12th.—The Emperor passed the morning in his bath, reading the Journals
des Debats of March and April, received yesterday by way of the Cape.
The Emperor was very much occupied with them; they produced a great
degree of agitation in his system.
In general, since the Emperor had received books, and particularly the
Moniteur, he continued much more at home; he scarcely ever went abroad;
he no longer used a horse, nor even the calash; he hardly took the air
for a few moments in the garden; he was not the better for it, his
features and his health underwent a visible alteration.
I found him to-day reading Les Croisades by Michaud, which he left to
run over Les Memoires de Bezenval. He stopped at the duel between the
Comte d’Artois and the Duc de Bourbon. He found the details curious, but
they seemed to be very remote from us. “It is difficult,” he observed,
“to reconcile times so close to us with manners so different.”
In the course of this day’s conversations, the Emperor happened to
repeat, what I have mentioned elsewhere, that his finest manœuvre had
been at Eckmuhl, without, however, specifying it any further.
Footnote 8:
I commonly pass over all details of this kind as trivial, unless an
occasion for their utility presents itself, and unfortunately I have
not time to look for, or to give rise to, such occasions. The trifling
circumstance, however, which I relate here, acquires but too great a
value by the nature of the death and the protracted and terrible
agonies of the immortal victim, who expired under the triple tortures
of body, mind, and heart. He would have had much less to endure from
the hands of cannibals!... And these sufferings and these torments
were coldly reserved for him by a barbarous administration, which, by
that proceeding, has stained the annals of a people so justly renowned
for the elevation of their sentiments and their sympathy with
misfortune!... But a sad and painful celebrity will attach to the
names of the executioners of Napoleon. The indignation of the generous
hearts of every age and of every country strikes them for ever with
eternal reprobation!
ON THE WAR WITH RUSSIA.—FATALITIES, &C.—M. DE TALLEYRAND, &C.—MADAME DE
STAEL’S CORINNE.—M. NECKER, &C.
13th. At an early hour in the morning, I accompanied the Emperor very
far into the wood; he conversed for upwards of an hour, on the situation
of France, and then reverted to the persons who had betrayed him, and
the numerous fatalities which had hurried him along; to the perfidious
security caused by his marriage with Austria; to the infatuation of the
Turks, who made peace precisely when they ought to have made war; to
that of Bernadotte, who was actuated by his self-love and his
resentment, rather than by his real grandeur and stability; to a season
severe beyond measure, and even to the superiority of talent, evinced by
M. de Narbonne, who, discovering the designs of Austria, compelled her
to take active measures. Finally, he reverted to the successes of Lutzen
and Bautzen, which, by bringing back the king of Saxony to Dresden, put
him, Napoleon, in possession of the hostile signatures of Austria, and
deprived her of all further subterfuge. “What an unhappy concurrence!”
he exclaimed in a most expressive tone, “and yet,” he continued, “the
day after the battle of Dresden, Francis had already sent a person to
treat. It was necessary, that Vandamme’s disaster should happen at a
given moment, to second, as it were, the decree of fate.”
M. de Talleyrand, to whose conduct the Emperor frequently alluded, for
the purpose of discovering, he said, when he had really begun to betray
him, had strongly urged him to make peace, on his return from Leipsic.
“I must,” he observed, “do him that justice. He found fault with my
speech to the Senate, but warmly approved of that which I made to the
Legislative Body. He uniformly maintained, that I deceived myself with
respect to the energy of the nation; that it would not second mine, and
that it was requisite for me to arrange my affairs by every possible
sacrifice. It appears that he was then sincere. I never, from my own
experience, found Talleyrand eloquent or persuasive. He dwelt a great
deal, and a long time, on the same idea. Perhaps also, as our
acquaintance was of old date, he behaved in a peculiar manner to me. He
was, however, so skilful in his evasions and ramblings that, after
conversations which lasted several hours, he has gone away, frequently
avoiding the explanations and objects I expected to obtain from him on
his coming.”
With regard to the affairs of the moment and to the contents of the last
journals which described France in a constantly increasing agitation,
the result was that the chances of the future seemed indefinite,
multiplied, and inexhaustible for all Europe, and that there existed, at
that instant, an incontrovertible fact, communicated to us from all
quarters, that nobody in Europe considered himself in a permanent
situation. Every one seemed to apprehend or to foresee new events.
The Emperor kept me to breakfast with him in the tent. He afterwards
sent for Madame de Staël’s Corinne, and read some chapters of it. He
said that he could not get through it. Madame de Staël had drawn so
complete a likeness of herself in her heroine, that she had succeeded in
convincing him that it was herself. “I see her,” said he, “I hear her, I
feel her, I wish to avoid her, and I throw away the book. I had a better
impression of this work on my memory, than what I feel at present.
Perhaps it is because, at the time, I read it with my thumb, as M.
l’Abbé de Pradt ingeniously says, and not without some truth. I shall,
however, persevere; I am determined to see the end of it; I still think
that it was not destitute of some interest. Yet I cannot forgive Madame
de Staël for having undervalued the French in her romance. The family of
Madame de Staël is unquestionably a very singular one—her father, her
mother and herself, all three on their knees, in constant adoration of
each other, regaling one another with reciprocal incense, for the better
edification and mystification of the public. Madame de Staël may,
nevertheless, exult in surpassing her noble parents, when she presumed
to write, that her sentiments for her father were such that she detected
herself in being jealous of her mother.
“Madame de Staël,” he continued, “was ardent in her passions, vehement
and extravagant in her expressions. This is what was discovered by the
police, while she was under its superintendence. ‘I am far from you;’
(she was probably writing to her husband,) ‘come instantly;—I command;—I
insist upon it; I am on my knees; I beseech you, come.—My hand grasps a
dagger. If you hesitate, I shall kill myself; and you alone will be
guilty of my destruction’” This was Corinne.
She had, said the Emperor, combined all her efforts and all her means to
make an impression on the General of the army of Italy; without any
knowledge of him, she wrote to him, when far off; she tormented him when
present. If she was to be believed, the union of genius with a little
insignificant Creole, incapable of appreciating or comprehending him,
was a monstrosity. Unfortunately the General’s only answer was an
indifference which women never forgive, and which, indeed, he remarked
with a smile, is hardly to be forgiven.
On his arrival at Paris, he was followed with the same eagerness, but he
maintained, on his part, the same reserve, the same silence. Madame de
Staël resolved, however, to extract some words from him and to struggle
with the conqueror of Italy, attacked him face to face, at the grand
entertainment given by M. de Talleyrand, Minister for Foreign Affairs,
to the victorious General. She challenged him in the middle of a
numerous circle, to tell her who was the greatest woman in the world,
whether dead or living. “She, who has had most children,” answered
Napoleon, with great simplicity. Madame de Staël was, at first, a little
disconcerted, and endeavoured to recover herself by observing that it
was reported that he was not very fond of women. “Pardon me, Madam,”
again replied Napoleon, “I am very fond of my wife.”
The General of the army of Italy, said the Emperor, might, no doubt,
have excited the enthusiasm of the Genevese Corinna to its highest
pitch; but he dreaded her politic perfidy and her thirst of celebrity;
he was, perhaps, in the wrong. The heroine had, however, been too eager
in her pursuit and too often discouraged, not to become a violent enemy.
“She instigated the person, who was then a under her influence, and he,”
observed the Emperor, “did not enter upon the business in a very
honourable manner. On the appointment of the Tribunate, he employed the
most pressing solicitations with the First Consul to be nominated a
member. At eleven o’clock at night, he was supplicating with all his
might; but at twelve, when the favour was granted, he was already erect
and almost in an insulting attitude. The first meeting of the Tribunes
was a splendid occasion for his invectives against me. At night, Madame
de Staël’s hotel was illuminated. She crowned her Benjamin amidst a
brilliant assembly, and proclaimed him a second Mirabeau. This farce,
which was ridiculous enough, was followed by more dangerous plans. At
the time of the Concordat, against which Madame de Staël was quite
furious, she united at once against me the aristocrats and the
republicans. ‘You have,’ she exclaimed, ‘but a single moment left;
to-morrow the tyrant will have forty thousand priests at his disposal.’”
“Madame de Staël,” said Napoleon, “having at length tired out my
patience, was sent into exile. Her father had seriously offended me
before, at the time of the campaign of Marengo. I wished to see him on
my way, and he struck me merely as a dull bloated college tutor. Shortly
afterwards, and with the hope, no doubt, of again appearing, by my help,
in public life, he published a pamphlet, in which he proved that France
could neither be a republic nor a monarchy. What it might be,” remarked
the Emperor, “was not sufficiently evident. In that work, he called the
First Consul, _the necessary man_, &c. Lebrun replied to him, in a
letter of four pages, in his admirable style, and with all his powers of
sarcasm; he asked him whether he had not done sufficient mischief to
France, and whether his pretensions to govern her again were not
exhausted by his experiment of the Constituent Assembly.
“Madame de Staël, in her disgrace, carried on hostilities with the one
hand, and supplicated with the other. She was informed, on the part of
the First Consul, that he left her the universe for the theatre of her
achievements; that he resigned the rest of the world to her, and only
reserved Paris for himself, which he forbade her to approach. But Paris
was precisely the object of Madame de Staël’s wishes. No matter; the
Consul was inflexible. Madame de Staël, however, occasionally renewed
her attempts. Under the empire, she wished to be a lady of the palace.
Yes or no might certainly be pronounced; but by what means could Madame
de Staël be kept quiet in a palace?” &c.
After dinner, the Emperor read the Horatii, and was frequently
interrupted by our bursts of admiration. Never did Corneille appear to
us grander, more noble, more nervous, than on our rock.
SHOOTING PARTY AT ST. HELENA, &c.—EVE OF THE
15TH OF AUGUST, &C.
14th. The Emperor went out early. He sent for me before nine o’clock.
His intention was to mount his horse, and endeavour to get a shot at
some partridges, which we saw every time we were in the carriage; but
which never let any one with a fowling-piece come near them. The Emperor
walked on for the purpose of placing himself in a convenient situation,
but the partridges were no longer to be found. He was soon fatigued, and
got on horseback, observing that our shooting party was not exactly
after the fashion of those of Rambouillet and Fontainebleau. We
breakfasted, on our return, in the tent. The Emperor placed little
Tristan, whom he saw crossing the meadow, at table, and was much amused
with him during the whole of the repast.
After breakfast, the Emperor had the chapter of Rivoli read over again
to him, and finished it. We had gone through three-fourths of it, when
the Governor being announced, we made a precipitate retreat from the
tent, and each of us took refuge in his den. The Emperor was less
inclined than any other person to let himself be seen: his conversations
with the Governor are by far too disagreeable and painful to him. “I am
determined,” he said, “to have no more to do with him. Harsh remarks
escape me, which affect my character and my dignity; nothing should fall
from my lips but what is kind and complimentary.” He found himself
fatigued with his exercise in the morning, and took a bath.
About five o’clock, he took a turn in the calash, the weather was
delicious.
The Governor had expressed an earnest desire to see the Emperor; he
wished, he said, to speak with him on business. It is suspected that it
was to tell him that he had no more money, that he had exhausted all,
and that he no longer knew how to act; a matter of perfect indifference
to the Emperor, who would not have failed, once more, to entreat to be
let alone.
The Emperor played at chess, before dinner, in the saloon; he had taken
some punch. It was late when I arrived; he told me, on entering, to take
my share of the punch; but it was observed that there were no more
glasses. “O yes,” said he, handing me his, “and he will drink out of it,
I am sure.” He then added, “This is the English fashion; is it not? In
our country one seldom drinks after any one but one’s mistress.“
It was remarked, during dinner, that it was the eve of the 15th of
August; the Emperor then observed; “Many healths will be drunk
to-morrow, in Europe, to St. Helena. There are certainly some
sentiments, some wishes, that will traverse the ocean.” He had
entertained the same thought in the morning when on horseback, and had
said the same things to me.
After dinner, Cinna;—Corneille appears to us divine.