PARIS, September, 1805.
MY LORD:--Since my return here, I have never neglected to present myself
before our Sovereign, on his days of grand reviews and grand diplomatic
audiences. I never saw him more condescending, more agreeable, or, at
least, less offensive, than on the day of his last levee, before he set
out to be inaugurated a King of Italy; nor worse tempered, more petulant,
agitated, abrupt, and rude than at his first grand audience after his
arrival from Milan, when this ceremony had been performed. I am not the
only one who has made this remark; he did not disguise either his good or
ill-humour; and it was only requisite to have eyes and ears to see and be
disgusted at the difference of behaviour.
I have heard a female friend of Madame Bonaparte explain, in part, the
cause of this alteration. Just before he set out for Italy, the
agreeable news of the success of the first Rochefort squadron in the West
Indies, and the escape of our Toulon fleet from the vigilance of your
Lord Nelson, highly elevated his spirits, as it was the first naval
enterprise of any consequence since his reign. I am certain that one
grand naval victory would flatter his vanity and ambition more than all
the glory of one of his most brilliant Continental campaigns. He had
also, at that time, great expectations that another negotiation with
Russia would keep the Continent submissive under his dictature, until he
should find an opportunity of crushing your power. You may be sure that
he had no small hopes of striking a blow in your country, after the
junction of our fleet with the Spanish, not by any engagement between our
Brest fleet and your Channel fleet, but under a supposition that you
would detach squadrons to the East and West Indies in search of the
combined fleet, which, by an unexpected return, according to orders,
would have then left us masters of the Channel, and, if joined with the
Batavian fleet, perhaps even of the North Sea. By the incomprehensible
activity of Lord Nelson, and by the defeat (or as we call it here, the
negative victory) of Villeneuve and Gravina, all this first prospect had
vanished. Our vengeance against a nation of shopkeepers we were not only
under the necessity of postponing, but, from the unpolite threats and
treaties of the Cabinet of St. Petersburg with those of Vienna and St.
James, we were on the eve of a Continental war, and our gunboats, instead
of being useful in carrying an army to the destruction of the tyrants of
the seas, were burdensome, as an army was necessary to guard them, and to
prevent these tyrants from capturing or destroying them. Such changes,
in so short a period of time as three months, might irritate a temper
less patient than that of Napoleon the First.
At his grand audience here, even after the army, of England had moved
towards Germany, when the die was cast, and his mind should, therefore,
have been made up, he was almost insupportable. The low bows, and the
still humbler expressions of the Prussian Ambassador, the Marquis da
Lucchesini, were hardly noticed; and the Saxon Ambassador, Count von
Buneau, was addressed in a language that no well-bred master ever uses in
speaking to a menial servant. He did not cast a look, or utter a word,
that was not an insult to the audience and a disgrace to his rank. I
never before saw him vent his rage and disappointment so
indiscriminately. We were, indeed (if I may use the term), humbled and
trampled upon en masse. Some he put out of countenance by staring
angrily at them; others he shocked by his hoarse voice and harsh words;
and all--all of us--were afraid, in our turn, of experiencing something
worse than our neighbours. I observed more than one Minister, and more
than one general, change colour, and even perspire, at His Majesty’s
approach.
I believe the members of the foreign diplomatic corps here will all agree
with me that, at a future congress, the restoration of the ancient and
becoming etiquette of the Kings of France would be as desirable a point
to demand from the Emperor of the French as the restoration of the
balance of power.
Before his army of England quitted its old quarters on the coast, the
officers and men often felt the effects of his ungovernable temper. When
several regiments of grenadiers, of the division of Oudinot, were
defiling before him on the 25th of last month, he frequently and
severely, though without cause, reprobated their manner of marching, and
once rode up to Captain Fournois, pushed him forwards with the point of a
small cane, calling out, “Sacre Dieu! Advance; you walk like a turkey.”
In the first moment of indignation, the captain, striking at the cane
with his sword, made a push, or a gesture, as if threatening the person
of Bonaparte, who called out to his aide-de-camp, Savary:
“Disarm the villain, and arrest him!”
“It is unnecessary,” the captain replied, “I have served a tyrant, and
merit my fate!” So saying, he passed his sword through his heart.
His whole company stopped instantly, as at a word of command, and a
general murmur was heard.
“Lay down your arms, and march out of the file instantly,” commanded
Bonaparte, “or you shall be cut down for your mutiny by my guides.”
They hesitated for a moment, but the guides advancing to surround them,
they obeyed, and were disarmed. On the following afternoon, by a special
military commission, each tenth man was condemned to be shot; but
Bonaparte pardoned them upon condition of serving for life in the
colonies; and the whole company was ordered to the colonial depots. The
widow and five children of Captain Fournois the next morning threw
themselves at the Emperor’s feet, presenting a petition, in which they
stated that the pay of the captain had been their only support.
“Well,” replied Bonaparte to the kneeling petitioners, “Fournois was both
a fool and a traitor; but, nevertheless, I will take care of you.”
Indeed, they have been so well taken care of that nobody knows what has
become of them.
I am almost certain that I am not telling you what you did not know
beforehand in informing you that the spirit of our troops is greatly
different from that of the Germans, and even from that of your own
country. Every, one of our soldiers would prefer being shot to being
beaten or caned. Flogging, with us, is out of the question. It may,
perhaps, be national vanity, but I am doubtful whether any other army is,
or can be, governed, with regard to discipline, in a less violent and
more delicate manner, and, nevertheless, be kept in subordination, and
perform the most brilliant exploits. Remember, I speak of our spirit of
subordination and discipline, and not of our character as citizens, as
patriots, or as subjects. I have often hinted it, but I believe I have
not explained myself so fully before; but my firm opinion and persuasion
is that, with regard to our loyalty, our duty, and our moral and
political principles, another equally inconsistent and despicable people
does not exist in the universe.
The condition of the slave is certainly in itself that of vileness; but
is that slave a vile being who, for a blow, pierces his bosom because he
is unable to avenge it? And what epithet can be given him who braves
voluntarily a death seemingly certain, not from the love of his country,
but from a principle of honour, almost incompatible with the dishonour of
bondage?
During the siege of Yorktown, in America, we had, during one night,
erected a battery, with intent to blow up a place which, according to the
report of our spies, was your magazine of ammunition, etc. We had not
time to finish it before daylight; but one loaded twenty-four pounder was
mounted, and our cannoneer, the moment he was about to fire it, was
killed. Six more of our men, in the same attempt, experienced the same
fate. My regiment constituted the advanced guard nearest to the spot,
and La Fayette brought me the order from the commander-in-chief to engage
some of my men upon that desperate undertaking. I spoke to them, and two
advanced, but were both instantly shot by your sharpshooters. I then
looked at my grenadiers, without uttering anything, when, to my sorrow,
one of my best and most orderly men advanced, saying, “My colonel, permit
me to try my fortune!” I assented, and he went coldly amidst hundreds of
bullets whistling around his ears, set fire to the cannon, which blew up
a depot of powder, as was expected, and in the confusion returned unhurt.
La Fayette then presented him with his purse. “No, monsieur,” replied
he, “money did not make me venture upon such a perilous undertaking.” I
understood my man, promoted him to a sergeant, and recommended him to
Rochambeau, who, in some months, procured him the commission of a
sub-lieutenant. He is now one of Bonaparte’s Field-marshals, and the
only one of that rank who has no crimes to reproach himself with. This
man was the soldier of a despot; but was not his action that of a man of
honour, which a stanch republican of ancient Rome would have been proud
of? Who can explain this contradiction?
This anecdote about Fournois I heard General Savary relate at Madame
Duchatel’s, as a proof of Bonaparte’s generosity and clemency, which, he
affirmed, excited the admiration of the whole camp at Boulogne. I do not
suppose this officer to be above thirty years of age, of which he has
passed the first twenty-five in orphan-houses or in watch-houses; but no
tyrant ever had a more cringing slave, or a more abject courtier. His
affectation to extol everything that Bonaparte does, right or wrong, is
at last become so habitual that it is naturalized, and you may mistake
for sincerity that which is nothing but imposture or flattery. This son
of a Swiss porter is now one of Bonaparte’s adjutants-general, a colonel
of the Gendarmes d’Elite, a general of brigade in the army, and a
commander of the Legion of Honour; all these places he owes, not to
valour or merit, but to abjectness, immorality, and servility. When an
aide-de-camp with Bonaparte in Egypt, he served him as a spy on his
comrades and on the officers of the staff, and was so much detested that,
near Aboukir, several shots were fired at him in his tent by his own
countrymen. He is supposed still to continue the same espionage; and as
a colonel of the Gendarmes d’Elite, he is charged with the secret
execution of all proscribed persons or State prisoners, who have been
secretly condemned,--a commission that a despot gives to a man he trusts,
but dares not offer to a man he esteems. He is so well known that the
instant he enters a society silence follows, and he has the whole
conversation to himself. This he is stupid enough to take for a
compliment, or for a mark of respect, or an acknowledgment of his
superior parts and intelligence, when, in fact, it is a direct reproach
with which prudence arms itself against suspected or known dishonesty.
Besides his wife, he has to support six other women whom he has seduced
and ruined; and, notwithstanding the numerous opportunities his master
has procured him of pillaging and enriching himself, he is still much in
debt; but woe to his creditors were they indiscreet enough to ask for
their payments! The Secret Tribunal would soon seize them and transport
them, or deliver them over to the hands of their debtor, to be shot as
traitors or conspirators.