, he said, “Talma, tell me what I

am doing?” Talma, as may be supposed, did not know what to say. “You do

not see it,” continued the Emperor; “I am slapping a King.”

Notwithstanding his habitual hardness, Bonaparte was not entirely

without experience of love. But, good heavens! what manner of sentiment

was it in his case? A sensitive person forgets self in love, and becomes

almost transformed; but to a man of the stamp of Bonaparte it only

supplies an additional sort of despotism. The Emperor despised women,

and contempt can not exist together with love. He regarded their

weakness as an unanswerable proof of their inferiority, and the power

they have acquired in society as an intolerable usurpation—a result and

an abuse of the progress of that civilization which, as M. de Talleyrand

said, was always his personal enemy. On this account Bonaparte was under

restraint in the society of women; and, as every kind of restraint put

him out of humor, he was always awkward in their presence, and never

knew how to talk to them. It is true that the women with whom he was

acquainted were not calculated to change his views of the sex. We may

easily imagine the nature of his youthful experiences. In Italy morals

were utterly depraved, and the general licentiousness was augmented by

the presence of the French army. When he returned to France society was

entirely broken up and dispersed. The circle that surrounded the

Directory was a corrupt one, and the Parisian women to whose society he

was admitted were vain and frivolous, the wives of men of business and

contractors. When he became Consul, and made his generals and his

aides-de-camp marry, or ordered them to bring their wives to Court, the

only women he had about him were timid and silent girls, newly married,

or the wives of his former comrades, suddenly withdrawn from obscurity

by the good fortune of their husbands, and ill able to conform to the

change in their position.

I am disposed to believe that Bonaparte, almost always exclusively

occupied by politics, was never awakened to love except by vanity. He

thought nothing of a woman except while she was beautiful, or at least

young. He would probably have been willing to subscribe to the doctrine

that, in a well-organized country, we should be killed—just as certain

kinds of insects are destined by nature to a speedy death, so soon as

they have accomplished the task of maternity. Yet Bonaparte had some

affection for his first wife; and, if he was ever really stirred by any

emotion, it was by her and for her. Even a Bonaparte can not completely

escape from every influence, and a man’s character is composed, not of

what he is always, but of what he is most frequently.

Bonaparte was young when he first made the acquaintance of Mme. de

Beauharnais, who was greatly superior to the rest of the circle in which

she moved, both by reason of the name she bore and from the elegance of

her manners. She attached herself to him, and flattered his pride; she

procured him a step in rank; he became accustomed to associate the idea

of her influence with every piece of good fortune which befell him. This

superstition, which she kept up very cleverly, exerted great power over

him for a long time; it even induced him more than once to delay the

execution of his projects of divorce. When he married Mme. de

Beauharnais, Bonaparte believed that he was allying himself to a very

great lady; his marriage, therefore, was one conquest the more. I shall

give further details of the charm she exercised over him when I have to

speak more particularly of her.