Chapter XVII: Part 17

The Emperor added that, not so much in his capacity as sovereign, but as being fond of Junot, and actuated also by a sort of feeling derived from the similarity of birth-place, he being also originally from Corsica, he had one day sent for Madame Junot, in order to give her some paternal admonitions on the subject of the extravagance of her husband’s expenditure, the profusion of diamonds which she herself had inconsiderately displayed after her return from Portugal, and her intimate connections with a certain foreigner, which might give umbrage in a political point of view. But she rejected this advice, dictated alone by concern for her interest. “She grew angry,” said the Emperor, “and treated me like a child; nothing then remained for me to do but to send her about her business, and abandon her to her fate. She fancied herself a princess of the family of the Comnenes; and Junot had been made to believe it when he was induced to marry her. Her family was from Corsica, and resided in the neighbourhood of mine; they were under great obligations to my mother, not merely for her benevolence towards them, but for services of a more positive nature.” The Emperor then gave the following explanation:

"The Genoese, in evacuating the Morea, had formerly carried a colony of Maniotes to Corsica and settled them in the neighbourhood of Ajaccio. M. de Vergennes, while he was ambassador at Constantinople, married a Greek woman; and, on his return to France, being greatly in favour with Louis XVI. he took it into his head that he must have married a princess. It so happened that some political circumstances occurred to favour his wish; the downfall of Constantinople was believed in at that moment, and it would have suited France to advance some pretensions to a portion of that empire. A man of the name of Comnene, a relation of Madame de Vergennes, was therefore sent for from the Greek colony near Ajaccio, and, having been brought to Versailles, was soon after, by virtue of letters-patent of Louis XVI., acknowledged a descendant from the Emperors of Constantinople. This said Comnene was a large farmer, whose sister had unexpectedly married, some years before, a Frenchman, a clerk in the victualling department named P—. After the elevation of the family, and through the interest of M, de Vergennes, this P—, clerk in the victualling department, had become a man of great consequence, having had the contract for supplying the whole army of Rochambeau. The daughter of the clerk was this very Madame Junot, duchess of Abrantes.

“Junot, in the campaign of Russia, gave me great cause of dissatisfaction;” said the Emperor, “he was no longer the same man, and committed some gross blunders which cost us dear.”

After the return from Moscow, Junot, in consequence of the dissatisfaction he had given, lost the governorship of Paris; and the Emperor sent him to Venice. However that species of disgrace was almost immediately softened, by his appointment as Governor-general of Illyria; but the blow was struck. The frequent incoherences which had been observed in Junot’s behaviour for some time past, and which had arisen from the excesses in which he had indulged, broke out at last into complete insanity. It was necessary to secure him, and to convey him home to his paternal mansion, where he died miserably shortly afterwards, having mutilated his person with his own hands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

MARSHAL LANNES.—MURAT AND HIS WIFE, &C.

Sunday, 14th.—During the dinner, speaking of dress, it was said that, amongst the number of great personages of that time, none had carried extravagance in that point further than Murat, and yet, some one observed, his dress was for the most part so singular and fantastic that the public called him King Franconi.[28]

Footnote 28:

Director of a theatre at Paris, similar to Astley’s here.

The Emperor laughed very heartily, and confessed that certain costumes and manners sometimes gave to Murat the appearance of a quack operator or a mountebank. It was added that Bernadotte also took infinite pains with his dress, and that Lannes bestowed much time upon his. The Emperor expressed himself much surprised at what he had heard respecting the two latter, and this led him to repeat how sincerely he regretted the loss of Marshal Lannes. “Poor Lannes,” said he, "had passed the night which preceded the battle, in Vienna, and not alone. He appeared on the field without having taken any food, and fought the whole day. The physician said that this triple concurrence of circumstances caused his death, he required a great deal of strength after the wound to enable him to bear it, and unfortunately nature was almost exhausted before.

“It is generally said,” the Emperor observed, “that there are certain wounds, to which death seems preferable; but this is very seldom the case, I assure you. It is at the moment we are going to part with existence that we cling to it with all our might. Lannes, the most courageous of men, deprived of both his legs, would not hear of death, and was irritated to such a degree as to declare that the two surgeons who attended him deserved to be hanged for behaving so brutally towards a Marshal. He had unfortunately overheard them whisper to each other, as they thought without being heard, that it was impossible he could recover. Every moment the unfortunate Lannes called for the Emperor; he twined himself round me,” said Napoleon, “with all he had left of life; he would hear of no one but me, he thought but of me; it was a kind of instinct! Undoubtedly he loved his wife and children better than me; yet he did not speak of them: it was he that protected them, whilst I on the contrary was his protector. I was for him something vague and undefined, a superior being, his Providence, which he implored!”

Somebody then observed that the world had spoken very differently on the subject; that it had been reported that Lannes had died like a maniac, vociferating imprecations against the Emperor, at whom he seemed enraged; and it was added that he had always an aversion to the Emperor, and had often manifested it to him with insolence. “What an absurdity,” said the Emperor, “Lannes, on the contrary, adored me. He was assuredly one of the men on whom I could most implicitly rely. It is very true that, in the impetuosity of his disposition, he has sometimes suffered some hasty expressions against me to escape his lips, but he would probably have broken the head of any person who had chanced to hear them.”

Returning to Murat, some one observed that he had greatly influenced the unfortunate events of 1814. “He determined them,” said the Emperor, “he is one of the principal causes of our being here. But the fault is originally mine. There were several men whom I had made too great; I had raised them above the sphere of their intelligence. I was reading, some days since, his proclamation on abandoning the Viceroy, which I had not seen before. It is difficult to conceive any thing disgraced by a greater degree of turpitude: he says in that document that the moment is come to choose between two banners, that of crime and that of virtue. It is my banner which he calls the banner of crime! and it is Murat, my creature, the husband of my sister, the man who owed every thing to me, who would have been nothing without me, who exists by me, and is known through me alone—it is Murat who writes this! It is impossible to desert the cause of misfortune with more unfeeling brutality; and to run with more unblushing baseness to hail a new destiny.”

From that moment, Madame (mother of the Emperor) refused to have any thing more to do with either Murat or his wife; to all their entreaties she invariably answered that she held traitors and treachery in abhorrence. As soon as she was at Rome, after the disasters of 1814, Murat hastened to send her eight magnificent horses out of his stables at Naples; but Madame would not accept them. She resisted, in like manner, every effort of her daughter Caroline, who constantly repeated that, after all, the fault was not hers; that she had no share in it; that she could not command her husband. But Madame answered, like Clytemnestra—"If you could not command him, you ought at least to have opposed him:—but what struggles have you made? what blood has flowed? At the expense of your own life, you ought to have defended your brother, your benefactor, your master, against the sanguinary attempts of your husband.

“On my return from Elba,” said the Emperor, "Murat’s head was turned, on hearing that I had landed in France. The first intelligence he received of this event informed him that I was at Lyons. He was accustomed to my great returns of fortune; he had more than once seen me placed in most extraordinary circumstances. On this occasion, he thought me already master of all Europe, and determined to endeavour to wrest Italy from me; for that was his object, the aim of all his hopes. It was in vain that some men, of the greatest influence amongst the nations which he attempted to excite to rebellion, threw themselves at his feet and assured him that he was mistaken; that the Italians had a king on whom alone they had bestowed their love and their esteem. Nothing could stop him; he ruined himself, and contributed to ruin us a second time; for Austria, supposing that he was acting at my instigation, would not believe my professions, and mistrusted me. Murat’s unfortunate end corresponds with his conduct. Murat was endowed with extraordinary courage and little intelligence. The too great disproportion between those two qualities explains the man entirely. It was difficult, even impossible, to be more courageous than Murat and Lannes; but Murat had remained courageous and nothing more. The mind of Lannes, on the contrary, had risen to the level of his courage; he had become a giant. However," said the Emperor, in ending the conversation, “the execution of Murat is nevertheless horrible. It is an event in the history of the morals of Europe; an infraction of the rules of public decorum.—A king has caused another king, acknowledged by all the others, to be shot! What a spell he has broken!” . . . . . . . . .

SUMMARY OF THE THREE MONTHS OF
APRIL, MAY, AND JUNE.

I have already observed that, in a work like the present, it is impossible to keep up in any point a unity of interest and of object; I shall, therefore, now attempt to supply this defect by retracing, in a very few words, and uninterruptedly, the circumstances of aggravation which have occurred in the Emperor’s situation during these three months; the repeated instances of ill-treatment to which he has been subjected; the visible decline of his health; the general tenor of his habits; the principal topics of his conversation:—in a word, the bulletin, both physical and moral, of his person, during that short space of time.

1st. A new Governor arrives, who turns out to be a man of either very narrow views, or very bad intentions—a corporal with his watch-word, instead of a general with his instructions.

2dly. A declaration is required from every one of the captives that he submits beforehand to all the restrictions that may be imposed on Napoleon, and this in the hopes of detaching them from his person.

3dly. An official communication is made to us of the convention of the allied Sovereigns, who, without further ceremony, proclaim and sanction the banishment of Napoleon.

4thly. We receive the bill of the British Parliament, which converts into a law the act of oppression of the English ministers towards the person of Napoleon.

5thly. Lastly, Commissioners come in the name of their Sovereigns, to watch over the fetters, and contemplate the sufferings of the victim. Thus our horizon grows darker and darker, our chains are shortened, all hopes of amelioration vanish, and the most gloomy prospects are all that the future presents.

The arrival of the new Governor is the signal for the infliction of greater hardships. For the person of the Emperor it is the commencement of a new series of torments; every day he is wounded by the recurrence of some petty vexation.

The first step of Sir Hudson Lowe is an insult; his first word one of cruelty; one of his first acts, an act of inhumanity.

After that, he seems to have no other occupation, to have received no other instruction, than to torment us and make us suffer under every shape, on every occasion, and in every way.

The Emperor, who had at first resolved to adopt a system of strict stoicism, is nevertheless moved with indignation at this conduct, and expresses himself in strong terms. Conversations grow warm; the breach is made; it will grow wider every day.

The Emperor’s health is visibly affected, and we can observe a rapid alteration. Contrary to his natural temperament, he very frequently feels indisposed; on one occasion he is confined to his room for six days running, without going out at all. A secret melancholy, which endeavours to conceal itself from every eye, and perhaps from his own, begins to take possession of him; the latent seeds of disease appear already to be lurking in his system. He contracts every day the circle, already so confined, of his movements and his diversions. He gives up riding on horseback; he no longer invites any English to dinner,—he even abandons his daily occupations. The dictations in which he had hitherto seemed to take pleasure, are suspended. Disgust had seized him, he would sometimes say to me, and he could not muster courage enough to resume them. The greatest part of his days is passed in turning over books in his own apartment, or in conversing with us either publicly or in private; and in the evening, after dinner, he reads to us some plays of our great poets, or any other work which chance or the choice of the moment brings to his hand.

Yet the serenity of his mind, the equanimity of his disposition towards us, are not in the least impaired; on the contrary, we seem more united like one family. He is more ours, and we belong more to him; his conversations offer a greater degree of confidence, freedom, and interest.

He would now often send for me into his room, to converse with him; and these private conversations would sometimes lead him to subjects of great importance,—such as the war in Russia, that of Spain, the conferences of Tilsit and Erfurth, which will be found in this portion of my Memoirs.

END OF VOL. II.

ANDOVER: STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY B. BENSLEY.

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Footnotes

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Transcriber’s Note

Certain conventions of the text have been modified. For instance, a series of dots (....) were employed where a name was elided. These have been replaced with long dashes (———) in order to avoid awkward line breaks.

Given the publication date, spelling has been generally allowed to stand as printed. But errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and are noted here.

There were a number of instances in the text where quoted words were missing either an opening or closing quotation mark. The proper placement is not always obvious, but the most plausible choice has been made. The paragraph beginning at the foot of p. 294 was particularly obscure and has been left to the reader to decipher.

The issues tabulated below should be noted, along with the resolutions. The references below are to the page and line in the original.

9.26 the glory and prosperity of their [‘/,] Inverted.
9.40 my establis[h]ment on the throne Added.
21.32 you were attending the birth of a cob[b]ler’s Added.
son.
30.13 they had been greatly deceived on [t]his Added.
point.
36.33 leading in very different d[i]rections. Added.
45.40 [“]I shall keep this and give you mine Added.
55.15 We wanted all this, and, ther[e]fore], in Added.
spite of
55.17 plunged into confusion and t[mulu/umul]t Transposed.
55.36 and said, [“]You see his best friends Added.
62.21 the leading star of the nations....[”] Added.
63.4 said the Emperor, “[h]e decided the fate of Added.
France
67.17 he did not spare him[.] Added.
68.19 “Sire,” said he at length, [“]a circumstance Added.
occurred to me
80.31 "Art. V.[—]His Majesty the King Added.
89.7 an aide-de-camp is the best man that can be Added.
chosen[.]
90.20 [“/‘]You will see that they will hold Replaced.
90.22 detained me to-day.[’]” Added.
101.13 Abb[e/é] de Pradt," continued the Emperor Replaced.
105.33 [“]Talleyrand, perhaps, might have done this: Added.
106.16 How many arra[n]gements should I not have Added.
proposed!
108.20 [“]If all this be attributed Added.
120.30 It can be proved [t]hat this was merely the Restored.
result
131.11 Here I committed an error,[”] said the Added.
Emperor,
131.12 [“]which the more unpardonable Added.
133.28 [“/‘]We are placing,[”/’] Replaced
133.29 said they, [“/‘]an Italian Replaced.
133.31 on the Gauls.[’”] Added.
136.10 I placed one [one] of my brothers at their Removed.
head
137.25 the period in which he flourished.[”] Added.
149.23 [“/‘]You had better have taken his life, I Replaced.
should
149.26 me to console him in his misery.[’] Added.
167.38 ‘M. L[a/e] Sage,’ said he, Replaced.
168.4 a considerable time afterwar[d]s Added.
172.41 [“]There have been published Added.
174.27 two millions[,] worth of copies Removed.
180.28 till half-past eight o’clock[,/.] Replaced.
199.16 [“]I was provoked to the utmost extreme Added.
226.2 the Duke [D/d]’Enghien, Replaced.
231.19 on the part of the First Co[u]nsul to M. de Removed.
Chateaubriand
241.10 your duties, submission, and dependance, Added.
&c.[”]
267.37 [“]Two of the generals, Added.
270.22 [“]But this proved for me," said the Emperor Added.
276.30 who amused himself with calcu[l]ating Added.
281.15 complete liberty of universal exchange.[”] Added.
285.24 Brissot, Condorcet, Vergn[i]aud>, Gaudet Added.
288.1 All thos[e], in the higher classes of society Added.
300.38 acts of vileness have reduced France[’] in the Removed.
eyes
303.38 the _corps [d]’armée_ Added.
315.22 said[,] “I found it a very difficult thing Added.
316.8 “Six, Sire.” [“]How the plague can that be?” Added.
317.7 “Well,[”] said he Added.
317.13 I can bet[t]er employ the leisure Added.
318.4 the Emperor’s place on an eleva[va]tion of one Removed.
or two steps.
326.3 a discussion once arose respec[t]ing the plan Added.
of a decree
334.29 19th.—To[ /-]day the Northumberland sailed Added.
354.5 in all the instruments and access[a/o]ries of Replaced.
war.
382.21 [“]That is not the matter;” Added.
385.6 he had chosen, in Cambac[èré/érè]s and Lebrun, Transposed.
387.16 of this blockade of Madame Bert[r]and Added.
397.26 [“]However,” said the Emperor Removed.