Chapter XVI: Part 16

"Time daily undermines the great reputation of Mr. Pitt, not with respect to his eminent talents, but their fatal employment. England groans under the calamities with which he overwhelmed her, the most fatal of which are the school and the doctrines he bequeathed to her. He introduced the police into England, accustomed the nation to an armed force, and commenced that system of informations, snares, and demoralization of every kind so completely perfected by his successors.

“His great system of tactics was constantly to excite our excesses on the Continent, and then to hold them up as a scarecrow to England, which immediately granted him all he wanted.” “But what did you all say to that?” asked the Emperor: “What was the opinion of the emigrants?”—"Sire," I replied, “we all constantly saw through the same glass; what we said the first day of our emigration we still repeated on the last day of our exile. We had not advanced one step; we had become and remained a people by ourselves. Mr. Pitt was our oracle; whatever was said by him, by Burke, Windham, or any of the most violent on that side of the question, appeared to us to be delicious; all that their adversaries objected, abominable. Fox, Sheridan, and Grey, were in our eyes nothing but infamous Jacobins; we never called them by any other name.” “Very well,” said the Emperor; “now return to George III.”

"This virtuous prince was excessively partial to private life and rural occupations; he devoted all the time he could spare from the business of the state to the cultivation of a farm a few miles from London; he never returned to the capital except for his regular levées, or extraordinary councils required by circumstances; and he immediately returned to his fields, where he lived without pomp, and like an honest farmer, as he said himself. All intrigues were left in town, about the ministers, and amongst them.

"George III. had many domestic troubles. His sister was Matilda Queen of Denmark, whose story forms so melancholy a romance; his two brothers caused him many vexations by their marriages; and he had not reason to be perfectly satisfied with his eldest son.

“The two brothers of George III. were the Duke of Cumberland and the Duke of Gloucester. I often saw the latter in private society; he was the worthiest, most polite, and honourable gentleman in England. Both these illustrious individuals, according to the spirit of the British constitution, were entirely strangers to public business. The King heard that one of them had married or was about to marry a private individual. This was a great crime in his estimation; he had himself made a great sacrifice to avoid committing it. He was extremely angry; and whilst he was sending a message to Parliament against the brother who had thus given offence, he was informed that the other had eloped to Calais for a similar purpose. It was like a fatality, an absolute epidemic, for it was at the same time reported on all sides, that the heir-apparent himself was also secretly married.”—"What," said the Emperor, “the Prince of Wales!”—"Yes, Sire, himself: his marriage was every where talked of, but with circumstances not sufficiently certain for me to venture to repeat them; the fact, however, seemed generally acknowledged. But, as the Prince afterwards caused it to be contradicted in Parliament, through the medium of the opposition, we are bound after that to believe him.

"I have it, however, from the mouth of a very near relation of his pretended wife, that the matter was positively so. I heard this person give way to the most violent rage on the solemn marriage of the prince, and threaten to resort to personal violence. It might, therefore, be considered a contested point, which was unavoidably represented according to party-spirit; some obstinately maintaining the reality of the marriage, whilst others denied it in the most violent manner. Perhaps this contradiction might be reconciled by the consideration that the person he was said to have married, Mrs. Fitzherbert, was a Catholic. This circumstance rendered the marriage impossible in the eyes of the law, and perfectly void with respect to the heir to the throne. However this may be, I have often met Mrs. Fitzherbert in company: her carriage bore the Prince’s arms, and her servants wore his livery. This lady was much older than himself; but beautiful, agreeable, of a powerful mind, and haughty, impatient temper, which often involved her in disputes with the Prince, and gave rise, it was said, to scenes of violence not very becoming such elevated rank. It was during one of the last quarrels of this kind, when, they say, Mrs. Fitzherbert had obstinately kept the door shut against the Prince, that Mr. Pitt dexterously took the opportunity of persuading him to consent to a marriage with the Princess of Brunswick."—"But stay," said the Emperor, “you go too fast; you pass over what chiefly interests me. Under what auspices did the Prince of Wales enter into life? What was there peculiar in his political conduct, his situation with regard to the Opposition, and so forth?”—"This Prince, Sire, came before the public with all the advantages of face, person, and mind. He was greeted with universal enthusiasm; but he soon evinced those inclinations, and began to act that part, which seemed necessarily imposed on great personages in the middle of the last century. Such were the infatuation of gaming, and its consequent embarrassments; table and other excesses; and, above all, a set of companions disapproved of by the public. Then it was that all generous hearts were grieved; hope was blighted, and the middling class, which in every country really constitutes the nation, and which, it must be confessed, is in England the most moral population of all Europe, despaired of the future. It was a received adage in England, amongst the lower classes in particular, that the Prince of Wales would never reign; the fortune-tellers and conjurors, it was said, had foretold it to himself.

“The opposition, into whose arms he had thrown himself, as heirs presumptive too frequently do; the opposition, whose stay and hope he was, perhaps trying to deceive themselves, when this misconduct was mentioned to them, used to get over it by saying that he would be another Henry V.; that Henry V. had been extremely dissipated when Prince of Wales; but that he became the greatest King the monarchy had produced; and thence they concluded that the Prince of Wales would make one of their greatest kings.”—"But did he adopt the revolutionary party and defend our modern ideas?" said the Emperor. "No, Sire; as the fever of revolutionary principles increased, decency compelled him to withdraw by degrees from the opposition which defended them. He relinquished all ostensible alliance, and filled up the void of his life by giving himself up to pleasure and its attendant difficulties. He was constantly overwhelmed with debts, although parliament had already paid them several times. By these encumbrances he was greatly embarrassed, and his character and popularity were endangered. It was whilst thus involved, and during a quarrel with Mrs. Fitzherbert, that Mr. Pitt got hold of him, offering to pay his debts again, if he would adopt his father’s views and consent to marry. He was obliged to submit to all that was prescribed, and the hand of the Princess of Brunswick was asked and obtained. But, during the short interval of the negotiation, a celebrated woman who had long aspired to govern the prince, finding the place vacant, took possession of it herself. It is pretended that she has said she had sought this connection for twenty years; for she was much older than himself, a circumstance which seemed to indicate a peculiar taste in this family, having also been remarked in several of his brothers. This person was immediately appointed Lady of the Bed-chamber to the future Princess of Wales; she even went to meet her and bring her to England. It was under such auspices, such malignant influence, that the bride landed on the British shore. Accordingly, it is positively asserted that this unhappy princess had not even so much as twenty-four hours’ enjoyment, out of that privileged period emphatically called by the English the honey-moon. From the very day after her marriage, ridicule, neglect, and contempt were her portion.

"All who possessed the least spark of generosity or morality in England took her part, and loudly exclaimed against the manner in which she was treated. The greater share of the odium, however, fell on Lady Jersey, who was accused of having bewitched the prince. She became the object of public execration; yet the Prince, it was declared could not plead the excuse of illusion or blindness; for it is said that, after a very gay entertainment amongst his jovial companions, one of them was led, in the course of conversation, to say that he knew the Madame de Merteuil of the Liaisons Dangereuses. Many of the others immediately cried out that they also knew one: upon this, it is said, the Prince proposed, for a frolic, that each should write his secret separately. All the notes were thrown into a vase; and the name of Lady Jersey was found written on every one of them: the Prince himself, not having looked for such unanimity, or expected to be discovered, had written this name as well as the rest.

"I knew this Lady Jersey, and it must be confessed that her face and whole appearance were so little indicative of her age, that it could not easily have been suspected. She had all the charms of early youth, heightened by all the grace of the most elegant manners; and I am bound to say, that, in the circles in which I saw her, she even possessed a sort of attractive kindness; whether the manners of her class render the disposition indulgent, or whether she did not in fact deserve all the reproaches with which she was loaded.

“The Prince of Wales seems to have possessed a peculiar faculty, a gift, which the English call the power of fascination. He is endowed with it in the highest degree; one would think that his will was sufficient to reclaim the attachment of the multitude, and as it were to corrupt public opinion. His history is full of those losses and returns of popularity; and, perhaps, it is the certainty of being able to command this sort of success that has so often led him, as his detractors say, to disregard public opinion. His enemies have asserted that he has carried this species of courage to absolute heroism. They have censured him for his hardihood in persisting, whilst lying himself under the reproach of an irregular life, in accusing his wife of that conduct of which he set the example; an inconsistency which ought, undoubtedly, to be attributed to the fatal suggestions of pernicious counsellors, inimical to his glory and tranquillity. It is at least certain, that the basest corruption, the aid of the laws, and the influence of the heir to the throne, were all employed against the Princess, and all in vain: a circumstance which, it is said, used to torment the Prince and expose him to ridicule. People laughed at his unprecedented ill-luck, in being unable to prove, with all his endeavours, what so many husbands would give so much to conceal. Hatred increased on every new defeat, and with it the sufferings of the victim. She was reduced, at last, to a sort of banishment, to a place a few miles from London; she was deprived of her daughter; she was insulted in the sight of the allied Sovereigns when they visited London. But the expression of the feelings of the multitude was always ready to avenge her, and it became necessary to get her to quit England; which she was induced to do voluntarily, by the aid, perhaps, of the perfidious insinuations of some pretended friend.”

Here the Emperor again interrupted me, saying that I was leaving out a very essential point. “When and how had the Prince attained the Royal authority? How had he arranged matters with the opposition? What had he done with those old friends?” “Sire,” I replied, "my information ends here. There was a time when political events induced your Majesty to cut off all intercourse between England and France. We no longer obtained the papers; we were prevented from receiving letters; the two nations had no longer any thing in common. There is, therefore, an actual blank in my intelligence, which I should be unwilling to fill up with mere conjectures. I understand, however, that after several recoveries and relapses of the old King, all parties at length agreed to consign the regency to the Prince of Wales, and place him in full possession of the sovereign authority. The long expected period of changes and of hopes was at length arrived. The gates of heaven were now to open, at length, to that opposition which had so long eulogised the Prince; to those old friends who had seemed from infancy to unite their fate with his. But, to the great and universal surprise of the nation, and through I know not what contrivance of Lord Castlereagh’s, nothing was altered. Those old ministers, who had so long been the objects of the Prince’s dislike and censure, kept their places, and those intimate and dearly beloved friends, who had so long been caressed, remained out of office.

"The opposition complained loudly; but they were laughed at, and told that when the wild Prince of Wales became a great King, his first care was to get rid of his old companions. The jest might be a very good one, but it was by no means applicable; for the greatest characters in the empire were at the head of this opposition; and they were far from being Falstaffs or profligates of that kind. From that instant they evinced a marked coolness towards the Prince: some would no longer see him; others refused his invitations, or repelled the advances which he made to them. It is said, however, that one of them suffered himself to be persuaded to go to dine in private with the Prince. The latter, recurring to his usual victorious weapons, endeavoured to prove to him, with his accustomed grace, that he could not have acted differently; and at length desired to be told of what his old friends could justly accuse him. The guest, whose heart was still swelling with indignation, seized the opportunity, and freely told him all his faults, with such warmth, that the Princess Charlotte, who was at table, and was perhaps secretly inclined towards the guest’s opinion, burst into tears. Lord Byron heard of this scene the next day, and consecrated the event in these celebrated verses:—

"Weep, daughter of a royal line,
A Sire’s disgrace, a realm’s decay;
Ah happy! if each tear of thine
Could wash a father’s fault away!
Weep, for thy tears are virtue’s tears,
Auspicious to these suff’ring isles;
And be each drop, in future years,
Repaid thee by thy people’s smiles."
March, 1812.

“In 1814, at the time of my visit to London, I had the honour of being presented to the Prince of Wales at Carlton House.”—“And what the devil did you want there?” said the Emperor. “I do not wonder that your Majesty is surprised; but I was induced by a sort of point of honour: I thought I could do no other. There were many French in London at that time; I was the only one who had been near your Majesty’s person, worn your colours, and followed the line of conduct which seemed to be censured at that period. Some one having told me that the others would certainly not endure my presence, that circumstance determined me to go. We were, in fact, twenty-two Frenchmen, presented at the same time, at one of the Prince’s grand levees; and I must say that I never saw more graceful manners, more pleasing expression, more harmony in the _tout-ensemble_; I thought him the _beau-ideal_ of elegance. I comprehended the full power, the whole truth of that magic fascination which I had so often heard attributed to him; and even at this moment, Sire, when I recollect that fine countenance, on which I thought I perceived elevation of mind, and the love and desire of glory, I cannot help asking myself how your Majesty comes to be here, how those atrocious ministers could induce him to declare himself the gaoler, the...?” “My dear Sir,” said the Emperor, “perhaps you were no physiognomist; you took the halo of coquetry for that of greatness; the study to please for the love of glory; and, besides, the love of glory is not exactly in the face; it is in the recesses of the heart, and you did not search there.[27]

Footnote 27:

Since this was said, the great victim has fallen. I, his servant, saw
his torments begin; others have communicated to me his last sufferings
and protracted agonies. He expired! His enemies never ceased to strike
him, in the name of the Prince! This immortal victim accordingly left
with his own hand, these dreadful words: “_I bequeath the infamy of my
death to the reigning family of England!_”

“But were you not translating to me, the other day,” said the Emperor, "some journal or work, in which it was stated that the Prince Regent had made a great display of sympathy towards the last Stuarts; that he had paid the most extravagant prices for things which had belonged to, and been left by them; that he had talked of raising a monument to the last of them? There is much more calculation than magnanimity in all that; it is because he is anxious to establish and consecrate their extinction. From that event his legitimacy and security date; and he is in the right. If, in my time, and under the circumstances into which the English Ministers had plunged the nation, there had been some young Stuart, of a brave and enterprising character, equal to the present age, he would have been landed in Ireland, escorted by the modern doctrines; and then we should undoubtedly have seen the regenerate Stuarts driving out the degenerate Brunswicks. England would have had its 20th of March. Such are thrones and their contagious influence; scarcely is one seated there when the poison begins to operate. These Brunswicks, brought in by liberal ideas, raised by the will of the people, have no sooner ascended the throne, than they grasp at arbitrary and despotic power; they must absolutely drive their wheels in the track which overturned their predecessors; and this because they are become Kings! And it should seem that this is the inevitable course! That fine stem of the Nassaus, for instance, those patrons of noble independence in Europe, whose liberalism ought to be in the blood, and even in the marrow of their bones; those Nassaus, who, as far as regards their dominions, would be only at the tail, and who might by their doctrines, place themselves at the head,—they have just been placed on a throne; well, you will infallibly see them concern themselves about nothing but becoming what they call legitimates; and adopt the principles, the proceedings, and the errors of that class.

“Nay, after all, my dear Sir, has not the same thing been said of me, myself? and perhaps not without some appearance of reason; for probably many circumstances may have escaped my observation. Nevertheless I declared, on a solemn occasion, that in my estimation the sovereign power was not in the title, nor the throne in its splendour. It has been said of me, that scarcely had I attained power, when I exercised a despotic and arbitrary sway; but it was rather a Dictatorship; and the circumstances of the times will be a sufficient excuse for me. I have also been reproached with having suffered myself to be intoxicated with pride at my alliance with the house of Austria, and having thought myself more truly a sovereign after my marriage; in fact, of having considered myself from that time as Alexander, become the son of a god! But can all this be just? Did I really fall into such errors? A young, handsome, agreeable, woman fell to my lot; was it inadmissible for me to testify some satisfaction? Could I not devote a few moments to her without incurring blame? Was I not to be allowed to abandon myself to a few hours of happiness? Was I required to use my wife ill from the very first night, like your Prince ——? Or was I, like the Sultan we have read of, to have her head struck off, in order to escape the reproaches of the multitude? No! my only fault in that alliance was that of carrying too plebeian a heart with me. How often have I said that the heart of a statesman ought only to be in his head. Mine, unfortunately, in this instance, remained in its place, subject to family feelings, and this marriage ruined me; because I believed, above all things, in the religion, the piety, the morality, and the honour of Francis I. He has cruelly deceived me. I am willing to believe that he was himself deceived; and I forgive him with all my heart. But will history spare him? If, however,...”

Here Napoleon was silent for a few moments, resting his head on one of his hands; then resuming, “But what a romance is my life!” said he, rising. “Open the door, and let us walk.” And we walked up and down the adjoining rooms, for some time.

MY SON’S FALL FROM HIS HORSE.—PILLAGE IN WAR.—CHARACTER OF THE FRENCH
SOLDIER.—PARTICULARS RELATING TO WATERLOO, BY THE NEW ADMIRAL.

Monday July 1st to Thursday 4th.—Yesterday, my son’s horse ran away with him, whilst he was taking a ride; and, being fearful that the horse might dash him against the trees, he thought it best to throw himself off his back. He had sprained his ancle sufficiently to condemn him to the sofa for a month.

The Emperor condescended to come into my room, about 11 o’clock, to learn the state of my son, whom he rated well for his awkwardness. I followed him into the garden, where he breakfasted, which he had not done there for some time previously.

The conversation turned on pillage by armies, and the horrors occasioned by it.

Pavia, the Emperor said, was the only place that he had ever given up to pillage; he had promised it to his soldiers for 24 hours; “but after three hours,” said he, “I could bear it no longer, and I put an end to it. I had but 1200 men;” said he, “the cries of the populace which reached my ears prevailed. If there had been 20,000 soldiers, their numbers would have drowned the complaints of the people, and I should have heard nothing of it. Happily, however, policy and morality are equally opposed to the system of pillage. I have meditated much on this subject: and have often been urged to gratify my soldiers in this manner. But nothing is so certain to disorganize and completely ruin an army. A soldier loses all discipline as soon as he gets an opportunity to pillage; and, if by pillage he enriches himself, he immediately becomes a bad soldier, and will not fight. Besides,” continued he, “pillage is incompatible with our French manners; the hearts of our soldiers are not bad; when the first transport of fury is over, they come to themselves again. It would be impossible for French soldiers to pillage for twenty-four hours; many of them would employ the latter part of the time in repairing the mischief they had done in the beginning. They afterwards reproach each other, in their quarters, with the excesses they have committed, and load with reprobation and contempt those whose conduct has been particularly odious.”

About three o’clock, the new Admiral, Sir Pulteney Malcolm, and all his officers, were presented to the Emperor. The Admiral first conversed with the Emperor alone, for nearly two hours. He must have been much impressed with this conversation, for he said, as he came out, that he had been taking a very fine and valuable lesson on the history of France.

The Emperor was understood to have said to him, towards the close of the interview, what I believe I have already introduced elsewhere on this subject. “You have levied a contribution of 700 millions on France; I have imposed one of more than 10,000 millions on your country. You raised yours by your bayonets: I caused mine to be raised by your parliament.” “And that is the true summary of the matter,” replied the Admiral.

The Admiral was bringing from America some old troops consisting of 12,000 men, without the least suspicion of the new state of Europe. At sea, a vessel informed him of the return of the Emperor from the isle of Elba, and the consequent revolution; it seemed to him so magical that he could scarcely believe it. But when he arrived in sight of Plymouth, he received orders to proceed, with all possible expedition, to Ostend; he reached it in time, and 4000 of the men on board his ships were enabled to take part in the battle, and they were unquestionably amongst the best troops in the whole line, as the Admiral declared. Who can determine what degree of influence they may have had? The English thought the battle lost, during the whole day, and they acknowledge that it would have been so, but for Grouchy’s error.

ANECDOTES ON THE 18TH BRUMAIRE.—SIEYES.—GRAND

ELECTOR.—CAMBACERES.—LEBRUN, &C.

After walking some time in the garden, the Emperor got into his calash. The weather was delightful: we made two turns at full gallop. I was alone with him. He spoke much of my son, and his future prospects, with a degree of interest and kindness which went to my heart. He said that, considering his age, the circumstance of being sent to St. Helena was of inestimable value to his future life; that it must be like a hot-house for bringing forward his character.

After dinner, the Emperor resumed the subject of the 18th Brumaire, and related it to us with an infinite number of minor details. As he has long since dictated it to General Gourgaud, I shall refer to his publication for the mass of the particulars of that event. I shall only give here some little anecdotes or accessories which possibly may not be found there.

Napoleon’s situation on his return from Egypt was unprecedented. He had found himself immediately applied to by all parties, and had been entrusted with all their secrets. There were three which were particularly distinct; the _Manege_, of which General J. was one of the leaders; the _Moderates_, directed by Sieyes; and the _Rotten_ party, with Barras at their head.

The determination which Napoleon formed to ally himself with the Moderates, exposed him, he said, to great danger. With the Jacobins he would have risked nothing; they offered to name him Dictator. “But, after conquering with them,” observed the Emperor, “it would have been necessary, almost immediately, to conquer against them. A club cannot endure a permanent chief; it wants one for every successive passion. Now to make use of a party one day, in order to attack it the next, under whatever pretext it is done, is still a piece of treachery; it was inconsistent with my principles.”

“My dear Sir,” said the Emperor to me, at another moment, after having again run over the events of the 18th of Brumaire, "that is a far different thing, you will allow, from the conspiracy of St. Real, in which there is much more plotting, and much less result; ours was struck at a single blow. It is certain that there never was a great revolution which caused less inconvenience; it was so generally desired; it was accordingly crowned with universal applause.

"For my own part, all my share in the plot, for effecting this change, was confined to the assembling the whole crowd of my visitors at the same hour in the morning, and marching at their head to seize on power. It was from the threshold of my door, from the top of my own steps, and without my friends having any previous knowledge of my intentions, that I led them to this conquest; it was amidst the brilliant escort they formed, their lively joy, and unanimous ardour, that I presented myself at the bar of the ancients, to thank them for the Dictatorship with which they invested me.

“Metaphysicians have disputed, and will long dispute, whether we did not violate the laws, and whether we were not criminal; but these are mere abstractions, at best fit for books and tribunes, and which ought to disappear before imperative necessity: one might as well blame a sailor for waste and destruction, when he cuts away his masts to avoid being upset. The fact is that, had it not been for us the country must have been lost: and we saved it. The authors and chief agents of that memorable state transaction may and ought, instead of attempting denials or justifications, to answer their accusers proudly, like the Roman, _We protest that we have saved our country; come with us and return thanks to the gods_.”

On the completion of the Revolution of the 18th Brumaire, three provisional consuls were appointed; Napoleon, Sieyes, and Ducos. A president was to be chosen, the moment was critical, and rendered the General highly necessary; he accordingly seized the arm-chair, and his two acolytes did not venture to dispute it with him. Besides, Ducos declared himself that moment, once for all. The General alone could save them, he said: and thenceforth he was of his opinion in every thing. Sieyes was greatly mortified, but he was obliged to do the same.

Sieyes was a man of a very selfish disposition. On the first meeting of the three Consuls in Council, and as soon as they were alone, Sieyes went in a mysterious manner to the doors of the apartment, to see whether any person was within hearing; then, returning to Napoleon, he said to him with complacency, and in an under-tone, shewing him, at the same time, a sort of cabinet. “Do you see that pretty piece of furniture? You do not, perhaps, suspect how valuable it is?” Napoleon thought he was directing his attention to some appendage of the crown, which had, perhaps, been used by Louis XVI. “That is not the matter;" said Sieyes, seeing his mistake, “I am going to let you into the secret; it contains 800,000 francs!” and his eyes opened wide. “In our Directorial magistracy, we reflected that a Director going out of office might very possibly go back to his family without a denier; a very unbecoming thing: we therefore invented this little chest from which we drew a sum for every Director going out of office. There are now no more Directors; we are therefore the possessors of the remainder. What shall we do with it?” Napoleon, who had paid great attention, and began, at length, to understand, said: “If it comes to my knowledge, the sum shall go to the public treasury; but if I should not hear of it (and I know nothing of it yet), you and Ducos, being two old Directors, can divide it between you: only make haste, for to-morrow it may perhaps, be too late. The colleagues did not wait to be told twice,” observed the Emperor. "Sieyes hastily undertook the operation, and divided the spoil like the lion in the fable. He made several lots; he took one as the eldest Director; another, because he was to have continued in office longer than his colleague; a third, because he had suggested the idea of this happy change, &c. In short he adjudged 600,000 francs to himself, and only sent 200,000 to poor Ducos, who, when his first emotions had subsided, insisted on revising this calculation, and seemed bent on quarrelling with Sieyes. Both of them reverted to the subject every moment, wishing their third colleague to arbitrate between them; but the latter always replied—Settle it between yourselves. Above all, be quiet, for if the matter should come to my ears, you would have to give up the whole.

“When we were about to fix on a constitution,” said the Emperor, “Sieyes treated us with another very entertaining scene. Circumstances and public opinion had made him a sort of oracle in these matters; he accordingly unfolded his various propositions in the committees of the two councils, with great mystery, importance and method; they were all adopted, good, bad, and indifferent. Finally, he crowned the work by displaying the upshot which had been expected with lively and anxious impatience: he proposed a Grand Elector, who was to reside at Versailles, to enjoy six millions per annum, to represent the national dignity, and to have no other duty than the nomination of two Consuls, one for peace and the other for war; entirely independent in their functions. Moreover, if this Elector should make a bad choice, the Senate was to _absorb_ him himself. This was the technical expression, meaning, to remove him, by replacing him, as a punishment, in the crowd of private citizens.”

Napoleon, for want of experience in assemblies, and also through a degree of circumspection which the circumstances of the moment required, had taken little or no share in what had preceded; but now, at this decisive point, he began, he said, to laugh in Sieyes’s face, and to cut up all his metaphysical nonsense without mercy. Sieyes did not like to defend himself, said the Emperor, nor did he know how to do it. He made the attempt, however, saying that, after all, a king was nothing more. Napoleon replied, “But you take the abuse for the principle, the shadow for the body. And how can you imagine, M. Sieyes, that a man of any talent or the least honour, will make up his mind to act the part of a pig fattening on a few millions?” After this sally, which, said the Emperor, made those who were present laugh immoderately, Sieyes remained overwhelmed; it was no longer in his power to resume the subject of his Grand Elector; and a First Consul was determined on, who was to have the supreme decision and the nomination of all offices: with two accessory Consuls, who were to have deliberate voices only. It was in fact, from that moment, a unity of power. The First Consul was precisely the President of America, veiled under the forms which the irritable spirit of the times still rendered necessary. The Emperor accordingly said that his reign began in reality from that day.

The Emperor in some measure regretted that Sieyes had not been nominated one of the consuls. Sieyes, who at first refused the appointment, afterwards regretted it himself, but not until it was too late. “He had fallen into a mistake respecting the nature of these Consuls,” said Napoleon; “he was fearful of mortification, and of having the First Consul to contend with at every step; which would have been the case, if all the Consuls had been equal; we should then have all been enemies: but, the constitution having made them subordinate, there was no room for the struggles of obstinacy, no cause of enmity, but a thousand reasons for a genuine unanimity. Sieyes discovered this, but too late.” The Emperor said he might have been very useful in council—better, perhaps, than the others, because he had occasionally novel and most luminous ideas; but that, in other respects, he was wholly unfit to govern. “After all,” said the Emperor, “in order to govern it is necessary to be a military man; one can only rule in boots and spurs. Sieyes, without being fearful, was always in fear; his police spies disturbed his rest.”

At the Luxembourg, during the provisional consulate, he often awakened his colleague Napoleon, and harassed him about the new plots which he heard of every moment from his private police. “But have they corrupted our guard?” Napoleon used to say. “No.” “Then go to bed.—In war, as in love, my dear Sir, we must come to close quarters to conclude matters. It will be time enough to be alarmed when our 600 men are attacked.”

The Emperor said that, for the permanent government, he had chosen, in Cambacérès and Lebrun, two distinguished characters; both prudent, moderate, and able, but of completely opposite principles—the one the advocate of abuses, prejudices, old institutions, the revival of honours and distinctions, &c.—the other cold, austere, insensible, contending against all these ideas, yielding to them without illusion, and naturally falling into ideology.

In resuming, he observed that Sieyes might perhaps have contributed to give a different colour, another characteristic, to the imperial administration; but it was observed to him that this variation could not have been otherwise than injurious, for Napoleon’s choice had been much approved of at the time. The men he had selected, it was said, were not liable to be objected to by Europe. They had greatly contributed to conciliate public opinion in France, which ran wholly against Sieyes. His name and the recollections attending it would, in the eyes of many people, have disgraced the acts in which he might have taken part; and there was an anecdote eagerly repeated at the time, which shews all the ill-will that was borne towards him. It was said that, whilst he was talking with the Emperor, at the Tuileries, about Louis XIV. he had suffered the word _tyrant_ to escape him. "M. l’Abbé," the Emperor was said to have replied, “if Louis XVI. had been a tyrant, you would now be saying mass, and I should not be here.” The Emperor smiled at this anecdote, without confirming or denying it. It will hereafter appear that it was false.

FRESH AGGRAVATIONS FROM THE GOVERNOR.—HIS
ABSURDITIES.

Saturday 6th to Monday 8th.—I have not mentioned the Governor for some time. We endeavour to keep him as much as possible out of our thoughts; we now scarcely ever adverted to him. His ill-manners, and the vexations we endure from him oblige me to notice him to-day: they seem to have increased. He has just withheld from us some letters from Europe, although they came open, and in the most ostensible manner—merely because they had not passed through the hands of the Secretary of State; without considering that a want of formality can easily be rectified in England, but that it is irremediable at a distance of two thousand leagues. If, however, in thus rigorously and literally fulfilling his instructions, he had only had the humanity to let us know that he has received these letters, and from whom they come, he might set our minds at ease with regard to those respecting whose health, or whose attention to ourselves, we suffer so much anxiety: but he has the barbarity to make a mystery of the affair. It is not many days since, the Countess Bertrand having written to town, he had the note seized, and sent it back to her as having been written without his permission. He accompanied this insult with an official letter, by which he prohibited us, for the future, from all written or even verbal communication with the inhabitants, without submitting it to his approbation; and what is particularly absurd and incredible is, that he imposed this restriction on our intercourse with people whom he nevertheless permits us to visit at our own pleasure. He accompanied the publication of the act relating to us with commentaries which spread terror amongst the inhabitants; he complains of the excessive expense of the Emperor’s table, and insists on great reductions.—It had not been understood that General Bonaparte would have so many people about him. Ministers, he told us ingenuously, had never doubted that the permission they had sent us to go away would have induced us to quit the Emperor. All this shuffling produced an exchange of pretty sharp notes. To one of the Governor’s communications, in which he said, that if the restrictions imposed on us seemed too hard, we might relieve ourselves from them by going away, the Emperor himself dictated the following addition to the answer we had already written:—"That, having been honoured by him during his prosperity, we considered it our chief pleasure to serve him, now that he could do nothing for us; and if there were persons to whom this conduct was incomprehensible, so much the worse for them."

NEW VEXATIONS.—THE EMPEROR SELDOM STIRS OUT.—TRISTAN.—LA FONTAINE’S
FABLES.—THE BELLY RULES THE WORLD.—DIFFICULTY OF JUDGING OF MEN.

Tuesday 9th to Thursday 11th.—The Governor continues to annoy us, and is incessantly aggravating the misery of our situation. He seems resolved to place us in close confinement. He has published a proclamation in the town, ordering that all letters and notes addressed by us to the inhabitants, on any occasion whatever, shall be sent to him within twenty-four hours. He has also forbidden them to visit the Grand Marshal and his wife, who live at the entrance of our enclosure. In the beginning of this blockade of Madame Bertrand, it was so rigorously enforced that some medicines sent hence by the doctor for one of the Grand Marshal’s people, who was dying, could not be delivered; and it was only as an accommodation that the officer at last took upon him to let them pass over the wall.

The Governor, having read in a letter, sent by one of us to Europe, that the writer wanted several articles of clothing, linen, &c., came and told him that he might have most of those articles out of the stores sent by Government for Napoleon: and the individual replying that he preferred purchasing them, being unwilling to incur any obligation, the Governor drily answered that he might pay for them if he had a fancy to do so. To which the other replied, “Excuse me, Sir, I like to choose my shops myself.” In consequence of this, the Governor afterwards sent him word, by the Doctor, that he should complain of him, for having _contemptuously_ refused the gifts of Government. The other instantly replied that he should be much obliged to him; being much happier to give him an opportunity of transmitting refusals than requests, to the ministers he served.

All these petty tricks, the length and interest of our readings, and the continuance of the bad weather, which is dreadful, confine the Emperor more closely than ever to the house, and overwhelm him with melancholy: he now never stirs abroad. His amusement is now limited to going occasionally, about five o’clock, to visit Madame de Montholon, who has not yet gone abroad since her lying-in. We all meet there, and the Emperor converses for half an hour, or three-quarters, before he returns to his own apartment.

To-day he met little Tristan, the eldest son of M. de Montholon, who is only seven or eight years old, and runs about all day. The Emperor placed him between his knees, and tried to make him recite some fables, of which the poor child did not understand two words out of ten. The Emperor laughed heartily, blaming the practice of putting La Fontaine into the hands of children who cannot understand him; and began to explain these fables to Tristan; endeavouring to render their meaning more palpable to him; nor could any thing be more curious than the simplicity, justice, and logic of his illustrations.

Whilst he was explaining the fable of the Wolf and the Lamb, it was extremely laughable to hear the poor child say _Sire_, and _your Majesty_, and in speaking of the wolf, and to the Emperor, confuse all his expressions; whilst his ideas were probably in still greater confusion.

The Emperor thought this fable had far too much irony in it to be within the comprehension of children. It was likewise defective, he observed, in its principle and its moral; and this was the first time that he had been struck with these defects. It was false that the argument of the stronger was always the best; and if it sometimes happened so, in fact, that, he said, was the very evil, the abuse, which was to be condemned. The wolf, ought, therefore, to have been strangled in devouring the lamb.

Tristan is very idle. He confessed to the Emperor that he did not work every day. “Do you not eat every day?” said the Emperor to him, “Yes, Sire.” “Well, then, you ought to work every day; no one should eat who does not work.” “Oh! if that be the case, I will work every day,” said the child, quickly. “Such is the influence of the belly,” said the Emperor, patting that of little Tristan. "It is hunger that makes the world move. Come, my little man, if you are a good boy, we’ll make a page of you." "But I won’t be one," said Tristan, pouting and looking sulky.

Our afternoons were occupied in reading something selected in hopes of enabling us to kill time for an hour or two. At this period we were reading a voyage to Spitzbergen; the shipwreck of the Dutch at Nova Zembla; the _Causes celébres_, the trial of Calas; those of Martinguerre and the Marchioness of Brinvilliers. The author observed, in some part of the work, that the face often gave a false idea of the character. The Emperor paused, laid down the book, and said, with a look and tone that denoted conviction: “It is most true, and it is also true that no study will enable us to avoid this deception. How many proofs of this kind have I had! For instance, I had a person about me; his countenance undoubtedly.... But after all he had a mischievous eye; I ought to have guessed something from that.” He then went into some particulars of the character of the person in question. They had known each other from infancy, he said; he had long placed his entire confidence in this individual, who had talent and resources; the Emperor even thought that he had been attached and faithful—"But he was much too covetous," said he, “he was too fond of money. When I was dictating to him, and he sometimes had to write _millions_, it was never without a peculiar change of countenance, a smacking of his lips, and restlessness on his chair, which several times induced me to ask what ailed him.”

The Emperor said this vice was too glaring to allow of his retaining this person about him; but that, considering his other qualities, he ought, perhaps, to have contented himself with removing him into a different situation.

THE IRON MASK, &C.—INGENIOUS FICTION.

Friday, 12th.—The conversation to-day led us to speak of the Iron Mask, and we took a review of what has been said on the subject by Voltaire, Dutens, and others; and of what is found respecting him in Richelieu’s Memoirs. In these it is well known that he is said to have been the twin-brother of Louis XIV., and the elder of the two. On this occasion, some one added that, being employed in making out a pedigree, a person had come to him to demonstrate seriously to him that Napoleon was a lineal descendant from this Iron Mask, and consequently the legitimate heir of Louis XIII. and Henry IV., in preference to Louis XIV. and all his issue. The Emperor also said that he had heard something about it, and added that the credulity of mankind and their love of the marvellous are so great that it would not have been difficult to make out and substantiate something of the kind for the multitude, and that there would not have been wanting certain persons in the Senate to sanction it; probably, he observed, the very men who at a later period were so eager to revile him, as soon as they saw him in adversity.

We then went on to trace the foundation and the progress of this story. The name of the Governor of the Island of St. Marguerite, to whom the custody of the Iron Mask was entrusted, was M. de Bonpart, a circumstance, to begin with, very singular. This man, it was asserted, was aware of the origin of his prisoner. He had a daughter: she and the prisoner were both young; they saw each other and loved. The Governor, having informed the Court of this circumstance, it was decided that there was no great objection to allowing the unfortunate captive to seek in love an alleviation of his misery, and they were married.

The person who was speaking at this moment said that, at the time the above particulars were related to him, he had been very much entertained by them, and had happened to say that he thought the story very ingeniously imagined; upon which the narrator of it became excessively angry, maintaining that the marriage could very easily be verified by the registers of one of the parishes of Marseilles, which he named. He added that the children born of this marriage were silently and secretly conveyed to Corsica, where the difference of language, chance, or perhaps intention had, changed the name of Bonpart into Bonaparte and Buonaparte, which, after all, has the same meaning, and is in fact the same thing.

After this anecdote, it was added that, at the time of the revolution, a similar story had been made in favour of the Orleans branch. It was founded in a document found in the Bastille, and surmised that Anne of Austria, who was brought to bed after twenty-three years of sterility, had been delivered of a girl, and that Louis XIII. fearing she might have no more children, had been induced to put away that girl and falsely to substitute in her stead a boy, which was Louis XIV.; that the following year, however, the Queen had been again brought to bed, and this time really of a boy, which boy was Philip, the head of the house of Orleans, who thus turned out to be with his descendants the legitimate heirs to the throne, whilst Louis XIV. and his issue were only intruders and usurpers. According to that story the Iron Mask was a girl. A pamphlet on this subject was circulated in the provinces at the time the Bastille was taken, but the story did not gain credit, and very quietly disappeared, without having, it seems, engaged the attention of the capital even for a moment.

JUNOT, HIS WIFE, &C.

Saturday, 13th.—The conversation again fell upon Junot. Of the considerable fortunes which the Emperor had bestowed, that of Junot, he said, was one of the most extravagant. The sums he had given him almost exceeded belief, and yet he was always in debt; he had squandered treasures, without credit to himself, without discernment or taste, and, too frequently, the Emperor added, in gross debauchery.

He has been known more than once, after having taken a most copious and substantial breakfast, in his magnificent _hotel_ at Paris, fired with anger at the most trifling demand made by the most insignificant creditor, to threaten to pay the debt with his sword. Every time he saw the Emperor, said Napoleon, it was to hint at some fresh embarrassment, be reprimanded and assisted. In the campaign of Austerlitz, he came to the Emperor at Schönbrun; but this time, said Napoleon, it was not to intercede precisely for himself. He took at this period a most lively interest in the beautiful Madame Recamier. He had just arrived from Paris, and began his conversation with the Emperor by a most virulent philippic against M. de Marbois, then Minister of the Treasury, who had been base enough, he said, to refuse M. Recamier a loan of only two millions, to save him from bankruptcy. All Paris was indignant. This Marbois, he added, was a wicked man, an unworthy servant, who did not love the Emperor. He, Junot, had gone to him and had used every endeavour to persuade him, but to no purpose. He had represented to him the enormity of his conduct, and had assured him (and such added Junot was the general opinion in Paris,) that if the Emperor had been in the capital he would have immediately ordered the money to be given to M. Recamier. “He was on a wrong scent,” said the Emperor, "for I coolly replied to this passionate lover who was almost out of his senses: ‘You and Paris are both mistaken, I should not have ordered even two thousand _sous_ to be given; and I should have been very much displeased with De Marbois if he had acted otherwise than he has done. _I_ am not Madame Recamier’s lover, and I do not come forward to the assistance of merchants who keep up an establishment of six hundred thousands francs per annum. Know that, M. Junot, and learn also that the Treasury does not lend money to those whom it knows to have been long since on the road to bankruptcy; it has other claims to satisfy.’ Junot," added the Emperor, “was obliged to calm his emotion, thinking probably that there were hard-hearted people at Vienna as well as at Paris.”

Junot travelled as fast as the Emperor himself; he had his relays, said Napoleon, hundreds of horses, and other extravagances of the kind.