MESDAMES DE STAËL AND DE REMUSAT
It is a strange human frailty that cannot stand for long the purgatory
of seeing the elevation of a great public benefactor. The less
competent the critics, the more merciless they are in their
declamation and intrigue. They hint at faults, and if this is too
ineffective, they invent them. Men in prominent public positions
rarely escape the vituperation of the professional scandalmonger.
These creatures exist everywhere. Their vanity is only equal to their
incompetency in all matters that count. Their capacity consists in
knowing the kind of diversion a certain class of people relish, and
the more exalted their prey is, and the larger the reputation he may
have for living a blameless life, the more persistent their
whisperings, significant nods, and winkings become. They know, and
they could tell, a thing or two which would paralyse belief. They
could show how correct they have been in consistently proclaiming
that so and so was a very much overestimated man, and never ought to
have been put into such a high position; "and besides, I don't want to
say all I know, but his depravity! Well, there, I could, if I would,
open some people's eyes, but I don't want to do anybody any harm," and
so on. These condescending ulcerous-minded defamers congratulate
themselves on their goodness of heart in withholding from the public
gaze their nasty imaginary accusations, which are merely the thoughts
of a conceited and putrid mind.
Many and many a poor man, without knowing it, is the innocent victim
of unfounded accusations, hatched and circulated in that subtle,
insinuating way so familiar to the sexless calumniator. The genuine
female traducer is an awful scourge, especially if she be political.
No male can equal her in refined aggressive cunning. She can circulate
a filthy libel by writing a virtuous letter, and never a flaw will
appear to trip her into responsibility for it. And her sardonic smile
is an inarticulate revelation of all she wishes to convey. It is more
than a mere oration. It emits the impression of a bite.
Madame de Staël showed an aptitude for this ignoble aggressiveness
towards Napoleon after she had exhausted every form of strategy to
allure him into a flirtation with her. She was frequently a sort of
magnificent horse-marine who bounced herself into the presence of
prominent individuals, thrusting her venomed points on those who had
been flattered into listening; at other times she was feline in her
methods. Talleyrand and Fouché made use of this latter phase of her
character to serve their own ends. She had a talent which was used for
mischief, but her vulgarity and egotism were quite deplorable. She
would have risked the torments of Hades if she could but have embarked
upon a liaison with Napoleon. She plied him with letters well seasoned
with passion, but all to no purpose. She came to see him at the Rue
Chantereine, and was sent away. She invited him to balls to which he
never went. But she had opportunities given her which were used in
forcing herself upon his attention. At one of these she held him for
two hours, and imagining she had made a great impression, she asked
him abruptly, "Who was the most superior woman in antiquity, and who
is so at the present day?" Napoleon had had enough of her love-making
chatter, so snapped out in his quick practical way, "She who has borne
the most children." The lady's discomfiture may be imagined. It was a
deadly thrust.
This very same lady, who had tempted the ruler of France without
success, made violent love to Benjamin Constant, who was no friend of
Napoleon's at the time. Her letters to him were passionate, and
Napoleon told Gourgaud at St. Helena that she even threatened to kill
her son if Benjamin would do what she wished him to. This fussy female
intriguer suggested to Napoleon that if he would give her two million
francs she would write anything he wished. She was immediately packed
about her business.
Madame de Staël was not an important personage at all, but she had the
power of attracting people to her who, like herself, had grievances to
be discussed, and we may without doubt conclude that these gatherings
were composed of well-selected intriguers whom she had fixed in her
feline eye. Her great grievance was the First Consul's, and
subsequently the Emperor's, coldness towards her. He estimated her at
her true value. He treated her with the courtesy due to a French
citizen, but nothing more, and when she misbehaved in his presence, he
rebuked her with due consideration for her sex. When she caused people
to talk to him of her, he merely shrugged his shoulders as was his
habit, and smiled disdainfully; though occasionally he could not
resist the temptation of ridiculing her comic pretensions. But this
human curiosity had power for mischief.
She was not only an intriguer, but, subsequent to her failure in
love-making, she developed a literary tyrannicide. She condescended to
patronise the head of the State by causing it to be conveyed to him
that her hostility would cease under certain well-defined conditions.
When he became the real Governor of France, Napoleon put a stop to
religious persecution, and put the churches into use. He
re-established religion, and by doing so brought under his influence
one hundred million Catholics. This wise policy created strong
opposition from a section of the clergy. Madame de Staël and the
friends whom she had whipped up, many of them being the principal
generals, were mischievously opposed to it, and brought pressure to
bear so that he might be induced to establish the Protestant religion.
Napoleon ignored them all. He knew he was on the right ground, and
that the nation as a whole was with him. France was essentially a
Roman Catholic country, and the head of it gave back to her people
what was regarded as the true faith. The exile frequently referred to
these matters in conversation with one or other of his followers.
Napoleon's disdain for Madame de Staël was well merited, and he never
saw or heard of her that it did not set his nerves on edge. She was
the "death on man" sort of female who persisted in being, either
directly or indirectly, his political adviser. Dr. Max Lenz accuses
the Emperor of developing a despotism that caused him to drive a woman
like Madame de Staël from land to land, "and trampled under foot every
manifestation of independence."
Really, the good doctor lays himself open to the charge of not making
himself better informed of the doings of this sinister person, who was
steeped in treason, and who refused to accept the laws of life with
proper submission. It is merely farcical to assume that Madame de
Staël was kept well under discipline because of a whimsical despotism
on the part of the man who had fixed a settled government on France,
and who was kept well informed of the attempts of the Baroness and her
anarchist associates to undermine and destroy the Constitution it had
cost France and its ruler so much to reconstruct and consolidate. "Let
her be judged as a man," said Napoleon, and in truth he was right in
deciding in this way, as her whole attitude aped the masculine. He was
right, too, in showing how wholly objectionable she had made herself
to him. He had been led to adopt a sort of "For God's sake, what does
she want?" idea of her during the early years of his rule, though he
never at any time showed weakness in his actual dealings with her. He
disliked women who asserted themselves as men, and he disliked the
amorous offspring of Necker more because he loathed women who threw
themselves into the arms of men; she had surfeited him with her
persistent attempts at making love to him. In one of her letters to
him she says it was evidently an egregious error, an entire
misunderstanding of human nature, that the quiet and timid Josephine
had bound up her fate with that of a tempestuous temper like his. She
and Napoleon seemed born for each other, and it appeared as if nature
had only gifted her with so enthusiastic a disposition in order to
enable her to admire such a hero as he was. Napoleon in his fury tore
this precious letter up and exclaimed, "This manufacturer of
sentiments dares to compare herself with Josephine!"
The letters were not answered, though this had no deterrent effect on
Madame de Staël. She continued to pour out in profusion adoration. He
was "a god who had descended on earth." She addressed him as such, and
his callous reception of her madness drove her into despair and
vindictiveness which brought salutary punishment to herself. Her
weapons of wit and sarcasm availed nothing. He looked upon her as a
sort of gifted lunatic that had got the idea of seducing him into her
head. She became so mischievous that he bundled her out of France.
"As long as I live," said he, "she shall not return." He advised that
she should live in Berlin, Vienna, Milan, or London, the latter for
preference. There she would have full scope for her genius in
producing pamphlets. "Oh yes," says the "god who had descended on
earth"; "she has talent, much talent, in fact far too much, but it is
offensive and revolutionary." This poetess-politician, who said brave
things and wrote amazing diatribes against her "god," was in truth one
of the most servile creatures on earth. She pleaded to be allowed to
come back to her native land, and pledged herself to a life of
retirement, but the great man's faith in his own sound judgment was
not to be shaken.
"Her promises are all very fine," he said, "but I know what they mean.
Why should she be so anxious to be in the immediate reach of tyranny?"
Like all eccentric women who desire to play the part of man, she made
her appearance before Napoleon in the most absurd, tasteless attire.
This woman of genius and folly lacked the wisdom of gauging the taste
of Bonaparte, whom she desired to captivate with her sluttish
appearance and whirling words.
This man of method and order, who had a keen eye for grace or beauty
in its varied phases, was always pronounced in his opinion that women
should dress simply but with faultless taste. It improves good looks,
and, if need be, it covers up defects; but in any case it is the
bounden duty of women to dress with some regard to conventional
custom. It gives them much greater influence than they would otherwise
have. Most women know the importance of this trick, and do it, and
they are amply rewarded for their good sense.
Madame de Staël did quite the opposite. She appeared before the Man of
Destiny in a shocking garb, and he regarded it as a piece of
impertinence. It stirred up his prejudice openly against her, in spite
of his indifferent attempts to conceal it, but her egotism was so
gigantic, she actually believed she was making great strides towards
curing his callousness towards her. This woman has been used
elaborately by anti-Napoleonic writers to prove that he was an inhuman
despot and she a high-minded, virtuous Frenchwoman, and a genius in
the art of government. They quote her as a great authority. Her
knowledge of his evil deeds and mistakes of administration is set
forth as being flawless. They bemoan his treatment of this amiable
female, and in the midst of their ecstasy of compassion and wrath they
hand down to posterity a record of unheard-of woes. There is little
doubt Napoleon's remark that "the Neckers were an odd lot, always
comforting themselves in mutual admiration," is well merited. The
daughter utilised the name of the father with lavish persistence. Her
ambition and impudence were boundless, and were the cause of Napoleon
bestowing some wholesome discipline upon her, which, like a true
heroine, she resented, and sent forth from her exile streams of
relentless wailing, adorned by a fluency of venom that would have put
the most militant suffragette in our time to the blush.
But suddenly her hysteria subsided, and after a brief repose she
switched off the truculent side and sought the pity of the man whose
life she had set herself to make one long ache if he did not yield to
her arrogant pretensions. She had written in a perpetual scream of his
iniquities, and was thrown over by her former associates, who saw
clearly enough that no real good could be accomplished by whining
about cruelty when stern flawless justice only existed. They
recognised that she was a personality, but her antics puzzled them,
and well they might. She bewailed her isolation with a throbbing
heart, and after committing indiscretions that Robespierre would have
sent her head flying for, she was suddenly bereaved of her neglected
husband. This event gave Benjamin Constant a better chance, but the
Baroness aimed at higher game. She was held in the grip of a delusion
that she had it in her power to hypnotise the First Consul and cause
him to become her lover. She had an uncontrollable idolatry for this
august person, whom she hoped to win over by writing for the
consumption of his enemies the many reasons for her aversion to him.
Without a doubt the woman was madly in love with the object of her
supposed aversion, and was driven to frenzy by his obvious distaste
for her.
In 1811 she secretly married a young officer called M. de Rocca, who
had fallen desperately in love with her. He was amiable and brilliant;
became an officer of Hussars in the French Army; did valiant deeds
amongst the hills in Andalusia in 1809; and was awarded the Cross of
the Legion of Honour. Subsequently he was shot down by guerillas,
badly wounded in the thigh, foot, and chest; had a romantic
deliverance; was hidden in a chapel by a young lady, and nursed into
consciousness and convalescence by loving care, which enabled him to
reach Madrid, and ultimately Geneva, where, in the radiance of
youthful infatuation, he rode with reckless energy down a risky steep
part of the city, so that he might pass the window of the lady, who
was more than old enough to be his mother, and in a few months was to
be made his wife. A child was born to them in 1812, and in order to
save its legitimacy, she acknowledged the marriage to a few, but it
was not generally known until after her death that Rocca was her
lawful husband. Conscious, and sensitive no doubt, that it was not
quite natural for old women to marry young men, she prudently had the
event kept secret. The young husband did not only possess tender
affection for her, but he combined chivalrous ambitions which made the
romance additionally attractive.
Be it remembered that Benjamin Constant was a former lover of Madame
de Staël. The young bridegroom, following a natural instinct, had a
great dislike to Benjamin, and took an opportunity of really small
provocation to challenge him to a duel, which, owing to wiser
counsels, was never fought. There does not seem to have been very much
to fight a duel about. Constant had a quarrel with his father in which
he involved Madame de Staël, and Rocca resented it like a gallant
youthful husband, who was at that stage when it is thought desirable
to shoot or otherwise kill somebody, in order to show the extent of
his devotion to his enchantress. Rocca had hoped to die (so he said)
before her, but fate willed that he should linger on and suffer for
six months more. Madame de Staël slept peacefully into her last long
sleep on July 14, 1817.
Her career was chequered and restless. She had influence, which she
used oft-times recklessly, and led less gifted people than herself
into committing needless errors. She wrote and spoke with a wit and
sarcasm which charmed all but those at whom it was directed. Her
bitter rebuffs and severe trials were mainly of her own making. For
the most part she wrote with superficial feeling and without real
soul. During the Napoleonic regime, time was a creeping horror to her,
but she found pleasure in the thought that it was a torture to her
suffering heart. George Eliot knew and used her extraordinary power;
Madame de Staël wasted hers. Nevertheless she had many friends who
loved her society. Wellington was brought under her influence. Byron,
who shrank from her at first, says, "She was the best creature in the
world." She had been at some pains to try to bring Lord and Lady Byron
together. She was capable of impressing people with her charm, but
magnetic influence she had none when living, and has left none behind.
Rocca exclaimed, when he heard that she had passed to the shadows,
"What crown could replace that which I have lost!" And the distracted
Benjamin Constant, filled with remorse, reproached himself for some
undefined suffering he had caused her, and did penance all night
through in the death-chamber of his divine Juliet.
This crazy woman seems to have been capricious in everything. She made
and broke liaisons with amazing rapidity while undergoing a compulsory
sojourn at Coppet. She formed there an attachment for the son of a
person named M. Baranti, which very nearly cheated Rocca from becoming
her husband, and the faithless Benjamin Constant from being,
erroneously perhaps, associated with her name as the author of the
manuscript of St. Helen, and she the notoriety of writing "Ten Years
of Exile," which was published after her death.
The youthful Baranti found no scope for his talents at Coppet, and
being offered an inducement to go to the metropolis so that he might
have larger opportunities of advancement, he abandoned the famous
authoress, and she, in loving despair, was seized with the impulse to
immortalise his severance by attempting suicide, and thereby ending
her passion for liaisons, virulence, and fame. The attempt, presumably
feeble, left her long years of mischievous mania for attack on the
supposed author of all her woes. She readily found amongst his enemies
(and thus the enemies of France) those who yearned with her in the
hope she freely and openly expressed that her native land should
suffer defeats, and in this her desire was fully acquiesced in by the
combination of hysterical and purblind Kings, aided by a coterie of
irreconcilables, who welcomed the destruction of their fatherland in
order that the man who had made it the glory and the envy of the world
should be driven from it. Many of these creatures were members of the
same Senate who, a few years previously, sent Napoleon a fervent
address couched in grovelling language, imploring him to cement the
hold his personality had on the national life. The following is what
they say, and what they ask him to do:--"You have brought us out of
the chaos of the past, you have made us bless the benefits of the
present. Great man, complete your work, and make it as immortal as
your glory!"
The authors of this whining appeal are worthy to be associated with
the traitorous daughter of Jacques Necker, Minister of Finance to
Louis XVI., and of those apoplectic monarchs who sought her guilty and
inflammatory aid.
Then we come to another female celebrity, though less notable than
Madame de Staël, who is regarded by the traducers of Napoleon as a
historian because she wrote in her memoirs that which they wished the
world to think of him, and because they flattered themselves that it
exculpated them from the charge of injustice and mere hatred. Madame
de Staël's book, "Considérations sur la Révolution Française," made
its appearance. Its violent characteristics inflamed Charles de
Remusat to urge his mother to enter into competition with this work,
the result being the production of Madame de Remusat's memoirs, edited
by her grandson, M. Paul de Remusat. Charles (her son) had reproached
her for having destroyed memoirs she had written previously,[23] but
lurking in her mind was the thought of all the favours she and her
family had received, and her correspondence, teeming with adulation
for the man whom she was now induced to declaim against. The knowledge
that she was about to expose her perfidy "worried" her, and she wrote
to Charles thus:--"If it should happen that some day my son were to
publish all this, what would people think of me?" and the son,
obviously influenced by the mother's fears, delayed until the fall of
the Second Empire the publication of one of the most unreliable and
barefaced calumnies ever produced against a great benefactor.
In her memoirs she says that she and her husband excited general envy
by the high position the First Consul had given them. She was first
Lady in Waiting, and subsequently Lady of the Household, her husband
being "attached to Napoleon's household." She says that she was witty
and of a refined mind, and though she was less "good-looking" than her
companions, she had the advantage of being able to "charm his mind,"
and she was almost the only woman with whom he condescended to
converse. She relates residing in the camp at Boulogne "and having
breakfast and dinner daily with Bonaparte." In the evenings they used
to "discuss philosophy, literature, and art, or listen to the First
Consul relating about the years of his youth and early achievements."
No doubt the young Madame de Remusat became assured in the same way as
Madame de Staël that she would one day be raised to heights of glory
unequalled in history, and the disappointment embittered her. She
admits that she "suffered on account of blighted hopes and deceived
affections and the failure of her calculations." Moreover, Josephine
had an eye on the lady whose husband in evil times sought her
influence with Napoleon to stretch out a helping hand and save them
from the poverty by which they were beset. Napoleon's big heart
spontaneously responded to the appeal of his fascinating spouse, the
result being that favours were heaped upon M. de Remusat and his wife
from time to time, and Josephine's goodness was repaid by seeing
Madame in feline fashion purring at her Imperial master's affections,
and on the authority of Madame de Remusat she "becomes cold and
jealous." Finding that Napoleon did not appreciate her love-making,
she, like Madame de Staël under similar circumstances, took to
intriguing, which got her quickly into disgrace. She is anxious to
make her fall as light as possible in the public eye, so relates that
he told her that "his desire was to make her a great lady, but he
could not be expected to do this unless she showed devotion." But in
spite of the wife's defection, as is always Napoleon's way, he does
not visit her sins on the husband, but raises him to the important
posts of Grand Master of the Robes, High Chamberlain, and then
Superintendent of Theatres, and in addition gave him large sums to
keep up his status, and notwithstanding Josephine's cause for "cold
jealousy," Madame de Remusat was generously kept in her service after
Marie Louise had become Empress. M. de Remusat remained in the
Emperor's service until the fall of the Empire, and then went over to
Louis XVIII. Both of these sycophants were content to accept the
favours of the Imperial couple and eat their bread and cringe at their
feet while they plotted with the plotters for the Emperor's downfall.
Unhappily for the veracity and probity of Madame Remusat as a history
writer, her letters containing notes jotted down day by day as they
occurred have been published, and the memoirs put side by side with
these throbbings of the heart reveal an incomparable baseness that
makes one wonder at the reckless, blind partisanship which induced her
descendants to give the memoirs to an intelligent public.
In the memoirs she says:--"Nothing is so base as his soul; it is
closed against all generous impulses, and possesses no true grandeur.
I noticed that he always failed to understand and to admire a noble
action;" and again she goes on to say that "In war he foresaw the
means of calling away our attention from the reflections which, sooner
or later, his government could not fail to suggest to us, and he
reserved it in order to dazzle, or at least to enforce silence on us.
Bonaparte felt that he would be infallibly lost the day when his
enforced inactivity enabled us to think both of him and of ourselves."
"What a relief whenever the Emperor went away! His absence always
seemed to bring solace. People breathed more freely."
Now this would have been all very well. It was the stereotyped
phraseology of Napoleon's avowed enemies. He knew it, and viewed it
with contempt and derision, and until Madame de Remusat and her
snuffling, cringing husband became swollen with over-indulgence and
smitten with wounded pride, they regarded language such as now appears
in her memoirs as mere froth. She practically says that she held the
same views in 1818 as she did from 1802 to 1808, but when she wrote
this she no doubt relied on her correspondence being kept snugly
private or destroyed; but it has been published, and here are some
amazing extracts from it:--
"I often think, my dear, of that Empire, the territory of which
extends to Antwerp! Consider what a man he must be who can rule it
single-handed, and what few instances history offers like him!"[24]
"Whilst he creates, so to speak, new nations in his progress, people
must be struck, from one end of Europe to the other, by the remarkably
prosperous state of France. Her Navy, formed in two years, after a
ruinous revolution, and assuming at last a menacing attitude after so
long, excited the scoffs of a shortsighted enemy."
"When again I reflect on the peace we enjoy, our wise and _moderate
liberty_, which is quite sufficient for me, the glory my country is
covered with, the pomp and even the magnificence surrounding us, and
in which I delight, because it is proof that success has crowned our
efforts; when, in short, I consider that all this prosperity is the
work of _one man_, I am filled with admiration and gratitude."[25]
"What I write here, my dear, is, of course, strictly between
ourselves, for many people would be anxious to ascribe to these
feelings some other cause than that which really inspires them;
besides, it seems to me that we are less eager to express the praises
that come from the heart than those that proceed from the mind."[26]
"Thank goodness, I am at last happy and contented!! What a pleasure it
is to see the Emperor again, and how much that pleasure will be felt
here! This splendid campaign, this glorious peace, this prompt return,
all is really marvellous."[27]
"Like woman, the French are rather impatient and exacting; it is true
that the Emperor has spoilt us in the campaign; indeed, no lover was
ever more anxious to gratify the wishes of his mistress than His
Majesty to meet our desires. You demand a prompt march? Very well, the
army that was at Boulogne will find itself, three weeks later, in
Germany. You ask for the capture of a town? Here is the surrender of
Ulm. You are not satisfied!! You are craving for more victories? Here
they are: Here is Vienna which you wanted, and also a pitched battle,
in order that no kind of success may be wanting. Add to these a whole
series of noble and generous deeds, of words full of grandeur and
kindness, and always to the purpose, so much so that our hearts share
also that glory, and can join it to all the national pride it arouses
in us."[28]
"I used to cry bitterly at that time, for I felt so affected that, had
I met the Emperor at the moment, I should, I believe, have thrown my
arms round his neck, although I should, afterwards, have been
compelled to fall on my knees and ask pardon for my conduct."[29]
So overcome with boundless admiration is she that her soul yearns for
the gift of being able to do him full justice by writing a history, a
panegyric, a book, in fact, that would show him to be immeasurably
above all men living or dead. She fears that people cannot see his
nobility and greatness as she does. She is bewildered and acclaims him
a god. Here is another outburst of passionate devotion:--
"That undaunted courage, carried even to rashness, and which was
always crowned with success, that calm assurance in the midst of
danger, with that wise foresight and that prompt resolution, arouse
always new feelings of admiration which it seems can never be
surpassed."[30]
It will be seen her letters shape well for the fulfilment of the great
ambition of her life, _i.e._, to picture him as he was. The writing is
good, the description picturesque, and I believe the impartial mind
will also regard it as accurate. She believes "that even persons who
are hardest to please must be compelled to admit that he is a most
amiable sovereign." She is smitten with the feeling of gratitude, and
says it is so sweet that she really regards it as another favour. She
wishes her husband could "often secure some of those comforting smiles
from the master," and tells him he is "no fool to be fond of those
smiles," and promises to congratulate him if he secures some.
She asks God to watch over him (such will always be her prayer) when
he is fighting and conquering. Her heart is grieved when he is at a
great distance from them. She eulogises his great qualities to her
son, and advises him "to study all that she was able to tell him of
the Emperor, and write about it when he grew up," and the boy
exclaimed, "Mother, what you have told me sounds like one of
Plutarch's lives!"
But there comes a time when Napoleon sees that the price he has to pay
for adulation is too high, for, like most over-pampered people, Madame
de Remusat seems to have got the idea of equality badly into her head.
She became waspish, exacting, claiming more than her share of
emoluments, seeking for attentions which her "amiable sovereign" saw
in the fitness of things it would be folly to bestow. She mistook
wholesome justice for tyranny, defied discipline, and not only
connived at treason, but prayed for the extinction of him against whom
it was directed. Disaster overtook him, he fell, and in her delirium
of malice and joy she bethought it an opportune moment to write what
are known as her memoirs, refuting therein all her former eulogies and
opinions so vividly told in the "Letters of Madame de Remusat." Now
that adversity so terrible overshadows the matchless hero of the
letters, she throws every scruple aside, and warms to her task in
writing unstinted, gross, and manifest libels. Contrast with the
"letters" these quotations from the memoirs. She avows that "nothing
is so base as his soul. It is closed against all generous impulses; he
never could admire a noble action." "He possesses an innate depravity
of nature, and has a special taste for evil." "His absence brought
solace, and made people breathe freely." "He is devoid of every kind
of personal courage, and generous impulses are foreign to him." "He
put a feeling of restraint into everybody that approached him." "He
was feared everywhere." "He delighted to excite fear." "He did not
like to make people comfortable." "He was afraid of the least
familiarity." This latter grievance, combined of course with the rest,
is quite significant, and we are justified in assuming that the Lady
in Waiting has been taking liberties, and has been deservedly snubbed
by His Imperial Majesty. It is perhaps necessary to pause here and
remind the reader that on the authority of her son, and subsequently
of her grandson, these memoirs were written entirely "without malice,"
and the sole object of writing them at all was that "the truth should
be told."
Very well then. Are we to believe the letters or the memoirs, because
in the former she over and over again declares that "his comely
manners were irresistible"; but in the memoirs with audacious
bitterness she affirms "not only is he ill-mannered but brutal."
Such effrontery is beyond criticism. She finds it "impossible to
depict the disinterested loyalty with which she longed for the King's
return," and describes the hero of her letters as a ruthless destroyer
of all worth, and being brought so low, she is straitened by the
demands of "truth" and "grows quite disheartened."
It will be observed that it is always truth which is the abiding
motive, it matters not whether it is letters or memoirs. She avows it
is "truth" she writes. "The love of truth," says the editor in his
preface, "gave her courage to persevere in her task for more than two
years." That is, it took her more than two years to write the "truths"
contained in the memoirs disavowing the "truths" so vehemently given
in the letters; the former book pregnant with the bitterness of a
writer without heart and principle, and with political and personal
motives running through its pages like a canker, while the latter,
radiant in luxuriant adulation, gapes at her memory with retributive
justice.
The renegade son served the renegade and ungrateful mother ill when he
advised her to write what is a barefaced recantation of her former
statements. Napoleon has said that "People are rarely drawn to you by
favours conferred upon them." He had many examples of this truth, but
none more striking than the above. Madame de Remusat and her husband
were raised from poverty to affluence by Napoleon, and the memory of
all the favours that were showered upon them by the man she declares
she loved should have kept them from hate and disloyalty, and
forbidden the writing of such unworthy vituperations against him.
FOOTNOTES:
[23] Madame de Remusat burnt her original memoirs during the Hundred
Days, doubtless because she had in her mind the probability that
Napoleon might firmly establish himself on the throne, and the
discovery of anti-Napoleon MSS. might have acted seriously against
herself and family being appointed to important positions. Moreover,
the greater danger of getting herself into trouble was constantly in
her mind.
[24] "Letters of Madame de Remusat," vol. i. p. 195.
[25] "Letters of Madame de Remusat," vol. i. p, 196.
[26] Ibid., vol. i. p. 160.
[27] Ibid., vol. ii. p. 2.
[28] "Letters of Madame de Remusat," vol. i. p. 190.
[29] Ibid., vol. i. p. 393.
[30] "Letters of Madame de Remusat," vol. ii. p. 45.