THE MEMOIRS OF FRANÇOIS RENÉ
VICOMTE DE CHATEAUBRIAND
SOMETIME AMBASSADOR TO ENGLAND
BEING A TRANSLATION BY ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS
OF THE MÉMOIRES D'OUTRE-TOMBE WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
FROM CONTEMPORARY SOURCES. In 6 Volumes. Vol. III
"NOTRE SANG A TEINT
LA BANNIÈRE DE FRANCE"
LONDON: PUBLISHED BY FREEMANTLE
AND CO. AT 217 PICCADILLY MDCCCCII
CONTENTS
VOLUME III
BOOK V
The years 1807, 1808, 1809 and 1810--Article in the Mercure of
July 1807--I purchase the Vallée-aux-Loups and retire to it--The
_Martyrs_--Armand de Chateaubriand--The years 1811, 1812, 1813,
1814--Publication of the _Itinéraire_--Letter from the Cardinal de
Bausset--Death of Chénier--I become a member of the Institute--The
affair of my speech--The decennial prizes--The _Essai sur les
Révolutions_--The _Natchez._
PART THE THIRD
1814-1830
BOOKS I AND II
The last days of the Empire
BOOK III
Entry of the Allies into Paris--Bonaparte at Fontainebleau--The
Regency at Blois--Publication of my pamphlet _De Bonaparte et des
Bourbons_--The Senate issues the decree of dethronement--The house
in the Rue Saint-Florentin--M. de Talleyrand--Addresses of the
Provisional Government--Constitution proposed by the Senate--Arrival of
the Comte d'Artois--Bonaparte abdicates at Fontainebleau--Napoleon's
itinerary to the island of Elba--Louis XVIII. at Compiègne--His entry
into Paris--The Old Guard--An irreparable mistake--The Declaration
of Saint-Ouen--Treaty of Paris--The Charter--Departure of the
Allies--First year of the Restoration--First ministry--I publish my
_Réflexions Politiques_--Madame la Duchesse de Duras--I am appointed
Ambassador to Sweden--Exhumation of the remains of Louis XVI.--The
first 21st of January at Saint-Denis
BOOK IV
Napoleon at Elba--Commencement of the Hundred Days--The return from
Elba--Torpor of the Legitimacy--Article by Benjamin Constant--Order
of the day of Marshal Soult--A royal session--Petition of
the School of Law to the Chamber of Deputies--Plan for the
defense of Paris--Flight of the King--I leave with Madame de
Chateaubriand--Confusion on the road--The Duc d'Orléans and the Prince
de Condé--Tournai--Brussels--Memories--The Duc de Richelieu--The
King summons me to join him at Ghent--The Hundred Days at
Ghent--Continuation of the Hundred Days at Ghent--Affairs in Vienna
BOOK V
The Hundred Days in Paris--Effect of the passage of the Legitimacy
in France--Bonaparte's astonishment--He is obliged to capitulate
to ideas which he thought smothered--His new system--Three
enormous gamblers remain--Illusions of the Liberals--Clubs
and Federates--Juggling away of the Republic: the Additional
Act--Convocation of the Chamber of Representatives--A useless
Champ de Mai--Cares and bitterness of Bonaparte--Resolution in
Vienna--Movement in Paris--What we were doing at Ghent--M. de
Blacas--The Battle of Waterloo--Confusion at Ghent--What the
Battle of Waterloo was--Return of the Emperor--Reappearance of La
Fayette--Renewed abdication of Bonaparte--Stormy scenes in the House
of Peers--Threatening portents for the Second Restoration--The
departure from Ghent--Arrival at Mons--I miss the first opportunity
of fortune in my political career--M. de Talleyrand at Mons--His
scene with the King--I stupidly interest myself on M. de Talleyrand's
behalf--Mons to Gonesse--With M. le Comte Beugnot I oppose Fouché's
nomination as minister: my reasons--The Duke of Wellington gains the
day--Arnouville--Saint-Denis--Last conversation with the King
BOOK VI
Bonaparte at the Malmaison--General abandonment--Departure from the
Malmaison--Rambouillet--Rochefort--Bonaparte takes refuge on the
English fleet--He writes to the Prince Regent--Bonaparte on the
_Bellerophon_--Torbay--Act confining Bonaparte in St Helena--He
passes over to the Northumberland and sets sail--Judgment on
Bonaparte--Character of Bonaparte--Has Bonaparte left us in
renown what he has lost us in strength?--Futility of the truths
set forth above--The Island of St. Helena--Bonaparte crosses the
Atlantic--Napoleon lands at St. Helena--His establishment at
Longwood--Precautions--Life at Longwood--Visits--Manzoni--Illness of
Bonaparte--Ossian--Reveries of Napoleon in sight of the sea--Projects
of evasion--Last occupation of Bonaparte--He lies down to rise no
more--He dictates his will--Napoleon's religious sentiments--The
chaplain Vignale--Napoleon's speech to Antomarchi, his doctor--He
receives the last sacraments--He expires--His funeral--Destruction of
the Napoleonic world--My last relations with Bonaparte--St. Helena
after the death of Napoleon--Exhumation of Bonaparte--My visit to
Cannes
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Louis XVIII
Charles X. (as Comte D'artois)
La Fayette
Talleyrand
Fouché, Duc d'Otrante
Pius VII
[Illustration: Louis XVIII.]
THE MEMOIRS OF CHATEAUBRIAND
VOLUME III
BOOK V[1]
The years 1807, 1808, 1809 and 1810--Article in the Mercure of
July 1807--I purchase the Vallée-aux-Loups and retire to it--The
_Martyrs_--Armand de Chateaubriand--The years 1811, 1812, 1813,
1814--Publication of the _Itinéraire_--Letter from the Cardinal de
Bausset--Death of Chénier--I become a member of the Institute--The
affair of my speech--The decennial prizes--The _Essai sur les
Révolutions_--The _Natchez._
Madame de Chateaubriand had been very ill during my travels; her
friends had often given her up for lost. In some notes which M. de
Clausel has written for his children, and which he has been good enough
to permit me to look through, I find this passage:
"M. de Chateaubriand left on his journey to Jerusalem in the
month of July 1806: during his absence I went every day to
Madame de Chateaubriand. Our traveller did me the kindness to
write me a letter of several pages from Constantinople, which
you will find in the drawer in our library at Coussergues.
During the winter of 1806 to 1807, we knew that M. de
Chateaubriand was at sea, on his way back to Europe; one day
I had gone for a walk in the garden of the Tuileries with M.
de Fontanes, in a terrible west wind; we had taken shelter on
the terrace by the water-side. M. de Fontanes said to me:
"Perhaps, at this minute, a blast of this horrible storm will
wreck his ship.'
"We learnt since that this presentiment was very nearly
realized. I make a note of this to express the lively
friendship; the interest in M. de Chateaubriand's literary
fame, which was to increase by this voyage; the noble, the
deep and rare sentiments which animated M. de Fontanes, an
excellent man whom I, too, have to thank for great services,
and whom I urge you to remember in your prayers to God."
If I were destined to live, and if I could cause to live in my works
all the persons who are dear to me, how gladly would I take with me all
my friends!
Full of hope, I brought home my handful of gleanings my period of
repose did not last long.
By a series of arrangements, I had become the sole proprietor of the
_Mercure._[2] Towards the end of June 1807, M. Alexandre de Laborde
published his _Journey in Spain_; in July I wrote the article in the
_Mercure_ from which I have quoted certain passages when speaking of
the death of the Duc d'Enghien: "When in the silence of abjection,"
etc. Bonaparte's successes, far from subduing me, had revolted me; I
had gathered fresh energy in my opinions and in the storms. I did not
in vain carry a face bronzed by the sun, nor had I exposed myself to
the wrath of the heavens to tremble with darkened brow before a man's
anger. If Napoleon had done with the kings, he had not done with me.
My article, falling in the midst of his successes and of his wonders,
stirred France: copies in manuscript were distributed broadcast;
several subscribers to the _Mercure_ cut out the article and had it
bound separately; it was read in the drawing-rooms and hawked about
from house to house. One must have lived at that time to form an idea
of the effect produced by a voice resounding alone amid the silence
of the world. The noble sentiments thrust down at the bottom of men's
hearts revived. Napoleon flew out: one is less irritated by reason of
the offense received than by reason of the idea one has formed of one's
self. What! To despise his very glory; to brave for a second time the
man at whose feet the universe lay prostrate!
"Does Chateaubriand think that I am an idiot, that I don't understand
him! I will have him cut down on the Steps of the Tuileries!"
He gave the order to suppress the _Mercure_ and to arrest me. My
property perished; my person escaped by a miracle: Bonaparte had to
occupy himself with the world; he forgot me, but I remained under the
burden of the threat.
My position was a deplorable one: when I felt bound to act according to
the inspiration of my sense of honour, I found myself burdened with my
personal responsibility and with the trouble which I caused my wife.
Her courage was great, but she suffered none the less for it, and
those storms successively called down upon my head disturbed her life.
She had suffered so much for me during the Revolution; it was natural
that she should long for a little rest. The more so in that Madame de
Chateaubriand admired Bonaparte unreservedly; she had no illusions as
to the Legitimacy: she never ceased predicting what would happen to me
on the return of the Bourbons.
*
[Sidenote: The Vallée-aux-Loups.]
The first book of these Memoirs is dated from the Vallée-aux-Loups,
on the 4th of October 1811: I there give a description of the little
retreat which I bought to hide me at that time[3]. Leaving our
apartment at Madame de Coislin's, we went first to live in the Rue des
Saints-Perès, in the Hôtel de Lavalette, which took its name from the
master and mistress[4] of the hotel.
M. de Lavalette was thick-set, wore a plum-coloured coat, and carried a
gold-headed cane: he became my man of business, if I have ever had any
business. He had been an officer of the buttery to the King, and what I
did not eat up[5] he drank.
At the end of November, seeing that the repairs to my cottage were not
progressing, I determined to go and superintend them. We arrived at
the Vallée in the evening. We did not take the ordinary road, but went
in through the gate at the foot of the garden. The soil of the drives,
soaked through with rain, prevented the horses from going; the carriage
upset. A plaster bust of Homer, placed beside Madame de Chateaubriand,
dashed through the window and broke its neck: a bad omen for the
_Martyrs_, at which I was then working.
The house, full of workmen laughing, singing, and hammering, was
warmed by blazing shavings and lighted by candle-ends; it looked like
a hermitage illuminated at night by pilgrims, in the woods. Delighted
to find two rooms made fairly comfortable, in one of which supper had
been laid, we sat down to table. The next morning, awakened by the
sound of the hammers and the songs of the husbandmen, I saw the sun
rise with less anxiety than the master of the Tuileries.
I was in an endless enchantment; without being Madame de Sévigné, I
went, provided with a pair of wooden clogs, to plant my trees in the
mud, to pass up and down the same walks, to look again and again at
every smallest corner, to hide wherever there was a tuft of brushwood,
saying to myself that this would be my park in the future: for then
the future was not lacking. When striving, to-day, by force of memory
to re-open the closed horizon, I no longer find the same, but I meet
with others. I lose myself in my vanished thoughts; the illusions into
which I fall are perhaps as fair as their predecessors; only they are
no longer so young: what I used to see in the splendour of the south,
I now perceive by the light of the sunset. If, nevertheless, I could
cease to be harassed by dreams! Bayard, summoned to surrender a place,
replied:
"Wait till I have made a bridge of dead bodies, to pass over with my
garrison."
I fear that, to go out, I shall need to pass over the bodies of my
fancies.
My trees, being as yet small, did not gather the sounds of the autumn
winds; but, in spring, the breezes which inhaled the breath of the
flowers of the neighbouring fields retained it and poured it over my
valley.
I made some additions to my cottage; I improved the appearance of its
brick walls with a portico supported by two black marble columns and
two white marble caryatides: I remembered that I had been to Athens.
My plan was to add a tower to the end of my pavilion; meantime I made
counterfeit battlements on the wall separating me from the road: I thus
anticipated the mediæval mania which is stupefying us at present. The
Vallée-aux-Loups is the only thing that I regret of all that I have
lost; it is written that nothing shall remain to me. After the loss of
my Valley, I planted the Infirmerie de Marie-Thérèse[6], which also I
have lately left. I defy fate now to fix me to the smallest morsel
of earth; henceforth I shall have for a garden only those avenues,
honoured with such fine names, around the Invalides, along which I
stroll with my one-armed or limping colleagues. Not far from those
walks, Madame de Beaumont's cypress lifts its head; in those deserted
spaces, the great and frivolous Duchesse de Châtillon once leant upon
my arm. Now I give my arm only to time: it is very heavy!
I worked with delight at my Memoirs, and the _Martyrs_ made progress;
I had already read some books to M. de Fontanes. I had settled down in
the midst of my memories as in a large library; I consulted this and
then that, and next closed the register with a sigh, for I perceived
that the light, in penetrating into it, destroyed its mystery. Light up
the days of life, and they will no longer be what they are.
In the month of July, I fell ill and was obliged to return to Paris.
The doctors rendered the illness dangerous. In the time of Hippocrates,
there was a dearth of dead in the lower regions, says the epigram:
thanks to our modern Hippocrates, there is an abundance to-day.
This was perhaps the only moment at which, when near death, I felt a
desire to live. When I felt myself lapsing into faintness, which often
happened, I used to say to Madame de Chateaubriand:
"Do not be alarmed; I shall come to."
I lost consciousness, but with great inward impatience, for I clung to
God knows what. I also passionately longed to complete what I believed
and still believe to be my most correct work. I was paying the price of
the fatigue which I had undergone during my journey to the Levant.
[Sidenote: Bonaparte and my portrait.]
Girodet[7] had put the finishing touches to my portrait. He made
me dark, as I then was; but he put all his genius into the work.
M. Denon[8] received the master-piece for the Salon[9]; like a
noble-hearted courtier, he prudently put it out of sight. When
Bonaparte took his view of the gallery, after examining the pictures,
he asked:
"Where is the portrait of Chateaubriand?"
He knew that it must be there: they were obliged to bring the outlaw
from his hiding-place. Bonaparte, whose fit of generosity had
evaporated, said, on inspecting the portrait:
"He looks like a conspirator coming down the chimney."
One day, on returning alone to the Vallée, I was told by Benjamin, the
gardener, that a fat strange gentleman had come and asked for me; that,
finding me out, he had said he would wait for me; that he had had an
omelette made for him; and that, afterwards, he had flung himself on
my bed. I went upstairs, entered my room, and saw something enormous
asleep; shaking that mass, I cried:
"Hi! Hi! Who are you?"
The mass gave a start and sat up. Its head was covered with a woollen
cap; it wore a smock and trousers of spotted wool, all in one piece;
its face was smeared with snuff, and its tongue hung out. It was my
cousin Moreau! I had not seen him since the camp at Thionville. He was
back from Russia and wanted to enter the excise. My old _cicerone_
in Paris went to die at Nantes. Thus disappeared one of the early
characters of these Memoirs. I hope that, stretched on a couch of
daffodils, he still talks of my verses to Madame de Chastenay, if that
agreeable shade has descended to the Elysian Fields.
*
[Sidenote: The _Martyrs._]
The _Martyrs_ appeared in the spring of 1809. It was a conscientious
piece of work. I had consulted critics of taste and knowledge:
Messieurs de Fontanes, Bertin, Boissonade[10], Malte-Brun[11]; and
I had accepted their judgment. Hundreds and hundreds of times I had
written, unwritten and rewritten the same page. Of all my writings,
this is the most noted for the correctness of the language.
I had made no mistake in the scheme of the book: at present, when my
ideas have become general, no one denies that the struggles of two
religions, one ending, the other commencing, afford one of the richest,
most fruitful and most dramatic subjects for the Muses. I thought,
therefore, that I might venture to cherish some all too foolish hopes;
but I was forgetting the success of my first book: in this country
you must never reckon on two close successes; one destroys the other.
If you have some sort of talent for prose, beware of showing any
for poetry; if you are distinguished in literature, lay no claim to
politics: such is the French spirit and its poverty. The self-loves
alarmed, the jealousies surprised by an author's good fortune at the
outset combine and lie in wait for the poet's second publication, to
take a signal vengeance:
Tous, la main dans l'encre, jurent de se venger[12].
I must pay for the silly admiration which I had obtained by trickery at
the time of the appearance of the _Génie du Christianisme_; I must be
made to restore what I had stolen! Alas, they need not have taken such
pains to rob me of that which I myself did not think that I deserved!
If I had delivered Christian Rome, I asked only for an obsidional
crown[13], a plait of grass culled in the Eternal City.
The executioner of the justice of the vanities was M. Hoffmann[14],
to whom may God grant peace! The _Journal des Débats_ was no longer
free; its proprietors had no power in it, and the censors registered
my condemnation in its pages. M. Hoffmann, however, forgave the Battle
of the Franks and some other pieces in the work; but, if he thought
Cymodocée attractive, he was too excellent a Catholic not to grow
indignant at the profane conjunction of the truths of Christianity and
the fables of mythology. Velléda did not save me. It was imputed to me
as a crime that I had changed Tacitus' German druidess into a Gallic
woman, as though I had wanted to borrow anything beyond an harmonious
name! And behold, we see the Christians of France, to whom I had
rendered such great services by setting up their altars again, stupidly
taking it into their heads to be scandalized on the gospel word of M.
Hoffmann! The title of the _Martyrs_ had misled them: they expected to
read a martyrology, and the tiger who tore only a daughter of Homer to
pieces seemed to them a sacrilege.
The real martyrdom of Pope Pius VII., whom Bonaparte had brought as a
prisoner to Paris, did not scandalize them, but they were quite roused
by my un-Christian fictions, as they called them. And it was M. the
Bishop of Chartres[15] who undertook to punish the horrible impieties
of the author of the _Génie du Christianisme._ Alas, he must realize
that to-day his zeal is wanted for very different contests!
M. the Bishop of Chartres is the brother of my excellent friend M.
de Clausel, a very great Christian, who did not allow himself to be
carried away by so sublime a virtue as the critic, his brother.
I thought it my duty to reply to my censors, as I had done in the
matter of the _Génie du Christianisme_. Montesquieu[16], with his
defense of the _Esprit des lois_, encouraged me. I was wrong. Authors
who are attacked might say the finest things in the world, and yet
excite merely the smiles of impartial minds and the ridicule of the
crowd. They place themselves on a bad ground: the defensive position
is antipathetic to the French character. When, in reply to objections,
I pointed out that, in stigmatizing this or that passage, they had
attacked some fine relic of antiquity, beaten on the facts, they
extricated themselves by next saying that the _Martyrs_ was a mere
"patchwork." When I justified the simultaneous presence of the two
religions by the authority of the Fathers of the Church themselves,
the reply was that, at the period in which I placed the action of the
_Martyrs_, paganism no longer existed among great minds.
I believed in good faith that the work had fallen flat; the violence of
the attack had shaken my conviction as an author. Some of my friends
consoled me; they maintained that the proscription was unjustified,
that sooner or later the public would pronounce another verdict: M.
de Fontanes especially was firm; I was no Racine, but he might be a
Boileau, and he never ceased saying to me:
"They'll come back to it."
His persuasion in this regard was so deep-rooted that it inspired him
with some charming stanzas:
Le Tasse, errant de ville en ville, etc.[17],
without fear of compromising his taste or the authority of his judgment.
The _Martyrs_ has, in fact, retrieved itself, has obtained the honour
of four consecutive editions, and has even enjoyed particular favour
with men of letters: appreciation has been shown me of a work which
bears evidence of serious study, of some pains towards style, of a
great reverence for language and taste.
[Sidenote: Its reception.]
Criticism of the subject-matter was promptly abandoned. To say that I
had mixed profane with sacred things, because I had depicted two cults
which existed side by side and which had each its beliefs, its altars,
its priests, its ceremonies, was equivalent to saying that I ought to
have renounced history. For whom did the martyrs die? For Jesus Christ.
To whom were they immolated? To the gods of the Empire. Therefore there
were two religions.
The philosophical question, namely, whether, under Diocletian[18], the
Greeks and Romans believed in the gods of Homer, and whether public
worship had undergone any changes, was a question that did not concern
me as a poet; as an _historian_, I might have had many things to say.
All this no longer matters. The _Martyrs_ has lived, contrary to my
first expectation, and I have had to occupy myself only with the care
of revising its text.
The fault of the _Martyrs_ has to do with the wonderful "directness"
which, owing to what remained of my classical prejudices, I had
unadvisedly employed. Startled at my own innovations, I thought it
impossible to dispense with a "Heaven" and a "Hell." Yet the good and
bad angels sufficed to carry on the action, without delivering it to
worn-out machinery. If the Battle of the Franks, Velléda, Jérôme,
Augustin, Eudore, Cymodocée; if all these, and the descriptions of
Naples and Greece, are unable to obtain pardon for the _Martyrs_, Hell
and Heaven will not save it.
One of the passages which most pleased M. de Fontanes was the following:
"Cymodocée sat down at the window of the prison and, resting
her head, adorned with the martyr's veil, on her hand, sighed
forth these harmonious words:
"'Cleave the calm and dazzling sea, O swift vessels of
Ausonia; release the sail, O slaves of Neptune, to the
amorous breath of the winds, and bend over the agile oars.
Bring me back to the care of my husband and my father, on
the happy shores of the Pamisus! Fly, O birds of Lybia,
whose supple necks so gracefully bend, fly to the summit of
Ithomus and say that the daughter of Homer shall see again
the laurels of Messenia! When shall I see once more my bed
of ivory, the light of day so dear to mortals, the meadows
studded with flowers which a clear water bathes, which
modesty adorns with her breath[19]!'"
The _Génie du Christianisme_ will remain my great work, because it
produced, or decided, a revolution and commenced the new era of the
literary age. The case is different with the _Martyrs_: it came after
the revolution had been worked, and was only a superabundant proof of
my doctrines; my style was no longer a new thing, and, except in the
episode of Velléda and the picture of the manners of the Franks, my
poem even feels the influence of the places which it has frequented: in
it the classical dominates the romantic.
Lastly, the circumstances no longer existed which contributed to the
success of the _Génie du Christianisme_; the Government, far from
being favourable to me, had become hostile. The _Martyrs_ meant to me
a redoubling of persecution: the frequent allusions in the portrait
of Galerius[20] and in the picture of the Court of Diocletian could
not fail to arouse the attention of the imperial police, the more so
inasmuch as the English translator, who had no reason to observe any
circumspection, and who cared not at all whether he compromised me or
not, had called attention to the allusions in his preface.
The publication of the _Martyrs_ was coincident with a fatal
occurrence. This did not disarm the aristarchs, thanks to the ardour
with which we are animated for the powers that be; they felt that a
literary criticism which tended to diminish the interest attached to my
name might be agreeable to Bonaparte. The latter, like the millionaire
bankers who give splendid banquets and charge their customers postage,
did not disdain small profits.
*
Armand de Chateaubriand, whom you have seen as the companion of my
childhood, who appeared before you again in the Princes' Army with the
deaf and dumb Libba, had remained in England. He married in Jersey[21],
and was charged with the correspondence of the Princes. Setting sail
on the 25th of September 1808, he was landed, at eleven o'clock in the
same evening, on the coast of Brittany, near Saint-Cast. The boat's
crew consisted of eleven men; two only were Frenchmen: Roussel and
Quintal.
[Sidenote: Armand de Chateaubriand.]
Armand proceeded to the house of M. Delaunay-Boisé-Lucas the Elder,
who lived in the village of Saint-Gast, where the English had once
been driven back to their ships: his host advised him to go back[22];
but the boat had already taken its homeward course to Jersey. Armand,
having come to an arrangement with M. Boisé-Lucas' son, handed him the
despatches with which he had been entrusted by M. Henry-Larivière[23],
the Princes' agent.
"I went to the coast on the 29th of September," he says, in
answer to an interrogatory, "and waited there two nights,
without seeing my boat. As the moon was very bright, I
withdrew, and returned on the 14th or 15th of the month. I
remained till the 24th of the said month. I spent every night
in the rocks, but to no purpose; my boat did not come, and
by day I went to the Boisé-Lucas'. The same boat, with the
same crew, to which Roussel and Quintal belonged, was to
come to fetch me. With regard to the precautions taken with
Boisé-Lucas the Elder, there were none besides those which I
have already enumerated."
The dauntless Armand, landed at a few steps from his paternal fields,
as though on the inhospitable coast of Taurida, in vain turned his
eyes over the billows, by the light of the moon, in search of the bark
which could have saved him. In former days, after I had already left
Combourg, with the intention of going to India, I had cast my mournful
gaze over the same billows. From the rocks of Saint-Cast where Armand
lay, from the cape of the Varde where I had sat, a few leagues of the
sea, over which our eyes have wandered in opposite directions, have
witnessed the cares and divided the destinies of two men joined by ties
of name and blood. It was also in the midst of the same waves that
I met Gesril for the last time. Often, in my dreams, I see Gesril
and Armand washing the wound in their foreheads in the deep, while,
reddened to my very feet, stretches the sea with which we used to play
in our childhood[24].
Armand succeeded in embarking in a boat purchased at Saint-Malo, but,
driven back by the north-west wind, he was again obliged to put back.
At last, on the 6th of January, assisted by a sailor called Jean Brien,
he launched a little stranded boat, and got hold of another which was
afloat. He thus describes his voyage, which bears an affinity to my
star and my adventures, in his examination on the 18th of March:
"From nine o'clock in the evening, when we started, till two
o'clock in the morning, the weather favoured us. Judging then
that we were not far from the rocks called the 'Mainquiers,'
we lay-to on our anchor, intending to wait for daylight;
but, the wind having freshened, and fearing that it would
grow still stronger, we continued our course. A few minutes
later, the sea became very heavy and, our compass having been
broken by a wave, we remained uncertain as to the course we
were taking. The first land that came into sight on the 7th
(it might then be mid-day), was the coast of Normandy, which
obliged us to tack about, and we again returned and lay-to
near the rocks called 'Écreho,' situated between the coast
of Normandy and Jersey. Strong and contrary winds obliged
us to remain in that position the whole of the rest of that
day and of the next, the 8th. On the morning of the 9th, as
soon as it was light, I said to Despagne that it appeared to
me that the wind had decreased, seeing that our boat was not
working much, and to look which way the wind was blowing. He
told me that he no longer saw the rocks near which we had
dropped the anchor. I then decided that we were drifting, and
that we had lost our anchor. The violence of the storm left
us no alternative but to make for the coast. As we saw no
land, I did not know at what distance we were from it. It was
then that I flung my papers into the sea, having taken the
precaution to fasten a stone to them. We then scudded before
the wind and made the coast, at about nine o'clock in the
morning, at Bretteville-sur-Ay, in Normandy.
"We were received on the coast by the customs officers, who
took me out of my boat almost dead; my feet and legs were
frozen. We were both lodged with the lieutenant of the
brigade of Bretteville. Two days later, Despagne was taken to
the prison at Coutances, and I have not seen him since that
day. A few days after, I myself was transferred to the gaol
at that town; the next day, I was taken by the quarter-master
to Saint-Lô, and remained for eight days with the said
quarter-master. I appeared once before M. the Prefect of
the department, and, on the 26th of January, I left with
the captain and quarter-master of the gendarmes to be taken
to Paris, where I arrived on the 28th. They took me to the
office of M. Desmarets at the ministry of the general police,
and from there to the prison of the Grande-Force."
Armand had the wind, the waves and the imperial police against him;
Bonaparte was in connivance with the storms. The gods made a very great
expenditure of wrath against a paltry existence.
The packet flung into the sea was cast back by it on the beach of
Notre-Dame-d'Alloue, near Valognes. The papers contained in this packet
served as documents for the conviction: there were thirty-two of them.
Quintal, returning to the sands of Brittany with his boat to fetch
Armand, had also, through an obstinate fatality, been shipwrecked in
Norman waters a few days before my cousin. The crew of Quintal's boat
had spoken; the Prefect of Saint-Lô had learnt that M. de Chateaubriand
was the leader of the Princes' enterprises. When he heard that a cutter
manned with only two men had run ashore, he had no doubt that Armand
was one of the two shipwrecked men, for all the fishermen spoke of him
as the most fearless man at sea that had ever been known.
[Sidenote: Arrest of Armand.]
On the 20th of January 1809, the Prefect of the Manche reported
Armand's arrest to the general police. His letter commences:
"My conjectures have been completely verified: Chateaubriand
is arrested; it was he who landed on the coast at Bretteville
and who had taken the name of 'John Fall.'
"Uneasy at finding that, in spite of the very precise orders
which I had given, John Fall did not arrive at Saint-Lô,
I instructed Quarter-master Mauduit of the gendarmes, a
trustworthy and extremely active man, to go to fetch this
John Fall, wherever he might be, and bring him before me,
in whatever condition he was. He found him at Coutances, at
the moment when they were arranging to transfer him to the
hospital, to treat him for his legs, which were frozen.
"Fall appeared before me to-day. I had had Lelièvre put in
a separate room, from which he could see John Fall arrive
without being observed. When Lelièvre saw him come up a
flight of steps placed near this apartment, he cried,
striking his hands together and changing colour:
"'It's Chateaubriand! However did they catch him?'
"Lelièvre was in no way forewarned. This exclamation was
drawn from him by surprise. He asked me afterwards not to say
that he had mentioned Chateaubriand's name, because he would
be lost.
"I did not let John Fall see that I knew who he was."
Armand, carried to Paris and lodged at the Force, underwent a secret
interrogation at the military gaol of the Abbaye. General Hulin, who
was now Military Commander of Paris, appointed Bertrand, a captain in
the first demi-brigade of veterans, judge-advocate of the military
commission instructed, by a decree of the 25th of February, to inquire
into Armand's case.
The persons implicated were M. de Goyon[25], who had been sent by
Armand to Brest, and M. de Boisé-Lucas the Younger, charged to hand
letters from Henry-Larivière to Messieurs Laya[26] and Sicard[27] in
Paris.
In a letter of the 13th of March, addressed to Fouché, Armand said:
"Let the Emperor deign to restore to liberty men now
languishing in prison for having shown me too much interest.
Whatever happens, let their liberty be restored to all
of them alike. I recommend my unfortunate family to the
Emperor's generosity."
These mistakes of a man with human bowels addressing himself to an
hyena are painful to see. Bonaparte, besides, was not the lion of
Florence: he did not give up the child on observing the tears of the
mother. I had written to ask Fouché for an audience; he granted me
one, and assured me, with all the self-possession of revolutionary
frivolity, "that he had seen Armand, that I could be easy: that Armand
had told him that he would die well, and that in fact he wore a very
resolute air." Had I proposed to Fouché that he should die, would he
have preserved that deliberate tone and that superb indifference with
regard to himself?
I applied to Madame de Rémusat, begging her to remit to the Empress a
letter containing a request for justice, or for mercy, to the Emperor.
Madame la Duchesse de Saint-Leu[28] told me, at Arenberg, of the fate
of my letter: Joséphine gave it to the Emperor; he seemed to hesitate,
on reading it; and then, coming upon some words which offended him, he
impatiently flung it into the fire. I had forgotten that one should
show pride only on one's own behalf.
[Sidenote: His execution.]
M. de Goyon, condemned with Armand, underwent his sentence. Yet Madame
la Baronne-Duchesse de Montmorency had been induced to interest herself
in his favour: she was the daughter of Madame de Matignon, with whom
the Goyons were allied. A Montmorency in service ought to have obtained
anything, if the prostitution of a name were enough to win over an old
monarchy to a new power. Madame de Goyon, though unable to save her
husband, saved young Boisé-Lucas. Everything combined towards this
misfortune, which struck only unknown persons; one would have thought
that the downfall of a world was in question: storms upon the waves,
ambushes on land, Bonaparte, the sea, the murderers of Louis XVI., and
perhaps some "passion," the mysterious soul of mundane catastrophes.
People have not even perceived all these things; it all struck me alone
and lived in my memory only. What mattered to Napoleon the insects
crushed by his hand upon his diadem?
On the day of execution, I wished to accompany my comrade on his last
battle-field; I found no carriage, and hastened on foot to the Plaine
de Grenelle. I arrived, all perspiring, a second too late: Armand
had been shot against the surrounding wall of Paris. His skull was
fractured; a butcher's dog was licking up his blood and his brains.
I followed the cart which took the bodies of Armand and his two
companions, plebeian and noble, Quintal and Goyon, to the Vaugirard
Cemetery, where I had buried M. de La Harpe. I saw my cousin for the
last time without being able to recognise him: the lead had disfigured
him, he had no face left; I could not remark the ravages of years
in it, nor even see death within its shapeless and bleeding orb; he
remained young in my memory as at the time of the Siege of Thionville.
He was shot on Good Friday: the crucifix appears to me at the extremity
of all my misfortunes. When I walk on the rampart of the Plaine de
Grenelle, I stop to look at the imprint of the firing, still marked
upon the wall. If Bonaparte's bullets had left no other traces, he
would no longer be spoken of.
Strange concatenation of destinies! General Hulin, the Military
Commander of Paris, appointed the commission which ordered Armand's
brains to be blown out; he had, in former days, been appointed
president of the commission which shattered the head of the Duc
d'Enghien. Ought he not to have abstained, after his first misfortune,
from all connection with courts-martial? And I have spoken of the death
of the descendant of the Great Condé, without reminding General Hulin
of the part which he played in the execution of the humble soldier, my
kinsman. No doubt I, in my turn, had received from Heaven my commission
to judge the judges of the tribunal of Vincennes.
*
The year 1811 was one of the most remarkable in my literary career[29].
I published the _Itinéraire de Paris à Jerusalem_[30], I accepted M.
de Chénier's place at the Institute, and I began to write the Memoirs
which I am now finishing.
[Sidenote: The _Itinéraire._]
The success of the _Itinéraire_ was as complete as that of the
_Martyrs_ had been disputed. There is no scribbler, however
inconsiderable, but receives letters of congratulation on the
appearance of his _farrago._ Among the new compliments which were
addressed to me, I do not feel at liberty to suppress the letter of
a man of virtue and merit who has produced two works of recognised
authority, leaving hardly anything to be said on Bossuet and Fénelon.
The Bishop of Alais, Cardinal de Bausset[31], is the biographer of
those two great prelates. He goes beyond all praise with reference
to me: that is the accepted usage in writing to an author, and does
not count; but the cardinal at least shows the general opinion of the
moment on the _Itinéraire_: he foresees, with respect to Carthage, the
objections of which my geographical feeling might be the object; in
any case, that feeling has prevailed, and I have set Dido's ports in
their places. My readers will be interested to recognise in this letter
the diction of a select society, a style rendered grave and sweet by
politeness, religion and manner: an excellence of tone from which we
are so far removed to-day.
"VILLEMOISSON, BY LONJUMEAU (SEINE-ET-OISE),
"25 _March_ 1811.
"You should, Sir, have received, and you have received, the
just tribute of the public gratitude and satisfaction; but
I can assure you that not one of your readers has enjoyed
your interesting work with a truer sentiment than myself. You
are the first and only traveller who has had no need of the
aid of engraving and drawing to place before the eyes of his
readers the places and monuments which recall fine memories
and great images. Your soul has felt all, your imagination
depicted all, and the reader feels with your soul and sees
with your eyes.
"I could convey to you but very feebly the impression which
I received from the very first pages, when skirting in your
company the coast of Corfu, and when witnessing the landing
of all those 'eternal' men whom opposite destinies have
successively driven thither. A few lines have sufficed you to
engrave the traces of their footsteps for all time; they will
always be found in your _Itinéraire_, which will preserve
them more faithfully than so many marbles which have been
incapable of keeping the great names confided to them.
"I now know the monuments of Athens in the way in which one
likes to know them. I had already seen them in beautiful
engravings, I had admired them, but I had not felt them.
One too often forgets that, if architects need exact
descriptions, measurements and proportions, men need to
recognise the mind and the genius which have conceived the
idea of those great monuments.
"You have restored to the Pyramids that noble and profound
intention which frivolous declaimers had not even perceived.
"How thankful I am to you, Sir, for delivering to the just
execration of all time that stupid and ferocious people
which, since twelve hundred years, has afflicted the fairest
countries of the earth! One smiles with you at the hope of
seeing it return to the desert whence it came.
"You have inspired me with a passing feeling of indulgence
for the Arabs, for the sake of the fine comparison which you
have drawn between them and the savages of North America.
"Providence seems to have led you to Jerusalem to assist at
the last representation of the first scene of Christianity.
If it be no longer granted to the eyes of men to behold that
Tomb, 'the only one which will have nothing to give up on
the Last Day,' Christians will always find it again in the
Gospels, and meditative and sensitive minds in the pictures
which you have drawn.
"The critics will not fail to reproach you with the men and
incidents with which you have covered the ruins of Carthage
and which you could not have seen, since they no longer
exist. But I implore you, Sir, confine yourself to asking
them if they themselves would not have been very sorry not to
find them in those engaging pictures.
"You have the right, Sir, to enjoy a form of glory which
belongs to you exclusively by a sort of creation; but there
is an enjoyment still more satisfying to a character like
yours, that is, to have endowed the creations of your genius
with the nobility of your soul and the elevation of your
sentiments. It is this which, at all times, will ensure to
your name and memory the esteem, the admiration and the
respect of all friends of religion, virtue and honour.
"It is on this score that I beg you, Sir, to accept the
homage of all my sentiments.
"L. F. DE BAUSSET, _ex-Bishop of Alais._"
M. de Chénier[32] died on the 10th of January 1811. My friends had the
fatal idea of pressing me to take his place in the Institute. They
urged that, exposed as I was to the hostilities of the head of the
Government, to the suspicions and annoyances of the police, it was
necessary that I should enter a body then powerful through its fame and
through the men composing it; that, sheltered behind that buckler, I
should be able to work in peace.
I had an invincible repugnance to occupying a place, even outside the
Government; I had too clear a recollection of what the first had cost
me. Chénier's inheritance seemed fraught with peril; I should not be
able to say all, save by exposing myself; I did not wish to pass over
regicide in silence, although Cambacérès was the second person in the
State; I was determined to make my demands heard in favour of liberty
and to raise my voice against tyranny; I wanted to have my say on the
horrors of 1793, to express my regrets for the fallen family of our
kings, to bemoan the misfortunes of those who had remained faithful
to them. My friends replied that I was deceiving myself; that a few
praises of the head of the Government, obligatory in the academical
speech, praises of which, in one respect, I thought Bonaparte worthy,
would make him swallow all the truths I might wish to utter; and that
I should at the same time enjoy the honour of having maintained my
opinions and the happiness of putting an end to the terrors of Madame
de Chateaubriand. By dint of their besetting me, I yielded, weary of
resistance: but I assured them that they were mistaken; that Bonaparte
would not be taken in by common-places on his son, his wife and his
glory; that he would feel the lesson but the more keenly for them;
that he would recognise the man who resigned on the death of the Duc
d'Enghien and the writer of the article that caused the suppression of
the _Mercure_; that, lastly, instead of ensuring my repose, I should
revive the persecutions directed against me. They were soon obliged to
recognise the truth of my words: true it is that they had not foreseen
the audacity of my speech.
I went to pay the customary visits to the members of the Academy[33].
Madame de Vintimille took me to the Abbé Morellet. We found him
sitting in an arm-chair before his fire; he had fallen asleep, and the
_Itinéraire_, which he was reading, had dropped from his hands. Waking
with a start at the sound of my name announced by his man-servant, he
raised his head and exclaimed:
"There are passages so long, so long!"
I told him, laughing, that I saw that, and that I would abridge the new
edition. He was a good-natured man and promised me his vote, in spite
of _Atala._ When, later, the _Monarchie selon la Charte_ appeared, he
could not recover from his astonishment that such a political work
should have the singer of "the daughter of the Floridas" for its
author. Had Grotius[34] not written the tragedy of _Adam and Eve_ and
Montesquieu the _Temple de Guide?_ True, I was neither Grotius nor
Montesquieu.
The election took place; I was elected by ballot with a fairly large
majority[35]. I at once set to work on my speech; I wrote and rewrote
it a score of times, never feeling satisfied with myself: at one time,
wishing to make it possible for me to read, I thought it too strong;
at another, my anger returning, I thought it too weak. I did not know
how to measure out the dose of academic praise. If, in spite of my
antipathy for Napoleon, I had tried to render the admiration which I
felt for the public portion of his life, I should have gone far beyond
the peroration. Milton, whom I quote at the commencement of the speech,
furnished me with a model; in his _Second defense of the People of
England_, he made a pompous eulogy of Cromwell:
"Not only the actions of our kings," he says, "but the fabled
exploits of our heroes, are overcome by your achievements.
Reflect, then, frequently (how dear alike the trust, and the
parent from you have received it!) that to your hands your
country has commended and confided her freedom: that what she
lately expected from her choicest representatives she now
expects, now hopes, from you alone. O reverence this high
expectation, this hope of your country relying exclusively
upon yourself! Reverence the glances and the gashes of those
brave men who have so nobly struggled for liberty under your
auspices, as well as the shades of those who perished in
the conflict! Reverence, finally, yourself, and suffer not
that liberty, for the attainment of which you have endured
so many hardships and encountered so many perils, to sustain
any violation from your own hands, or any encroachment from
those of others. Without our freedom, in fact, you cannot
yourself be free: for it is justly ordained by nature that he
who invades the liberty of others shall in the very outset
lose his own, and be the first to feel the servitude which he
has induced[36]."
Johnson quoted only the praises given to the Protector[37], in order
to place the Republican in contradiction with himself; the fine
passage which I have just translated contains its own qualification of
those praises. Johnson's criticism is forgotten, Milton's defense has
remained: all that belongs to the strife of parties and the passions of
the moment dies like them and with them.
[Sidenote: I am elected.]
When my speech was ready, I was sent for to read it to the committee
appointed to hear it: it was rejected by the committee, with the
exception of two or three members[38]. It was a sight to see the
terror of the bold Republicans who listened to me and who were alarmed
by the independence of my opinions; they shuddered with indignation
and fright at the mere word of liberty. M. Daru[39] took the speech
to Saint-Cloud. Bonaparte declared that, if it had been delivered,
he would have closed the doors of the Institute and flung me into a
subterranean dungeon for the rest of my life.
I received the following note from M. Daru:
"SAINT-CLOUD, 28 _April_ 1811.
"I have the honour to inform Monsieur de Chateaubriand that,
when he has the time or occasion to come to Saint-Cloud, I
shall be able to return to him the speech which he was good
enough to entrust to me. I take this opportunity to repeat to
him the assurance of the high consideration with which I have
the honour to salute him.
"DARU."
I went to Saint-Cloud. M. Daru returned me the manuscript, crossed
out in places, and scored _ab irato_ with parentheses and pencil
marks by Bonaparte: the lion's claw had been dug in everywhere, and I
experienced a sort of pleasure of irritation in imagining that I felt
it in my side. M. Daru did not conceal Napoleon's anger from me; but he
told me, that, if I kept the peroration, with the exception of a few
words, and changed almost the whole of the rest, I should be received
with great applause. The speech had been copied out at the palace; some
passages had been suppressed and others interpolated. Not long after,
it appeared in the provinces printed in that fashion.
This speech is one of the best proofs of the independence of my
opinions and the consistency of my principles. M. Suard, who was free
and firm, said that, if it had been read in the open Academy, it would
have brought down the rafters of the hall with applause. Can you,
indeed, imagine the warm praises of liberty uttered in the midst of the
servility of the Empire?
I had kept the scored manuscript with religious care; ill-fortune
willed that, when I left the Infirmerie de Marie-Thérèse, it was burnt
with a heap of papers. Nevertheless the readers of these Memoirs shall
not be deprived of it: one of my colleagues had the generosity to take
a copy of it; here it is:
[Sidenote: My inaugural speech.]
"When Milton published _Paradise Lost_, not a voice was
raised in the three kingdoms of Great Britain to praise
a work which, in spite of its numerous defects, remains
nevertheless one of the noblest monuments of the human mind.
The English Homer died forgotten, and his contemporaries left
to futurity the task of immortalizing the singer of Eden.
Have we here one of the great instances of literary injustice
of which examples are presented by nearly every century? No,
gentlemen; the English, but recently escaped from the Civil
Wars, were unable to bring themselves to celebrate the memory
of a man who was remarked for the ardour of his opinions in a
time of calamity. What shall we reserve, they asked, for the
tomb of the citizen who devotes himself to the safety of his
country, if we lavish honours upon the ashes of him who, at
most, is entitled to claim our generous indulgence? Posterity
will do justice to Milton's memory, but we owe a lesson to
our sons: we must teach them, by our silence, that talents
are a baleful gift when allied with the passions, and that it
is better to condemn one's self to obscurity than to achieve
celebrity through one's country's misfortunes.
"Shall I, gentlemen, imitate this memorable example, or shall
I speak to you of the person and works of M. Chénier? To
reconcile your usages and my opinions, I feel it my duty to
adopt a middle course between absolute silence and a thorough
consideration. But, whatever the words I may utter, no
rancour will poison this address. Should you find in me the
frankness of my fellow-countryman Duclos[40], I hope also to
prove to you that I possess the same loyalty.
"Doubtless it would have been curious to see what a man in
my position, holding my principles and my opinions, could
have to say of the man whose place I occupy to-day. It would
be interesting to examine the influence of revolutions upon
literature, to show how systems can mislead talent and
direct it into fallacious ways which seem to lead to fame
and only end in oblivion. If Milton, despite his political
aberrations, has left works which posterity admires, it is
because Milton, without repenting his errors, withdrew from;
a society which was withdrawing from him, to seek in religion
the assuagement of his ills and the source of his glory.
Deprived of the light of heaven, he created for himself a new
earth, a new sun, and quitted, so to speak, a world where he
had seen nought save misery and crime; he set in the bowers
of Eden that primitive innocence, that blessed felicity which
reigned beneath the tents of Jacob and Rachel; and he placed
in the lower regions the torments, passions and remorse of
the men whose furies he had shared.
"Unfortunately, the works of M. Chénier, though they show
the germ of a remarkable talent, glow with neither that
antique simplicity nor that sublime majesty. The author was
distinguished for an eminently classical mind. None better
understood the principles of ancient and modern literature;
the stage, eloquence, history, criticism, satire: he
embraced all these; but his writings bear the impress of the
disastrous days that witnessed his birth. Too often dictated
by the spirit of party, they have been applauded by factions.
Shall I, in discussing my predecessor's works, separate what
has already passed away, like our discords, and what will
perhaps survive, like our glory? Here we find the interests
of society and the interests of literature confounded. I
cannot forget the first sufficiently to occupy myself solely
with the second; wherefore, gentlemen, I am obliged either to
keep silence or to raise political questions.
"There are persons who would make of literature an abstract
thing and isolate it in the midst of human affairs. Such
persons will say to me, 'Why keep silence? Treat M. Chénier's
works only from the literary point of view.' That is to say,
gentlemen, that I must abuse your patience and my own by
repeating commonplaces which you can find anywhere and which
you know better than I. Manners change with the times: heirs
to a long series of peaceful years, our forerunners were able
to indulge in purely academic discussions which were even
less a proof of their talent than of their happiness. But we,
who remain the victims of a great shipwreck, no longer have
what is needed to relish so perfect a calm. Our ideas, our
minds have taken a different direction. The man has in us
taken the place of the academician: by divesting literature
of all its futility, we now behold it only in the light of
our mighty memories and of the experience of our adversity.
What! After a revolution which has caused us, in a few
years, to live through the events of many centuries, shall
the writer be forbidden all lofty considerations, shall he
be denied the right to examine the serious side of objects?
Shall he spend a trivial life occupied with grammatical
quibbles, rules of taste, petty literary judgments? Shall
he grow old, bound in the swaddling-clothes of his cradle?
Shall he not show, at the end of his days, a brow furrowed
by his long labours, by his grave reflections, and often by
those manly sufferings which add to the greatness of mankind?
What important cares, then, will have whitened his hair? The
miserable sorrows of self-love and the puerile sports of the
mind.
"Surely, gentlemen, that would be treating ourselves with a
very strange contempt! Speaking for myself, I cannot thus
belittle myself, nor reduce myself to the condition of
childhood at the age of strength and reason. I cannot confine
myself within the narrow circle which they would trace around
the writer. For instance, gentlemen, if I wished to pass a
eulogy on the man of letters, on the man of the Court who
presides over this meeting[41], do you believe that I would
content myself with praising in him the light and ingenious
French wit which he received from his mother[42], and of
which he displays to us the last model? No, assuredly: I
should wish to make glow once more in all its brilliancy
the noble name which he bears. I should mention the Duc de
Boufflers[43] who forced the Austrians to raise the blockade
of Genoa. I should speak of the marshal, his father[44],
of the governor who held the ramparts of Lille against the
enemies of France, and who, by that memorable defense,
consoled a great king's unhappy old age. It was of that
companion of Turenne that Madame de Maintenon said:
"'In him the heart was the last to die.'
[Sidenote: My speech continued.]
"Lastly, I should go back to that Louis de Boufflers[45],
called the Robust, who displayed in combat the vigour and
valour of Hercules. Thus, at the two extremities of this
family, I should find force and grace, the knight and the
troubadour. They say that the French are sons of Hector: I
would rather believe that they descend from Achilles, for
like that hero they wield both the lyre and the sword.
"If I wished, gentlemen, to talk to you of the celebrated
poet[46] who sang the charms of nature in such brilliant
tones, do you think that I would confine myself to pointing
out to you the admirable flexibility of a talent which
succeeded in rendering with equal distinction the regular
beauties of Virgil and the less correct beauties of Milton?
No: I would also show you the poet refusing to part from
his unfortunate countrymen, accompanying them with his
lyre to foreign shores, singing their sorrows to console
them; an illustrious exile among that crowd of banished men
whose number I increased. It is true that his age and his
infirmities, his talents and his glory had not protected him
against persecution in his own country. Men tried to make him
purchase peace with verses unworthy of his muse, and his muse
could sing only the redoubtable immortality of crime and the
reassuring immortality of virtue:
"Rassurez-vous, vous êtes immortels[47]!
"If, again, I wished to speak to you of a friend very dear
to my heart[48], one of those friends who, according to
Cicero, render prosperity more brilliant and adversity less
irksome, I should extol the refinement and purity of his
taste, the exquisite elegance of his prose, the beauty, the
strength, the harmony of his verses, which, while formed
after the great models, are nevertheless distinguished by
their original character. I should extol that superior talent
which has never known the feelings of envy, that talent made
happy by every success other than its own, that talent which,
for ten years, has felt all that has happened to me of an
honourable nature with the deep and simple joy known only to
the most generous characters and the liveliest friendship.
But I should not omit my friend's political side. I should
depict him at the head of one of the principal bodies of the
State, delivering those speeches which are master-pieces of
propriety, moderation and exaltedness. I should represent him
sacrificing the gentle commerce of the Muses to occupations
which would no doubt be without charm, if one did not abandon
one's self to them in the hope of forming children capable of
one day following the example of their fathers and avoiding
their errors.
"In speaking of the men of talent of whom this meeting
is composed, I could not therefore prevent myself from
considering them from the point of view of morality and
society. One is distinguished among you by a refined,
delicate and sagacious wit, by an urbanity nowadays so
rare, and by the most honourable constancy in his moderate
opinions[49]. Another, under the ice of age, found the
warmth of youth wherewith to plead the cause of the
unfortunate[50]. A third[51], an elegant historian and
agreeable poet, becomes more venerable and more dear to us
by the memory of a father[52] and a son[53], both mutilated
in the service of the country. Yet another, by restoring
their hearing to the deaf, their speech to the dumb, recalls
to us the miracles of the Gospels, to the cult of which he
has devoted himself[54]. Are there not, gentlemen, among
you some witnesses of your former triumphs who can tell the
worthy heir[55] of the Chancelier d'Aguesseau[56] how his
grandsire's name was once applauded in this assembly? I pass
to the favourite nurselings of the nine Sisters, and I see
the venerable author of Œdipe[57] retired in his solitude
and Sophocles forgetting at Colonos the glory that calls
him back to Athens. How greatly must we cherish the other
sons of Melpomene who have interested us in the misfortunes
of our fathers! Every French heart has throbbed anew at
the presentiment of the death of Henry IV[58]. The tragic
muse has re-established the honour of those gallant knights
dastardly betrayed by history, and nobly revenged by one of
our modern Euripides[59].
[Sidenote: My speech continued.]
"Coming to the successors of Anacreon, I would pause at the
amiable man[60] who, similar to the veteran of Teos[61],
still re-tells, after fifteen lustra, those love-songs
which one begins to write at fifteen years. I would also,
gentlemen, go to seek your renown on the stormy seas which
were formerly guarded by the giant Adamastor[62], and which
became appeased by the charming names of Éléonore[63] and
Virginie[64]. _Tibi rident æquora._
"Alas, too many of the talents in our midst have been
wandering and restless! Has poetry not sung in harmonious
verse of the art of Neptune[65], that so fatal art which
transported it to distant shores? And has not French
eloquence, after defending the altar and the State,
withdrawn, as though into its source, to the land where St.
Ambrose[66] first saw the light[67]? Why can I not here place
all the members of this assembly in a picture the colours of
which have not been embellished by flattery! For, if it be
true that envy sometimes obscures the estimable qualities
of men of letters, it is still more true that this class of
men is distinguished by lofty sentiments, by disinterested
virtues, by the hatred of oppression, devotion to friendship,
and fidelity to misfortune. It is thus, gentlemen, that I
love to consider a subject from all its aspects, and that I
love especially to give a serious character to literature
by applying it to the most exalted subjects of morality,
philosophy and history. With this independence of mind, I
must needs abstain from touching upon works which it is
impossible to examine without irritating the passions. Were
I to speak of the tragedy of _Charles IX_, could I refrain
from avenging the memory of the Cardinal de Lorraine and
discussing the strange lesson there given to Kings? _Caius
Gracchus, Calas, Henri VIII, Fénelon_[68] would in many
respects present sent to me a distortion of history upon
which to rest the same doctrines. When I read the satires,
I there find immolated men occupying places in the first
ranks of this assembly; nevertheless, written as they are
in a pure, elegant and easy style, they agreeably recall
the school of Voltaire, and I should take the more pleasure
in praising them inasmuch as my own name has not escaped
the author's malice[69]. But let us leave on one side works
which would give rise only to painful recriminations: I will
not disturb the memory of a writer who was your colleague
and who still numbers friends and admirers among you; he
will owe to religion, which appeared to him so contemptible
in the writings of those who defend it, the peace which I
wish to his tomb. But even here, gentlemen, shall I not have
the misfortune to strike upon a rock? For, in offering to
M. Chénier this tribute of respect which is due to all the
dead, I fear to meet beneath my steps ashes very differently
illustrious. If ungenerous interpretations would impute this
involuntary emotion to me as a crime, I should take refuge at
the foot of those expiatory altars which a powerful monarch
erects to the manes of outraged dynasties. Ah, how much
happier would it have been for M. Chénier not to have taken
part in those public calamities which at last fell back upon
his head! He has known, like myself, what it means to lose
in the storms a fondly cherished brother[70]. What would our
unhappy brothers have said, had God summoned them on the
same day before His tribunal? If they had met at the hour of
death, before mingling their blood they would doubtless have
cried to us, 'Cease your intestine wars, return to thoughts
of love and peace; death strikes all parties alike, and your
cruel divisions cost us our youth and our life.' That would
have been their fraternal cry.
[Sidenote: My speech continued.]
"If my predecessor could hear these words, which now
console only his shade, he would appreciate the tribute
which I am here paying to his brother, for he was by nature
generous: it was even this generosity of character which
drew him into new ideas, very seductive no doubt, since they
promised to restore to us the virtues of Fabricius[71]. But,
soon deceived in his hopes, he found his mood becoming
embittered, his talent changing its nature. Removed from the
poet's solitude into the midst of factions, how could he have
abandoned himself to those sentiments which make the charm of
life? Happy had he seen no sky save the sky of Greece under
which he was born[72], had he set eyes upon no ruins save
those of Sparta and Athens! I should perhaps have met him
in his mother's beautiful country, and we would have sworn
mutual friendship on the banks of the Permessus; or else,
since he was to return to his paternal fields, why did he
not follow me to the deserts upon which I was flung by our
tempests! The silence of the forests would have calmed that
troubled soul, and the huts of the savages would perhaps have
reconciled him to the palaces of kings. Vain wish! M. Chénier
remained upon the stage of our excitements and our sorrows.
Attacked while still in his youth by a mortal malady, you
have seen him, gentlemen, droop slowly towards the tomb and
leave for ever.... I have not been told of his last moments.
"None of us, who have lived through the troubles and
excitements, shall escape the eyes of history. Who can
flatter himself that he shall be found stainless in a time
of frenzy when none has the entire use of his reason? Let
us then be full of indulgence for others; let us excuse
that of which we cannot approve. Such is human weakness,
that talent, genius, virtue itself are sometimes able to
overstep the limits of duty. M. Chénier worshipped liberty:
can we ascribe it to him as a crime? The knights themselves,
were they to issue from their tombs, would follow the light
of our century. We should see that illustrious alliance
formed between honour and liberty, as under the reign of
the Valois, upon our monuments. Gothic battlements crowned
with infinite grace the orders borrowed from the Greeks.
Is not liberty the greatest of benefits and the first of
man's needs? It kindles genius, it elevates the heart, it
is as necessary to the friend of the Muses as the air he
breathes. The arts are, to a certain point, able to live in
dependence, because they make use of a language apart, which
is not understood by the crowd; but letters, which speak an
universal language, pine and perish in irons. How shall one
compose pages worthy of the future, if one must forbid one's
self, in writing, every magnanimous sentiment, every great
and powerful thought? Liberty is so naturally the friend
of science and literature, that she takes refuge with them
when she is banished from the midst of the peoples; and it
is we, gentlemen, whom she charges to write her annals and
to revenge her on her enemies, to hand down her name and her
cult to posterity for all time. To prevent any mistake in
the interpretation of my thought, I declare that I am here
speaking only of the liberty which is born of order and gives
birth to laws, and not of that liberty which is the daughter
of license and the mother of slavery. The wrong of the author
of Charles IX did not, therefore, lie in offering his incense
to the former of these divinities, but in believing that the
rights which she gives us are incompatible with a monarchical
form of government. A Frenchman displays in his opinions that
independence which other nations show in their laws. Liberty
is for him a sentiment rather than a principle, and he is a
citizen by instinct and a subject by choice. If the writer
whose loss you are mourning had made this reflection, he
would not have embraced in one and the same love the liberty
that creates and the liberty that destroys.
[Sidenote: My speech concluded.]
"Gentlemen, I have finished the task which the customs of
the Academy have laid upon me. On the point of ending this
speech, I am struck with an idea which saddens me: it is
not long since M. Chénier pronounced upon my writings some
findings which he was preparing to publish; and to-day it is
I who am judging my judge. I say, in all the sincerity of my
heart, that I would rather continue exposed to the satire of
an enemy, and live peacefully in solitude, than bring home
to you, by my presence in your midst, the rapid succession
of men upon earth, the sudden apparition of that death which
overthrows our projects and our hopes, which snatches us away
at a stroke, and which sometimes hands over our memory to
men entirely opposed to us in sentiment and principle. This
platform is a sort of battle-field in which talents come by
turns to shine and die. What diverse geniuses has it not seen
pass! Corneille, Racine, Boileau, La Bruyère[73], Bossuet,
Fénelon, Voltaire, Buffon[74], Montesquieu.... Who would not
be afraid, gentlemen, to think that he is about to form a
link in the chain of that illustrious lineage? Overcome by
the weight of those immortal names, and unable to make myself
recognised through my talents as the lawful heir, I will at
least try to prove my descent by my sentiments.
"When my turn shall have come to yield my place to the orator
who is to speak on my tomb, he may treat my works severely,
but he will be obliged to say that I loved my mother-land
passionately, that I would have endured a thousand ills
rather than cost my country a single tear, that I would
without hesitation have made the sacrifice of my days to
those noble sentiments which alone give value to life and
dignity to death.
"But what a moment have I chosen, gentlemen, to speak to you
of mourning and obsequies! Are we not surrounded by scenes
of festivity? A solitary traveller, I was meditating a few
days since on the ruin of the destroyed empires: and now I
see a new empire arise. Scarce have I quitted the graves in
which the buried nations sleep, and I perceive a cradle laden
with the destinies of the future. The acclamations of the
soldier resound on every hand. Cæsar mounts to the Capitol;
the nations tell of marvels, of monuments upraised, cities
beautified, the frontiers of the country bathed by those
distant seas which bore the ships of Scipio, and by those
remote waters which Germanicus did not see.
"While the triumpher advances surrounded by his legions, what
shall the tranquil children of the Muses do? They will go
before the car to add the olive-branch of peace to the palms
of victory, to mingle with the warlike recitals the touching
images which caused Æmilius Paulus[75] to weep over the
misfortunes of Perseus[76].
"And you, daughter of the Cæsars[77], come forth from your
palace with your young son[78] in your arms; come, to add
mercy to greatness; come, to soften victory and to temper
the glitter of arms by the gentle majesty of a queen and a
mother."
In the manuscript which was handed back to me, the commencement of
the speech, which relates to the opinions of Milton, was struck out
from one end to the other by Bonaparte's hand. A part of my protest
against the isolation from affairs of State, in which it was desired
to keep literature, was also stigmatized with the pencil. The eulogy
of the Abbé Delille, which recalled the Emigration and the fidelity of
the poet to the misfortunes of the Royal Family and to the sufferings
of his companions in exile, was placed between brackets; the eulogy of
M. de Fontanes had a cross set against it. Almost all that I said of
M. Chénier, of his brother, of my own, of the expiatory altars which
were being prepared at Saint-Denis was slashed with pencil marks. The
paragraph commencing with the words, "M. Chénier worshipped liberty,"
etc., had a double longitudinal line drawn through it. Nevertheless,
the agents of the Empire, when publishing the speech, kept this
paragraph pretty correctly.
All was not ended when they had handed me back my speech; they wanted
to force me to write a second. I declared that I stood by the first,
and that I would write no other. The committee then declared to me that
I should not be received into the Academy.
Gracious, generous and courageous persons, unknown to myself,
interested themselves in me. Mrs. Lindsay, who at the time of my
return to France, in 1800, had brought me from Calais to Paris, talked
to Madame Gay[79]; the latter addressed herself to Madame Regnaud de
Saint-Jean-d'Angély, who asked the Duc de Rovigo to leave me alone. The
women of that time interposed their beauty between power and misfortune.
[Sidenote: Bonaparte's comments.]
All this perturbation was prolonged, by the decennial prizes, until
the year 1812. Bonaparte, who was persecuting me, sent to the Academy
to ask, in the matter of those prizes, why they had not put the _Génie
du Christianisme_ on their list. The Academy explained; several of my
colleagues wrote their unfavourable judgment of my work. I might have
said what a Greek poet said to a bird:
"Daughter of Attica, nurtured on honey, thou who singest so
well, thou snatchest a grasshopper, a fine songstress like
thyself, and carriest her for food to thy young ones. Both of
you have wings, both inhabit these regions, both celebrate
the birth of spring: wilt thou not restore to her her
liberty? It is not just that a songstress should die by the
beak of one of her fellows[80]."
This mixture of anger against and attraction for me displayed by
Bonaparte is constant and strange: but now he threatens, and suddenly
he asks the Institute why it has not mentioned me on the occasion of
the decennial prizes. He goes further, he declares to Fontanes that,
since the Institute does not think me worthy to compete for the prizes,
he will give me one, that he will appoint me superintendent-general of
all the libraries of France: a superintendence with the salary attached
to a first-class embassy. Bonaparte's original idea of employing me in
a diplomatic career did not leave him: he would not admit, for a reason
well known to himself, that I had ceased to form part of the Ministry
of External Relations. And yet, in spite of this proposed munificence,
his Prefect of Police invited me, some time later[81], to remove myself
from Paris, and I went to continue my Memoirs at Dieppe.
Bonaparte stooped to play the part of a teasing school-boy; he
disinterred the _Essai sur les Révolutions_ and delighted in the war
which he brought down upon me on this subject. A certain M. Damaze de
Raymond constituted himself my champion[82]: I went to thank him in
the Rue Vivienne. He had a death's-head on his mantel-piece among his
knick-knacks; some time later he was killed in a duel[83], and his
charming features went to join the frightful face that seemed to call
to him. Everyone fought in those days: one of the police-spies charged
with the arrest of Georges received a bullet in the head from him.
To cut short my powerful adversary's unfair attack, I applied to that
M. de Pommereul of whom I spoke to you at the time of my first arrival
in Paris: he had become director-general of the State printing works
and of the department of books. I asked him for leave to reprint the
_Essai_ in its entirety. My correspondence and the result of that
correspondence can be seen in the preface to the 1826 edition of the
_Essai sur les Révolutions_, vol. II. of the Complete Works. Moreover,
the Imperial Government was exceedingly right to refuse its assent to
the reprinting of the work in its entirety: the _Essai_ was not, having
regard both to the liberties and to the Legitimate Monarchy, a book
which should be published while despotism and usurpation held sway.
The police gave itself airs of impartiality by allowing something to
be said in my favour, and it laughed while preventing me from doing
the only thing capable of defending me. On the return of Louis XVIII.,
the _Essai_ was exhumed anew: as, in the time of the Empire, they had
wished to make use of it against me in a political respect, so, in
the days of the Restoration, they tried to plead it against me in a
religious respect. I have made so complete an apology for my errors in
the notes to the new edition of the _Essai historique_, that there is
nothing left wherewith to reproach me. Posterity will come and will
pronounce on both book and commentary, if such old trash is still able
to interest it. I venture to hope that it will judge the _Essai_ as my
grey head has judged it; for, as one advances in life, one assumes the
equity of the future towards which one approaches. The book and the
notes place me before the eyes of men such as I was at the commencement
of my career and such as I am at the close of that career.
[Sidenote: The _Essai_ reprinted.]
Moreover, this work which I have treated with pitiless rigour offers
the compendium of my existence as a poet, a moralist and a future
politician. The pith of the work is overflowing, the boldness of the
opinions urged as far as it will go. It must needs be admitted that, in
the various roads upon which I have embarked, I have never been guided
by prejudice, that I have never been blind in whatsoever cause, that no
interest has led me on, that the sides which I have taken have always
been those of my choice.
In the _Essai_, my independence in matters of religion and politics is
complete; I examine everything: a _Republican_, I serve the Monarchy;
a _philosopher_, I honour religion. These are not contradictions: they
are forced consequences of the uncertainty of theory and the certainty
of practice among men. My mind, constructed to believe in nothing,
not even in myself, constructed to despise everything, splendours
and miseries, peoples and kings, has nevertheless been dominated by
an instinct of reason which commanded it to submit to all that is
recognised as fine: religion, justice, humanity, equality, liberty,
glory. That which people to-day dream concerning the future, that which
the present generation imagines itself to have discovered concerning a
society yet to be born, founded upon principles quite different from
those of the old society, is announced positively in the _Essai._
I have anticipated by thirty years those who call themselves the
proclaimers of an unknown world. My acts have belonged to the ancient
city, my thoughts to the new; the former to my duty, the latter to my
nature.
The _Essai_ was not an impious book; it was a book of doubt and sorrow.
I have already said so[84].
For the rest, I have had to exaggerate my fault to myself, and to
redeem with ideas of order so many passionate ideas strewn over my
works. I fear lest, at the commencement of my career, I may have
done harm to youth; I owe it a reparation, and at least I owe it
other lessons. Let it learn that one can struggle successfully with a
troubled nature; I have seen moral beauty, the divine beauty, superior
to every earthly dream: it needs but a little courage to reach it and
keep to it.
In order to finish what I have to say touching my literary career,
I must mention the work which commenced it, and which remained in
manuscript until the year in which I inserted it in my Complete Works.
At the beginning of the _Natchez_, the preface described how the work
was recovered in England, thanks to the trouble and the obliging
research of Messieurs de Thuisy.
A manuscript from which I have been able to extract _Atala, René_, and
several descriptions included in the _Génie du Christianisme_, is not
absolutely barren. This first manuscript was written in one piece,
without sections; all the subjects were confused in it: journeys,
natural history, the dramatic portion, etc.; but, besides this
manuscript, composed in one stroke, there existed another, divided into
books. In this second work, I had not only proceeded to the separation
of the matter, but I had also changed the character of the composition,
by altering it from the romantic to the idyllic.
A young man who promiscuously heaps up his ideas, his inventions, his
studies, die results of his reading, is bound to produce chaos; but
also in this chaos there is a certain fecundity which belongs to the
potency of his age.
To me happened that which has perhaps happened to no other author: I
read again, after a lapse of thirty years, a manuscript which I had
totally forgotten.
I had one danger to fear. In repassing the brush over the picture, I
might wipe out the colours; a surer but less rapid hand ran the risk,
while obliterating some incorrect features, of causing the liveliest
touches of youth to disappear: it was necessary to preserve the
independence and, so to speak, the passion of the composition; the foam
must be left on the bit of the youthful courser. If in the _Natchez_
there are things which I would hazard only in trembling to-day, there
are also things which I would no longer write, especially René's letter
in the second volume. It is in my first manner, and reproduces all
René. I do not know that the Renés who followed in my steps can have
said anything more nearly approaching folly.
[Sidenote: The _Natchez._]
The _Natchez_ opens with an invocation to the desert and to the star of
the night, the supreme divinities of my youth:
"In the shade of the American forests I will sing airs of
solitude such as mortal ears have not yet heard; I will
relate your adversities, O Natchez, O nation of Louisiana, of
whom naught save the memories remain! Should the misfortunes
of an obscure dweller in the woods have less claim upon our
tears than those of other men? And are the mausoleums of the
kings in our temples more touching than the tomb of an Indian
under his native oak?
"And thou, torch of meditation, star of the night, be for me
the star of Pindus! Go before my steps across the unknown
regions of the New World, to reveal to me by thy light the
enchanting secrets of those deserts!"
My two natures lie mingled in this singular work, particularly in the
primitive original. In it are found political incidents and romantic
intrigues; but, across the narrative, there is heard, throughout, a
voice that sings and that seems to come from an unknown region.
*
From 1812 to 1814, but two years are wanting to end the Empire[85], and
those two years, of which we have seen something by anticipation, were
employed by me in researches into French history, and in the writing
of some books of these Memoirs; but I did not print anything more. My
life of poetry and erudition was really closed by the publication of
my three great works, the _Génie du Christianisme_, the _Martyrs_ and
the _Itinéraire._ My political writings began with the Restoration;
with those writings also began my active political existence. Here,
therefore, ends my literary career properly so-called; carried away by
the flood of years, I had omitted it; not until this year, 1839, have I
recalled the bygone times of 1800 to 1814.
This literary career, as you have been free to convince yourselves, was
no less disturbed than my career as a traveller and a soldier; there
were also labours, encounters, and blood in the arena; all was not
Muses and Castalian spring. My political career was even stormier.
Perhaps some remains may mark the spot where stood my gardens of
Academus. The _Génie du Christianisme_ commences the religious
revolution against the philosophism of the eighteenth century. I was at
the same time preparing the revolution which threatens our language,
for there can be no renewal of ideas without an accompanying renewal of
style. Will there be other forms of art, at present unknown, when I am
gone? Will it be possible to start from our studies of to-day in order
to make progress, as we ourselves have taken a step forward by starting
from past studies? Are there limits which one could not overstep,
because one would then run against the nature of things? Do not those
limits lie in the division of the modern languages, in the decay of
those same languages, in human vanity such as modern society has made
it? Languages do not follow the movement of civilization until they
are on the point of attaining the period of their perfection; having
reached this zenith, they remain stationary for a moment, and then
descend, without being able to ascend again.
[Sidenote: Youth and age.]
Now, the story which I am finishing joins the first books of my
political life, written previously at different dates. I feel a little
more courage on returning to the finished portions of my edifice. When
I resumed my work, I trembled lest the old son of Cœlus should see
the golden trowel of the builder of Troy turn into a trowel of lead.
And yet it seems to me that my memory, when bidden to pour me out my
recollections, has not failed me too greatly. Have you felt the ice
of winter to a great extent in my narrative? Do you find an enormous
difference between the extinct ashes which I have striven to revive
and the living persons whom I have shown you in telling you of my early
youth? My years are my secretaries: when one of them comes to die, he
passes the pen to his younger brother, and I continue to dictate. As
they are of one family, they write very nearly the same hand.
[1] This book was written in Paris in 1839, and revised in June
1847.--T.
[2] Chateaubriand bought it from M. de Fontanes for 20,000 francs.--B.
[3] Chateaubriand bought the Vallée-aux-Loups in August 1807, for the
sum of 30,000 francs.--B.
[4] Madame de Lavalette was the widow of the Marquis de Béville.--B.
[5] _Manger_, to eat; also, to run through, to squander.--T.
[6] The Infirmary, situated at No. 86, Rue d'Enfer (now 92, Rue
Denfert-Rochereau), was founded by M. and Madame de Chateaubriand at a
considerable cost. Madame de Chateaubriand was buried beneath the altar
of the chapel.--B.
[7] Anne Louis Girodet Trioson, originally Girodet de Roussy
(1767-1824), a pupil of David, and not only a fine painter, but also a
poet of some merit.--T.
[8] Dominique Vivant Baron Denon (1747-1825), Director-General of
Museums under the Empire.--T.
[9] Chateaubriand's portrait was exhibited in the Salon of 1808.--B.
[10] Jean François Boissonade (1774-1857), a member of the Academy of
Inscriptions, and a distinguished and indefatigable Hellenist.--T.
[11] Conrad Malte-Brun (1775-1826), the eminent Danish geographer.--T.
[12] "Each, his hand in _th' ink-pot_, swears to be revenged."--T.
[13] The crown of grass granted to a general who raised the siege of a
beleaguered place.--T.
[14] François Bénoît Hoffmann (1760-1828), author of several comic
operas, and a successful writer in the _Journal des Débats._--T.
[15] Claude Hippolyte Clausel de Montais (1769-1857) became Bishop of
Chartres in 1824. He was the first to engage, in March 1841, in the
struggle of the bishops in favour of liberty of instruction, which
led to the law of 25 March 1850. Thanks to his writings during this
contest, Monseigneur Clausel de Montais is one of the most imposing
figures in the nineteenth-century episcopate.--B.
[16] Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755). In the
_Esprit des lois_ (1748) he treats religion respectfully, but the book
was condemned for its deistic tendency.--T.
[17] "Tasso wandering from town to town," etc.--T.
[18] Caius Valerius Jovius Aurelius Diocletianus, Roman Emperor
(245-313), in 303 commenced a persecution of the Christians which
lasted for ten years, or eight years after his abdication in 305.--T.
[19] _Martyrs_, XXIII.--B.
[20] Caius Galerius Valerius Maximianus, Roman Emperor (_d._ 311),
adopted son and son-in-law of Diocletian, and associated with the
latter in his persecution of the Christians.--T.
[21] Armand de Chateaubriand married in Jersey, in 1795, Jeanne Le Brun
d'Anneville, who died in the island in 1857.--B.
[22] The English attempted a descent on Saint-Cast in 1758 and were
defeated by the Duc d'Aiguillon.--T.
[23] Pierre François Joachim Henry-Larivière (1761-1838) worked
ardently for the restoration of the Monarchy from the date of his
proscription by the Convention, of which he was a member, in 1797.
Louis XVIII. made him Advocate-General and a councillor of the Court of
Appeal. He refused to take the oath to Louis-Philippe on the latter's
usurpation in 1830.--B.
[24] The original documents of Armand's trial have been sent me by an
unknown and generous hand.--_Author's Note._
[25] M. de Goyon-Vaurouault.--B.
[26] Jean Louis Laya (1761-1833), author of some poetical plays and
of the _Ami des lois_, a stirring protest against the murder of Louis
XVI. He was flung into prison, where he remained until the 9 Thermidor.
Under the Empire, he became a professor at the Lycée Napoléon and
eventually obtained the chair of poetry at the Faculté des Lettres.--T.
[27] The Abbé Roch Ambroise Cucurron Sicard (1742-1822), the great
teacher and benefactor of the deaf and dumb, and a fervent Royalist.--T.
[28] Hortense Queen of Holland (1783-1837), daughter of the Empress
Joséphine by her first husband, Alexandre Vicomte de Beauharnais, and
wife of Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland. She retired to Switzerland
after the Restoration, with the title of Duchesse de Saint-Leu.--T.
[29] Chateaubriand says nothing of the time which elapsed between April
1809 and January 1811. These twenty months, in fact, were marked by no
political or literary event that in any way affected him.--B.
[30] The _Itinéraire_ appeared in the month of March 1811.--B.
[31] Louis François Cardinal Duc de Bausset, Bishop of Alais
(1748-1824), was appointed to the see of Alais in 1784. He was
dispossessed and imprisoned under the Terror. On the return of the
Bourbons, he was created a peer of France in 1815, a cardinal in 1817,
and a duke in the same year. He had published his successful _Histoire
de Fénelon_ in 1808; his _Histoire de Bossuet_, which was less well
received, appeared in 1814.--T.
[32] Marie Joseph de Chénier (1764-1811).--T.
[33] A contemporary, M. Auguis, thus describes the cavalier manner in
which Chateaubriand paid his visits (he quotes from the unpublished
Diary of Ferdinand Denis, author of _Scènes de la nature sous les
tropiques_ and of _André le voyageur_):
"When Chateaubriand went to pay his French-Academy visits, he called
upon his future colleagues on horseback. To the famous and powerful he
paid a complete visit; to the small fry he sent in his card, without
alighting from his mettlesome steed. When they came to discuss the
election, M. ---- voted for the horse of his new colleague, saying
that, in all conscience, it was the former alone that had paid him a
visit."--B.
[34] Hugo de Groot (1583-1645), known as Hugo Grotius, the celebrated
Dutch jurist and writer on international law, author of _De Jure belli
et pacis_ (1624), by which the system of international law was created,
etc., etc., and for some years Ambassador of Christina Queen of Sweden
to France.--T.
[35] The election took place on Wednesday 20 February 1811, forty days
after Marie Joseph Chenier's death. Only twenty-five members were
present, and Chateaubriand was elected almost unanimously.--B.
[36] MILTON, _Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio secunda_: Archdeacon
Wrangham's translation.--T.
[37] Cf. JOHNSON, _Lives of the English Poets: Milton_, in which the
poet is very roughly handled.--T.
[38] The committee consisted of Messieurs François de Neufchâteau,
Regnaud de Saint-Jean d'Angély, Lacretelle the Elder, Laujon and
Legouvé.--B.
[39] Pierre Antoine Noël Brunot, Comte Daru (1760-1829), a moderate
revolutionary, had been imprisoned under the Terror. He was sent to
Berlin as Minister Plenipotentiary in 1806 and entered the Institute in
the same year. In 1811, he became Secretary of State, in which capacity
he opposed the Russian War. He was created a peer by the Restoration.
His works include a metrical translation of the Works of Horace (1804),
a History of the Republic of Venice (1819), a History of Brittany
(1826), etc.--T.
[40] Charles Pineau Duclos (1704-1772), author of the _Considération
des mœurs_, etc., was a native of Dinan, in Brittany, and was noted
for the independence of his opinions. Louis XV. pronounced the
_Considération_ to be "the work of an honest man."--T.
[41] Stanislas Chevalier de Boufflers (1737-1815) became a member of
the Academy in 1788, on his return from the Governorship of Senegal. He
is best known for his light erotic verse.--T.
[42] The Marquise de Boufflers, _née_ de Beauvais-Craon, a beautiful
and witty woman who had done the honours of the Court of King
Stanislaus.--T.
[43] Joseph Marie Duc de Boufflers (1706-1747) relieved Genoa, besieged
by the Imperial forces and by the King of Sardinia, in 1747, and died
there in the same year of the small-pox.--T.
[44] Louis François Maréchal Duc de Boufflers (1644-1711), a pupil of
Condé and the Turennes, became famous through his defense of Lille
in 1708, for which service he was created a duke and a peer. He also
conducted the retreat and saved the French Army after the defeat of
Malplaquet in 1709.--T.
[45] Louis de Boufflers (1534-1553), a guidon to the Duc d'Enghien, and
noted for his superhuman feats of strength and agility. He was killed,
at the age of nineteen, at the siege of Pont-sur-Yonne.--T.
[46] The Abbé Delille.--B.
[47] "Be reassured, immortality's yours:" a line from Delille's
_Dithyrambe sur l'immortalité de l'âme_, written during the Terror.--T.
[48] M. de Fontanes.--B.
[49] M. Suard.--B.
[50] The Abbé Morellet, who, in 1795, had published two eloquent
appeals in favour of the victims of the Revolution, the _Cri des
familles_ and the _Cause des pères._--B.
[51] Lieutenant-General Louis Philippe Comte de Ségur (1753-1830), a
very intelligent writer. After going through the American War with
Lafayette, he was sent as Ambassador to Russia, while still a very
young man, returned to France on the outbreak of the Revolution, lived
on his pen and was admitted to the Academy. Napoleon made him his
Grand-Master of Ceremonies and a senator; under the Restoration, he was
created a peer of France.--T.
[52] Philippe Henri Maréchal Marquis de Ségur (1724-1801) was badly
wounded at the battle of Klosterkamp, in 1760.-T.
[53] Philippe Paul Comte de Ségur, author of the _Campagne de Russie_,
was riddled with bullets at the Battle of Sommo-Sierra (1808),
and refused to cease fighting until he swooned in the arms of his
grenadiers.--B.
[54] The Abbé Sicard.--B.
[55] Henri Cardin Jean Baptiste Comte d'Aguesseau (1746-1826).--B.
[56] Henri François d'Aguesseau (1668-1751), thrice Chancellor of
France.--T.
[57] Jean Francois Ducis (1733-1816), the tragic poet, author of
_Œdipe chez Admète_, imitated from Sophocles and Euripides, and of
imitations of many of Shakespeare's tragedies. His only original play
was _Abufar, ou La Famille arabe_, which obtained a great success. He
received Voltaire's seat in the Academy in 1778. Ducis refused the many
advantages offered him by Bonaparte, preferring to live in poor and
honourable retirement.--T.
[58] Gabriel Marie Jean Baptiste Legouvé (1764-1812), the poet, author
of the _Mort d'Abel_, the _Mort d'Henri IV_ and other tragedies, and of
some didactic poetry which is better than the plays.--T.
[59] François Juste Marie Raynouard (1761-1836), author of the tragedy
of the _Templiers_, entered the Academy in 1807 and became its
perpetual secretary in 1817.--T.
[60] Pierre Laujon (1727-1811), author of some comic operas and of a
collection of sportive verse entitled _À-propos de société_ (1771). He
had been secretary to the Prince de Condé.--T.
[61] Anacreon was born at Teos.--T.
[62] Cf. CAMOËNS, _Luciad_, where Adamastor is represented as the giant
spirit of storms, warning Vasco de Gama off the Cape of Storms, now the
Cape of Good Hope.--T.
[63] The Chevalier de Parny, author of _Éléonore_, was born in the Île
Bourbon.--T.
[64] Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, author of _Paul et Virginie_, lived
three years in the Mauritius.--T.
[65] Joseph Alphonse Esménard (1770-1811) accompanied General Leclerc
to San Domingo, and on his return wrote his poem of the _Navigation._
Napoleon made him Theatrical Censor. In 1810, he entered the Institute.
He was exiled, in 1811, for writing against the Emperor Alexander,
returned to France after three months, and was immediately killed by a
fall from his carriage.--T.
[66] St. Ambrose (_circa_ 340-397), one of the Fathers of the Church,
was Governor of Liguria when he was elected bishop by the people,
although himself but recently converted to Christianity and as yet
unbaptized. He was ordained priest and consecrated Bishop of Milan
within a few days (374). St. Ambrose is honoured on the 7th of
December.--T.
[67] Jean Siffrein Cardinal Maury (1746-1817) had been appointed to the
See of Montefiascone by Pope Pius VI. in 1794. In 1810, Napoleon had
nominated him Archbishop of Paris, a fact which Chateaubriand purposely
disregards.--B.
[68] Chénier's tragedy of _Charles IX_ was produced in 1789, _Henri
VIII_ and the _Mort de Calas_ in 1791, _Gracchus_ in 1792, _Fénelon_ in
1793.--T.
[69] A reference to an attack in Chénier's satire entitled the
_Nouveaux Saints_, which commences thus:
Ah! vous parlez du diable? il est bien poétique,
Dit le dévot Chactas, ce sauvage érotique.
--B.
[70] André de Chénier, guillotined in 1794.--T.
[71] Caius Fabricius Luscinus (_fl._ 282 B.C.), the type of the ancient
Roman virtue.--T.
[72] Marie Joseph Chénier was born in Constantinople in 1764.--T.
[73] Jean de La Bruyère (1644-1696), author of the _Caractères._--T.
[74] Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707-1788), the great
naturalist.--T.
[75] Lucius Æmilius Paulus Macedonicus (228-160 B.C.), elected Consul
in 182 and 168, defeated Perseus in 167 B.C., and subdued Macedonia.--T.
[76] Perseus, the last King of Macedon (_d._ 167 B.C.), adorned his
conqueror's triumph and allowed himself to die of starvation in his
prison in Rome.--T.
[77] Marie-Louise Empress of the French (1791-1847), daughter of the
Emperor Francis I., had been married to Napoleon on the 1st of April
1810.--T.
[78] Francis Charles Joseph Napoleon Duc de Reichstadt (1811-1832),
created King of Rome on his birth (20 March).--T.
[79] Marie Françoise Sophie Gay (1776-1852), _née_ Nichault de
Lavalette, author of _Léonie de Montbreuse, Anatolie_, the _Salons
célèbres_ and other successful and distinguished works, and mother of
Madame Émile de Girardin.--T.
[80] An epigram from the Anthology. The bird to which the Greek poet
addressed it is the nightingale, "too great a friend of the author's,"
as M. de Marcellus very neatly observes, "for him to dare to call it by
its name when about to speak ill of it."--B.
[81] 4 September 1812.--B.
[82] In a pamphlet entitled, _Réponse aux attaques dirigées contre M.
de Chateaubriand._--B.
[83] Damaze de Raymond died on the 27th of February 1813, in a duel
resulting from a quarrel at the gaming-table.--B.
[84] _Cf._ Vol. II. p. 116.--T.
[85] Except in so far as concerns the incidents of his literary
life, Chateaubriand's Memoirs give us hardly any details on the two
years elapsing between 1812 and 1814. They were spent between the
Vallée-aux-Loups and an apartment in the Rue de Rivoli which M. and
Madame de Chateaubriand had hired from M. Alexandre de Laborde.--B.
PART THE THIRD
1814-1830
BOOKS I AND II
The last days of the Empire
Youth is a charming thing: it sets out at life's commencement crowned
with flowers, as did the Athenian fleet going to conquer Sicily and the
delightful plains of Enna. The prayer is offered aloud by the priest
of Neptune, libations are made from goblets of gold, the crowd lining
the coast unites its invocations to those of the pilot, the pæan is
sung while the sail is unfurled to the rays and to the breath of dawn.
Alcibiades[86], arrayed in purple and beautiful as Love, is noticeable
on the triremes, proud of the seven chariots which he has launched
on the Olympian race-course. But, scarce is the isle of Alcinous[87]
passed, when the illusion vanishes: Alcibiades, banished, goes to
grow old far away from his country and to die pierced with arrows
on Timandra's bosom. The companions of his early hopes, enslaved at
Syracuse, have nothing to alleviate the weight of their chains but a
few verses of Euripides.
You have seen my youth quitting the shore: it had not the beauty of the
pupil of Pericles[88], educated upon the knees of Aspasia[89] but it
had the same morning hours--and longings and dreams, God knows! I have
described those dreams to you: to-day, returning to land after many
an exile, I have nothing more to tell you but truths sad as my age.
If at times I still sound the chords of the lyre, these are the last
harmonies of the poet seeking to cure himself of the wounds caused by
the arrows of time, or to console himself for the slavery of years.
You know how changeable was my life during my condition as a traveller
and a soldier; you know of my literary existence from 1800 to 1813,
the year in which you left me at the Vallée-aux-Loups, which still
belonged to me when my political career opened. We are about to enter
into that career: before penetrating into it, I must needs revert to
the general facts which I have overlooked while occupying myself solely
with my works and my personal adventures. Those facts are of Napoleon's
making. Let us therefore pass to him; let us speak of the huge edifice
which was being built outside my dreams. I now turn historian without
ceasing to be an autobiographer; a public interest is about to support
my private confidences; my own smaller recitals will group themselves
around my narrative.
When the war of the Revolution broke out, the kings did not understand
it; they saw a revolt where they ought to have seen the changing of
the nations, the end and the commencement of a world: they flattered
themselves that for them there was a question only of enlarging their
States with a few provinces taken from France; they believed in
bygone military tactics, in bygone diplomatic treaties, in cabinet
negociations: and conscripts were about to set Frederic's grenadiers to
flight; monarchs were about to come to sue for peace in the ante-rooms
of a few obscure demagogues; and awful revolutionary opinion was about
to unravel the intrigues of old Europe upon the scaffolds. That old
Europe thought it was fighting only France; it did not perceive that a
new age was marching upon it.
Bonaparte, in the course of his ever-increasing successes, seemed
called upon to change the royal dynasties, to make his own the oldest
of them all. He had made Kings of the Electors of Bavaria, Wurtemberg
and Saxony; he had given the crown of Naples to Murat, that of Spain
to Joseph, that of Holland to Louis, that of Westphalia to Jerome; his
sister, Élisa Bacciochi, was Princess of Lucca; he, on his own account,
was Emperor of the French, King of Italy, in which kingdom were
included Venice, Tuscany, Parma and Piacenza; Piedmont was united to
France; he had consented to allow one of his captains, Bernadotte[90],
to reign in Sweden; by the Treaty of the Confederation of the Rhine
he exercised the rights of the House of Austria over Germany; he had
declared himself the mediator of the Helvetian Confederation; he had
laid Prussia low; without possessing a bark, he had declared the
British Isles in a state of blockade. England, in spite of her fleets,
was on the point of not having a port in Europe in which to discharge a
bale of merchandise or post a letter.
[Sidenote: Napoleon's position in 1813.]
The Papal States formed part of the French Empire; the Tiber was
a French department. In the streets of Paris, one saw cardinals,
half-prisoners, who, putting their heads through the window of their
cab, asked:
"Is this where the King of ---- lives?"
"No," replied the porter to whom the question was put, "it's higher up."
Austria had redeemed herself only by handing over her daughter: the
"raider" of the South[91] demanded Honoria[92] from Valentinian[93],
with half of the provinces of the Empire.
How had those miracles been worked? What qualities were possessed by
the man who gave birth to them? What qualities did he lack for their
achievement? I will trace the immense fortune of Bonaparte, who,
notwithstanding, passed so quickly that his days fill but a short
period of the time covered by these Memoirs. Fastidious productions of
genealogies, cold disquisitions upon facts, insipid verifications of
dates are the burdens and servitudes of the writer.[94]
. . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .
In the Second Book of these Memoirs you have read (I had then returned
from my first exile to Dieppe):
"I have been permitted to return to my valley. The soil trembles
beneath the steps of the foreign soldier: I am writing, like the last
of the Romans, to the sound of the Barbarian invasion. By day I compose
pages as agitated as the events of the day; at night, while the rolling
of the distant cannon dies away in my solitary woods, I return to the
silence of the years that sleep in the grave and to the peace of my
youngest memories."
*
Those agitated pages which I composed by day were notes relating to
the events of the moment which, when collected, formed my pamphlet _De
Bonaparte et des Bourbons._ I had so high an opinion of the genius of
Napoleon and the gallantry of our soldiers that an invasion by the
foreigner which should be successful in its ultimate result could not
enter into my head; but I thought that this invasion, by making France
realize the danger to which Napoleon's ambition had brought her, would
lead to a movement from within and that the enfranchisement of the
French would be worked by their own hands. It was with this idea that
I was writing my notes, so that, if our political assemblies should
stay the march of the Allies and resolve to sever from a great man who
had become a scourge, they should know to whom to resort; the shelter
seemed to me to lie in the authority, modified in accordance with the
times, under which our ancestors had lived during eight centuries:
when, in a storm, one finds nothing within reach but an old edifice,
all in ruins though it be, one retires to it.
In the winter of 1813 to 1814, I took an apartment in the Rue de
Rivoli, opposite the first gate of the garden of the Tuileries, before
which I had heard the death of the Duc d'Enghien cried. As yet there
was nothing to be seen in that street except the arcades built by the
Government and a few houses rising here and there with their lateral
denticulation of projecting stones.
It needed nothing less than the spectacle of the calamities weighing
on France to maintain the aversion which Napoleon inspired and at the
same time to protect one's self against the admiration which he caused
to revive so soon as he acted: he was the proudest genius of action
that ever existed; his first campaign in Italy and his last campaign in
France (I am not speaking of Waterloo) are his two finest campaigns: he
was Condé in the first, Turenne in the second, a great warrior in the
former, a great man in the latter; but they differed in their results:
by the one he gained the Empire, by the other he lost it. His last
hours of power, all uprooted, all barefoot as they were, could not be
drawn from him, like a lion's tooth, save by the efforts of the arms of
Europe. The name of Napoleon was still so formidable that the hostile
armies crossed the Rhine in terror; they unceasingly looked behind
them, in order well to assure themselves that their retreat would be
possible; masters of Paris, they trembled yet. Alexander[95], casting
his eyes towards Russia while entering France, congratulated the
persons who were able to go away, and wrote his anxieties and regrets
to his mother[96].
[Sidenote: His campaign in France.]
Napoleon beat the Russians at Saint-Dizier[97], the Prussians and
Russians at Brienne[98], as though to do honour to the fields in which
he had been brought up. He routed the Army of Silesia at Montmirail[99]
and Champaubert[100] and a portion of the main army at Montereau[101].
He made head everywhere; went and returned on his steps; repelled the
columns by which he was surrounded. The Allies proposed an armistice;
Bonaparte tore up the proffered preliminaries and exclaimed:
"I am nearer to Vienna than the Emperor of Austria is to Paris!"
Russia, Austria, Prussia and England, for their mutual consolation,
concluded a new treaty of alliance at Chaumont[102]; but in reality
they were alarmed at Bonaparte's resistance and were thinking of
retreat. At Lyons an army[103] was forming on the Austrian flank;
Marshal Soult was checking the English; the Congress of Châtillon[104],
which was not dissolved until the 18th of March, was still negociating.
Bonaparte drove Blücher[105] from the heights of Craonne[106]. The main
allied army had triumphed on the 26th of February, at Bar-sur-Aube,
thanks only to superiority in numbers. Bonaparte, multiplying himself,
had recovered Troyes[107], which the Allies reoccupied[108]. From
Craonne he had moved upon Rheims[109].
"To-night," he said, "I shall go to take my father-in-law at Troyes."
On the 20th of March, an affair took place near Arcis-sur-Aube[110].
Amid a rolling fire of artillery, a shell having fallen in front of a
square of the guards, the square appeared to make a slight movement:
Bonaparte dashed towards the projectile, the fuse of which was smoking,
and made his horse sniff at it; the shell burst, and the Emperor came
safe and sound from the midst of the shattered bolt.
The battle was to recommence the following day, but Bonaparte,
yielding to the inspiration of genius, an inspiration which was
none the less fatal, retired in order to bear upon the rear of the
confederate troops, separate them from their stores, and swell his
own army with the garrisons of the frontier places. The foreigners
were preparing to fall back upon the Rhine, when Alexander, by one of
these Heaven-inspired impulses which change a whole world, took the
resolve to march upon Paris, the road to which was becoming free[111].
Napoleon thought he would draw the mass of the enemy after him, and he
was followed, by only ten thousand men of the cavalry, whom he believed
to be the advance-guard of the main troops, whereas they masked the
real movement of the Prussians and Muscovites. He dispersed those ten
thousand horse at Saint-Dizier and Vitry, and then perceived that the
great allied army was not behind them: that army, which was flinging
itself upon the capital, had before it only Marshals Marmont[112] and
Mortier[113], with about twelve thousand conscripts.
[Sidenote: He retires to Fontainebleau.]
Napoleon hurriedly made for Fontainebleau[114]: there a sainted
victim[115], retiring, had left the requiter and the avenger. Two
things in history always go side by side: let a man enter upon a path
of injustice, and he at the same time opens for himself a path of
perdition in which, at a given distance, the first road will converge
into the second.
*
Men's minds were greatly agitated: the hope of at all costs seeing
brought to a close a cruel war which, since twenty years, had been
weighing down upon France sated with misfortune and glory, this hope
carried the day, among the masses, over the feeling of nationality.
Each one thought of the part he would have to take in the approaching
catastrophe. Every evening my friends came to talk at Madame de
Chateaubriand's, to tell and comment upon the events of the day.
Messieurs de Fontanes, de Clausel, Joubert gathered with the crowd
of those transient friends whom events bring and events withdraw.
Madame la Duchesse de Lévis, beautiful, peaceable and devoted, whom
we shall meet again at Ghent, kept Madame de Chateaubriand faithful
company. Madame la Duchesse de Duras was also in Paris, and I often
went to see Madame la Marquise de Montcalm[116], sister to the Duc de
Richelieu[117].
I continued to be persuaded, despite the near approach of the
battle-fields, that the Allies would not enter Paris and that a
national insurrection would put an end to our fears. The obsession
of this idea prevented me from feeling the presence of the foreign
armies as keenly as I might have done: but I could not keep myself from
reflecting upon the calamities to which we had subjected Europe, when I
saw Europe bring them back to us.
I never ceased working at my pamphlet; I was preparing it as a remedy
when the moment of anarchy should come to burst forth. It is not thus
that we write nowadays, when we live at our ease, with only a war of
broadsheets to fear: at night, I turned the key in my lock; I placed
my papers under my pillow, with two loaded revolvers on my table: I
slept between these two muses. My text was in duplicate: I had written
it in the form of a pamphlet, which it retained, and in the shape of a
speech, differing in some respects from the pamphlet; I thought that,
when France rose, they might assemble at the Hôtel de Ville, and I had
prepared myself on two topics.
Madame de Chateaubriand wrote a few notes at various periods of our
common life; among those notes I find the following paragraph:
"M. de Chateaubriand was writing his pamphlet _De Bonaparte
et des Bourbons._ If that pamphlet had been seized, the
result was not doubtful: the sentence was the scaffold.
Nevertheless the author displayed incredible negligence in
concealing it. Often he would go out and leave it on the
table; his prudence never went beyond placing it under his
pillow, which he used to do before his valet, a very honest
fellow, but liable to temptation. As for me, I was in a
mortal fright: and, so soon as M. de Chateaubriand had gone
out, I used to take the manuscript and place it about my
person. One day, while crossing the Tuileries, I noticed that
I no longer had it, and, being sure that I had felt it on
leaving the house, I had no doubt that I had lost it on the
way. Already I saw the fatal work in the hands of the police
and M. de Chateaubriand arrested: I fell unconscious in the
middle of the garden; some kind people assisted me, and
afterwards took me home, which was not far off. What torture
when, on climbing the stairs, I hovered between a fear which
was almost a certainty and a slight hope that I had forgotten
to take the pamphlet! As I approached my husband's bedroom,
I felt myself fainting once more; I went in at last; nothing
on the table; I went up to the bed; I first felt the pillow,
I perceived nothing; I lifted it up, and saw the roll of
papers! My heart beats whenever I think of it. I have never
experienced such a moment of joy in my life. Certainly, I can
truthfully say that it would not have been so great had I
seen myself released at the foot of the scaffold; for, after
all, it was some one dearer to me than myself whom I saw
released from it."
How unhappy should I be if I could have caused a moment of trouble to
Madame de Chateaubriand!
I had nevertheless been obliged to entrust a printer[118] with my
secret: he had consented to risk the business; according to the news of
the hour, he used to return the half-composed proofs to me, or come to
fetch them back, as the sound of the cannon approached or drew farther
from Paris: I played pitch-and-toss with my life, in this way, for
nearly a fortnight.
[Sidenote: War at the gates of Paris.]
The circle was drawing closer around the capital: at every moment we
heard of some progress on the part of the enemy. Russian prisoners and
French wounded entered promiscuously through the barriers, drawn in
carts: some, half-dead, fell beneath the wheels, which they stained
with their blood. Conscripts called up from the interior crossed the
capital in a long file on their way to the armies. At night, one heard
trains of artillery pass along the outer boulevards, and one did not
know whether the distant detonations announced the decisive victory or
the final defeat.
The war at last came and fixed itself outside the barriers of Paris.
From the top of the towers of Notre-Dame, one could see the head of
the Russian columns appear, like the first undulations of the tide of
the sea upon a beach. I felt what a Roman must have experienced when,
from the ridge of the Capitol, he beheld the soldiers of Alaric[119]
and the old city of the Latins at his feet, as I beheld the Russian
soldiers and, at my feet, the old city of the Gauls. Farewell, then,
paternal gods, hearths which preserved the traditions of the country,
roofs beneath which had breathed both Virginia[120], sacrificed by
her father to modesty and liberty, and Héloïse, consecrated by love to
letters and religion.
Paris had not since centuries seen the smoke of an enemy's camp, and it
was Bonaparte who, from triumph to triumph, brought the Thebans within
sight of the women of Sparta. Paris was the bourn from which he had
started to conquer the earth: he returned to it leaving behind him the
huge conflagration of his useless conquests.
The people rushed to the Jardin des Plantes, which, in olden times,
the fortified Abbey of St. Victor might have been able to protect:
the small world of swans and plantain-trees, to which our power had
promised an eternal peace, was perturbed. From the summit of the
labyrinth, looking over the great cedar, over the public granaries
which Bonaparte had not had time to complete, beyond the site of the
Bastille and the keep of Vincennes (spots which told the tale of our
successive history), the crowd watched the infantry-fire in the combat
of Belleville. Montmartre was carried: the cannon-balls fell as far as
the Boulevard du Temple. A few companies of the National Guard made a
sortie and lost three hundred men in the fields around the tomb of the
"martyrs." Never did military France, in the midst of her reverses,
shine with a brighter glory; the last heroes were the one hundred
and fifty lads of the Polytechnic School, transformed into gunners
in the redoubts on the Vincennes Road. Surrounded by the enemy, they
refused to surrender; they had to be tom from their pieces: the Russian
grenadier seized them, blackened with gun-powder and covered with
wounds; while they struggled in his arms, he lifted those young French
palm-branches in the air with cries of victory and admiration and
restored them all bleeding to their mothers.
During that time Cambacérès was fleeing with Marie-Louise, the King of
Rome and the Regency. The following proclamation was read on the walls:
"KING JOSEPH[121], LIEUTENANT-GENERAL OF THE EMPEROR,
COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE NATIONAL GUARD.
"CITIZENS OF PARIS,
"The Council of Regency has provided for the safety of the
Empress and the King of Rome: I remain with you. Let us arm
ourselves to defend this town, its monuments, its riches, our
wives, our children, all that is dear to us. Let this vast
city become a camp for a short while, and let the enemy meet
with his disgrace under its walls, which he hopes to surmount
in triumph."
Rostopschin[122] did not pretend to defend Moscow; he burnt it down.
Joseph announced that he would never leave the Parisians, and privately
decamped, leaving his courage placarded at the street-corners.
[Sidenote: M. de Talleyrand.]
M. de Talleyrand made one of the Regency appointed by Napoleon. Since
the day on which the Bishop of Autun, under the Empire, ceased to
be Minister of Foreign Affairs, he had dreamt of but one thing, the
disappearance of Bonaparte followed by the regency of Marie-Louise, a
regency of which he, the Prince de Bénévent, would have been the head.
Bonaparte, in appointing him a member of a provisional regency in
1814, seemed to have favoured his secret wishes. The Napoleonic death
had not occurred; there remained for M. de Talleyrand but to hobble
at the feet of the colossus whom he was unable to overthrow, and to
turn the moment to account on his own behalf: the genius of that man
of bargains and compromises lay in contriving. The position presented
difficulties: to remain in the capital was the obvious course; but, if
Bonaparte returned, the prince, separated from the fugitive Regency,
the prince, lagging behind, ran the risk of being shot: on the other
hand, how to abandon Paris at the moment when the Allies might be
entering it? Would it not be to forego the profits of success, to
betray that morrow of events for which M. de Talleyrand was made? So
far from leaning towards the Bourbons, he feared them by reason of his
various apostacies. However, since there was some sort of chance for
them, M. de Vitrolles[123], with the assent of the married prelate,
had stealthily repaired to the Congress of Châtillon, as the unavowed
whisperer of the Legitimacy. Having taken this precaution, the prince,
in order to get clear of his difficulties in Paris, had recourse to one
of those tricks of which he was a past master.
M. de Laborie, who, soon after, became confidential secretary to the
Provisional Government under M. Dupont de Nemours[124], went to M. de
Laborde, who was attached to the National Guard, and revealed the fact
of M. de Talleyrand's departure:
"He is preparing," said he, "to follow the Regency; it will perhaps
appear necessary to you to arrest him, in order to be in a position to
negociate with the Allies if need be."
The comedy was played to perfection. The prince's carriages were
ostentatiously got ready; he started at broad noon-day, on the 30th of
March: on reaching the Barrière d'Enfer, he was inexorably sent back
home, in spite of his protestations. In case of a miraculous return,
the proofs were there showing that the ex-minister had tried to join
Marie-Louise and that the armed force had prevented his passage.
Meantime, on the advent of the Allies, the Comte Alexandre de Laborde
and M. Tourton, superior officers of the National Guard, had been
sent to the Generalissimo, Prince von Schwarzenberg[125], who had
been one of Bonaparte's generals during the Russian campaign. The
Generalissimo's proclamation was made known in Paris on the evening of
the 30th of March. It said:
"For twenty years Europe has been inundated with blood
and tears: the attempts made to put an end to all these
sufferings have been useless, because the very principle
of the government by which you are oppressed contains an
insurmountable obstacle to peace. Parisians, you know the
situation in which your country is placed: the preservation
and the tranquillity of your city will be the object of the
cares of the Allies. It is with these sentiments that Europe,
in arms before your walls, addresses herself to you!"
What a magnificent acknowledgment of France's greatness:
"Europe, in arms before your walls, addresses herself to you!"
[Sidenote: Capitulation of Paris.]
We, who had respected nothing, were respected by those whose towns
we had ravaged and who, in their turn, had become the stronger. We
appeared as a sacred nation in their eyes; our lands were to them
as a field of Elis upon which, by order of the gods, no battalion
dared trample. If, notwithstanding, Paris had thought fit to offer a
resistance, very easily made, of four-and-twenty hours, the results
would have been changed; but nobody, except the soldiers intoxicated
with fire and glory, wanted any more of Bonaparte, and, dreading lest
they should keep him, the people hastened to open the gates.
Paris capitulated on the 31st of March: the military capitulation is
signed, in the names of Marshals Mortier; and Marmont, by Colonels
Denys[126] and Fabvier[127]; the civil capitulation was made in the
names of the mayors of Paris. The Municipal and Departmental Council
sent a deputation to the Russian head-quarters to arrange the several
clauses: my companion in exile, Christian de Lamoignon, was one of the
delegates. Alexander said to them:
"Your Emperor, who was my ally, came into the very heart of my States
to bring with him evils of which the traces will long remain: a just
defense has brought me here. I am far from wishing to return to France
the wrongs which she has done me. I am just, and I know that the
French: are not to blame. The French are my friends, and I wish to
prove to them that I have come to return good for evil. Napoleon is my
only enemy. I promise my special protection to the city of Paris; I
shall protect and preserve all public institutions; I shall let only
picked troops remain there; I shall preserve your National Guard,
which is composed of the pick of your citizens. It is for yourselves
to ensure your happiness in the future; you must give yourselves a
government which will procure your repose and that of Europe. It is for
you to express your wish: you will always find me ready to second your
efforts."
These words were punctually fulfilled: the joy of victory surmounted
every other interest in the eyes of the Allies. What must have been
Alexander's feelings when he caught sight of the domes of the buildings
of that town where no foreigner had ever entered except to admire us,
to revel in the marvels of our civilization and our intelligence;
of that inviolable city, defended by its great men during twelve
Centuries; of that glorious capital which Louis XIV. seemed still to
protect with his shade and Bonaparte with his return!
[86] Alcibiades (450-404 B.C.) started on his ill-fated expedition to
Sicily in 416 B.C.--T.
[87] Alcinous King of the Phæacians, who welcomed Ulysses in the island
of Corcyra.--T.
[88] Pericles (_circa_ 494-429 B.C.) was Alcibiades' uncle and
instructor.--T.
[89] Aspasia had married Pericles after having been his mistress.--T.
[90] Charles XIV. King of Sweden (1764-1844), as General Bernadotte,
was adopted by Charles XIII., abjured Catholicism, fought against
France in 1813, and succeeded in 1818.--T.
[91] Attila, King of the Huns (_d._ 453). He claimed half the Western
Empire as the betrothed husband of Honoria.--T.
[92] Justa Grata Honoria (_b. circa_ 418), a Roman princess, daughter
of Constantius III., Emperor of the West. She was disgraced and kept
guarded because of her intrigue with Eugenius, and is said to have sent
to Attila to claim her as his bride.--T.
[93] Valentinian III. (419-455), Honoria's brother. The losses of his
reign included Africa (to the Vandals), Britain, and large parts of
Gaul and Spain.--T.
[94] Here I omit Chateaubriand's long history of the career of Napoleon
Bonaparte, extending over two books of these Memoirs. The publishers
propose to issue it as a supplementary volume when the publication of
the Memoirs proper has been completed.--T.
[95] Alexander I. Paulowitch, Emperor of Russia (1777-1825).--T.
[96] The Dowager-Empress Maria Sophia Dorothea Augusta (1759-1828),
widow of Paul I., and daughter of Frederic Eugene Duke of
Wurtemberg-Mümpelgard.--T.
[97] 27 January 1814.--T.
[98] 29 January 1814. Napoleon had been educated at the military school
at Brienne.--T.
[99] 10 February 1814.--T.
[100] 11 February.--T.
[101] 18 February.--T.
[102] 1 March 1814.--B.
[103] Under the command of Marshal Augereau, Duc de Castiglione.--B.
[104] The Congress of Châtillon, between the four allied Powers and
France, had opened on the 5th of February 1814. France was represented
by the Duc de Vicence; Austria by Count von Stadion; Prussia by Baron
von Humboldt; Russia by Count Razumowsky; England by Sir Charles
Stuart, with Lord Cathcart and the Earl of Aberdeen.--T.
[105] Field-Marshal Gebhart Lebrecht von Blücher, Prince of Wahlstadt
(1743-1819), who played a prominent part in command of the Prussian
forces in the Waterloo campaign.--T.
[106] 7 March 1814.--T.
[107] 27 February.--T.
[108] 4 March.--T.
[109] Napoleon drove a Russian corps out of Rheims on the 13th of March
1814.--T.
[110] The Battle of Arcis-Sur-Aube lasted two days (20 and 21 March).
It was the last battle which Napoleon delivered in person in this
campaign. He had to abandon the field to the enemy; but the two
days were none the less most glorious for the French soldiers and
their leader. Napoleon's 20,000 men had resisted a mass which rose
successively from 40,000 to 90,000.--B.
[111] I have heard General Pozzo tell that it was he who persuaded the
Emperor Alexander to march forward.--_Author's Note._
The resolution to march on Paris was taken on the 24th of March, at
Sommepuis.--B.
[112] Auguste Frédéric Louis Viesse de Marmont, Maréchal Duc de Raguse
(1774-1852), one of Napoleon's most distinguished commanders. Under the
Restoration, he became a peer of France and Major-General of the Royal
Guard, and he clung to the Elder Line after the usurpation of the Duc
d'Orléans. Marmont was elected an honorary member of the Academy of
Science in 1816.--T.
[113] Édouard Adolphe Casimir Joseph Mortier, Maréchal Duc de Trévise
(1768-1835), played a prominent part in the Republic and the Empire. He
was created a peer of France under the First Restoration, but rallied
to Napoleon during the Hundred Days, and was deprived of his peerage in
1815, on refusing to try Marshal Ney. He sat in the Chamber of Deputies
from 1816 to 1819, when his peerage was restored to him; accepted the
office of Minister for War under the Usurpation; and was killed, in
July 1835, by Fieschi's infernal machine, while riding by the side of
Louis-Philippe.--T.
[114] He arrived at Fontainebleau in the night of the 30th of March.
The Capitulation of Paris was signed at two o'clock on the morning of
the 31st.--B.
[115] Pope Pius VII., who had been released from his captivity at
Fontainebleau early in the year.--T.
[116] The Marquise de Montcalm was the half-sister of the Duc de
Richelieu. Their father, the Duc de Fronsac, had married twice, first,
Mademoiselle d'Hautefort, by whom he had a son, the future minister of
the Restoration; secondly, Mademoiselle de Gallifet, by whom he had two
daughters, Armande and Simplicie, who became Marquise de Montcalm and
Marquise de Jumilhac respectively.--B.
[117] Armand Emmanuel du Plessis, Duc de Richelieu (1766-1822),
emigrated in 1789 and served with distinction in the Russian Army. He
returned to France in 1814 and in the following year was appointed
President of the Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs. He used his
great influence with the Emperor of Russia in order to reduce the
period of the foreign occupation, at the end of which, in 1818, he
retired from office, the Chambers voting him a reward of 50,000 francs
a year, the whole of which he devoted to the endowment of a hospital
at Bordeaux. In 1820, he was again appointed Prime Minister, after
the assassination of the Duc de Berry, and set himself to repress the
spirit of independence and discontent which was being displayed. His
consequent loss of popularity caused him to resign in 1821, and he died
a few months later, in 1822, universally esteemed.--T.
[118] M. Mame, the founder of the great Tours publishing-house.--T.
[119] Alaric I. King of the Visigoths (382-412) besieged Rome three
times in 409 and 410, and took the city by assault in the latter
year.--T.
[120] Virginia was killed by her father, Virginius, in 449 B.C., to
save her from the lust of Appius Claudius, one of the Decemvirs of
Rome. The people rose after this event, which led to the abolition of
the Decemvirate.--T.
[121] Joseph Bonaparte (1768-1844), Napoleon's elder brother, was King
of Naples from 1806 to 1808, and King of Spain from 1808 to 1813.
After Waterloo, he took refuge in the United States, where he lived
for eleven years as Comte de Survilliers, returning to Europe in 1826,
when he resided successively in England and Italy until his death in
1844.--T.
[122] General Feodor Count Rostopschin (1765-1826) was Governor of
Moscow in 1812 at the time of the French invasion, when he set fire to
the town in order to deprive the enemy of all resources.--T.
[123] Eugène François Auguste d'Armand, Baron de Vitrolles (1774-1854),
had fought in the Army of Condé, but was created a baron of the
Empire in 1812. He took up the cause of the Bourbons in 1814, and
was imprisoned by Bonaparte during the Hundred Days. Under the
Second Restoration, he became principal agent of the personal
policy of Monsieur (the Comte d'Artois). He was appointed Minister
Plenipotentiary to Florence in 1827 and created a peer in 1830. The
fall of the Elder Branch drove him back into private life.--B.
[124] Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours (1739-1817), author of a number
of works on economy, politics, physiology, natural history and general
physics, had remained loyal to Louis XVI. under the Revolution, and
fled to America during the Terror. He returned to France under the
Consulate. In 1814, he was appointed Secretary to the Provisional
Government; but, after the return of Napoleon, he went back to America,
where he died two years later. Dupont de Nemours was one of the
original members of the Institute.--T.
[125] Karl Philipp Field-Marshal Prince von Schwarzenberg (1771-1819),
the Austrian Commander-in-Chief, had distinguished himself at
Hohenlinden in 1800 and during the campaign of 1805. He negotiated the
marriage between Napoleon and Marie-Louise, and commanded the Austrian
auxiliaries in the French campaign against Russia.--T.
[126] Charles Marie Denys, Comte de Damrémont (1783-1837). He espoused
the King's cause in 1814. In 1830, he was given a brigade in the
Algerian Expedition, was created a peer of France in 1830, and Governor
of the French North-African Possessions in 1837, but was killed on the
13th of October of the same year at the taking of Constantine.--T.
[127] Charles Nicolas Baron Fabvier (1782-1855). General Fabvier got
himself into trouble in 1820, and was obliged to leave France. In 1823
he offered his services to the Greeks in their War of Independence,
and defended the Acropolis of Athens in 1826. He returned to France
in 1830, on the outbreak of the Revolution. Louis-Philippe made him a
lieutenant-general and a peer (1845). In 1848 he was sent as Ambassador
of the Republic to Constantinople, and later to Denmark. He retired
into private life after the _coup d'État_ of 1851.--T.
BOOK III
Entry of the Allies into Paris--Bonaparte at Fontainebleau--The
Regency at Blois--Publication of my pamphlet _De Bonaparte et des
Bourbons_--The Senate issues the decree of dethronement--The house
in the Rue Saint-Florentin--M. de Talleyrand--Addresses of the
Provisional Government--Constitution proposed by the Senate--Arrival of
the Comte d'Artois--Bonaparte abdicates at Fontainebleau--Napoleon's
itinerary to the island of Elba--Louis XVIII. at Compiègne--His entry
into Paris--The Old Guard--An irreparable mistake--The Declaration
of Saint-Ouen--Treaty of Paris--The Charter--Departure of the
Allies--First year of the Restoration--First ministry--I publish my
_Réflexions Politiques_-Madame la Duchesse de Duras--I am appointed
Ambassador to Sweden--Exhumation of the remains of Louis XVI.--The
first 21st of January at Saint-Denis.
God had pronounced one of those words by which the silence of eternity
is at rare intervals interrupted. Then, in the midst of the present
generation, rose the hammer that struck the hour which Paris had only
once heard sound: on the 25th of December 496, Rheims announced the
baptism of Clovis, and the gates of Lutetia opened to the Franks; on
the 30th of March 1814, after the baptism of blood of Louis XVI., the
old hammer, which had so long remained motionless, rose once more in
the belfry of the ancient monarchy: a second stroke resounded, the
Tartars penetrated into Paris. In the interval of thirteen hundred and
eighteen years, the foreigner had insulted the walls of the capital of
our empire without ever being able to enter it, except when he glided
in, summoned by our own divisions. The Normans besieged the city of the
_Parisii_; the _Parisii_ gave flight to the hawks which they carried
on their wrists; Odo[128], child of Paris and future King, "_rex
futurus_," Abbon[129] says, drove back the pirates of the North: the
Parisians let fly their eagles in 1814; the Allies entered the Louvre.
Bonaparte had waged an unjust war against Alexander, his admirer, who
had begged on his knees for peace; Bonaparte had ordered the carnage
of the Moskowa; he had forced the Russians themselves to bum Moscow;
Bonaparte had plundered Berlin, humiliated its King, insulted its
Queen[130]: what reprisals were we, then, to expect? You shall see.
I had wandered in the Floridas round unknown monuments, devastated of
old by conquerors of whom no trace remains, and I was saved for the
sight of the Caucasian hordes encamped in the court-yard of the Louvre.
In those events of history which, according to Montaigne, "are but
weake testimonies of our worth and capacity[131]," my tongue cleaves to
my palate: _adhæret lingua mea faucibus meis._[132]
The Allied Army entered Paris on the 31st of March 1814, at mid-day,
ten days only after the anniversary of the death of the Duc d'Enghien,
21 March 1804. Was it worth Bonaparte's while to commit an action of
such long remembrance for a reign which was to last so short a time?
The Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia rode at the head of their
troops. I saw them defile along the boulevards. Feeling stupefied and
dumfoundered within myself, as though my name as a Frenchman had been
tom from me to substitute for it the name by which I was thenceforth
to be known in the mines of Siberia, I felt, at the same time, my
exasperation increase against the man whose glory had reduced us to
that disgrace.
Nevertheless, this first invasion of the Allies has remained
unparalleled in the annals of the world: order, peace and moderation
reigned on every hand; the shops were re-opened; Russian guardsmen, six
feet tall, were piloted through the streets by little French rogues
who made fun of them, as of jumping-jacks and carnival maskers. The
conquered might be taken for the conquerors; the latter, trembling
at their successes, looked as though they were excusing themselves.
The National Guard alone garrisoned the interior of Paris, with the
exception of the houses in which the foreign Kings and Princes were
lodged[133]. On the 31st of March 1814, countless armies were occupying
France; a few months later all those troops passed back across our
frontiers, without firing a musket-shot, without shedding a drop of
blood after the return of the Bourbons. Old France found herself
enlarged on some of her frontiers; the ships and stores of Antwerp were
divided with her; three hundred thousand prisoners, scattered over
the countries where victory or defeat had left them, were restored to
her. After five and twenty years of fighting, the clash of arms ceased
from one end of Europe to the other. Alexander departed, leaving us
the master-pieces which we had conquered and the liberty lodged in the
Charter, a liberty which we owed as much to his enlightenment as to his
influence. The head of two supreme authorities, twice an autocrat by
the sword and by religion, he alone, of all the sovereigns of Europe,
had understood that, at the age of civilization which France had
attained, she could be governed only by virtue of a free constitution.
In our very natural hostility to the foreigners, we have confused the
invasion of 1814 and that of 1815, which were in no sense alike.
[Sidenote: The Emperor Alexander.]
Alexander looked upon himself merely as an instrument of Providence,
and took no credit to himself. When Madame de Staël complimented him
upon the happiness which his subjects, lacking a constitution, enjoyed
of being governed by him, he made his well-known reply:
"I am only a 'fortunate accident.'"
A young man in the streets of Paris expressed to him his admiration at
the affability with which he received the least of the citizens; he
replied:
"For what else are sovereigns made?"
He refused to inhabit the Tuileries, remembering that Bonaparte had
taken his ease in the palaces of Vienna, Berlin and Moscow.
Looking at the statue of Napoleon on the column in the Place Vendôme,
he said:
"If I were so high up, I should be afraid of becoming giddy."
As he was going over the Palace of the Tuileries, they showed him the
Salon de la Paix:
"Of what use," he asked, laughing, "was this room to Bonaparte?"
On the day of Louis XVIII.'s entry into Paris, Alexander hid himself
behind a window, wearing no mark of distinction, to watch the
procession as it passed.
Alexander sometimes had elegantly affectionate manners. Visiting a
mad-house, he asked a woman if there were many women "mad through love":
"Not at present," replied she; "but it is to be feared that the number
has increased since the moment of Your Majesty's entry into Paris."
One of Napoleon's great dignitaries said to the Tsar:
"Your arrival has long been expected and wished for, Sire."
"I should have come sooner," he replied; "you must blame only French
valour for my delay."
It is certain that, when crossing the Rhine, he had regretted that he
was not able to retire in peace to the midst of his family.
At the Hôtel des Invalides, he found the maimed soldiers who had
defeated him at Austerlitz: they were silent and gloomy; one heard
nothing save the noise of their wooden legs in their deserted yard and
their denuded church. Alexander was touched by this noise of brave men:
he ordered that twelve Russian guns should be given back to them.
A proposal was made to him to change the name of the Pont d'Austerlitz:
"No," he said, "it is enough for me to have crossed the bridge with my
army."
Alexander had something calm and sad about him. He went about Paris,
on horse-back or on foot, without a suite and without affectation. He
appeared astonished at his triumph; his almost melting gaze wandered
over a population whom he seemed to regard as superior to himself: one
would have said that he thought himself a Barbarian among us, even
as a Roman felt shame-faced in Athens. Perhaps, also, he reflected
that these same Frenchmen had appeared in his fired capital; that his
soldiers, in their turn, were masters of Paris, in which he might
have been able to find again some of those now extinguished torches
by which Moscow was freed and consumed. This destiny, these changing
fortunes, this common misery of peoples and of kings were bound to make
a profound impression upon a mind so religious as his.
*
What was the victor of the Borodino doing? So soon as he had heard
of Alexander's resolution, he had sent orders to Major Maillard de
Lescourt of the Artillery to blow up the Grenelle powder-magazine:
Rostopschin had set fire to Moscow, but he had first sent away the
inhabitants. From Fontainebleau, to which he had returned, Napoleon
marched to Villejuif; thence he threw a glance over Paris: foreign
soldiers were guarding its gates; the conqueror remembered the days in
which his grenadiers kept watch on the ramparts of Berlin, Moscow, and
Vienna.
Events destroy other events; how poor a thing to-day appears to us the
grief of Henry IV. learning of the death of Gabrielle at Villejuif, and
returning to Fontainebleau! Bonaparte also returned to that solitude;
he was awaited there only by the memory of his august prisoner: the
captive of peace[134] had gone from the palace in order to leave it
free for the captive of war, so swiftly does "misfortune" fill up its
"places."
[Sidenote: Flight of the Empire.]
The Regency had retired to Blois. Bonaparte had given orders for the
Empress and the King of Rome to leave Paris, saying that he would
rather see them at the bottom of the Seine than led back in triumph
to Vienna; but, at the same time, he had enjoined Joseph to remain in
the capital. His brother's retreat made him furious, and he accused
the ex-King of Spain of ruining all. The ministers, the members of the
Regency, Napoleon's brothers, his wife and his son arrived in disorder
at Blois, swept away in the downfall; military waggons, baggage-vans,
carriages, everything was there; the King's own coaches were there
and were dragged through the mud of the Beauce to Chambord, the only
morsel of France left to the heir of Louis XIV. Some of the ministers
did not stop here, but proceeded as far as Brittany to hide themselves,
while Cambacérès lolled in a sedan-chair in the steep streets of Blois.
Various rumours were current: there was talk of two camps and of a
general requisition. During several days, they were ignorant of what
was happening in Paris; the uncertainty did not cease until the arrival
of a waggoner whose pass was signed "Sacken[135]." Soon the Russian
General Schouvaloff[136] alighted at the Auberge de la Galère: he was
suddenly besieged by the grandees, and entreated to obtain a visa
for their stampede. However, before leaving Blois, all drew upon the
funds of the Regency for their travelling-expenses and their arrears
of salary; they held their passports in one hand and their money in
the other, taking care at the same time to send in their adhesion to
the Provisional Government, for they did not lose their heads. Madame
Mère[137] and her brother, Cardinal Fesch[138], left for Rome. Prince
Esterhazy[139] came on behalf of Francis II. to fetch Marie-Louise
and her son. Joseph and Jerome[140] withdrew to Switzerland, after
vainly trying to compel the Empress to attach herself to their fate.
Marie-Louise hastened to join her father: indifferently attached to
Bonaparte, she found means to console herself and rejoiced at being
delivered from the double tyranny of a husband and a master. When, in
the following year, Bonaparte revisited that confusion of flight on the
Bourbons, the latter, but lately rescued from their long tribulations,
had not enjoyed fourteen years of unequalled prosperity in which to
accustom themselves to the comforts of the throne.
*
However, Napoleon was not yet dethroned; more than forty thousand of
the best soldiers in the world were around him; he was able to retire
behind the Loire; the French armies which had arrived from Spain were
growling in the South; the military population might bubble over and
distribute its lava; even among the foreign leaders, there was still
a question of Napoleon or his son reigning over France: for two days,
Alexander hesitated. M. de Talleyrand, as I have said, secretly leant
towards the policy which tended to crown the King of Rome, for he
dreaded the Bourbons; if he did not then accept entirely the plan of
the Regency of Marie-Louise, it was because, since Napoleon had not
perished, he, the Prince de Bénévent, feared that he would not be able
to retain the mastery during a minority threatened by the existence
of a restless, erratic, enterprising man, still in the vigour of his
age[141].
[Sidenote: _De Bonaparte et des Bourbons._]
It was in those critical days that I threw down my pamphlet _De
Bonaparte et des Bourbons_[142] to turn the scale: its result is well
known. I flung myself headlong into the fray to serve as a shield to
liberty reviving against tyranny still subsisting, with its strength
increased threefold by despair. I spoke in the name of the Legitimacy,
in order to add to my words the authority of positive affairs. I taught
France what the old Royal Family was; I told her how many members of
that Family existed, what their names were, and their character: it
was as though I had drawn up a fist of the children of the Emperor of
China, to so great an extent had the Republic and the Empire encroached
upon the present and relegated the Bourbons to the past. Louis XVIII.
declared, as I have already often mentioned, that my pamphlet was of
greater profit to him than an army of one hundred thousand men; he
might have added that it was a certificate of existence to him. I
assisted in giving him the crown a second time by the fortunate issue
of the Spanish War.
From the commencement of my political career, I became popular with the
crowd; but, from that time also, I failed to make my way with powerful
men. All who had been slaves under Bonaparte abhorred me; on the other
side, I was an object of suspicion to all who wished to place France in
a state of vassalage. At the first moment, among the sovereigns, I had
none on my side except Bonaparte himself. He looked through my pamphlet
at Fontainebleau: the Duc de Bassano[143] had brought it to him; he
discussed it impartially, saying:
"This is true; that is not true. I have nothing to reproach
Chateaubriand with: he resisted me when I was in power; but those
scoundrels, so and so!" and he named them.
My admiration for Bonaparte was always great and sincere, even at the
time when I was attacking Napoleon with the greatest eagerness.
Posterity is not so fair in its judgments as has been held; there are
passions, infatuations, errors of distance even as there are passions
and errors of proximity. When posterity admires without reserve, it
is scandalized that the contemporaries of the man admired should not
have had the same idea of that man as itself. This can be explained,
however: the things which offended one in that person are past;
his infirmities have died with him; all that remains of him is his
imperishable life; but the evil which he caused is none the less real:
evil in itself and in its essence, and especially for those who endured
it.
It is the style of the day to magnify Bonaparte's victories: the
sufferers have disappeared; we no longer hear the imprecations, the
cries of pain and distress of the victims; we no longer see France
exhausted, with only women to till her soil; we no longer see parents
arrested as a pledge for their sons, the inhabitants of the villages
made jointly and severally responsible for the penalties applicable
to a rebellious recruit; we no longer see those conscription placards
posted at the street-corners, the passers-by gathered before those
enormous lists of dead, seeking in consternation the names of their
children, their brothers, their friends, their neighbours. We forget
that the whole population bewailed the triumphs; we forget that the
slightest allusion against Bonaparte on the stage which had escaped
the censors was hailed with rapture; we forget that the people, the
Court, the generals, the ministers, Napoleon's relations were weary of
his oppressions and his conquests, weary of that game always being won
and always being played, of that existence brought into question each
morning anew, thanks to the impossibility of repose.
The reality of our sufferings is demonstrated by the catastrophe
itself: if France had been infatuated with Bonaparte, would she twice
have abandoned him, abruptly, completely, without making one last
effort to keep him? If France owed all to Bonaparte: glory, liberty,
order, prosperity, industry, commerce, manufactures, monuments,
literature, fine arts; if, before his time, the nation had done nothing
itself; if the Republic, destitute of genius and courage, had neither
defended nor enlarged the territory: then France must have been very
ungrateful, very cowardly, to allow Napoleon to fall into the hands of
his enemies, or, at least, not to protest against the captivity of so
great a benefactor?
[Sidenote: Feeling against Napoleon.]
This reproach, which might justly be made against us, is not made
against us, however: and why? Because it is evident that, at the moment
of his fall, France did not desire to defend Napoleon; in our bitter
mortification, we beheld in him only the author and the contemner of
our wretchedness. The Allies did not defeat us: we ourselves, choosing
between two scourges, renounced shedding our blood, which had ceased to
flow for our liberties.
The Republic had been very cruel, doubtless, but every one hoped that
it would pass, that sooner or later we should recover our rights, while
retaining the preservatory conquests which it had given us on the Alps
and the Rhine. All the victories which it gained were won in our name;
with the Republic, there was no question save of France; it was always
France that had triumphed, that had conquered; it was our soldiers who
had done all and for whom triumphal or funeral feasts were organized;
the generals, and some were very great, obtained an honourable but
modest place in the public memory: such were Marceau[144], Moreau,
Hoche[145], Joubert[146]; the two last seemed destined to replace
Bonaparte, who, in the dawn of his glory, suddenly crossed the path of
General Hoche and, by his jealousy, rendered illustrious that warlike
pacificator who died unexpectedly after his triumphs of Altkirchen,
Neuwied and Kleinnister.
Under the Empire, we disappeared; we were no longer mentioned,
everything belonged to Bonaparte: "_I_ have ordered, _I_ have
conquered, _I_ have spoken; _my_ eagles, _my_ crown, _my_ family, _my_
subjects."
What happened, however, in those two positions, at the same time
similar and opposite? We did not abandon the Republic in its reverses;
it killed us, but it honoured us; we had not the disgrace of being
the property of a man; thanks to our efforts, it was never invaded;
the Russians, defeated beyond the mountains, met with their end at
Zurich[147].
As for Bonaparte, he, despite his enormous acquisitions, succumbed, not
because he was conquered, but because France would have no more of him.
How great a lesson! May it ever make us remember that there is cause of
death in all that offends the dignity of man.
Independent minds of every shade and opinion were employing uniform
language at the time of the publication of my pamphlet. La Fayette,
Camille Jordan[148], Ducis, Lemercier[149], Lanjuinais[150], Madame de
Staël, Chénier, Benjamin Constant, Le Brun[151] thought and wrote as I
did[152].
God, in His patient eternity, brings justice sooner or later: at
moments when Heaven seems to slumber, it is always a fine thing that
the disapproval of an honest man should keep watch and remain as a
curb upon the absolute power. France will not disown the noble souls
which protested against her servitude, when all lay prostrate, when
there were so many advantages in so lying, so many favours to receive
in return for flattery, so many persecutions to undergo in return
for sincerity. Honour then to the La Fayettes, the de Staëls, the
Benjamin Constants, the Camille Jordans, the Ducis, the Lemerciers, the
Lanjuinais, the Chéniers, who, standing erect amidst the grovelling
crowd of peoples and of kings, dared to despise victory and protest
against tyranny!
*
[Sidenote: Napoleon deposed.]
On the 2nd of April, the Senators, to whom we owe one clause only of
the Charter of 1814, the contemptible clause preserving their pensions,
decreed the deposition of Bonaparte. If this decree, which emancipated
France but brought infamy upon those who issued it, offers an affront
to the human race, at the same time it teaches posterity the price of
grandeurs and fortune, when these have disdained to take their stand
upon bases of morality, justice and liberty.
DECREE OF THE CONSERVATIVE SENATE.
"The Conservative Senate, taking into consideration that in a
constitutional monarchy the monarch exists only by virtue of
the constitution or the social compact;
"That Napoleon Bonaparte, for some time maintaining a firm
and prudent government, had given the nation cause to reckon,
in the future, upon acts of wisdom and justice; but that
subsequently he destroyed the compact which united him to the
French people, notably by levying imports and establishing
taxes, otherwise than by virtue of the law, against the
express tenor of the oath which he took on his accession to
the throne, in conformity with Clause 53 of the Constitutions
of the 28 Floréal Year XII.;
"That he was guilty of this attempt upon the rights of
the people at the very time when he had without necessity
adjourned the Legislative Body, and caused a report made by
that body, whose title and whose relation to the national
representation he contested, to be suppressed as criminal;
"That he undertook a series of wars in violation of Clause
50 of the Act settling the Constitution of the Year VIII.,
which lays down that any declaration of war shall be
proposed, discussed, decreed and promulgated like the laws;
"That he has unconstitutionally issued several decrees
bearing the penalty of death, namely, the two decrees of the
5th of March last, tending to cause a war to be considered as
national which was undertaken only in the interest of his own
unmeasured ambition;
"That he has violated the laws of the Constitution by his
decrees concerning the State prisons;
"That he has annihilated the responsibility of the ministers,
put down all the powers and destroyed the independence of the
courts of jurisdiction;
"Taking into consideration that the liberty of the press,
established and perpetuated as one of the rights of the
nation, has been constantly subjected to the arbitrary
censorship of his police, and that, at the same time, he
has always made use of the press to fill France and Europe
with fabricated facts, with false maxims, with doctrines
favourable to despotism and with outrages against foreign
governments;
"That acts and reports, passed by the Senate, have undergone
alterations when made public;
"Taking into consideration that, instead of reigning with a
sole view to the interest, the happiness and the glory of the
French people, according to the terms of his oath, Napoleon
has completed the misfortunes of the country by his refusal
to treat on conditions which the national interest obliged
him to accept and which did not compromise the honour of
France; by his abuse of all the means entrusted to him in men
and money; by his abandonment of the wounded without aid,
medical requisites, or supplies; by various measures which
resulted in the ruin of the towns, the depopulation of the
rural districts, famine and infectious disease;
"Taking into consideration that, owing to all these causes,
the Imperial Government established by the Senatus-Consultum
of the 28 Floréal Year XII., or 18 May 1804, has ceased to
exist, and that the manifest desires of all Frenchmen call
into being an order of things of which the first result would
be the restoration of general peace, and which would also
mark the epoch of a solemn reconciliation between all the
States of the great family of Europe, the Senate declares
and decrees as follows: Napoleon deposed from the throne;
hereditary right abolished in his family; the French people
and the army released from their oath of fidelity to him."
The Roman Senate was less harsh when it declared Nero a public enemy:
history is but a repetition of the same facts applied to varying men
and times.
Can one picture to one's self the Emperor reading this official
document at Fontainebleau? What must he have thought of what he had
done, and of the men whom he had summoned to be his accomplices in
his oppression of our liberties? When I published my pamphlet _De
Bonaparte et des Bourbons_, could I have expected to see it amplified
and converted into a decree of deposition by the Senate? What prevented
those legislators, in the days of prosperity, from discovering the
evils of which they reproached Bonaparte with being the author, from
perceiving that the Constitution had been violated? What zeal suddenly
seized these mutes for "the liberty of the press"? How did they, who
had overwhelmed Napoleon with adulation upon his return from each of
his wars, now come to find that he had undertaken those wars "only in
the interest of his own unmeasured ambition"? How did they, who had
flung him so many conscripts to devour, suddenly melt at the thought
of the wounded soldiers "abandoned without aid, medical requisites, or
supplies"? There are times at which contempt should be but frugally
dispensed, because of the large number of those in need of it: I pity
them for this moment, because they will need it again during and after
the Hundred Days.
[Sidenote: By the Decree of the Senate.]
When I ask what Napoleon at Fontainebleau thought of the acts of the
Senate, his answer was made: an Order of the Day of 5 April 1814, not
published officially, but printed in different newspapers outside the
capital, thanked the army for its fidelity, adding:
"The Senate has allowed itself to dispose of the government
of France; it has forgotten that it owes to the Emperor the
power which it is now abusing; that it was he who saved one
part of its members from the storms of the Revolution, drew
the other from obscurity and protected it against the hatred
of the nation. The Senate relies upon the clauses of the
Constitution to overthrow it; it is not ashamed to utter
reproaches against the Emperor, without remarking that, in
its capacity as the first body of the State, it took part in
all the events. The Senate is not ashamed to speak of the
libels published against the foreign governments: it forgets
that these were drawn up in its midst. So long as fortune
remained faithful to their Sovereign, these men remained
faithful, and no complaint was heard of the abuses of power.
If the Emperor had despised men, as he has been reproached
with doing, then the world would recognise to-day that he has
had reasons which justified his contempt."
This was a homage rendered by Bonaparte himself to the liberty of the
press: he must have believed that there was some good in it, since it
offered him a last shelter and a last aid.
And I, who am struggling with time, I, who am striving to make it give
an account of what it has seen, I, who am writing this so long after
the events that are past, under the reign of Philip, the counterfeit
heir of so great an inheritance, what am I in the hands of that time,
that great devourer of the centuries which I thought fixed, of that
time which makes me whirl with itself through space?
*
Alexander had taken up his residence at M. de Talleyrand's[153]. I was
not present at the cabals: you can read about them in the narratives
of the Abbé de Pradt[154] and of the various intriguers who handled
in their dirty and paltry paws the fate of one of the greatest men
in history and the destiny of the world. I counted for nothing in
politics, outside the masses; there was no plotting understrapper but
enjoyed far more right and favour in the ante-chambers than I: a coming
figure in the possible Restoration, I waited beneath the windows, in
the street.
Through the machinations of the house in the Rue Saint-Florentin,
the Conservative Senate appointed a Provisional Government composed
of General Beurnonville[155], Senator Jaucourt[156], the Duc de
Dalberg[157], the Abbé de Montesquiou[158] and Dupont de Nemours[159];
the Prince de Bénévent helped himself to the presidency.
[Sidenote: The provisional government.]
On meeting this name for the first time, I ought to speak of the
personage who took a remarkable part in the affairs of that time; but I
reserve his portrait for the end of my Memoirs.
The intrigue which kept M. de Talleyrand in Paris, at the time of the
entry of the Allies, was the cause of his successes at the commencement
of the Restoration. The Emperor of Russia knew him from having seen him
at Tilsit[160]. In the absence of the French authorities, Alexander
took up his quarters in the Hôtel de l'Infantado[161], which the owner
hastened to offer him.
From that time forth, M. de Talleyrand passed for the arbiter of the
world; his apartments became the centre of the negociations. Composing
the Provisional Government to his own liking, he there placed the
partners of his rubber: the Abbé de Montesquiou figured in it only as
an advertisement of the Legitimacy.
To the Bishop of Autun's sterility were confided the first labours of
the Restoration: he infected that Restoration with barrenness, and
communicated to it a germ of blight and death.
*
The first acts of the Provisional Government, placed under the
dictatorship of its chairman, were proclamations addressed to the
soldiers and to the people:
"Soldiers," they said to the former, "France has shattered
the yoke under which she and you had been groaning for so
many years. See all that you have suffered at the hands
of tyranny. Soldiers, the time has come to put an end to
the ills of the country. You are her noblest children; you
cannot belong to him who has ravaged her, who tried to make
your name hated by all the nations, who might perhaps have
compromised your glory, were it possible for a man WHO IS NOT
EVEN A FRENCHMAN ever to impair the honour of our arms and
the generosity of our soldiers[162]."
And so, in the eyes of his most servile slaves, he who had won so many
victories was no longer "even a Frenchman"! When, in the days of the
League, Du Bourg surrendered the Bastille to Henry IV., he refused
to doff the black scarf and to take the money which was offered him
for the surrender of the stronghold. Urged to recognise the King, he
replied that "he was no doubt a very good Prince, but that he had
pledged his faith to M. de Mayenne[163]; that, moreover, Brissac[164]
was a traitor, and that, to prove it to him, he would fight him between
four pikes, in the King's presence, and would eat the heart out of his
body."
A difference of times and men!
[Sidenote: Its first acts.]
On the 4th of April, appeared a new address of the Provisional
Government to the People of France; it said:
"On emerging from your civil discords, you chose as your
leader a man who appeared upon the world's stage endowed with
the characteristics of greatness. On the ruins of anarchy he
founded only despotism; he ought at least out of gratitude to
have _become a Frenchman_ like yourselves: he has never been
one. Without aim or object, he has never ceased to undertake
unjust wars, like an adventurer seeking fame. Perhaps he is
still dreaming of his gigantic designs, even while unequalled
reverses are inflicting such striking punishment upon the
pride and abuse of victory. He has not known how to reign
either in the national interest or even in the interest of
his own despotism. He has destroyed all that he wished to
create, and re-created all that he wished to destroy. He
believed in force alone; to-day force overwhelms him: a just
retribution for an insensate ambition."
Incontestable truths and well-earned curses; but who was it that
uttered those curses? What became of my poor little pamphlet, squeezed
in between those virulent addresses? Did it not disappear entirely? On
the same day, the 4th of April, the Provisional Government proscribed
the signs and emblems of the Imperial Government: if the Arc de
Triomphe had existed, it would have been pulled down. Mailhe[165], who
was the first to vote for the death of Louis XVI., Cambacérès, who was
the first to greet Napoleon by the title of Emperor, eagerly recognised
the acts of the Provisional Government.
On the 6th, the Senate drafted a constitution: it rested nearly
on the bases of the future Charter; the Senate was preserved as an
Upper Chamber; the senatorial dignity was declared permanent and
hereditary; to the title to their property was attached the endowment
of the senatorships; the Constitution made those titles and properties
transmissible to the descendants of the holder: fortunately, those
ignoble hereditary rights bore the Fates within themselves, as the
ancients used to say.
The sordid effrontery of those senators, who, in the midst of the
invasion of their country, did not for a moment lose sight of
themselves, strikes one even in the immensity of public events.
Would it not have been more convenient for the Bourbons, on attaining
power, to adopt the established government, a dumb Legislative Body, a
secret and servile Senate, a fettered press? On reflexion, one finds
the thing to be impossible: the natural liberties, righting themselves
in the absence of the arm that bent them, would have resumed their
vertical line under the weakness of the compression. If the legitimate
Princes had disbanded Bonaparte's army, as they ought to have done
(this was Napoleon's opinion in the island of Elba), and if, at the
same time, they had retained the Imperial Government, to break the
instrument of glory in order to keep only the instrument of tyranny
would have been too much: the Charter was the ransom of Louis XVIII.
*
On the 12th of April, the Comte d'Artois arrived in the quality of
Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom. Three or four hundred men went on
horseback to meet him: I was one of the band. He charmed one with his
kindly grace, different from the manners of the Empire. The French
recognised with pleasure in his person their old manners, their old
politeness and their old language; the crowd pressed round him, a
consoling apparition of the past, a twofold protection as he was
against the conquering foreigner and against the still threatening
Bonaparte. Alas, the Prince was setting his foot again on French soil
only to see his son assassinated there and to go back to die in the
land of exile whence he was returning: there are men round whose necks
life has been flung like a chain!
[Illustration: Charles X. (as Comte D'Artois.)]
I had been presented to the King's brother; he had been given my
pamphlet to read, otherwise he would not have known my name: he
remembered to have seen me neither at the Court of Louis XVI. nor at
the Camp of Thionville, and he had doubtless never heard speak of the
_Génie du Christianisme._ That was very simple. When one has suffered
much and long, he remembers only himself: personal misfortune is a
somewhat cold, yet exacting companion; it possesses you; it leaves no
room for any other feeling, never quits you, seizes hold of your knees
and your couch.
[Sidenote: Napoleon's abdication.]
The day before the entry of the Comte d'Artois, Napoleon, after some
useless negociations with Alexander through the intermediary of M. de
Caulaincourt, had published his act of abdication:
"The Allied Powers having proclaimed that the Emperor
Napoleon was the sole obstacle to the restoration of peace in
Europe, the Emperor Napoleon, true to his oath, declares that
he renounces for himself and his heirs the throne of France
and Italy, because there is no personal sacrifice, even that
of his life, which he is not ready to make to the interests
of the French."
To these sensational words the Emperor did not delay, by his return, to
give a no less sensational contradiction: he needed only the time to go
to Elba. He remained at Fontainebleau till the 20th of April.
The 20th of April having arrived, Napoleon went down the double flight
of steps leading to the peristyle of the deserted palace of the
monarchy of the Capets. A few grenadiers, the remnants of the soldiers
who conquered Europe, drew up in line in the great court-yard, as
though on their last field of battle; they were surrounded by those old
trees, the mutilated companions of Francis I. and Henry IV. Bonaparte
addressed the last witnesses of his fights in these words:
"Generals, officers, non-commissioned officers and men of my Old Guard,
I take my leave of you: for twenty years I have been satisfied with
you; I have always found you on the road of glory.
"The Allied Powers have armed all Europe against me, a part of the army
has betrayed its duty, and France herself has desired other destinies.
"With you and the brave men who have remained faithful to me, I could
have kept up civil war for three years; but France would have been
unhappy, which was contrary to the end which I proposed to myself.
"Be faithful to the new King whom France has chosen; do not abandon
our dear country, too long unhappy! Love her always, love her well,
that dear country!
"Do not pity my lot; I shall always be happy when I know you to be so.
"I could have died; nothing would have been easier to me; but I shall
never cease to follow the path of honour. I have yet to write what we
have done.
"I cannot embrace you all; but I will embrace your general.... Come,
general!"
He pressed General Petit[166] in his arms.
"Bring me the eagle!"
He kissed it.
"Dear eagle! May these kisses resound in the heart of all brave men!...
Farewell, my lads!... My good wishes will always accompany you; keep me
in remembrance."
These words spoken, Napoleon raised his tent, which covered the world.
*
Bonaparte had applied to the Allies for commissaries, so that he
might be protected by them on his journey to the island which the
sovereigns granted him as his absolute property and as an installment
on the future. Count Schouvaloff was appointed for Russia, General
Roller[167] for Austria, Colonel Campbell[168] for England, and Count
Waldburg-Truchsess[169] for Prussia: the latter wrote the _Itinerary
of Napoleon from Fontainebleau to Elba._ This pamphlet and the Abbé de
Pradt's on the Polish Embassy are the two reports by which Napoleon
was most pained. No doubt he then regretted the time of his liberal
censorship, when he had poor Palm[170], the German bookseller, shot for
distributing, at Nuremberg, Herr von Gentz's[171] work, _Deutschland
in seiner tiefsten Erniedrigung._ Nuremberg, at the time of the
publication of this work, was still a free city, and did not belong to
France: ought not Palm to have been able to foresee that conquest?
Count Waldburg begins by relating several conversations that took place
at Fontainebleau previous to the departure. He states that Bonaparte
awarded the greatest praise to Lord Wellington[172] and inquired as to
his character and habits. He excused himself for not having made peace
at Prague, Dresden and Frankfort; he agreed that he had been wrong, but
that at that time he had had other views.
"I was no usurper," he added, "because I accepted the crown only in
compliance with the unanimous wish of the whole nation, whereas Louis
XVIII. has usurped it, being called to the throne only by a vile
Senate, more than ten of whose members voted for the death of Louis
XVI."
[Sidenote: He leaves for Elba.]
Count Waldburg pursues his narrative as follows:
"The Emperor started, with his four carriages, about twelve
o'clock on the 21st, not till after he had held a long
conversation with General Roller, which he commenced with
these words:
"'Well, you heard my speech to the Old Guard yesterday; it
pleased you, and you have seen the effect it produced. That
is the way to speak and act with them, and if Louis XVIII.
does not follow this example, he will never make anything of
the French soldier.'...
"From the spot where the French troops ceased, the cries of
'Long live the Emperor!' also had an end. Already in Moulins
we saw the white cockades, and the inhabitants saluted us with
'Long live the Allies!' In Lyons, which we passed through at
about eleven o'clock at night, a few people collected who
received the Emperor with 'Long live Napoleon!' As he had
expressed a wish to be escorted by an English frigate to the
island of Elba, Colonel Campbell left us at Lyons for the
purpose of procuring one either from Toulon or Marseilles.
"About mid-day on the 24th, on this side Valence, Napoleon
met Marshal Augereau[173]. Both alighted from their
carriages. The Emperor saluted the marshal, embraced him,
and took off his hat to him. Augereau returned none of these
civilities. The Emperor, as he asked him, 'Where are you off
to? Are you going to the Court?' took the marshal by the arm
and led him forwards. Augereau replied, his present journey
extended only to Lyons. They walked together for a quarter
of a league on the road towards Valence, and, according to
authentic information, the Emperor reproached the marshal for
his proclamation. Among other things he observed:
"'Your proclamation is very silly; why those insults against
myself? All you need have said was, "The Nation having
pronounced its wish in favour of a new sovereign, the duty of
the Army is to conform to it. God save the King! Long live
Louis XVIII.!'"
"Augereau, who now likewise thou'd him, reproached him, on
the other hand, with his insatiate love of conquest, to which
he had sacrificed the happiness of France. At length, tired
of the discourse, the Emperor turned suddenly towards the
marshal, embraced him, again took off his hat to him, and got
into the carriage. Augereau, who stood with his hands behind
him, did not move his cap from his head, and as Napoleon
was already in the carriage, drew one hand forwards in
order to wave, with a mien bordering on contempt, a kind of
farewell....
"On the 25th, as we arrived at Orange, we were received with
'Long live the King! Long live Louis XVIII.!'
"On the same morning, close to Avignon, where the relays of
horses awaited us, the Emperor found a crowd assembled, whose
tumultuous cries saluted him with 'Long live the King! Long
live the Allies! Down with Nicolas! Down with the tyrant, the
scoundrel, the wretched beggar!' and still coarser abuse. In
compliance with our instructions, we did everything in our
power to lighten the evil, but could only partially effect
it.... The people ... likewise conceived that we should not
deny them the liberty of venting their indignation against
the man who had made them so unhappy, and even had the
intention of rendering them still more miserable.... In
Orgon, the next place where we changed horses, the conduct
of the populace was most outrageous. Exactly on the spot
where the horses were taken out, a gallows was erected, on
which a figure in French uniform, sprinkled with blood,
was suspended. On its breast it bore a paper with this
inscription:
[Sidenote: Napoleon insulted.]
"'Sooner or later this will be the Tyrant's fate.'
"The rabble pressed around his carriage, and elevated
themselves on both sides in order to look and cast in their
abuse. The Emperor pressed into a corner behind General
Bertrand[174], and looked pale and disfigured; but at length,
through our assistance, he was happily brought off.
"Count Schouwaloff harangued the people from the side of
Buonaparte's carriage.
"'Are you not ashamed,' said he, 'to insult an unfortunate
who has not the means of defending himself? His situation
is sufficiently humiliating for one who, expecting to give
laws to the world, now finds himself at the mercy of your
generosity. Leave him to himself; behold him: you see
contempt is the only weapon you ought to employ against this
man, who is no longer dangerous. It would be unworthy of the
French nation to take any other vengeance.'
"The crowd applauded this harangue, and Buonaparte, seeing
the effect it produced, made signs of approbation to Count
Schouwaloff, and afterwards thanked him for the service he
had rendered him.
"When he had proceeded about a quarter of a league from Orgon
he changed his dress in his carriage, put on a plain blue
great-coat and a round hat with a white cockade, mounted a
post-horse, and rode on before as a courier. As it was some
time ere we overtook him, we were perfectly ignorant of his
being no longer in the carriage and in Saint Cannat, where
the horses were again changed. We still believed him to be
in the greatest danger, for the people attempted to break
open the doors, which, however, were fortunately locked. Had
they succeeded, they would certainly have destroyed General
Bertrand, who sat there alone.... Characteristic is the
prayer with which some of the women assailed me:
"'For the love of God, deliver him up as a pillage to us! He
has so well deserved it, both from you and us, that nothing
can be more just than our request!'
"Having overtaken the Emperor's carriage about half a league
on the other side of Orgon, it shortly afterwards entered
into a miserable public-house, lying on the roadside,
called the Calade. We followed it, and here first learnt
Buonaparte's disguise, who in this attire had arrived
here, accompanied by one courier only. His suite, from
the generals to the scullions, were decorated with white
cockades, which he appeared previously to have provided
himself with. His valet-de-chambre, who came to meet us,
begged we would conduct ourselves towards the Emperor as if
he were Colonel Campbell, for whom on his arrival he had
given himself out. We entered and found in a kind of chamber
this former ruler of the world buried in thought, sitting
with his head supported by his hand. I did not immediately
recognise him, and walked towards him. He started up as he
heard somebody approaching, and pointed to his countenance
bedewed with tears. He made a sign that I might not discover
him, requested me to sit down beside him, and as long as the
landlady was in the room, conversed on indifferent subjects.
As soon, however, as she was gone out he resumed his former
position. We left him alone; he sent, however, to request we
would pass backwards and forwards, to prevent any suspicion
of his being there. We informed him it was known Colonel
Campbell had passed through here the day before on his way
to Toulon; on which he determined upon assuming the name
of Lord Burghersh. Here we dined, but as the dinner had
not been prepared by his own cooks, he had not courage to
partake of it, for fear of being poisoned. He felt ashamed,
however, at seeing us all eat, both with good appetites and
good conscience, and therefore helped himself from every
dish, but without swallowing the least morsel. He spat
everything out upon his plate or behind his chair. A little
bread and a bottle of wine taken from his carriage, and which
he divided with us, constituted his whole repast. In other
respects he was conversible and extremely friendly towards
us. Whenever the landlady, who waited upon us at table, left
the room, and he perceived we were alone, he repeated to us
his apprehensions for his life, and assured us the French
Government had indisputably determined to destroy or arrest
him here. A thousand plans passed through his brain how he
might escape, and what arrangements ought to be made to
deceive the people of Aix, whom he had learnt awaited him
by thousands at the post-house. The most eligible plan in
his estimation would be to go back again to Lyons, and from
thence strike into another road by way of Italy to the island
of Elba. This, however, we should on no account have allowed,
and we therefore endeavoured to persuade him to proceed
either directly to Toulon, or by way of Digne to Fréjus. We
assured him that, without our knowledge, it was impossible
the French Government would entertain such insidious
intentions against him, and although the people allowed
themselves the greatest improprieties, they would never
charge themselves with a crime of the nature he feared. In
order to inform us better, and to convince us the inhabitants
of that part of the country meditated his destruction, he
related to us what had happened to him as he arrived here
alone. The landlady, who did not recognise him, asked him:
"'Well, have you met Buonaparte?'
"He replied in the negative.
"'I am curious,' she answered, 'to see how he will save
himself. I do believe the people will murder him: and it must
be confessed he has well deserved it, the scoundrel! Tell me,
are they going to put him on board ship for his island?'
"'Yes, of course.'
"'They will drown him, I hope?'
"'Oh, no doubt,' returned the Emperor. 'And so you see,' he
added, turning towards us, 'the danger I am exposed to.'
[Sidenote: His fears and apprehensions.]
"And now again, with all his apprehensions and indecision,
he renewed his solicitations of counsel. He even begged us
to look around and see if we could not anywhere discover
a private door through which he might slip out, or if the
window, whose shutters upon entering he had half-closed at
the bottom, was too high for him to jump out in case of
need. On examination I found the window was provided with an
iron trellis-work on the outside, and threw him into evident
consternation as I communicated to him the discovery. At the
least noise he started up in terror, and changed colour.
After dinner we left him alone, and as we went in and out
found him frequently weeping....
"As... General Schouwaloff's Adjutant had... announced
that the major part of the populace assembled on the road
were dispersed, the Emperor towards midnight determined
on proceeding. For greater precaution, however, another
disguise was assumed. General Schouwaloff's Adjutant was
obliged to put on the blue great-coat and round hat in which
the Emperor had reached the inn, that in case of necessity he
might be regarded, insulted, or even murdered for him.
"Napoleon, who now pretended to be an Austrian colonel,
dressed himself in the uniform of General Roller, with
the Order of Theresa, wore my camp cap, and cast over his
shoulders General Schouwaloff's mantle. After the Allies
had thus equipped him, the carriages drove up, and we were
obliged to march them through the other rooms of the inn in
a certain order, which had been previously tried in our own
chamber. The procession was headed by General Drouot[175];
then came, as Emperor, General Schouwaloff's Adjutant; upon
this General-Roller, the Emperor, General Schouwaloff, and
lastly, myself, to whom the honour of forming the rear-guard
was assigned. The remainder of the Imperial suite united
themselves with us as we passed by, and thus we walked
through the gaping multitude, who vainly endeavoured to
distinguish their Tyrant amongst us. Schouwaloff's Adjutant
(Major Olewieff) placed himself in Napoleon's carriage, and
the latter sat beside General Roller in his calash....
"Still, however, the Emperor was constantly in alarm. He not
only remained in General Roller's calash, but even begged he
would allow the servant to smoke who sat before, and asked
the General himself if he could sing, in order that he might
dissipate, through such familiar conduct, any suspicion in
the places where we stopped, that the Emperor sat with him in
the carriage. As the General could not sing, Napoleon begged
him to whistle, and with this singular music we made our
entry into every place; whilst the Emperor, fumigated with
the incense of the tobacco-pipe, pressed himself into the
corner of the calash, and pretended to be fast asleep....
"At Saint-Maximin he breakfasted with us, and having learnt
that the sub-prefect of Aix was there, he ordered him into
his presence, and received him with these words:
"'You ought to blush to see me in an Austrian uniform, which
I have been obliged to assume to protect myself against
the insults of the Provençals. I came among you in full
confidence, whilst I might have brought with me six thousand
of my guard, and I find nothing but a band of maniacs who put
my life in danger. The Provençals are a disgraceful race;
they committed every kind of crime and enormity during the
Revolution, and are quite ready to begin over again: but when
it is a question of fighting bravely, then they are cowards.
Provence has never supplied me with a single regiment with
which I could be satisfied. But to-morrow they will be as
much against Louis XVIII. as to-day they appear to be against
me,' etc....
[Sidenote: His protests.]
"To us he again spoke of Louis XVIII., and said he would
never effect anything with the French nation if he treated
them with too much forbearance. He would, from necessity,
be obliged to lay large imposts upon them, and hence cause
himself to be immediately hated. He likewise told us that
'eighteen years before, he had marched through this place
with some thousand men to liberate two Royalists who were
to have been executed for wearing the white cockade. In
spite, however, of the fury of the populace with which he
had to contend, he fortunately saved them, and to-day, he
continued, would that man be murdered by this same populace,
who should refuse to wear a white cockade,--so contradictory
and vacillating are they in everything they do.'
"Having learnt that two squadrons of Austrian hussars were
stationed at Luc, an order was sent at his request to the
commanders to await our arrival there, in order to escort the
Emperor to Fréjus[176]."
Here ends Count Waldburg's narrative: those accounts are painful to
read. What! Were the commissaries unable to afford better protection
to him for whom they had the honour to be responsible? Who were they,
to affect these airs of superiority with such a man? Bonaparte truly
said that, if he had wished, he might have travelled accompanied by
a portion of his guard. It is evident that men were indifferent to
his fate; they enjoyed his degradation; they gladly acquiesced in the
marks of indignity which the victim demanded for his safety: it is so
sweet to hold beneath one's feet the destiny of him who walked over the
highest heads, to avenge pride with insult! Therefore the commissaries
do not expend a word, not even a word of philosophic sensibility, on
such a change of fortune, to remind man of his nothingness and of the
greatness of the judgments of God! In the ranks of the Allies, Napoleon
had had numerous adulators: he who has gone on his knees before brute
force is not entitled to triumph over misfortune. Prussia, I admit, had
need of an effort of virtue to forget what she had suffered, herself,
her King and her Queen; but that effort should have been made. Alas!
Bonaparte had taken pity on nothing; all hearts had cooled towards him.
The moment in which he showed himself most cruel was at Jaffa[177]; the
smallest, on the way to Elba: in the first case, military necessity
served as his excuse; in the second, the harshness of the foreign
commissaries changes the course of the reader's feelings and lessens
his own abasement.
The Provisional Government of France does not itself seem to me
quite without reproach: I reject the calumnies of Maubreuil[178];
nevertheless, amid the terror with which Napoleon still inspired his
former servants, a fortuitous catastrophe might have presented itself
in their eyes in the light only of a misfortune.
One would gladly doubt the truth of the facts reported by Count
Waldburg-Truchsess, but General Koller, in a _Sequel to Waldburgs
Itinerary_, has confirmed a part of his colleague's narrative;
General Schouvaloff, on his part, has certified, in conversation with
myself, the exactness of the facts: his measured words said more than
Waldburg's expansive recital. Lastly, Fabry's[179] _Itinéraire_ is
composed of authentic French documents furnished by eye-witnesses.
[Sidenote: His humiliation.]
Now that I have done justice on the commissaries and the Allies, is
it really the conqueror of the world whom one sees in Waldburg's
_Itinerary?_ The hero reduced to disguises and tears, weeping under a
post-boy's jacket in the corner of a back-room at an inn! Was it thus
that Marius bore himself on the ruins of Carthage, that Hannibal died
in Bithynia, Cæsar in the Senate? How did Pompey disguise himself? By
covering his head with his toga! He who had donned the purple taking
shelter beneath the white cockade, uttering the cry of safety: "God
save the King!"--that King, one of whose heirs he had had shot! The
master of the nations encouraging the commissaries in the humiliations
which they heaped upon him in order the better to hide him, delighted
to have General Koller whistling before him and a coachman smoking in
his face, compelling General Schouwaloff's aide-de-camp to enact the
part of the Emperor, while he, Bonaparte, wore the dress of an Austrian
colonel and wrapped himself in the cloak of a Russian general. He must
have loved life cruelly: those immortals cannot consent to die.
Moreau said of Bonaparte:
"His chief characteristics are falsehood and the love of life: let me
beat him, and I should see him at my feet begging me for mercy."
Moreau thought thus, being unable to grasp Bonaparte's nature; he fell
into the same error as Lord Byron. At least, at St. Helena, Napoleon,
dignified by the Muses, although petty in his quarrels with the English
Governor, had to support only the weight of his own immensity. In
France, the evil which he had done appeared to him personified by the
widows and orphans, and constrained him to tremble before the hands of
a few women.
This is too true; but Bonaparte should not be judged by the rules
applied to great geniuses, because he was lacking in magnanimity. There
are men who have the faculty of rising, and who have not the faculty
of descending. Napoleon possessed both faculties: like the rebellious
angel, he was able to contract his incommensurable stature, so as to
enclose it within a measured space; his ductility furnished him with
means of safety and regeneration: with him, all was not finished when
he seemed to have finished. Changing his manners and costume at will,
as perfect in comedy as in tragedy, this actor knew how to appear
natural in the slave's tunic as in the king's mantle, in the part of
Attalus or in the part of Cæsar. Another moment and you shall see, from
the depth of his degradation, the dwarf raising his Briarean head;
Asmodeus will come forth in a huge column of smoke from the flask into
which he had compressed himself. Napoleon valued life for what it
brought him; he had the instinct of that which yet remained to him to
paint; he did not wish his canvas to fail him before he had completed
his pictures.
[Sidenote: Scott's _Life of Napoleon._]
Writing of Napoleon's fears, Sir Walter Scott[180], less unfair than
the commissaries, frankly remarks that the unkindness of the people
made much impression on Bonaparte, that he even shed tears, that
he showed more fear of assassination than seemed consistent with
his approved courage; "but," he adds, "it must be recollected that
the danger was of a new and particularly horrible description, and
calculated to appall many to whom the terrors of a field of battle were
familiar. The bravest soldier might shudder at a death like that of the
de Witts." Napoleon was made to undergo this revolutionary anguish in
the same places where he commenced his career with the Terror.
The Prussian General, once interrupting his recital, thought himself
obliged to reveal a disorder which the Emperor did not conceal: Count
Waldburg may have confused what he saw with the sufferings which M. de
Ségur[181] witnessed in the Russian campaign, when Bonaparte, compelled
to alight from his horse, leant his head against the guns. Among the
number of the infirmities of illustrious warriors, true history reckons
only the dagger which pierced the heart of Henry IV., or the ball which
killed Turenne.