HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE EMIGRATION TO COBLENTZ.—ANECDOTES, &C.

2nd.—Uninterrupted bad weather, with heavy rains. The Emperor was not

well; he felt his nerves very much irritated.

He sent for me to breakfast with him. During the whole of breakfast, and

a long time afterwards, the conversation again turned on the emigration.

I have already remarked that he often brought me back to the subject.

His enquiries to-day were directed to the particulars of what had passed

at Coblentz, our situation, our disposition, our organization, our

views, and our resources, and at the end of all my answers, he

concluded, observing: “You have already several times acquainted me with

a considerable part of those things, and yet I do not retain them,

because you communicate them without regularity. Reduce them to a

consistent historical summary. How could you be better employed in this

place? And then, my dear Las Cases, you will have a piece ready at hand

for your journal.” This demand was like that addressed by Dido to Æneas,

and I too might have exclaimed, _Infandum regina, jubes_ ... however, I

executed the sketch as completely as my memory and judgment enabled me,

for the subject began to grow old, and I was, at that time, very young.

I give it as I read it, a short time afterwards, to Napoleon.

“Sire, after the famous events which overthrew the Bastile, and set all

France in agitation, most of our Princes, who found themselves

implicated in the consequences, fled from the country, with the sole

view, at that period, of securing their personal safety. They were soon

after joined by persons of considerable rank, and by a number of young

men; the former, induced by the connection which they had with them, and

the latter by a persuasion that the measure of itself indicated, in some

degree, a striking, generous, and decided devotedness. When a certain

number were collected, the idea suggested itself of converting to a

political end that which, until then, had been produced by zeal and

chance alone. It was thought that if, with the assistance of these

assemblages, a kind of small power could be created, it might be enabled

to re-act, with advantage, on the interior, become a lever to

insurrection there, make an impression on the public mind, and restrain

popular commotion; while it would be, abroad, a title or pretext for

applying to foreign Powers and claiming their attention. This was the

origin of the emigration; and it is confidently stated that this grand

idea was conceived by M. de Calonne,[3] as he passed through

Switzerland, in the suite of one of our Princes, who was on his way from

Turin to Germany.

Footnote 3:

Some one who considers himself well informed has assured me that this

is erroneous, as M. de Calonne did not reach Germany till the measure

of emigration had been already decided upon; adding that, so far from

having contrived or instigated it, he had actually censured it.

“The first assemblage took place at Worms, under the Prince de Condé.

The most celebrated was that at Coblentz, under the King’s two brothers,

one of whom came from Italy, where he had at first found an asylum in

the Court of the King of Sardinia, his father-in-law, and the other

arrived by way of Brussels, after escaping the crisis, which had made a

captive of Louis XVI. at Varennes.

“I was one of the first of those who assembled at Worms. The number

about the Prince was scarcely fifty when I arrived. In the entire

effervescence of youth, and with the first inspiration of what was

noble, I hastened to Worms with the most innocent simplicity of heart.

My reading and my prayer each morning consisted of a chapter of Bayard.

I expected, on reaching Worms, to be, at the very least, seized and

embraced by so many brothers in arms; but, to my great surprise (and it

was my first lesson on mankind), instead of this affectionate reception,

I and a companion were, all at once, examined and watched, for the

purpose of ascertaining that we were not spies. We were afterwards

carefully sounded with regard to our interests, our views, and the

pretensions by which we might have been actuated, and, finally, great

pains were taken to prove to us, and to make the Prince perceive (and

this plan was renewed on every fresh arrival), that our numbers

increased greatly, and exceeded, no doubt, already, the places and

favours which he had to confer. My companion was so shocked that he

proposed to me to return instantly to Paris.

“We, who composed the assemblage, in order to make ourselves useful or

to acquire importance, undertook, three or four of us by turns, to form

a kind of regular guard about the Prince’s person night and day; for we

dreamt already of nothing but conspiracies and assassination, so very

powerful and redoubtable did we think ourselves, and when relieved,

whilst on this kind of voluntary guard, we had the honour of being

admitted to the Prince’s table. Three generations of Condé constituted

its ornament, a singular circumstance, which was renewed with more

striking effect in the army of Condé, in which the grandfather fought in

the centre, while the son and grandson commanded the right and left,

where they were, I believe, both wounded, and on the same day.

“The Princess of Monaco had followed the Prince of Condé; he married her

afterwards, but she then governed and did the honours of his

establishment. We had the opportunity of hearing at that table some of

the guests assert and re-assert to the Prince that we were already more

than enough to enter France; that his name and a white handkerchief were

sufficient; that the star of Condé was about to shine forth once more;

that the occasion was singularly happy, and that it was necessary to

seize it; and I would not pledge myself, that adulation was not pushed

so far as to suggest very interested personal views to the Prince.

“Worms, from the nature of its meeting, and the character of its chief,

always evinced more regularity, more austerity of discipline, than

Coblentz, where there was a display of more agitation, luxury, and

pleasure. Worms was accordingly called the _camp_, and Coblentz the

_City_ or the _Court_.

“The importance of the leader was in proportion to the force under his

command, and of this the Prince of Condé was so sensible that he never

saw any one leave him without regret, and remembered it a long time. I

was not, on that account, the less eager to go to Coblentz, the moment

it acquired a certain degree of splendour. I had relations and friends

there, and it was, besides, more attractive, from superior magnificence,

activity, and grandeur. Coblentz became in a short time a focus of

foreign and domestic intrigues. Two distinct parties might be observed

there; Messrs. d’Avaray, de Jaucourt, and some others, were the

confidential friends, the advisers, or the ministers, of Monsieur, now

Louis XVIII. The Bishop of Arras, the Count de Vaudreuil, and others,

were those of Monseigneur, the Count d’Artois; and it was confidently

stated that, even then, these Princes manifested distinctly enough the

same political differences which, it is pretended, have since

characterized them. M. de Breteuil, resident at Brussels, and charged,

according to his own declaration, with unlimited powers by Louis XVI.,

had formed a third party, and added to the complication of our affairs.

“M. de Calonne was relied on for our financial department, and the old

Marshal de Broglie and the Marshal de Castries were at the head of our

military establishment. The brave and able M. de Bouilly, who had left

France after the affair of Varennes, found it impossible to remain with

us, and followed King Gustavus III. to Sweden.

“The emigration had, however, assumed a grand character, thanks to the

care employed for its propagation. Agents had traversed the provinces,

circulars had been distributed in the mansions and country-seats,

summoning every gentleman to join the Princes, and act in co-operation

with them for the security of the altar and the throne, the revenge of

their honour, and the recovery of their rights. An absolute crusade had

been preached, and with so much more effect, as it made an impression on

minds disposed to attend to it. Among the whole of the nobility and

privileged classes there was not a single person who did not feel

himself cut to the quick by the decrees of the Assembly. All, from him

who filled the highest rank to the lowest country squire, had been

deprived of what they held most dear; for the former had lost his title

and his vassals, and the latter had seen his turret and his pigeon-house

invaded, and his hares shot. Accordingly, the movement to begin the

journey was immediate and universal; it could not be abandoned, under

the penalty of dishonour, and the women were directed to send spindles

to those who hesitated, or were too tardy. Whether then from passion,

pusillanimity, or a point of honour, the emigration became a real

infection; multitudes rushed furiously beyond the frontiers; and what

contributed not a little to increase the evil was the means employed by

the leaders of the Revolution to promote it in secret, while they

affected to oppose it in public. They declaimed, in vague terms, against

it from the tribune, it is true; but they took great care that all the

passages should be left open. Did the zeal of the emigrants slacken?—the

declaimers became more violent, and it was decided that the barriers

should be strictly guarded. Then those who had been left behind were

reduced to despair, because they had not taken advantage of the

favourable moment. But, accidentally, or from inattention, the barriers

were again opened, and they were passed with eagerness by those who were

determined not to expose themselves to another disappointment. It was by

this dextrous management that the Assembly assisted its enemies in

plunging themselves into the abyss.

“The able men of the faction had, from the beginning, conceived that

such a measure would deliver them from the heterogeneous parts that

checked their progress, and that the property of all these voluntary

exiles would secure to them incalculable resources. The officers thought

they did wonders in stealing away from their regiments, while the

leaders of the Revolution, on their part, excited the soldiers to

revolt, in order to force them to it. They got rid, by these means, of

enemies who were highly dangerous, and obtained, on the contrary, in the

non-commissioned officers, zealous co-operators, who became heroes in

the national cause; it was they who furnished great captains, and who

beat all the veteran troops of foreign powers.

“The consequence was that Coblentz collected all that was illustrious

belonging to the Court in France, and all that was opulent and

distinguished belonging to the provinces. We were thousands, consisting

of every branch, uniform, and rank of the army; we peopled the town and

overran the palace. Our daily assemblages about the persons of the

Princes seemed like so many splendid festivals. The Court was most

brilliant, and our Princes were so effectually its Sovereigns that the

poor Elector was eclipsed and lost in the midst of us, which induced a

person to observe to him, very pleasantly, one day, whether from perfect

simplicity or keen raillery, that, among all those who thronged his

palace, he was the only stranger.

“During the grand solemnities, we occasionally had public galas; and the

respectable inhabitants were permitted to take a view of the tables. We

then exulted at witnessing the admiration expressed by the people of the

country for the pleasing countenance and chivalrous appearance of

Monseigneur the Count d’Artois, and we were proud of the homage paid by

them to the acquirements and talents of Monsieur. It was worth while to

see with what arrogance we paraded with us, as it were, the whole

dignity, the lustre of our monarchy, and, above all, the superiority of

our Sovereign and the elevation of our Princes. _His Majesty the King_,

was the expression which we pompously used in the German circles to

designate the King of France; for that was, or ought to be, in our

opinion, his title in point of pre-eminence with respect to all Europe.

The Abbé Maury, whom we had at first received with acclamation, but who,

by the by, lost much of our esteem in a very short time, had discovered,

he assured us, that such was his right and his prerogative. Shall I give

another instance of overweening pride and conceit?

“At a later period, during our greatest disasters, and when our cause

was completely ruined, an Austrian officer, of superior rank, charged

with despatches for the Court of London, invited to dinner several of

our officers with whom he had formerly been acquainted on the Continent.

After dinner, and very near the time when every truth comes out, the

company began to talk politics, and he happened to say that, on his

departure from Vienna, one of the principal subjects of conversation was

the marriage of Madame Royale (now Duchess d’Angouleme) with the

Archduke Charles, who at that moment enjoyed great celebrity. ‘But it is

impossible!’ observed one of his French guests. ‘And why?’ ‘Because it

is not a suitable marriage for Madame.’—‘How!’ exclaimed the Austrian,

seriously offended, and almost breathless, ‘His Royal Highness

Monseigneur, the Archduke Charles! not a suitable match for your

Princess.’ ‘Oh! no, Sir, it would be but a garrison match for her!’

“Besides, these lofty pretensions were instilled into us with our

education; they belonged to us as national sentiments, and our Princes

were not exempt from them. With us the King’s brothers disdained the

title of Royal Highness, they had the pretension of addressing all the

sovereigns by the title of brother; the rest of the system was carried

on in a proportionate way, and there was accordingly but one feeling in

Europe against our Versailles, manners and the presumption of our

Princes.

“Gustavus III. said, at Aix-la-Chapelle—‘Your Court of Versailles was

not accessible; it indulged too much in haughtiness and ridicule. When I

was there, there was scarcely any attention paid to me, and, when I left

it, I brought away the titles of _booby_ and _blockhead_.’

“The Duchess of Cumberland, who was married to the King of England’s

brother, had to complain, at the same time and in the same city, that

the Princess de Lamballe did not grant her the honours of the

folding-doors.

“The old Duke of Gloucester complained, on his own account, at a later

period in London, of one of our Princes of the blood, and added that the

Prince of Wales laughed heartily, because he, the Prince of Wales,

addressing the same Prince by the title of Monseigneur, the latter

studiously endeavoured to model his language so as not to return the

compliment.

“At Coblentz, however, when our circumstances were altered, our Princes

condescended to change their manners in that respect, and to let

themselves down to the level of the foreign Princes. They were then with

the Elector of Treves, a Prince of Saxony, their mother’s brother, whom,

by way of parenthesis, we were at that time eating up, and who was

afterwards deprived of his possessions on our account. They condescended

to call him their _uncle_, and he was allowed to call them his

_nephews_. It is confidently stated that he said to them one day, ‘It is

to your misfortunes that I am indebted for such affectionate

expressions; at Versailles you would have treated me as plain M. l’Abbé,

and it is not certain that you would have received my visits every day.’

It was added that he spoke the truth, and that they had given melancholy

proofs of it to his brother, the Count of Lusatia, who was present.

“The Princes generally passed their evenings in the company of their

intimate friends. One of them was, most of the time, at the house of

Madame de Polastron, to whom he paid attentions that were justified by

her constancy and her behaviour. Frequent attempts were made to destroy

the intimacy, but in vain, for Madame de Polastron was above all the

cabals employed for the purpose; and, in addition to her amiable manners

and excellent conduct, was completely disinterested, and carefully

avoided all interference in political affairs. She saw but very little

company. I was indebted to a female relative for the pleasure of being

admitted to it; but, as it was necessary to withdraw before the Prince’s

arrival, I never had the honour of seeing him there.

“Monsieur passed his evenings at Madame de Balby’s, Dame d’Atours to

Madame. Madame de Balby, who was lively, witty, a warm friend and a

determined enemy, attracted all the most distinguished characters. It

was an honour to be admitted to her house, which was the centre of taste

and fashion. Monsieur sometimes remained there until a late hour; and

when, after the crowd had slipped away and the circle was contracted, he

happened to be communicative, it must be confessed that he was as

superior to us by the charms of his conversation as by his rank and

dignity.

“So much for our manner of living and our outward appearance at

Coblentz; this was the fair side of our situation; but we were less

happy in a political point of view—that was the degrading side.”

“Good!” said the Emperor, “I begin to find your drawing-room details too

long. This is, however, excusable in you. The subject is a pleasing one

to you. You were then young; but go on.”

“Sire, the whole of our number was but a noble and brilliant mob, and

presented the image of complete confusion. It was anarchy striving

without, to establish, it was said, order within—a real democracy

struggling for the re-establishment of its aristocracy. We presented, on

a small scale, and merely with a few shades of difference, a copy of

every thing that was passing in France. We had among us zealous

adherents to our ancient forms, and ardent admirers of novelty; we had

our constitutionalists, our intolerants, and our moderates. We had our

empirics, who sincerely regretted that they had not made themselves

masters of the King’s person, for the purpose of acting with violence in

his name, or who frankly avowed that they entertained the design of

declaring his incapability. Finally, we had also our Jacobins, who

wished, on their return, to kill, to burn, to destroy every thing.

“No direct authority was exercised over the multitude by our

Princes.—They were our Sovereigns, it was true, but we were very unruly

subjects, and very easily irritated. We murmured on every occasion, and

it was particularly against those who joined us last that our common

fury was directed. It was, we declared, so much glory and good fortune

of which they deprived our exploits and our hopes. Those who were once

admitted considered every subsequent arrival too late. It was maintained

that all merit on that score was at an end. If all continued to be

received in the same way, the whole of France would soon be on our side,

and there would no longer be any person to punish.

“Denunciations of every kind, and from every quarter, were then showered

down upon those who joined us. A Prince de Saint-Maurice, son of the

Prince de Montbarey, found it impossible to resist the storm, although

he had the formal support of every distinguished character, and that of

the Prince himself, who deigned to employ supplication in his favour,

and said, ‘Alas! gentlemen, who is there that has not faults to reproach

himself with in the Revolution? I have been guilty of several, and, by

your oblivion of them, you have given me the right of interceding for

others.’ This did not spare M. de Saint-Maurice the necessity of making

his escape as soon as possible. His crime was that of having belonged to

the Society of the Friends of the Negroes, and of having been violently

attacked in the midst of us by a gentleman of Franche Comté, who

denounced M. de Saint-Maurice for having caused his mansions to be

burnt. It was, however, discovered, a few days afterwards, that the

brawling assailant had no mansion and was neither from Franche Comté,

nor a gentleman: he was a mere adventurer.

“M. de Cazalès, who had filled France and Europe with the celebrity of

his eloquence and courage in the National Assembly, had,

notwithstanding, lost the popular favour at Coblentz. When he arrived at

Paris, a report was spread among us that the Princes would not see him,

or would give him an ungracious reception. We collected eighty natives

of Languedoc to form, in opposition to his own wishes, a kind of escort

for him. M. de Cazalès was the honour of our province; we conducted him

to the Princes, by whom he was well received.

“A deputy of the third estate, who had highly distinguished himself in

the Constituent Assembly by his attachment to royalty, was among us. One

of our Princes, addressing him one day in the crowd, said, ‘But, Sir,

explain to me then.—You are so worthy a man, how could you, at the time,

take the oath of the _jeu de paume_?’ The deputy, struck dumb by the

attack, at first stammered out that he had been taken unawares—that he

did not foresee the fatal consequences—but promptly recovering himself,

he replied with vivacity: ‘I shall, however, observe to Monseigneur that

it was not that which led to the ruin of the French monarchy, but in

fact the assemblage of the nobility, which joined us in consequence of

the very persuasive letter written by Monseigneur.’—‘Stop there,’

exclaimed the Prince, patting him on the stomach, ‘be cool, my dear Sir;

I did not intend to vex you by that question.’

“Something like a system of regularity, whether good or bad, was,

however, adopted in the course of time. We were classed by corps and by

provinces; we had cantonments assigned to us, and were supplied with

arms. The King’s body-guards were again formed, clothed, equipped, and

paid, and soon became a superb corps in appearance and discipline. The

coalition of Auvergne and the marine corps, part on foot and part on

horseback, attracted peculiar notice by its discipline, knowledge, and

union. Our resignation and self-denial could not be too much admired.

Each officer was henceforth but a private soldier, subject to exercises

and fatigues, very contrary to his former manner of life, and exposed to

the greatest privations, for there was no pay, and many of that number

had soon no resource to depend on but the contributions of their more

fortunate comrades. We deserved a better fate, or, to speak more

correctly, we were worthy of a better enterprize. All the officers

belonging to the same regiments had been collected together in separate

bodies, in order that they might be ready to take the command of their

soldiers, who would not fail to join them, as we thought, on their first

seeing them. Such was our delusion! It was from a similar motive that

the gentlemen were classed according to their respective provinces, no

doubt being entertained of their efficient influence over the mass of

the population. Our weakness consisted in the conviction that we

continued to be wished for, respected, adored.

“All these bodies were publicly exercised and manœuvred, and the

diplomatic remonstrances which were made on the subject were answered

with a confident assurance that no such thing existed, or that it

certainly should be prevented. We had generals appointed, a staff

formed, and every thing which distinguishes head-quarters, even to the

office of grand-provost, arranged. Our Princes were gradually surrounded

with all that constitutes a real government. They had Ministers for the

affairs of the moment, and even for France, when we should return, so

certain and near at hand did that time appear.

“M. de Lavilleurnois, who was afterwards so much talked of, on account

of the share which he had in a royalist conspiracy, and who died at

Sinnamary, in consequence of the events of Fructidor, was intrusted with

the Administration of the Police. He set off at an early period to

perform its duties clandestinely at Paris. He had conceived a sincere

affection for me, and was determined to make me his son-in-law. He made

use of the most urgent arguments to induce me to follow him; but I

refused: I disliked the nature of his office. Otherwise, what different

combinations in my destiny!

“We had also direct relations with almost every Court. The Princes had

envoys at them, and received theirs at Coblentz. Monseigneur, the Count

d’Artois, visited Vienna, I believe, but I can state with certainty that

he was at Pilnitz. The nobility, in a body, addressed a letter to

Catherine, from whom we received M. de Romansoff as Ambassador. That

Empress saw, with pleasure, the storm that was rising in the south of

Europe; she cheerfully fanned a flame, which might prove very favourable

to her views, without putting her to any expense, and she accordingly

shewed herself ardent in her sentiments, and enthusiastic in her

promises. She did not despair, in that crisis, of making a dupe of

Gustavus III., whose contiguous activity was troublesome to her; she had

prevailed upon him, it is said, to undertake the crusade, by flattering

him with the rank of Generalissimo. I do not know if this Prince, who

certainly was a very superior character for his time, and possessed a

great share of understanding and talent, suffered himself to be deluded

by her. It is, however, undeniable that he displayed great attachment to

our cause, and announced his wish to fight for it in person. When he

left Aix la Chapelle to arrange his ultimate measures for that purpose

in Sweden, I heard him say, on taking leave of the Princess de Lamballe:

‘You will see me again shortly, but I am, nevertheless, obliged, on my

own account, to adhere to certain proceedings, to certain measures of

caution; for the part I have to play is of a very delicate nature. Know

that I, who am desirous of returning to fight at the head of your

aristocrats in France, am, at home, the first democrat of the country.’

“We also received envoys from Louis XVI., who presented public messages

in reprobation of our conduct, and had confidential conferences, perhaps

totally different. At least, we acted as if that had been the case;

openly declaring that he was a captive, and that we ought to take no

notice of any of his orders; that we were bound to take every thing he

was compelled to say in a contrary sense, and that, when he exhorted us

to peace, he was, in reality, calling upon us to go to war. It is

accordingly my opinion that we were very detrimental to the tranquillity

of the unfortunate Monarch, and that we had our special share in the

pardon which he bequeathed by his will to his friends, who, by an

indiscreet zeal, as he observes, did him so much injury.

“Our emigration, however, was prolonged in spite of all the promises

which were made to us, and of all the hopes with which our fancy was

flattered. With what illusions, what idle tales, what absurdities, was

our impatience mocked! whether those who invented them anticipated our

disappointment, or were themselves deceived. It was pleasantly

calculated that, according to our letters and gazettes, we had, in less

than eighteen months, set in motion nearly two millions of men, although

we ourselves had seen none of them. But those initiated in the mystery

assured us, in special confidence, that these troops marched only by

night, for the purpose of more effectually surprising the democrats, or

that they passed in the day-time only by platoons and without uniform;

or told us some other story of a similar kind. On the other hand, we

shewed each other a heap of letters from all countries and the best

sources, written in an enigmatical style, and which were thought to be

intelligible to us alone. One was acquainted that fifty thousand

Bohemian glasses had been just sent off for his country; another was

informed that ten thousand pieces of Saxon porcelain would soon be sent

off; and a third received intelligence that twenty-five bales of cocoa

would be addressed to him, with other fooleries of the same kind.

“How was it possible, I now ask myself, that men of understanding, for

there certainly were a great many among the number, that Ministers, who

had formerly governed us, and others who were destined to succeed them,

should be gulled by such wretched stuff, or that the plain good sense,

which we possessed as a multitude, did not make us laugh in their faces?

But no; we were not the less convinced that we were near the

accomplishment of our hopes; that the moment was at hand; that it would

infallibly happen; that we had only to show ourselves; that we were

eagerly expected, and that all would fall prostrate at our feet.”

Here the Emperor, who had often interrupted me with laughter and

raillery, said, in a very serious tone, “How very faithful is the

picture you have drawn! I recognise a crowd of your friends in it.

Truly, my dear Las Cases, and I say it without meaning any offence to

you, vapouring, credulity, inconsistency, stupidity itself, might be

said, in spite of all their wit, to be specially their lot. When I

occasionally wished to be amused, and divested myself of all reserve,

for the purpose of giving them full scope, and encouraging their

confidence in me, I have heard, in the Tuileries, under the Consulate

and the Empire, things not less ridiculous than those which you now

relate. None of them ever entertained a doubt of any thing. The love of

the French for their Kings was centered, they assured me, in my person.

I could henceforth do what I pleased; I had a right to use my power; I

should never meet with any other obstacle but a handful of incorrigible

persons who were the detestation of all. That counter-revolution so much

dreaded, observed another, was but child’s play to me; I had effected it

with the utmost ease. And (will this be believed?) ‘the only thing

wanting to it,’ said he, in an insinuating tone, ‘is the substitution of

the ancient white colour for those which have done us so much injury in

all countries.’ The idiot! That was the only blot which he could find in

our escutcheon. I laughed out of sheer pity, although I felt some

difficulty in restraining my feelings; but for his part, his sincerity

was unquestionable; he was fully persuaded that he spoke as I thought;

and still more so that the generality thought as he did.[4] But go on.”

Footnote 4:

It is certainly an inherent weakness in our nature to deceive

ourselves with respect to the sentiments that are entertained of us by

others. At Coblentz, where we threw away so much money, where so many

amiable and brilliant young men, more to be dreaded, no doubt, from an

excess than a want of education, filled every house and visited every

family, it was natural to believe that we should be beloved, and

accordingly we thought ourselves adored. Well! at the time of my exile

at the Cape of Good Hope, I was placed by a singular chance under the

guard of an inhabitant of Coblentz, who had witnessed the brilliant

moments of our emigration. I felt great pleasure in renewing the

subject with him. We could not have any secrets on that head to

conceal from one another; twenty-five years had elapsed. Well, then,

“you were not absolutely hated,” said he, “but our real affection was

reserved for your adversaries, for their cause was ours. Liberty had

slipped in among us through you. There, in the midst of you, even

before your eyes, we had formed clubs, and God knows how often we

laughed in them at your expense, &c.” And it happened to him more than

once, he assured me, when mingled with the crowd, which resounded with

acclamations as we passed, to shout with a considerable number of his

comrades, “Long live the French Princes, and may they drink a little

in the Rhine! You spoke of the reception we gave you,” said he, “it

was that which we gave to Custine, which you should have seen! There

you would have had an opportunity of appreciating our real sentiments.

We ran with enthusiasm to meet him: we crowned his soldiers; a great

number of us enlisted in his army, and several of them became

generals. As for me, I missed the opportunity of making my fortune.”

“The appearance of the Duke of Brunswick at Coblentz, and the arrival of

the King of Prussia at the head of his troops, were subjects of great

joy and expectation to the whole of the emigrants. Heaven opens at

length before us! was our exclamation, and we are about to return to the

land of promise. It was, however, the opinion of persons of judgment and

experience, from the beginning, that our struggle would have the same

result as all those that resembled it in history, and that we should be

but instruments and pretexts for foreigners, who only pursued their

private interest, and entertained no feeling for us.

“M. de Cazalès, whom a short time much improved, expressed himself to

that effect with much energy. We beheld, with delight, the Prussians, as

they filed off through the streets of Coblentz, on their march to our

frontiers. ‘Foolish boys,’ he exclaimed, ‘you admire, with enthusiasm,

those troops and all their train. You rejoice at their march; you ought

rather to shudder at it. For my own part, I should wish to see these

soldiers, to the last man of them, plunged in the Rhine. Wo be to them

who incite foreigners to invade their country! O my friends, the French

nobility will not survive this atrocity! They will have the affliction

of expiring far from the places of their birth. I am more guilty than

any other, for I see it, and yet I act like all the rest; but my only

excuse is that I cannot prevent the catastrophe. I repeat, wo to them

who call in foreigners against their country, and trust in them.’

“How oracular these last words! Facts would have speedily convinced us

of their truth, had we been less infatuated, or had the multitude been

capable of reasoning and acting with propriety; but we were destined to

enrich history with one of those lessons that are most entitled to the

meditation of mankind. We might be estimated at 20 or 25,000 men under

arms; and certainly, such a force, filled with ardour and devotion,

fighting for its own interests, maintaining an understanding with the

sympathetic elements of the interior, acting against a nation, shaken to

its foundation and convulsed by the agitation of new rights, not yet

established and but imperfectly understood, might be capable of striking

decisive blows. But it was not upon our strength, our success, our

activity, that the foreigners relied for the attainment of their views.

Accordingly, under the pretence of employing that influence and of

directing its operation, as they said, against several points at once,

they annihilated us by parcelling out our numbers, and by making, as it

were, prisoners of us in the middle of their different corps. In this

way, 6000 of us, under the Prince of Condé, were marched against Alsace;

4000, under the Duke of Bourbon were to act in Flanders, and from 12 to

15,000 continued in the centre, under command of the King’s two

brothers, to co-operate in the invasion of Champagne.

“It had been the plan and wish of our Princes, that Monsieur, as heir to

the crown and the natural representative of Louis XVI., should, on

account of his captivity, proclaim himself Regent of the kingdom, the

moment he set foot on the French territory; that he should march with

his emigrants at the head of the expedition, and that the allies, in his

rear, should be considered only as auxiliaries. But the allies treated

the plan with derision, and confined us to a station at their tail,

under the orders and at the will and pleasure of the Generalissimo,

Brunswick, who caused us to be preceded by the most absurd of

manifestoes; from the ridicule and odium of which, however, he at least

saved us.

“It is but just, however, to acknowledge that this treatment had not

escaped the foresight of some experienced and better advised heads among

us. They had accordingly suggested, it was said, in the Council of the

Princes, that we should throw ourselves, before the arrival of the

allies, on some point of France, and maintain a civil war there by

ourselves. Others more desperate, or more ardent, were of opinion that

we should nobly seize upon the states of the Elector of Treves, our

benefactor; occupy the town and fortress of Coblentz, and establish

there a central rallying point, or point of support, independent of the

Germanic body; and when we exclaimed against such perfidy and

ingratitude, their answer was:—‘Desperate evils called for desperate

remedies.’ It is impossible to say what might have been the result of

such resolutions, which were, however, more consistent with the bold

spirit of enterprize, that characterizes the present times, than with

the state of manners as they then existed. They were, therefore,

unattended to, and besides, the opportunity had slipped by; we were too

closely involved in the midst of foreigners; we were already in their

power, and our destiny was to be fulfilled!...

“As for us who formed the multitude, we were far from foreseeing the

calamities that were to attend us. We began our march in high spirits.

There was not one of us who did not expect to be, in a fortnight from

that moment, at home, triumphant in the midst of his submissive,

humiliated, and increased vassals. Our confidence would not have endured

a single observation or doubt upon that head. Of this I am about to give

an instance, which though personal and very trifling in itself, will not

be the less characteristic with respect to us all. We were marching

through the city of Treves; one of my granduncles had, during the war of

the succession, been Governor for Louis XIV. while we retained

possession of it. I went to see his tomb, which is in a chapel,

belonging to the Carthusians of that town. The ardour of my youth and

the emotion of the moment determined me to erect a small monument to his

memory, with a superb inscription, suitable to the circumstances. I

entertained no doubt of executing my wish. The good friars were of a

different way of thinking; the prior wished me to arrange the matter

with the Abbé, a kind of bishop, and of German bishop. His reserve and

coldness, in spite of his numerous coats of arms, prepossessed me very

much against him, when I communicated my chivalrous project; but when,

after some circumlocution, he declared that under the present

circumstances ... prudence,—discretion,—if the French were to enter the

place—At these last words, my indignation was extreme; it was such that

I did not wait to utter a single word in reply. I instantly hurried

away, with a mingled laugh of contempt and anger, convinced that I had

left the most horrible Jacobin in existence behind me; and nothing but

my natural generosity and respect for my own character could have

prevented me calling in my comrades, who would have certainly pulled

down the chapel. But alas! the abbot saw farther than I did! Three weeks

had not elapsed before the republicans were in Treves, the poor abbé put

to flight, and the ashes of my good uncle profaned by the infidels.

“But no sooner were we in full operation, no sooner had we set foot on

French ground, than it became no difficult matter, except in cases of

downright stupidity and blindness, to comprehend that it actually might

be just possible that we had been the dupes of our own folly. We found

ourselves in the midst of the Prussians, who fettered all our movements;

we could not take a step in advance, to the right or to the left,

without their permission, and they never granted it. Our subsistence,

all our resources, depended solely upon their will; we had the shame of

appearing as slaves on the soil where we aspired to reign.

“As for our countrymen, instead of receiving us as their deliverers, as

we had been convinced they would, they only gave us proofs of dislike

and aversion. With the exception of a few country gentlemen or others

who joined us, the whole mass of the population fled at our approach; we

were treated as enemies, with the look of reproach and the stern silence

of reprobation. They seemed to say to us: ‘Do you not shudder then at

thus staining your country’s soil? Are you not Frenchmen by birth? Do

your hearts then make no appeal to you in favour of your native land?

You say you are wronged; but what wrong, what injury ever gave to a son

the right or the wish to tear open the bosom of his mother?... We are

told that in ancient times a fiery patrician, Coriolanus, was infamous

enough to fight against his country, but he had at least the merit of

uniting elevated sentiments with his furious passion; he came forward

with a victorious arm; he imposed his own conditions; _he_ was not

dragged along at the tail of barbarous foreigners; he commanded them,

and he also suffered himself to be moved to compassion. Can you be

unsusceptible of that tenderness, and do you not tremble at our

maledictions, which will be perpetuated on you by our children? At any

rate, whatever may be your success, it will not equal your

mortifications! You pretend to come for the purpose of governing, and

you will have brought your masters with you.’

“At Verdun and at Estain, we were quartered in the town. Some of my

comrades and myself were lodged in a handsome house, but all the

furniture and all the proprietors had disappeared, with the exception of

two very pretty young ladies, who put us in possession of it. This last

circumstance seemed a favourable omen, we took the opportunity of

remarking it to them, and were desirous of ingratiating ourselves by our

politeness and attentions. ‘Gentlemen,’ said one of the two amazons in

rather a sharp tone, ‘we have remained, because we have felt that we had

the courage to tell you, face to face, that our lovers are in arms

against you, and that they have our prayers at least as much as our

hearts.’ This was intelligible language; we wished for no more of it,

and even shifted our quarters to another house.

“Be it as it may, we were at length in France, and in the rear of that

Prussian army, which pushed forward its brilliant successes, leaving us

three or four marches behind. And, whether their object was to turn us

into ridicule, because we had assured them that all the towns would

throw open their gates on our appearance, or to rid themselves of our

importunities, they charged us with the siege of Thionville. We made our

approaches, and, by a fantastical singularity, the marine corps found

itself precisely opposed to the national volunteers of Brest. When they

recognised each other, it is impossible to describe the volley of

invectives and insults that was instantly exchanged.

“Thionville is, however, as it is known, one of the strongest places,

and we found the reduction of it impossible with our limited means, for

we were in want of every thing; and it absolutely required an important

negociation to obtain two 24-pounders from the Austrians at Luxembourg.

After a great deal of solicitation and hesitation, the two pieces were

at length brought in triumph, and it was with this formidable train,

that we summoned the place, and fired at night, in pure waste of powder,

some hundreds of cannon shot. On my return from emigration, having

fallen by chance into company with General de Wimphen, who commanded the

fortress, he asked me, ‘what could have been our intention, or the

meaning of the jest we had thus attempted to play off?’ ‘It was done, I

believe,’ said I, ‘because reliance was placed upon you.’ ‘But even had

that been the case,’ said he, ‘you still ought to have furnished me with

an excuse for surrendering; you could not expect that I should solicit

you to attack me.’ Every thing was on a proportionate scale: the

slightest sally spread confusion through all our forces; the most

trifling circumstance was an event with us; the cause was obvious; we

were unacquainted with every thing, and accordingly, setting courage

aside, I do not scruple to believe that a hundred picked men of the

Imperial guard would have routed the whole of our army. Happily, our

adversaries were as ignorant as ourselves, all were pigmies then,

although in a very short time giants were found every where.

“Meanwhile we were extremely discontented with all this, under our

tents, and on our wretched straw; but _à la Française_, we found relief

in our gaiety; our ill humour evaporated in puns and jests. All our

principal officers had nicknames, there was not one, even to our

Commander in Chief, the venerable Marshal de Broglie, who escaped us,

and this puts me in mind of a circumstance, which gave rise to a

nickname for one of his lieutenants, which he never got rid of. Should

any of my comrades in the field ever read this, it may even now excite a

laugh.

“At the moment of a sally, which, as usual, made us very uneasy, every

one pressed forward. We had two small pieces of cannon, which we had

bought, and which, for want of horses, were drawn by the officers of

artillery themselves.” “Well!” observed the Emperor, “I might myself

have been attached to these very pieces, and yet what different

combinations in our destinies and in those of the world! For it is

incontestable that I have given an impulse and direction to it,

emanating solely from myself. But go on.”

“Sire, our two small pieces were rolling along the highway, when the

general officer of the day arrived at full gallop, and stopped with

indignation at the sight of our little cannon, as they were drawn

towards the fortress, breech foremost.—‘How’, exclaimed he, ‘are these

really gentlemen, who draw their cannon in this manner against the

enemy? And, if he were actually to present himself, how could you

contrive to fire upon him?’ He persisted in his blunder, refusing to

comprehend what the officers of artillery strove by every possible means

to explain; that such was the mode of proceeding every where, and that,

unless he had some new invention to communicate, there was no other mode

to be adopted. From that moment we dubbed him by a nickname, by which he

soon became universally known.

“But all this burlesque was soon exchanged for what was serious in the

extreme; the scene shifted, as it were by magic, and our misfortunes

burst upon us in an instant. Whether from treachery, weakness, political

interest, or sickness in his army, from the real superiority of force,

or the mere dexterity of the French general, the King of Prussia entered

into secret negotiation with him, suddenly faced about, and, marching to

the frontier, evacuated the French territory. A most dreadful storm now

burst over our heads; words are inadequate to express the scandalous

treatment we experienced, as well as the just indignation, which could

not fail to animate every generous heart against our allies, the

Prussians. Our Princes degraded, disavowed, insulted, by them; our

equipages, our most necessary effects, even our linen, plundered; our

persons ill-used: and thus we were basely driven and thrust beyond the

frontiers by our friends, our allies!!!

“For my part, sinking under the fatigue of too long marches in the mud,

and under torrents of rain; bending under a musquet and a load of

accoutrements, which did harm to no one but to myself, I took advantage

of my privilege as a volunteer, to leave the ranks, and effect my

retreat as well as I could. I proceeded as occasion served; I never

sought the common halting place; I took refuge in the nearest farm-yard,

and whether it was my own peculiar good fortune, or because the peasants

were in reality kind and not exasperated against us, I passed the

frontier without any unlucky accident. It was not until some time

afterwards that I was enabled to form a correct estimate of the whole

extent of the danger to which I had exposed myself, when I read, in the

papers, that from fifteen to eighteen of us, stragglers like myself, and

some of whom stood near me in the ranks, had been seized, dragged to

Paris, and executed in public, in a kind of auto-da-fé, and, as it were,

by way of expiation.

“As soon as we were out of France, we received notice to disband, but

the intimation was superfluous, for that measure was rendered absolutely

indispensable by our wants, and the privation of every necessary. We

dispersed, each taking his own way at random, with despair and rage for

our companions. We travelled as fugitives, the greater part of the time

on foot, and some almost naked, over the scenes of our past splendour

and luxury; happy when the doors were not shut in our faces, when we did

not receive a brutal repulse! In a moment, we were officially driven

from every quarter; we were prohibited from residing in, or from

entering, all the neighbouring states; we were compelled to take refuge

in distant countries, and to exhibit, throughout Europe, the spectacle

of our miseries, which ought to have been a grand moral and political

lesson to the people, to the great, and to Kings.

“The exploits of the French exacted, however, from foreigners, a cruel

expiation of the indignities with which they overwhelmed us; whilst, on

our part, we experienced a kind of consolation in seeing the honour of

the emigration take refuge in the army of Condé, which displayed itself

to public view, and inscribed itself in history, as a model of loyalty,

valour, and constancy.

“Such, Sire, is that too celebrated era, that fatal determination,

which, with respect to a great number, can be considered only as the

delusion of youth and inexperience. None, however, but themselves,

possess the right of reproaching them with the error. The sentiments by

which they were actuated were so pure, so natural, so generous, that

they might even, were it necessary, derive honour from them; and these

dispositions, I must say, belonged to the mass of which we consisted,

and more particularly to that crowd of country gentlemen, who,

sacrificing all and expecting nothing, without fortune as well as

without hope, displayed a devotion truly heroic, because its only aim

was the performance of duties which they held to be sacred. In other

respects, our defect lay in our political education, which did not teach

us to distinguish our duties, and made us dedicate to the Prince alone

what belonged to the country at large. Accordingly, in future times,

when hostile passions shall be extinct, when no traces shall be left of

jarring interests or of party infatuation and fury, what was doubtful

with us will be positive and clear to others; what was excusable or even

allowable in us, who were situated between an ancient order of things

that was on the point of terminating, and a new one that was about to

commence, will be considered highly culpable in those possessing

established doctrines. Among them, the following will be held as

articles of faith:—1st. That the greatest of all crimes is the

introduction of a foreign power into the heart of one’s country. 2ndly.

That the sovereignty cannot be erratic, but that it is inseparable from

the territory, and remains attached to the mass of the citizens. 3rdly.

That the country cannot be transported abroad; but that it is immutable

and entire on the sacred soil which has given us birth, and which

contains the bones of our ancestors. Such are the grand maxims, and many

others besides, which will remain the offspring of our emigration; such

the great truths, which will be collected from our calamities!”

“Very well!” exclaimed the Emperor, “very well! This is what is called

being free from prejudices! These are really philosophical views! And it

will be said of you, that you were enabled to convert to your advantage

the lessons of time and adversity.”

“Sire, during our stay on board the Northumberland, and the leisure

hours of our passage, the English alluded more than once to this

delicate topic. Misled by the war, which they had carried on with fury

against us, as well as by the maxims with which the interest of the

moment filled their journals, even in opposition to their national

doctrines, they conversed about the merits of the emigration, and the

virtues they had witnessed: and condemned the nation for having resisted

it. But when the arguments became too complicated, or we were desirous

of putting a sudden stop to them, we gained our point with a single

word. We merely said to them:—‘Go back to the period of your own

Revolution; imagine James II. threatening you from the opposite shore

and under French banners: although surrounded by faithful subjects, what

would you have done? And if Louis XIV. had brought him back to London at

the head of 50,000 French, who should have afterwards maintained

garrisons in your country, what would have been your feelings?’—‘Ah!...

But ... Ah!...’ they exclaimed, endeavouring to find out some

difference, but not being able to discover it, they laughed, and were

silent.” “And in fact,” said the Emperor, “there was not a word to be

said in reply.”

He then began to review, with his accustomed rapidity and talent, the

different subjects I had noticed, and stopped to reflect on the

absurdity, the inconsistency, the great mistake of our emigration, and

the real injuries that it had done to France, to the King, and to

ourselves. “You have established, and consecrated in political France,”

he observed, “a separation similar to that which the Catholics and

Protestants introduced into religious Europe; and to what calamities has

it not given rise! I had succeeded in destroying its results, but are

they not on the point of being revived?” He next developed the means

which he had employed to annihilate that plague, the precautions he had

been forced to adopt, and the effects which he had in view. How every

thing that fell from his tongue was changed in appearance!—how every

thing seemed magnified in my eyes in proportion as he discussed the

subject! “And,” he remarked, “a peculiar singularity in my situation was

that in the whole of those transactions I held the helm myself

constantly in the midst of rocks. Every one, judging according to his

own standard, attributed to passion, to simple prejudice, or to

littleness, what in me, however, was but the consequence of profound

views, of grand conceptions, and the most elevated state maxims. It

might have been said that I reigned only over pigmies with respect to

intellectual talent. I was comprehended by none. The national party felt

only jealousy and resentment at what they saw me do in favour of the

emigrants, and the latter, on their part, were persuaded that I sought

only to gain lustre by their assistance. Poor creatures!...

“I obtained, however, my object, in spite of reciprocal infatuation and

prejudice, and I had the satisfaction of leaving every thing quiet in

port, when I launched out to sea in prosecution of my grand

enterprises.”

Having mentioned, since my return to Europe, these expressions of

Napoleon’s to a great Officer of the Crown, who had often the honour of

conversing with him in private (Le Comte de S——), he related to me, in

his turn, a conversation precisely on the same subject. Its coincidence

with what has been just read is so very striking as to induce me to

insert it here. The Emperor said to him one day: “What, think you, is my

reason for endeavouring to have about me the great names of the ancient

monarchy?”—“Perhaps, Sire, for the splendour of your throne, and for the

purpose of keeping up certain appearances in the eyes of Europe.”—“Ah!

That is just like you, with your pride and your prejudices of rank! Well

then, learn, that my victories and my power are much better

recommendations for me in Europe than all your great names, and that my

apparent predilection for them does me a great deal of injury, and

renders me very unpopular at home. You attribute to narrow views what

arise from most extensive ones. I am engaged in renovating a society, a

nation, and the elements that I am obliged to employ are hostile to each

other. The nobility and the emigrants are but a point in the mass, and

that mass is inimical to them, and continues very much exasperated

against them; it hardly forgives me for having recalled them. For my own

part, I considered it as a duty: but if I suffer them to continue as a

body, they may one day be serviceable to foreign powers, prove injurious

to us, and subject themselves to great dangers. My object, then, is to

dissolve their union, and to render them independent of each other. If I

place some of them about my person, in the different branches of

administration, and in the army, it is for the purpose of consolidating

them with the mass, and of managing so as to reduce all classes into a

whole; for I am mortal, and if I should happen to leave you before that

fusion is accomplished, you would soon see what disasters would arise

from these heterogeneous parts, and the dreadful dangers of which

certain persons might become the victims! Thus, then, Sir, my views are

all connected with humanity and elevated political considerations, and,

in no respect, with vain and silly prejudices.”

When I observed to the person who related this anecdote, how little we

were acquainted at the Tuileries with Napoleon’s real character, and the

great and excellent qualities of his soul and heart, he answered that,

for his own part, he had been personally more fortunate, and that he

would give me a proof of it, which he selected out of ten: “The Emperor

shewed himself, one day, in his Privy Council, very much incensed

against General La F——, whom he attacked with great severity, and whose

opinions and principles, he said, were capable of effecting the complete

dissolution of a state: becoming animated by degrees, he at length put

himself into a real passion. I was present as a member of the Council; I

had been recently admitted, and was little accustomed to the Emperor’s

manners, and, although stopped by the two members placed next to me, I

undertook to speak in defence of the accused, asserting that he had been

calumniated to the Sovereign, and that he lived quietly on his estate,

with personal opinions which were productive of no ill effect whatever.

The Emperor, still in a passion, resumed the charge for the purpose of

pressing it with vehemence; but after five or six words, he stopped

short, and addressing himself to me, said: ‘But he is your friend, Sir,

and you are right. I had forgotten that.—Let us speak of something

else.’ ‘And why,’ I asked, ‘did you not make us acquainted with all this

at the time?’—By a fatality which would seem to belong to Napoleon’s

atmosphere, whether from prejudice or otherwise, the impression on our

minds was that it could only be told to his intimate friends; for

whoever had said much about it would only have passed for a clumsy

romancer of a courtier, who told not what he believed to be true, but

what he conceived best suited to obtain favour and rewards.”

Since I have mentioned this great Officer of the Crown, who is no less

distinguished by the graces of his mind and the amenity of his manners

than by his exalted character, I shall notice one of his answers to

Napoleon, remarkable for its ingenious and delicate flattery. The

Emperor, at one of his levees, having been obliged to wait some time for

his appearance, attacked him on his arrival, openly, in the presence of

all. It happened to be precisely at the time when five or six Kings (and

among others, those of Bavaria, Saxony, and Wurtemberg), were at Paris.

“Sire,” replied the culprit, “I have, no doubt, a million of excuses to

make to your Majesty, but at this time, one is not at perfect liberty to

go through the streets as one pleases. I just now had the misfortune to

get into a _crowd of kings_, from which I found it impossible to

extricate myself sooner. This, Sire, was the cause of my delay.” Every

one smiled, and the Emperor contented himself with saying, in a softened

tone of voice: “Whatever, Sir, may be the cause, take proper precautions

for the future, and above all, never make me wait again.”

NAPOLEON’S SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY.—PUBLIC SPIRIT

OF THE TIME.—EVENTS OF THE 10TH OF AUGUST.

3rd.—The weather is somewhat improved; the Emperor attempted to take a

walk in the garden. General Bingham and the Colonel of the 53d requested

to see the Emperor, who kept them rather long. The appearance of the

Governor put us all to flight. General Bingham disappeared, and, for our

part, we went to the wood, for the purpose of keeping away from the

spot.

The Emperor, during his walk, conversed a great deal about a journey

which he took to Burgundy in the beginning of the Revolution. This he

calls his _Sentimental Journey_ to Nuitz. He supped there with his

comrade Gassendi, at that time captain in the same regiment, and who was

advantageously married to the daughter of a physician of the place. The

young traveller soon remarked the difference of political opinion

between the father and son-in-law; Gassendi, the gentleman, was, of

course, an aristocrat, and the physician a flaming patriot. The latter

found in the strange guest a powerful auxiliary, and was so delighted

with him that the following day at dawn he paid him a visit of

acknowledgment and sympathy. The appearance of a young officer of

artillery, with good logical reasoning and a ready tongue, was, observed

the Emperor, a valuable and rare accession to the place. It was easy for

the traveller to perceive that he made a favourable impression. It was

Sunday, and hats were taken off to him from one end of the street to the

other. His triumph, however, was not without a check. He went to sup at

the house of a Madame Maret or Muret, where another of his comrades,

V——, seemed to be comfortably established. Here the aristocracy of the

canton were accustomed to meet, although the mistress was but the wife

of a wine-merchant, but she had great property and the most polished

manners; she was, said the Emperor, the duchess of the place. All the

gentlefolks of the vicinity were to be found there. The young officer

was caught, as he remarked, in a real wasp-nest, and it was necessary

for him to fight his way out again. The contest was unequal. In the very

heat of the action, the mayor was announced. “I believed him to be an

assistant sent to me by Heaven in the critical moment, but he was the

worst of all my opponents. I see this villanous fellow now before me in

his fine Sunday clothes, fat and bloated, in an ample scarlet coat; he

was a miserable animal. I was happily extricated by the generosity of

the mistress of the house, perhaps from a secret sympathy of opinion.

She unceasingly parried with her wit the blows which were dealt at me;

and was a protecting shield on which the enemy’s weapons struck in vain.

She guarded me from every kind of wound, and I have always retained a

pleasing recollection of the services I received from her in that sort

of skirmish.

“The same diversity of opinions,” said the Emperor, “was then to be met

with in every part of France. In the saloons, in the streets, on the

highways, in the taverns, every one was ready to take part in the

contest, and nothing was easier than for a person to form an erroneous

estimate of the influence of parties and opinions, according to the

local situation in which he was placed. Thus a patriot might easily be

deceived, when in the saloons, or among an assembly of officers, where

the majority was decidedly against him; but, the instant he was in the

street, or among the soldiers, he found himself in the midst of the

entire nation. The sentiments of the day succeeded even in making

proselytes among the officers themselves, particularly after the

celebrated oath to the Nation, the Law, and the King. Until that time,”

continued the Emperor, “had I received an order to point my cannon

against the people, I have no doubt, that custom, prejudice, education,

and the name of the King, would have induced me to obey; but, the

national oath once taken, this would have ceased, and I should have

acknowledged the nation only. My natural propensities thenceforth

harmonized with my duties, and happily accorded with all the metaphysics

of the Assembly. The patriotic officers, however, it must be allowed,

constituted but the smaller number; but with the soldiers, as a lever,

they led the regiment and imposed the law. The comrades of the opposite

party, and the officers themselves, had recourse to us in every critical

moment. I remember, for instance, having rescued from the fury of the

populace a brother officer, whose crime consisted in singing from the

windows of our dining-room the celebrated ballad _O Richard! O mon Roi!_

I had little notion then that that air would one day be proscribed in

the same manner on my account. Just so, on the 10th of August, when I

saw the palace of the Tuileries stormed and the person of the King

seized, I was certainly very far from thinking that I should replace

him, and that that palace would be my place of residence.”

In dwelling upon the events of the 10th of August, he said: “I was,

during that horrible epoch, at Paris, in lodgings in the Rue du Mail,

Place des Victoires. On hearing the sound of the tocsin, and the news of

the assault upon the Tuileries, I ran to the Carousel, to the house of

Fauvelet, the brother of Bourrienne, who kept an upholsterer’s shop. He

had been my comrade at the military school of Brienne. It was from that

house, which, by the by, I was never afterwards able to find, in

consequence of the great alterations made there, that I had a good view

of all the circumstances of the attack. Before I reached the Carousel, I

had been met by a group of hideous-looking men, carrying a head at the

end of a pike. Seeing me decently dressed, with the look of a gentleman,

they called upon me to shout _Vive la Nation!_ which, as it may be

easily believed, I did without hesitation.

“The palace was attacked by the vilest rabble. The King had

unquestionably for his defence as many troops as the Convention

afterwards had on the 13th Vendémiaire, and the enemies of the latter

were much better disciplined and more formidable. The greater part of

the national guard shewed themselves favourable to the King; this

justice is due to them.”

Here the Grand Marshal observed “that he actually belonged to one of the

battalions which manifested the most determined devotion. He was several

times on the point of being massacred as he returned alone to his

residence.” We remarked, on our part, that in general the national guard

of Paris had constantly displayed the virtues of its class; the love of

order, attachment to authority, the dread of plunder, and the

detestation of anarchy; and that also was the Emperor’s opinion.

“The palace being forced, and the King having repaired to the Assembly,”

continued he, “I ventured to penetrate into the garden. Never since has

any of my fields of battle given me the idea of so many dead bodies, as

I was impressed with by the heaps of the Swiss; whether the smallness of

the place seemed to increase the number, or because it was the result of

the first impression I ever received of that kind. I saw well dressed

women commit the grossest indecencies on the dead bodies of the Swiss. I

went through all the coffee-houses in the neighbourhood of the Assembly;

the irritation was every where extreme; fury was in every heart and

shewed itself in every countenance, although the persons thus enflamed

were far from belonging to the class of the populace; and all these

places must necessarily have been frequented daily by the same visitors:

for, although I had nothing particular in my dress, or perhaps it was

because my countenance was more calm, it was easy for me to perceive

that I excited many hostile and distrustful looks, as some one who was

unknown or suspected.”

MASKED BALLS.—MADAME DE MÉGRIGNY.—PIEDMONT AND THE PIEDMONTESE.—CANALS

OF FRANCE.—PLANS RESPECTING PARIS.—VERSAILLES.—FONTAINEBLEAU, &C.

4th.—The weather was much improved. The Emperor ordered his calash, and

walked a good way until it took him up.

The conversation turned upon masked balls, which the Emperor was

peculiarly fond of and frequently ordered. He was then always sure of a

certain meeting which never failed to take place. He was, he said,

regularly accosted every year by the same mask, who reminded him of old

intimacies, and ardently entreated to be received and admitted at Court.

The mask was a most amiable, kind, and beautiful woman, to whom many

persons were certainly much indebted. The Emperor, who continued to love

her, always answered;—“I do not deny that you are charming, but reflect

a little upon your situation; be your own judge and decide. You have two

or three husbands, and children by several of your lovers. It would have

been thought a happiness to have shared in the first fault; the second

would have caused pain, but still it might be pardoned; but the

sequel—and then, and then!... Fancy yourself the Emperor and judge; what

would you do in my place, I who am bound to revive and maintain a

certain decorum.” The beautiful suitor either did not reply, or

said:—“At least do not deprive me of hope;” and deferred her claims of

happiness to the following year. And each of us,” said the Emperor, “was

punctual at the new meeting.”

The Emperor took great pleasure in getting himself insulted at these

balls. He laughed heartily at the house of Cambacérès one day, on being

told by a Madame de St. D——, “that there were people at the ball who

ought to be turned out, and that they certainly could not have got

admittance without stolen tickets.”

Another time, he forced the tender and timid Madame de Mégrigny to rise

and retire in anger, and with tears in her eyes, complaining that the

freedom, allowed at a masked ball, had, in her case, been sadly abused.

The Emperor had just put her in mind of a very remarkable favour, which

he had formerly granted to her, and added that every one supposed she

had paid for it by granting him the lord’s right. “But there was,” said

the Emperor, “nobody but myself who could say so, without insulting her;

because, although such was the report, I was certain of its falsehood.”

The following is an account of the circumstance.

When the Emperor was on his way to be crowned at Milan, he slept at

Troyes. The authorities were presented to him; and with them was a young

lady, on the point of being married, with a petition, intreating his

protection and assistance. As the Emperor was, besides, desirous of

doing something which might produce a good effect, and prove agreeable

to the country, the circumstance appeared favourable, and he took

advantage of it with all imaginable grace. The young lady (Madame de

Mégrigny) belonged to the first families of this province, but had been

completely ruined by the emigration. She had scarcely returned to the

miserable abode of her parents, when a page arrived with the Emperor’s

decree, which put them in possession of an income of 30,000 francs or

more. The effect of such a proceeding may be well imagined. However, as

the young lady was very charming and perfectly handsome, it was decided

that her fascinations had some share in his gallantry, although he left

the town a few hours afterwards, and never thought more of the thing;

but the general opinion was not a jot altered on that account. It is

well known how stories are formed; and as she married one of his

equerries, and had consequently come to Court, all this had been so well

mingled together that, when she was afterwards appointed sub-governess

to the King of Rome, the choice shocked, for a moment, the austere

Madame de Montesquiou, who suspected, said the Emperor, that it was but

a mere arrangement.

The Emperor said that he renewed at Turin, in the person of Madame de

Lascaris, the gracious gallantry exercised at Troyes; and that, in both

instances, he had reason to be gratified with the results of his

liberality. The two families gave proofs of attachment and gratitude.

We enquired what might have been the sentiments of Piedmont with regard

to himself. He had, he said, a particular affection for that province.

M. de Saint-Marsan, on whose fidelity he relied to the end, had assured

him, at the period of our reverses, that the country would shew itself

one of his best provinces.

“In fact,” continued the Emperor, “the Piedmontese do not like to be a

small state; their King was a real feudal lord, whom it was necessary to

court, or to dread: He had more power and authority than I, who, as

Emperor of the French, was but a supreme magistrate, bound to see the

laws executed, and unable to dispense with them. Had I it in my power to

prevent the arrest of a courtier for debt? Could I have put a stop to

the regular action of the laws, no matter upon whom they operated?”

During the conversation at dinner, the Emperor inquired whether the

quantity of river water flowing into the Mediterranean and the Black Sea

had been calculated. This led him to express a wish that a calculation

of the fluvial water of Europe should be made, and that the proportion

contributed by each valley and each stream, should be ascertained. He

regretted much that he had not proposed this series of scientific

questions. This was, he observed, his grand system. Did any useful,

curious or interesting idea suggest itself to him: “I proposed, at my

levees, or in my familiar communications, analogous questions to my

Members of the Institute, with orders to resolve them. The solution

became the subject of public inquiry; it was analyzed, contested,

adopted or rejected; and there is nothing which cannot be accomplished

in this way. It is the grand lever of improvement for a great nation,

possessing a great deal of intelligence, and a great deal of knowledge.”

The Emperor also observed on this subject, that geography had never been

so successfully cultivated as at present, and that his expeditions had

contributed somewhat to its improvement. He afterwards noticed the

canals, which he had caused to be made in France, and particularly

mentioned that from Strasburg to Lyons, in which, he hoped sufficient

progress had been made to induce others to complete it. He thought that,

out of thirty millions, twenty-four must have been already expended.

“Communications are now established in the interior from Bordeaux to

Lyons and Paris. I had constructed a great number of canals, and

projected a great many more.” One of us having observed that a proposal

for the construction of a very useful canal had been submitted to the

Emperor, but that measures had been taken to deceive him, for the

purpose of preventing his acceptance of the offer: “Without doubt,” said

the Emperor, “the plan must have appeared advantageous only on paper;

but I suppose it would have been necessary to advance money, which was

drawn from me with difficulty.”—No, Sire, the refusal was but the effect

of an intrigue. Your Majesty was deceived.”—“It was impossible, with

respect to such a subject. You speak without sufficient

information.”—“But I am confident of it. I was acquainted with the plan,

the offers and the subscribers; my relations had put down their names

for considerable sums. The object was the union of the Meuse with the

Marne. The length of the canal would have been less than seven

leagues.”—“But you do not tell us all; it was, perhaps, required that I

should grant immense national forests in the environs, which I should

not have agreed to.”—“No, Sire, the whole was an intrigue of your Board

of Bridges and Roads.”—“But even then, it was necessary for them to

allege some reasons, some appearance of public interest. What reasons

did they assign?”—“Sire, that the profits would have been too

considerable.”—“But in that case the plan ought to have been submitted

to me in person, and I would have carried it into execution. I repeat,

that you are not justified by the facts; you are speaking now to a man

upon the very subject which constantly engaged his attention. The Board

of Bridges and Roads were, on their part, never better pleased than when

they were employed. There never was an individual who proposed the

construction of a bridge that was not taken at his word. If he asked for

a toll for twenty-five years, I was disposed to grant him one for

thirty. If it cost me nothing, it was a matter of indifference whether

it would prove useful. It was still a capital with which I enriched the

soil. Instead of rejecting proposals for canals, I eagerly courted them.

But, my dear Sir, there are no two things that resemble each other so

little as the conversation of a saloon, and the consideration of an

Administrative Council. The projector is always right in a saloon; his

projects would be magnificent and infallible, if he were listened to,

and if he can, by some little contrivance, but connect the refusal under

which he suffers with some bottles of wine, with some intrigue carried

on by a wife or a mistress, the romance is complete, and that is what

you probably heard. But an Administrative Council is not to be managed

so, because it comes to no decision but on facts and accurate

measurement. What is the canal you mentioned? I cannot be unacquainted

with it.”—“Sire, from the Meuse to the Marne, a distance of seven

leagues only.”—“Very well! my dear Sir, it is from the Meuse to the

Aisne you mean, and it would have been less than seven leagues. I shall

soon recollect all about it; there is, however, but one little

difficulty to overcome, and that is that at this very instant it is

doubtful whether the project be practicable. There, as in other places,

Hippocrates says _yes_, and Galen says _no_. Tarbé maintained that it

was impossible, and denied that there was a sufficiency of water at the

point where it was to commence. I repeat, that you are speaking to him,

who, of all others was the most attentive to these objects, more

especially in the environs of Paris. It was the constant subject of my

thoughts to render Paris the real capital of Europe. I sometimes wished

it, for instance, to become a city with a population of two, three, or

four millions, in short, something fabulous, colossal, unexampled until

our days, and with public establishments suitable to its population.”

Some one having then observed that, if Heaven had allowed the Emperor to

reign sixty years, as it had Louis XIV., he would have left many grand

monuments: “Had Heaven but granted me twenty years, and a little more

leisure,” resumed the Emperor with vivacity, “ancient Paris would have

been sought for in vain; not a trace of it would have been left, and I

should have changed the face of France. Archimedes promised to do any

thing, provided he had a resting place for his lever; I should have done

as much, wherever I could have found a point of support for my energy,

my perseverance, and my budgets; a world might be created with budgets.

I should have displayed the difference between a constitutional Emperor

and a King of France. The Kings of France have never possessed any

administrative or municipal institution. They have merely shown

themselves great Lords who were ruined by their men of business.

“The nation itself has nothing in its character and its tastes but what

is transitory and perishable. Every thing is done for the gratification

of the moment and of caprice, nothing for duration.... That is our

motto, and it is exemplified by our manners in France. Every one passes

his life in doing and undoing; nothing is ever left behind. Is it not

unbecoming that Paris should not possess even a French theatre, or an

Opera house, in any respect worthy of its high claims?

“I have often set myself against the feasts which the city of Paris

wished to give me. They consisted of dinners, balls, artificial

fire-works, at an expense of four, six, or eight hundred thousand

francs; the preparations for which obstructed the public for several

days, and which afterwards cost as much for their removal as they had

for their construction. I proved that, with these idle expenses, they

might have erected lasting and magnificent monuments.

“One must have gone through as much as I have, in order to be acquainted

with all the difficulty of doing good. If the business related to

chimneys, partitions, and furniture for some individuals in the imperial

palaces, the work was quickly accomplished; but if it was necessary to

lengthen the garden of the Tuileries, to render some quarters wholesome,

to cleanse some sewers, and to perform a task beneficial to the public,

in which particular persons had no direct interest, I found it requisite

to exert all the energy of my character, to write six, ten letters a

day, and to get into a downright passion. It was in this way that I laid

out as much as thirty millions in sewers, for which no body will ever

thank me. I pulled down a property worth seventeen millions in houses in

front of the Tuileries, for the purpose of forming the Carousel, and

throwing open the Louvre. What I did is immense; what I had resolved to

do and what I had projected was much more so.”

A person then remarked that the Emperor’s labours had not been limited

either to Paris or to France, but that almost every city in Italy

exhibited traces of his creative powers. Wherever one travelled, at the

foot as well as on the top of the Alps, in the sands of Holland, on the

banks of the Rhine, Napoleon, always Napoleon, was to be seen.

In consequence of this remark, he observed that he had determined on

draining the Pontine marshes. “Cæsar,” he said, “was about to undertake

it, when he perished.” Then reverting to France; “The kings, he said,

had too many country-houses and useless objects. Any impartial historian

will be justified in blaming Louis XIV. for his excessive and idle

expenditure at Versailles, involved as he was in wars, taxes, and

calamities. He exhausted himself for the purpose of forming after all

but a bastard town.” The Emperor then analyzed the advantages of an

administrative city, that is to say, calculated for the union of the

different branches of administration, and they seemed to him truly

problematical.

The Emperor did not conceal his opinion that the capital was not, at

times, a fit residence for the sovereign; but, in another point of view,

Versailles was not suitable to the great, the ministers, and the

courtiers. Louis XIV. therefore committed a blunder, if he undertook to

build Versailles solely for the residence of the kings, when Saint

Germain was, in every respect, ready for the purpose; Nature seemed to

have made it expressly for the real residence of the kings of France.

Napoleon himself had committed faults in that respect: for it was not

right he said to praise himself for all that had been done in this way.

He ought, for instance, to have given up Compiegne, and he regretted

having celebrated his marriage there instead of selecting Fontainebleau.

“That,” said he, referring to Fontainebleau, “is the real abode of

kings, the house of ages; it is not, perhaps, strictly speaking, an

architectural palace; but it is, unquestionably, well calculated and

perfectly suitable. It was certainly the most commodious and the most

happily situated in Europe for a sovereign.”

He then took a review of the capitals he had visited, of the palaces he

had seen, and claimed a decided superiority in our favour.

Fontainebleau, he further added, was also, at the same time, the most

suitable political and military situation. The Emperor reproached

himself with the sums he had expended on Versailles, but yet it was, he

said, necessary to prevent it from falling into ruin. The demolition of

a considerable part of that palace was a subject of consideration,

during the Revolution; it was proposed to take away the centre, and thus

to separate the two wings. “It would have been of essential service to

me,” he observed; “for nothing is so expensive or so truly useless as

this multitude of palaces: and if, nevertheless, I undertook that of the

King of Rome, it was because I had views peculiar to myself; and

besides, in reality, I never thought of doing more than preparing the

ground. There I should have stopped.[5]

Footnote 5:

All the world knows, or ought to have known (if, by a fatality,

altogether peculiar to Napoleon, the greater part of his most

commendable actions had not been, at the time, stifled under the

weight of malignity and libels), the history of that miserable hut,

enclosed within the circuit of the palace of the King of Rome; the

proprietor of which demanded successively ten, twenty, fifty, and one

hundred times its real value. When he had reached that ridiculous

price, the Emperor, whose directions on that point were taken,

suddenly commanded a stop to be put to the bargain, exclaiming that

that wretched stall, amidst all the magnificence of the palace of the

King of Rome, would be, after all, the vineyard of Naboth, the most

decisive testimony of his justice, the noblest trophy of his reign.

“My errors, in disbursements of this kind, could not, after all, be very

great. They were, thanks to my budgets, observed and necessarily

corrected every year, and could never exceed a small part of the expense

occasioned by the original fault.”

The Emperor assured us that he experienced every possible difficulty in

making his system of budgets intelligible, and in carrying it into

execution. Whenever a plan to the amount of thirty millions, which

suited me, was proposed; Granted, was my answer, but to be completed in

twenty years, that is to say, at a million and a half francs a-year. So

far, all went on very smoothly; but what am I to get, I added, for my

first year? For if my expenditure is to be divided into parts, it is,

however, my determination to have the result, the work, as far as it

goes, entire and complete. In this manner, I wished at first for a

recess, an apartment, no matter what, but something perfect, for my

million and a half of francs. The architects seemed resolved not to

comprehend my meaning; it narrowed their expansive views and their grand

effects. They would, at once, have willingly erected a whole façade,

which must have remained for a long time useless, and thus involved me

in immense disbursements, which, if interrupted, would have swallowed up

every thing.

“It was in this manner, which was peculiar to myself, and in spite of so

many political and military obstacles, that I executed so many

undertakings. I had collected furniture belonging to the Crown, to the

amount of forty millions, and plate worth at least, four millions. How

many palaces have I not repaired? Perhaps, too many; I return to that

subject. Thanks to my mode of acting, I was enabled to inhabit

Fontainebleau within one year after the repairs were begun, and it cost

me no more than 5 or 600,000 francs. If I have since expended six

millions on it, that was done in six years. It would have cost me much

more in the course of time. My principal object was to make the expense

light and imperceptible, and to give durability to the work.

“During my visits to Fontainebleau,” said the Emperor, “from 12 to 1500

persons were invited and lodged, with every convenience; upwards of 3000

might be entertained at dinner, and this cost the Sovereign very little,

in consequence of the admirable order and regularity established by

Duroc. More than twenty or five-and-twenty Princes, Dignitaries, or

Ministers, were obliged to keep their households there.

“I disapproved the building of Versailles; but in my ideas respecting

Paris, and they were occasionally gigantic, I thought of making it

useful and of converting it, in the course of time, into a kind of

fauxbourg, an adjacent site, a point of view from the grand capital;

and, for the purpose of more effectually appropriating it to that end, I

had conceived a plan, of which I had a description sketched out.

“It was my intention to expel from its beautiful groves those nymphs,

the productions of a wretched taste, and those ornaments _à la

Turcaret_, and to replace them by panoramas, in masonry, of all the

capitals, into which we had entered victorious, and of all the

celebrated battles, which had shed lustre on our arms. It would have

been a collection of so many eternal monuments of our triumphs and our

national glory, placed at the gate of the capital of Europe, which

necessarily could not fail of being visited by the rest of the world.”

Here he suddenly left off, and began reading Le Distrait, but he almost

instantly laid it aside, whether from the agitation of his own thoughts,

or from a nervous cough, with which he had, for a short time, been often

affected after dinner. He certainly gets considerably worse, and his

health is altogether declining.

PLAN OF A HISTORY OF EUROPE.—SELIM III.—FORCES OF A TURKISH SULTAN.—THE

MAMELUKES.—ON THE REGENCY.

5th.—The Emperor did not go out until after five o’clock. He was in

pain, and had taken a bath, where he remained too long, in consequence

of the arrival of Sir H. Lowe, as he would not leave it until the

Governor was gone.

The Emperor had been reading, while in the bath, the Ottoman History, in

two volumes. He had conceived the idea, and regretted that he had been

unable to execute it, of having all the histories of Europe, from the

time of Louis XIV., composed from the documents belonging to our office

for Foreign Affairs, where the regular official reports of all the

ambassadors are deposited.

“My reign,” he observed, “would have been a perfect epoch for that

object. The superiority of France, its independence, and regeneration,

enabled the then government to publish such matters without

inconvenience. It would have been like publishing ancient history.

Nothing could have been more valuable.”

He next adverted to Sultan Selim III., to whom, he said, he once wrote:

“Sultan, come forth from thy seraglio; place thyself at the head of thy

troops, and renew the glorious days of thy monarchy.”

“Selim, the Louis XVI. of the Turks,” said the Emperor, “who was very

much attached and very favourable to us, contented himself with

answering, that the advice would have been excellent for the first

Princes of his dynasty; but that the manners of those times were very

different; and that such a conduct would, at present, be unseasonable,

and altogether useless.”

The Emperor added, however, that nobody knew how to calculate, with

certainty, the energy of the sudden burst, which might be produced by a

Sultan of Constantinople, who was capable of placing himself at the head

of his people, of infusing new spirit into them, and of exciting that

fanatical multitude to action. At a later period, he observed, that, for

his own part, if he had been able to unite the Mamelukes with his

French, he should have considered himself the master of the world. “With

that chosen handful, and the rabble,” he added, with a smile, “recruited

on the spot, to be expended in the hour of need, I know nothing that

could have resisted me. Algiers trembled at it.

“‘But should your Sultan,’ said, one day, the Dey of Algiers to the

French Consul, ‘ever take it into his head to pay us a visit, what

safety could we hope for? For he has defeated the Mamelukes.’ The

Mamelukes,” observed the Emperor, “were, in fact, objects of veneration

and terror throughout the East; they were looked upon as invincible

until our time.”

The Emperor, while waiting for dinner in the midst of us, opened a book,

which lay at his side on the couch; it was the Regency. He stigmatized

it as one of the most abominable eras of our annals: and was vexed that

it had been described with the levity of the age, and not with the

severity of history. It had been strewed with the flowers of fashionable

life, and set off with the colouring of the Graces, instead of having

been treated with rigorous justice. The Regency, he observed, had been,

in reality, the reign of the depravity of the heart, of the libertinism

of the mind, and of the most radical immorality of every species. It was

such, he said, that he believed all the horrors and abominations with

which the manners of the Regent were reproached in the bosom of his own

family; while he did not give credit to the stories told of Louis XV.,

who, although plunged in the foulest and most frightful debauchery,

afforded, however, no grounds to justify his belief in such shocking and

monstrous indulgencies; and he vindicated him very satisfactorily from

certain imputations, which would have seriously affected the person of

one of his (Napoleon’s) former aides-de-camp. He considered the epoch of

the Regent to have been the overthrow of every kind of property, the

destruction of public morals. Nothing had been held sacred either in

manners or in principles. The Regent was personally overwhelmed with

infamy. In the affair of the legitimate Princes, he had exhibited the

most abject baseness, and committed a great abuse of authority. The King

alone could authorize such a decision, and he, the Regent, had felt

pleasure in gratuitously dishonouring himself in the person of his wife,

the natural daughter of Louis XIV., whom he had found it his interest,

however, to marry, while that King was on the throne.

6th.—As we wished to try the tent, which was just finished, the table

was laid there, and we invited the English officers, who had

superintended the work, to breakfast with us.

The Emperor sent for me to his apartment; he dressed himself, and, when

he went out, I accompanied him to the bottom of the wood, where we

walked for some time. He entered into the discussion of some important

subjects.

The Emperor returned to the calash for the purpose of ordering it to be

in readiness, and we resumed our walk, until it took us up. On our

return, the Emperor visited the tent, and said a few words, expressive

of his satisfaction to the officer and seamen who were employed in

putting the last hand to it.

CAMPAIGNS OF ITALY, &C.—EPOCH OF 1815, &C.—GUSTAVUS III.—GUSTAVUS

IV.—BERNADOTTE.—PAUL I.

7th.—After breakfasting in the tent, the Emperor took a fancy to review

some chapters of the Campaigns in Italy: he sent for my son, whose foot

was at length mending, and whose eyes were much better. He finished the

chapters of Pavia and Leghorn. He afterwards walked towards the bottom

of the wood, having ordered the carriage to follow. On the way, the

Emperor said that he considered the Campaigns of Italy and Egypt as

completely finished, and in a fit state to be given to the public, and

it would, no doubt, he remarked, be a very agreeable present to the

French and Italians; it was the record of their glory and their rights.

He did not think, however, that he ought to put his name to it; and he

repeated that the different epochs of his memoirs would perpetuate those

of his faithful companions.

On the arrival of the calash, the conversation, continuing on the same

subject, he was earnestly pressed to finish 1815; and its importance,

interest, and results, were warmly canvassed. “Very well!” said he, with

a smile, “I must give myself up to it entirely; it is a pleasure to be

encouraged; but it is also requisite to go to work with a proper temper.

We are surfeited here with disgust and trickery; we seem to be envied

the air we breathe.”

He returned to his apartment, and I followed him, when a conversation

peculiarly interesting and remarkable took place. It related to Gustavus

III., to Sweden, to Russia, to Gustavus IV., to Bernadotte, to Paul I.,

&c.

I have said that, at Aix-la-Chapelle, Gustavus III. lived among us as a

private individual under the name of Count de Haga. He constituted the

charm of society, by the vivacity of his wit and the interest he

imparted to his conversation. I had heard from his own mouth his famous

Revolution of 1772, and I was in the happiest situation to obtain a

thorough knowledge of that epoch of the history of Sweden. I was, at the

same time, very well acquainted with a Baron de Sprengporten, who, after

having displayed great zeal for Gustavus, had the misfortune to remove

to Russia, and to return at the head of foreigners to fight against his

country. The consequence was that sentence of death had been passed upon

him in Sweden. He was also at Aix-la-Chapelle at the moment, and had

banished himself from it, out of courtesy, he said, on the arrival of

Gustavus. He had not, however, removed farther off than half a league,

so that all I heard the King say in the evening was controverted,

modified, or confirmed for me the next morning at breakfast by the

Baron. He had enjoyed a very considerable share of that Prince’s

confidence, and he communicated the most numerous and minute

particulars, as positive facts, respecting the romance of the birth of

Gustavus IV., who had been represented as altogether unconnected by

blood with Gustavus III., according to his full knowledge and his own

desire.

The Emperor observed that this same Sprengporten had been actually sent

to him as envoy by Paul, at the time of his Consulate. With respect to

Gustavus IV., he said that that Prince had, on his appearance in the

world, announced himself as a hero, and had terminated his career merely

as a madman, and that he had distinguished himself in his early days by

some very remarkable traits. While yet a boy, he had insulted Catharine

by the refusal of her grand-daughter, at the moment even when that great

Empress seated on her throne, and surrounded by her Court, waited only

for him to celebrate the marriage ceremony.

At a later period, he had insulted Alexander, in no less marked a

manner, by refusing, after Paul’s catastrophe, to suffer one of the new

Emperor’s officers to enter his dominions, and by answering, to the

official complaints addressed to him on this subject, that Alexander

ought not to be displeased that he, Gustavus, who still mourned the

assassination of his father, should shut the entrance of his States

against one of those, accused by the public voice of having immolated

his (Alexander’s).

“On my accession to the sovereignty,” said the Emperor, “he declared

himself my great antagonist; it might have been supposed that nothing

short of renewing the exploits of the great Gustavus Adolphus would have

satisfied him. He ran over the whole of Germany, for the purpose of

stirring up enemies against me. At the time of the catastrophe of the

Duke d’Enghien, he swore to avenge it in person; and at a later period,

he insolently sent back the black eagle to the King of Prussia, because

the latter had accepted my legion of honour.

“His fatal moment at length arrived; a conspiracy, of no common kind,

tore him from the throne and banished him from his country. The

unanimity evinced against him is, no doubt, a proof of the blunders

which he had committed. I am ready to admit that he was inexcusable and

even mad, but it is, notwithstanding, extraordinary and unexampled that,

in that crisis, not a single sword was drawn in his defence, whether

from affection, from gratitude, from virtuous feeling, or even from

stupidity, if you please; and truly, it is a circumstance which does

little honour to the atmosphere of Kings.”

This Prince, tossed about and deceived by the English, who wished to

make him their instrument, and repulsed by his relatives, seemed

determined to renounce the world, and, as if he had felt his existence

disgraced by his contempt of mankind and his disgust at things, he

voluntarily lost himself altogether in the crowd.

The Emperor said that, after the battle of Leipsic, he had been informed

on the part of Gustavus, that he had no doubt been his enemy a long

time; but that, for a long time, he (Napoleon) was of all others the

sovereign of whom he had the least to complain, and that, for a long

time also, his only sentiments with regard to him were those of

admiration and sympathy; that his actual misfortunes permitted him to

express his feelings without restraint; that he offered to be his

Aide-de-camp, and requested an asylum in France.[6] “I was affected,”

observed the Emperor; “but I soon reflected that if I received him, my

dignity would be pledged to make exertions in his favour. Besides, I no

longer ruled the world, and then common minds would not fail to discover

in the interest I took for him, an impotent hatred against Bernadotte;

finally, Gustavus had been dethroned by the voice of the people, and it

was the voice of the people by which I had been elevated. In taking up

his cause, I should have been guilty of inconsistency in my own conduct,

and have acted upon discordant principles. In short, I dreaded lest I

should render affairs more complicated than they were, and silenced my

feelings of generosity. I caused him to be answered that I appreciated

what he offered me, and that I was sensible of it, but that the

political interest of France did not allow me to indulge in my private

feelings, and that it even imposed upon me the painful task of refusing,

for the moment, the asylum which he asked; that he would, however,

greatly deceive himself, if he supposed me to entertain any other

sentiments than those of extreme good will and sincere wishes for his

happiness, &c.

Footnote 6:

It is right to remark that Colonel Gustafson (Gustavus IV.) has

declared this statement to be erroneous. But, from his letter itself,

one would be induced to think that the error proceeds solely from

misinterpretation of his real words: now every one knows how easy, how

common such inaccuracies are in regard to circumstances transmitted

through several intermediate persons. Fearful that the

misunderstanding might originate with myself, which is possible

enough, I should not have hesitated a moment to charge myself with the

error; but every reader must judge that the length of Napoleon’s

conversation and the development of his ideas on this subject, could

not leave me in any doubt.

“Some time after the expulsion of Gustavus, while the succession to the

Crown was vacant, the Swedes, desirous of recommending themselves to me

and securing the protection of France, asked me to give them a King. My

attention was, for an instant, turned to the Viceroy; but it would have

been necessary for him to change his religion, which I deemed beneath my

dignity and that of all those who belonged to me. Besides, I did not

think the political result sufficiently important to excuse an action so

contrary to our manners. I attached, however, too much value to the idea

of seeing the throne of Sweden in possession of a Frenchman. It was, in

my situation, a puerile sentiment. The real King, according to my

political system and the true interests of France, would have been the

King of Denmark, because I should then have governed Sweden by the

influence of my simple contact with the Danish provinces. Bernadotte was

elected, and he was indebted for his elevation to his wife, the

sister-in-law of my brother Joseph, who then reigned at Madrid.

“Bernadotte, affecting great dependence on me, came to ask my

approbation, protesting, with too visible an anxiety, that he would not

accept the Crown, unless it was agreeable to me.

“I, the elected Monarch of the people, had to answer that I could not

set myself against the elections of other nations. It was what I told

Bernadotte, whose whole attitude betrayed the anxiety excited by the

expectation of my answer. I added that he had only to take advantage of

the good-will of which he had been the object; that I wished to be

considered as having had no weight in his election, but that it had my

approbation and my best wishes. I felt, however, shall I say it, a

secret instinct, which made the thing disagreeable and painful.

Bernadotte was, in fact, the serpent which I nourished in my bosom; he

had scarcely left us before he attached himself to the system of our

enemies, and we were obliged to watch and dread him. At a later period,

he was one of the great active causes of our calamities; it was he who

gave to our enemies the key of our political system and communicated the

tactics of our armies; it was he who pointed out to them the way to the

sacred soil! In vain would he excuse himself by saying that, in

accepting the Crown of Sweden, he was thenceforth bound to be a Swede

only; pitiful excuse, valid only with those of the populace and the

vulgar that are ambitious! In taking a wife, a man does not renounce his

mother, still less is he bound to transfix her bosom and tear out her

entrails. It is said that he afterwards repented, that is to say, when

it was no longer time, and when the mischief was done. The fact is that,

in finding himself once more among us, he perceived that opinion exacted

justice of him; he felt himself struck with death. Then the film fell

from his eyes; for it is not known to what dreams his presumption and

his vanity might have incited him in his blindness.”

At the end of this and many other things besides, I presumed to observe

to him, as a very fantastical and extraordinary matter of chance, that

Bernadotte, the soldier, elevated to a Crown, for which Protestantism

was a necessary qualification, was actually born a Protestant, and that

his son, destined, on that account, to reign over the Scandinavians,

presented himself in the midst of them precisely with the national name

of _Oscar_. “My dear Las Cases,” replied the Emperor, “it is because

that chance, so often cited, of which the ancients made a deity, which

astonishes us every day and strikes us every instant, does not, after

all, appear so singular, so capricious, so extraordinary, but in

consequence of our ignorance of the secret and altogether natural

causes, by which it is produced; and yet this single combination is

sufficient to create the marvellous and give birth to mysteries. Here,

for instance, with respect to the first point, that of having been born

a Protestant, let not the honour of that circumstance be assigned to

chance; blot that out. With regard to the second, the name of Oscar; I

was his godfather, and, when I gave him the name, I doted upon Ossian;

it presented itself, of course, very naturally. You now see how simple

that is which so greatly astonished you.”

At the end of this conversation, the Emperor returned to Paul; he talked

of the passionate fits brought upon him by the perfidy of the English

ministry. He had been promised Malta, the moment it was taken possession

of, and accordingly, he was in great haste to get himself nominated

Grand Master. Malta reduced, the English ministers denied that they had

promised it to him. It is confidently stated that, on the reading of

this shameful falsehood, Paul felt so indignant that, seizing the

dispatch in full Council, he ran his sword through it, and ordered it to

be sent back in that condition, by way of answer. “If it be a folly,”

said the Emperor, “it must be allowed that it is the folly of a noble

soul; it is the indignation of virtue, which was incapable, until then,

of suspecting such baseness.”

At the same time, the English ministers, treating with us for the

exchange of prisoners, refused to include, on the same scale, the

Russian prisoners taken in Holland, who were in the actual service and

fought for the sole cause of the English. “I had,” said the Emperor,

“hit upon the bent of Paul’s character. I seized time by the forelock; I

collected these Russians; I clothed them and sent them back to him

without any expense. From that instant, his generous heart was

altogether devoted to me; and, as I had no interest in opposition to

Russia, and should never have spoken or acted but with justice, there

was no doubt that I should be able, for the future, to have had the

Cabinet of St. Petersburgh at my disposal. Our enemies were sensible of

the danger, and it has been thought that this good-will of Paul proved

fatal to him. That might have been the case; for there are Cabinets with

whom nothing is sacred.”

It has been already mentioned that the Emperor complained that the

Prince of Ponte-Corvo (Bernadotte) was scarcely in Sweden before he had

occasion to distrust and counteract his schemes. The following letter is

a decisive proof of this assertion, and also contains an important

exposition of the continental system.

“_Tuileries, August 8, 1811._

“Monsieur, the Prince Royal of Sweden, your private correspondence has

reached me; I have appreciated, as a proof of the sentiments of

friendship you entertain for me, and as a testimony of the loyalty of

your character, the communications which you make to me. There is no

political reason which prevents me from answering you.

“You appreciate, without doubt, the motives of my decree of the 21st of

November, 1806. It prescribes no laws to Europe. It merely traces the

steps that are to be followed, to reach the same end; the treaties,

which I have signed, constitute the remainder. The right of blockade,

which England has arrogated to herself, is as injurious to the commerce

of Sweden and as hostile to the honour of her flag, as it is prejudicial

to the commerce of the French Empire and to the dignity of its power. I

will even assert that the domineering pretensions of England are still

more offensive with regard to Sweden; for your commerce is more maritime

than continental; the real strength of the kingdom of Sweden consists as

much in the existence of its navy as in the existence of its army.

“The development of the forces of France is altogether continental. I

have been enabled to create, within my states, an internal trade, which

diffuses subsistence and money, from the extremities to the centre of

the empire, by the impulse given to agricultural and manufacturing

industry, and by the rigorous prohibition of foreign productions. This

state of things is such that it is impossible for me to decide whether

French commerce would gain much by peace with England.

“The maintenance, observance, or adoption of the decree of Berlin is,

therefore, I venture to say, more for the interest of Sweden and of

Europe, than for the particular interest of France.

“Such are the reasons which my ostensible policy may set up against the

ostensible policy of England. The secret reasons that influence England

are the following: She does not desire peace; she has rejected all the

overtures which I have caused to be made to her; her commerce and her

territory are enlarged by war; she is apprehensive of restitutions; she

will not consolidate the new system by a treaty; she does not wish that

France should be powerful. I wish for peace, I wish for it in its

perfect state, because peace alone can give solidity to new interests,

and States created by conquest. I think, that on this point, your Royal

Highness ought not to differ in opinion from me.

“I have a great number of ships; I have no seamen: I cannot carry on the

contest with England for the purpose of compelling her to make peace;

nothing but the continental system can prove successful. In this

respect, I experience no obstacle on the part of Russia and Prussia;

their commerce can only be a gainer by the prohibitive system.

“Your cabinet is composed of enlightened men. There is dignity and

patriotism in the Swedish nation. The influence of your Royal Highness

in the Government is generally approved: you will experience few

impediments in withdrawing your people from a mercantile submission to a

foreign nation. Do not suffer yourself to be caught by the too tempting

baits which England may hold out to you. The future will prove to you

that, whatever may be the revolutions which time must produce, the

Sovereigns of Europe will establish prohibitive laws, which will leave

them masters in their own dominions.

“The third article of the treaty of the 21st of February, 1802, corrects

the incomplete stipulations of the treaty of Fredericsham. It must be

rigorously observed in every point which relates to colonial

commodities. You tell me that you cannot do without these commodities,

and that, from the want of their introduction, the produce of your

customs is diminished. I will give you twenty millions worth of colonial

produce, which I have at Hamburgh; you will give me twenty millions

worth of iron. You will have no specie to export from Sweden. Give up

these productions to merchants; they will pay the import duties; you

will get rid of your iron; this will answer my purpose. I am in want of

iron at Antwerp, and I know not what to do with the English commodities.

“Be faithful to the treaty of the 24th of February: drive the English

smugglers from the roads of Gottenburg; drive them from the coasts,

where they carry on an open trade: I give you my word that I will, on my

part, scrupulously observe the conditions of that treaty. I shall oppose

the attempts of your neighbours to appropriate to themselves your

continental possessions. If you fail in your engagements, I shall

consider myself released from mine.

“It is my wish to be always on an amicable understanding with your Royal

Highness; I shall hear with pleasure your communication of this answer

to his Swedish Majesty, whose good intentions I have constantly

appreciated.

“My Minister for Foreign Affairs will return an official answer to the

last note, which the Comte d’Essen has submitted for my perusal.

“This letter having no other end, &c.