PARIS, September, 1805.
MY LORD:--Bonaparte has taken advantage of the remark of Voltaire, in his
“Life of Louis XIV.,” that this Prince owed much of his celebrity to the
well--distributed pensions among men of letters in France and in foreign
countries. According to a list shown me by Fontanes, the president of
the legislative corps and a director of literary pensions, even in your
country and in Ireland he has nine literary pensioners. Though the names
of your principal authors and men of letters are not unknown to me, I
have never read nor heard of any of those I saw in the list, except two
or three as editors of some newspapers, magazines, or trifling and
scurrilous party pamphlets. I made this observation to Fontanes, who
replied that these men, though obscure, had, during the last peace, been
very useful, and would be still more so after another pacification; and
that Bonaparte must be satisfied with these until he could gain over men
of greater talents. He granted also that men of true genius and literary
eminence were, in England, more careful of the dignity of their character
than those of Germany and Italy, and more difficult to be bought over. He
added that, as soon as the war ceased, he should cross the Channel on a
literary mission, from which he hoped to derive more success than from
that which was undertaken three years ago by Fievee.
To these men of letters, who are themselves, with their writings, devoted
to Bonaparte, he certainly is very liberal. Some he has made tribunes,
prefects, or legislators; others he has appointed his Ministers in
foreign countries, and on those to whom he has not yet been able to given
places, he bestows much greater pensions than any former Sovereign of
this country allowed to a Corneille, a Racine, a Boileau, a Voltaire, a
De Crebillon, a D’ Alembert, a Marmontel, and other heroes of our
literature and honours to our nation. This liberality is often carried
too far, and thrown away upon worthless subjects, whose very flattery
displays absence of taste and genius, as well as of modesty and shame. To
a fellow of the name of Dagee, who sang the coronation of Napoleon the
First in two hundred of the most disgusting and ill-digested lines that
ever were written, containing neither metre nor sense, was assigned a
place in the administration of the forest department, worth twelve
thousand livres in the year--besides a present, in ready money, of one
hundred napoleons d’or. Another poetaster, Barre, who has served and
sung the chiefs of all former factions, received, for an ode of forty
lines on Bonaparte’s birthday, an office at Milan, worth twenty thousand
livres in the year--and one hundred napoleons d’or for his travelling
expenses.
The sums of money distributed yearly by Bonaparte’s agents for
dedications to him by French and foreign authors, are still greater than
those fixed for regular literary pensions. Instead of discouraging these
foolish and impertinent contributions, which genius, ingenuity,
necessity, or intrusion, lay on his vanity, he rather encourages them.
His name is, therefore, found in more dedications published within these
last five years than those of all other Sovereign Princes in Europe taken
together for the last century. In a man whose name, unfortunately for
humanity, must always live in history, it is a childish and unpardonable
weakness to pay so profusely for the short and uncertain immortality
which some dull or obscure scribbler or poetaster confers on him.
During the last Christmas holidays I dined at Madame Remisatu’s, in
company with Duroc. The question turned upon literary productions and
the comparative merit of the compositions of modern French and foreign
authors. “As to the merits or the quality,” said Duroc, “I will not take
upon me to judge, as I profess myself totally incompetent; but as to
their size and quantity I have tolerably good information, and it will
not, therefore, be very improper in me to deliver my opinion. I am
convinced that the German and Italian authors are more numerous than
those of my own country, for the following reasons: I suppose, from what
I have witnessed and experienced for some years past, that of every book
or publication printed in France, Italy, and Germany, each tenth is
dedicated to the Emperor. Now, since last Christmas ninety-six German
and seventy-one Italian authors have inscribed their works to His
Majesty, and been rewarded for it; while during the same period only
sixty-six Frenchmen have presented their offerings to their Sovereign.”
For my part I think Duroc’s conclusion tolerably just.
Among all the numerous hordes of authors who have been paid, recompensed,
or encouraged by Bonaparte, none have experienced his munificence more
than the Italian Spanicetti and the German Ritterstein. The former
presented him a genealogical table in which he proved that the Bonaparte
family, before their emigration from Tuscany to Corsica, four hundred
years ago, were allied to the most ancient Tuscany families, even to that
of the House of Medicis; and as this house has given two queens to the
Bourbons when Sovereigns of France, the Bonapartes are, therefore,
relatives of the Bourbons; and the sceptre of the French Empire is still
in the same family, though in a more worthy branch. Spanicetti received
one thousand louis--in gold, a pension of six thousand livres--for life,
and the place of a chef du bureau in the ministry of the home department
of the Kingdom of Italy, producing eighteen thousand livres yearly.
Ritterstein, a Bavarian genealogist, proved the pedigree of the
Bonapartes as far back as the first crusades, and that the name of the
friend of Richard Coeur de Lion was not Blondel, but Bonaparte; that he
exchanged the latter for the former only to marry into the Plantagenet
family, the last branch of which has since been extinguished by its
intermarriage and incorporation with the House of Stuart, and that,
therefore, Napoleon Bonaparte is not only related to most Sovereign
Princes of Europe, but has more right to the throne of Great Britain than
George the Third, being descended from the male branch of the Stuarts;
while this Prince is only descended from the female branch of the same
royal house. Ritterstein was presented with a snuff-box with Bonaparte’s
portrait set with diamonds, valued at twelve thousand livres, and
received twenty-four thousand livres ready money, together with a pension
of nine thousand livres--in the year, until he could be better provided
for. He was, besides, nominated a Knight of the Legion of Honour. It
cannot be denied but that Bonaparte rewards like a real Emperor.
But artists as well as authors obtain from him the same encouragement,
and experience the same liberality. In our different museums we,
therefore, already, see and admire upwards of two hundred pictures,
representing the different actions, scenes, and achievements of
Bonaparte’s public life. It is true they are not all highly finished or
well composed or delineated, but they all strike the spectators more or
less with surprise or admiration; and it is with us, as, I suppose, with
you, and everywhere else, the multitude decide: for one competent judge
or real connoisseur, hundreds pass, who stare, gape, are charmed, and
inspire thousands of their acquaintance, friends, and neighbours with
their own satisfaction. Believe me, Napoleon the First well knows the
age, his contemporaries, and, I fear, even posterity.
That statuaries and sculptors consider him also as a generous patron, the
numerous productions of their chisels in France, Italy, and Germany,
having him for their object, seem to evince. Ten sculptors have already
represented his passage over the Mount St. Bernard, eighteen his passage
over Pont de Lodi, and twenty-two that over Pont d’ Arcole. At Rome,
Milan, Turin, Lyons, and Paris are statues of him representing his
natural size; and our ten thousand municipalities have each one of his
busts; without mentioning the thousands of busts all over Europe, not
excepting even your own country. When Bonaparte sees under the windows
of the Tuileries the statue of Caesar placed in the garden of that
palace, he cannot help saying to himself: “Marble lives longer than man.”
Have you any doubt that his ambition and vanity extend beyond the grave?
The only artist I ever heard of who was disappointed and unrewarded for
his labour in attempting to eternize the memory of Napoleon Bonaparte,
was a German of the name of Schumacher. It is, indeed, allowed that he
was more industrious, able, and well-meaning than ingenious or
considerate. He did not consider that it would be no compliment to give
the immortal hero a hint of being a mortal man. Schumacher had employed
near three years in planning and executing in marble the prettiest model
of a sepulchral monument I have ever seen, read or heard of. He had
inscribed it: “The Future Tomb of Bonaparte the Great.” Under the
patronage of Count von Beast, he arrived here; and I saw the model in the
house of this Minister of the German Elector Arch--Chancellor, where also
many French artists went to inspect it. Count von Beast asked De Segur,
the grand master of the ceremonies, to request the Emperor to grant
Schumacher the honour of showing him his performance. De Segur advised
him to address himself to Duroc, who referred him to Devon, who, after
looking at it, could not help paying a just tribute to the execution and
to the talents of the artist, though he disapproved of the subject, and
declined mentioning it to the Emperor. After three months’ attendance in
this capital, and all petitions and memorials to our great folks
remaining unanswered, Schumacher obtained an audience of Fouche, in which
he asked permission to exhibit his model of Bonaparte’s tomb to the
public for money, so as to be enabled to return to his country.
“Where is it now?” asked Fouche.
“At the Minister’s of the Elector Arch-Chancellor,” answered the artist.
“But where do you intend to show it for money?” continued Fouche.
“In the Palais Royal.”
“Well, bring it there,” replied Fouche.
The same evening that it was brought there, Schumacher was arrested by a
police commissary, his model packed up, and, with himself, put under the
care of two gendarmes, who carried them both to the other side of the
Rhine. Here the Elector of Baden gave him some money to return to his
home, near Aschaffenburg, where he has since exposed for money the model
of a grand tomb for a little man. I have just heard that one of your
countrymen has purchased it for one hundred and fifty louis d’or.