Chapter II: Part 2

“Sire,” I replied, “there never was, perhaps, a mission more agreeable and satisfactory in every point of view. I commenced it early in the spring, and proceeded from Paris to Toulon, and from Toulon to Antibes, following the line of coast and occasionally diverging into the interior. I travelled nearly thirteen hundred leagues, but unfortunately the time was short. The minister, in his instructions, had strictly limited the period to three, or at most, to four months. It would be difficult for me to give an adequate description of all the delight, enjoyments, and advantages which I derived from the journey. I was a member of your Council, an officer of your household. I was every where considered as one of your _missi dominici_, and was received with suitable respect. The more I behaved with discretion, moderation, and simplicity, visiting myself the high functionaries, whose attendance I was authorized to require, the more I was treated with deference and complaisance. For one, who shewed any distrust, or betrayed any symptom of ill-humour or envy; (for I afterwards learnt from themselves, that my character, as a nobleman, emigrant, and chamberlain, formed three certain grounds for reprobation;) for one, I repeat, who looked upon me with a jealous eye, I found many whose communications were altogether unreserved, even upon subjects, respecting which I should not have presumed to make inquiry. They assured me that they took pleasure in unbosoming themselves to me with perfect openness; that they viewed my situation, near the person of the sovereign, as a favourable medium; and considered me as the confessor upon whom they relied for transmitting their most secret thoughts to the _Most High_. The more I endeavoured to convince them that they were mistaken with regard to my situation and the nature of my mission, the more they were confirmed in the contrary opinion. In so short a period, what a lesson for me on mankind! There were none of these high functionaries who did not differ from each other with regard to the views, means, and designs of all the objects under consideration; and yet they were all men selected with care, of tried ability, and generally of great merit. Persons in private life also looked up to me as to a ray of Providence, and applied to me either publicly or in secret. How many things did I not learn! How numerous the denunciations and accusations communicated to me! What a multitude of local abuses, of petty intrigues, were disclosed to me!

“Altogether unacquainted with affairs, and until then absolutely ignorant of official proceedings, I made use of that peculiar opportunity to obtain information. I did not fail to make myself acquainted with all the objects and particular circumstances of every party. I was not apprehensive of shewing my ignorance to the first who presented themselves, for I was thus enabled to qualify myself for discussing business with the others.

“It is true, Sire, that my special mission was restricted to the mendicity establishments and the houses of correction: but feeling, as I did, all the want of a stock of knowledge, fit to render myself useful to the Council of State, and taking advantage of my appointment, I connected with it, of my own accord, the minute inspection of prisons, hospitals, and beneficent institutions, and I also took a survey of all our ports and squadrons.

“How magnificent the combination which thus presented itself to my view! I every where beheld the most perfect tranquillity and complete confidence in the government; every hand, every faculty, every branch of industry, was employed; the soil was embellished by the flourishing state of agriculture, it was the finest time of the year; the roads were excellent; public works were in progress in almost in every quarter;—the canal of Arles, the noble bridge of Bordeaux, the works of Rochefort, the canals from Nantes to Brest, to Rennes, to Saint Malo; the foundation of Napoleonville, intended to be the key of the whole peninsula of Britanny; the magnificent works of Cherbourg, those of Antwerp, sluices, moles, or other improvements in most of the towns of the Channel—such is the sketch of what I saw.

“On the other hand, the ports of Toulon, Rochefort, L’Orient, Brest, Saint Malo, Havre, and Antwerp, displayed an extraordinary degree of activity; our roads were filled with vessels, and the numbers increased daily: our crews were training in spite of every obstacle, and our young conscripts were becoming good seamen, fit for future service. I, who belonged to the old naval establishment, was astonished at every thing I saw on board, so very great were the improvements made in the art, and so far did they exceed, in every point of view, all that I had witnessed.

“The squadrons belonging to the different ports got under sail every day, and executed their regular manœuvres, like the parades of garrisons, and all this took place within sight of the English, who thought it a ridiculous farce, without foreseeing the danger with which they were threatened; for, never at any period was our navy more formidable, or our ships more numerous. We already had upwards of 100 afloat or on the stocks, and we were making daily additions to the number. The officers were excellent, and animated with zeal and ardour. I had no idea whatever of the forward state of our preparations, before I witnessed it in person, and should not have believed it, had I been told of it.

“With respect to the mendicity establishments, the special object of my mission, your intentions, Sire, had been ill understood, and the plan was altogether unsuccessful. In most of the departments, mendicity not only remained with all its defects, but no steps whatever had been taken for its annihilation. The fact was that several prefects, so far from making the establishments a terror to the _mendicants_, had merely considered them as a refuge for the _poor_. Instead of holding out confinement as a punishment, they caused it to be sought after as an asylum; and thus the lot of the prisoners might be envied by the hard-working peasantry of the neighbourhood. France might, in that way, have been covered with similar establishments, which might have been filled without diminishing the number of mendicants, who commonly make a trade of begging, and follow it in preference. I was, however, enabled to judge that the extirpation of the evil was possible, and the example of some departments, in which the prefects had taken a better view of the subject was sufficient to produce that conviction. There were a few in which it had entirely disappeared.

“It is an observation which makes an immediate and striking impression, that, all other things fairly averaged, mendicity is much more rare in those parts which are poor and barren, and much more common in those which are fruitful and abundant. It is also infinitely more difficult to effect its destruction in the places where the clergy have enjoyed superior wealth and power. In Belgium, for instance, mendicants were seen to derive honour from their trade, and boast of having followed it for several generations. These claims belonged peculiarly to them, and that country was accordingly the rendezvous of mendicity.” “But I am not surprised at it,” resumed the Emperor, “the difficulty of this important consideration consists entirely in discriminating accurately between the _poor_ man who commands our respect, and the _mendicant_ who ought to excite our indignation; besides, our religious absurdities confound these two classes so completely that they seem to make a merit, a kind of virtue, of mendicity, and to encourage it by the promise of heavenly rewards. The mendicants are, in reality, neither more nor less than monks _au petit pied_; so that in the list of them we even find the mendicant monks. How was it possible for such ideas not to produce confusion in the mind, and disorder in society? A great number of saints have been canonized, whose only apparent merit was mendicity. They seem to have been transplanted to Heaven for that, which, considered as a matter of sound policy, ought to have subjected them to castigation and confinement in this world. This would not, however, have prevented them from being worthy of Heaven. But go on.”—

“It was not, Sire, without emotion that I observed the details of the charitable establishments. In contemplating the anxiety, the cares, the ardent charity, of so many sympathetic hearts, I was enabled to ascertain that we were far from yielding the palm, whatever might be the consideration, to any other people, and that we merely had less ostentation and made less use of artificial means to enhance our merits. The South, above all, and Languedoc, in particular, displayed a zeal and animation of which it would be difficult to form an adequate conception. The hospitals and alms-houses were every where numerous and well attended to. The foundlings had increased tenfold since the revolution, and I instantly ascribed it to the corruption of the times; but I was desired to remark, and constant reflection convinced me of the truth, that the result was, on the contrary, to be attributed to very satisfactory causes. I was assured that formerly the foundlings were so wretchedly taken care of, and so badly fed, that the whole of them were diminutive, sickly, and short-lived, and that from seven to nine perished out of ten; while at present their food, cleanliness, and the care taken of them, in every respect are such that nearly all of them are preserved, and constitute a fine race of children. They are thus indebted for their numbers solely to their preservation. Vaccination has also contributed, in an immense proportion, to their increase. These children are now treated with such attention as to give rise to a singular abuse. Mothers, even in easy circumstances, are tempted to expose their infants; they afterwards apply at the hospital, and, under a charitable pretence, offer to bring up one themselves; it is their own which is restored to them with the benefit of a small allowance. All this is carried on through the favour of the agents themselves, and often for the purpose of obtaining a trifling pension for one of their relations. Another abuse of this kind, and not less extraordinary, was that which I observed in Belgium, of persons getting their names entered a long time before, for the purpose of entitling them to send their children to the hospital. Any young couple, on their marriage, strove to get their names entered for vacancies, which fell to them some years afterwards, as a matter of right; it was a part of the marriage settlement.”—“O Jesus! Jesus!” exclaimed the Emperor, shrugging up his shoulders and laughing, “and after this make laws and regulations!”—

$1“$2”$3But with regard to the prisons, Sire, they were almost uniformly the scenes of horror and real misery, the shame and disgrace of our provinces, absolute sinks of corruption and infection, which I was obliged to pass through with the utmost haste, or from which I was driven back in spite of all my efforts. I had formerly visited certain prisons in England, and indulged in a smile at the kind of luxury which I observed in them; but it was quite a different thing with respect to ours, and my indignation was excited by the contrary extreme. There are no offences, I might even say crimes, that are not sufficiently punished by such habitations, and those who leave them should not, in strict justice, have any further expiation to make. Yet after all those confined in them were merely under a simple accusation, while those who had been found guilty, the real criminals, and hardened villains, had their special prisons, their houses of correction, where they were, perhaps, too well taken care of; and even, in the latter case, the honest day-labourer might have reason to envy their lot, and make comparisons injurious to Providence and society. Another striking inconsistency was observable in these houses of correction; it was the amalgamation, the habitual mixture of all the classes upon whom sentence had been passed. Some being imprisoned for small offences only for a year, and others for fifteen, twenty years, or for life, on account of the dreadful crimes they had perpetrated, it necessarily followed that they would be all reduced to one moral level, not by the amelioration of the latter, but rather by the corruption of the former.

“What struck me also very forcibly in La Vendée and the adjacent country was that maniacs had increased there, perhaps, tenfold more than in any other part of the empire, and that persons were detained in the mendicity establishments and other places of confinement, who were treated as vagabonds, or likely to become so, and who having been taken up in their childhood, had no knowledge of their parents or origin. Some of them had marks of wounds on their persons, but were ignorant how they had been inflicted. They had, no doubt, been made in their infancy. The opportunity of employing these persons, who had not acquired a single social idea, has been suffered to pass by; they are now unfit for any purpose.”—“Ah!” exclaimed the Emperor, “this is civil war and its hideous train; its inevitable consequences and its certain fruits! If some leaders make fortunes, and extricate themselves from danger, the dregs of the population are always trodden under foot, and become the victims of every calamity!”

“With respect to other matters, I found in the aggregate of these establishments a considerable number of persons who, I was told, whether right or wrong, were prisoners of state, and were kept in custody by order of the high, the intermediate, or the low, police.

“I listened to all those prisoners, I heard their complaints, and received their petitions, certainly, without any engagement on my part; for I had no right to contract any; and besides, I was perfectly aware that, having heard their testimony only, I could not attach guilt to any person. With the exception, however, of some notorious villains, they did not really, in general, deserve more at farthest than the common punishments of the correctional police.

“I found among them, in the prisons of Rennes, a boy between twelve and fourteen, who had, when only a few months old, been taken with a band of _Chauffeurs_. They had been all executed, and the boy had remained there ever since, without any decision on his case. His moral capabilities may be easily appreciated. He never saw, knew, or heard any but villains; they were the only kind of people of whose existence he was able to form an idea.

“At Mont Saint-Michel, a woman, whose name I have forgotten, particularly attracted my attention. She had rather a pretty face, pleasing manners, and a modest deportment. She had been imprisoned fourteen years, having taken a very active part in the troubles of La Vendée, and constantly accompanied her husband, who was the chief of a battalion of insurgents, and whom she succeeded, after his death, in the command. The wretchedness she suffered, and the tears she shed, had sensibly impaired her charms. I assumed a severe air during the recital of her misfortunes, but it was put on for the purpose of concealing the emotions which she excited. She had, by the kindness of her manners and her other qualifications, acquired a kind of empire over the vulgar and depraved women that were about her. She had devoted herself to the care of the sick; the prison infirmary was entrusted to her, and she was beloved by every one.

“With the exception of that woman, a few priests, and two or three old Chouan spies, the rest exhibited but a filthy compound of disgusting or extravagant depravity.

“I met with a married man, possessing an annual income of 15,000 livres, evidently confined in consequence of his wife’s intrigues, after the manner of the ancient _lettres de cachet_; and with prostitutes, who assured me they were detained, not as a punishment for the indiscriminate profusion of their favours, but out of spite at their want of complaisance for a single person. They told me lies, or they did not; but in either case ought they to be honoured with the title of prisoners of state, to be maintained at the expense of two francs a day, and contribute to render the government odious and ridiculous? Finally, I met with an unhappy man in a town of Belgium, who had married one of those girls for whom the municipalities provide marriage portions on great occasions. He was imprisoned on a charge of having stolen the portion, because he had neglected to earn it. He was positively required to discharge that important debt, and he as positively refused. He was, perhaps, required to do what was absolutely impossible for him.

“Immediately upon my return to Paris, I called on M. Réal, prefect of police of the district I had just visited. I considered it my duty, I said, to communicate to him, in a _friendly_ manner, the result of my observations. I must do him justice; for whether he was far from having a bad heart, whether he was impressed with my plain dealing, or affected perhaps, Sire, by the magic influence of your uniform, he thanked me, observed that I was doing him a real service, and assured me that he would take immediate steps for _relieving_ and _redressing_, such were his words, the cases I had laid before him. Meeting him, however, a few days afterwards at an assembly, he said, with apparent grief, ‘That is an unfortunate business, and very unfavourable to your Amazon (he alluded to General Mallet’s rash enterprise), which I thought myself capable of doing a few days ago of my own accord. I cannot now pretend to undertake it without an order from a superior quarter.’—I do not know how the thing ended.”

The Emperor dwelt some time on the abuses I had pointed out, and then concluded: “In the first place, in order to proceed regularly, it was incumbent upon you to ascertain whether your information was well founded, and to hear the evidence against the persons accused; and then it must be frankly admitted that abuses are inherent in every human establishment. You see that almost every thing, of which you complain, is done by the very persons who were expressly entrusted with the means of prevention. Can a remedy be provided, when it is impossible to see what passes every where? There is, as it were, a net spread over the low places, which envelops the lower classes. A mesh must be broken and discovered by a fortunate observer like you, before any thing of the matter is known in the upper regions. Accordingly, one of my dreams would have been, when the grand events of war were completely terminated, and I returned to the interior in tranquillity and at ease, to look out for half a dozen, or a dozen, of real philanthropists, of those worthy men who live but to do good. I should have distributed them through the empire, which they should have secretly inspected for the purpose of making their report to me. They would have been _spies of virtue_! They should have addressed themselves directly to me, and should have been my confessors, my spiritual guides, and my decisions with them should have been my good works done in secret. My grand occupation, when at full leisure, and at the height of my power, would have been the amelioration of every class of society. I should have descended to the details of individual comfort; and, had I found no motive for that conduct in my natural disposition, I should have been actuated by the spirit of calculation; for, after the acquisition of so much glory, what other means would have been left me to make any addition to it? It was because I was well aware that that swarm of abuses necessarily existed, because I wished for the preservation of my subjects, and was desirous of throwing every impediment in the way of subordinate and intermediate tyranny, that I conceived my system of state prisons, adapted to any crisis that might occur.”—“Yes, Sire, but it was far from being well received in our saloons, and contributed not a little to make you unpopular. An outcry was every where raised against the _new bastiles_, against the renewal of _lettres de cachet_.”—“I know it very well.” said the Emperor, “the outcry was echoed by all Europe, and rendered me odious. And yet, observe how powerful was the influence of words, envenomed by perfidy! The whole of the discontent was principally occasioned by the preposterous title of my decree, which escaped me from distraction, or some other cause; for, in the main, I contend that the law itself was an eminent service, and rendered individual liberty more complete and certain in France than in any other country of Europe.

“Considering the crisis from which we had emerged, the factions by which we had been divided, and the plots which had been laid, and were still contriving, imprisonment became indispensable. It was, in fact, a benefit; for it superseded the scaffold. But I was desirous of sanctioning it by legal enactments, and of placing it beyond the reach of caprice, of arbitrary power, of hatred, and of vengeance. Nobody, according to my law, could be imprisoned and detained as a prisoner of state, without the decision of my privy council, which consisted of sixteen persons; the first, the most independent and most distinguished characters of the state. What unworthy feeling would have dared to expose itself to the detection of such a tribunal? Had I not voluntarily deprived myself of the power of consigning individuals to prison? No man could be detained beyond a year, without a fresh decision of the Privy-Council, and four votes out of sixteen were sufficient to effect his release. Two councillors of state were bound to attend to the statements of the prisoners, and became from that moment their zealous advocates with the Privy Council. These prisoners were also under the protection of the Committee of individual liberty, appointed by the Senate, which was the object of public derision, merely because it made no parade of its labours and their results. Its services, however, were great; for it would argue a defective knowledge of mankind to suppose that Senators, who had nothing to expect from ministers, and who were their equals in rank, would not make use of their prerogative to oppose and attack them, whenever the importance of the case called for their interference. It must also be considered that I had assigned the superintendence of the prisoners, and of the police of the prisons, to the tribunals, which, from that instant, paralyzed the exercise of every kind of arbitrary authority by the other branches of administration and their numerous subordinate agents. After such precautions, I do not hesitate to maintain that civil liberty was as effectually secured by that law in France as it could possibly be. The public misconceived, or pretended to misconceive, that truth, for we Frenchmen must murmur at every thing and on every occasion.

“The fact is, that at the time of my downfal the state prisons scarcely contained 250 persons, and I found 9000 in them, when I became Consul. It will appear, from the list of those who were imprisoned, and upon an examination into the causes and motives of their confinement, that almost every one of them deserved death, and would have been sentenced to it by regular process of law; and it consequently follows that their imprisonment was, on my part, a benefit conferred upon them. Why is there nothing published against me on this subject at present? Where are the serious grievances to be found with which I am reproached? There are none in reality. If some of the prisoners afterwards made a merit of their sufferings with the King, on account of their exertions in his favour, did they not by that proceeding pronounce their own sentence and attest my justice? For what may seem a virtuous action in the King’s eye was incontestably a crime under me; and it was only because I was repugnant to the shedding of blood on account of political crimes, and because such trials would have but tended to the continuance of commotion and perplexity in the heart of the country, that I commuted the punishment to mere imprisonment.

“I repeat it, the French were, at my era, the freest people of all Europe, without even excepting the English; for, in England, if any extreme danger causes the suspension of the _Habeas Corpus_ act, every individual may be sent to prison at the mere will of ministers, who are not called upon to justify their motives, or to account for their conduct. My law had very different limits.” He concluded with saying;—“And then, at last, if, in spite of my good intention, and notwithstanding my utmost care, all that you have just said, and no doubt, many other things, were well founded, it must not still be considered so easy a task as it is thought to create a beneficial establishment for a nation. It is a remarkable circumstance that the countries which have been separated from us have regretted the laws with which I governed them. This is an homage paid to their superiority. The real, the only, mode of passing a decisive sentence upon me, with regard to their defects, would be to shew the existence of a better code in any other country. New times are drawing near, it will be seen,” &c.

About five o’clock, I was told by the Grand Marshal, who had just left the Emperor, that he wished to see me. He had staid at home the whole of the day. I found him engaged in examining the new billiard-table. He was apprehensive that the weather was too damp for walking, and he played at chess until dinner. In the evening, he read us Crebillon’s _Atrée et Thyeste_. That piece seemed horrible to us; we found it disgusting, and by no means of a tragic cast. The Emperor could not finish it.

EGYPT.—ST. JEAN D’ACRE.—THE DESERT.—ANECDOTES.

21st. About three o’clock, the Emperor called for his calash. He sent for me, and we walked together to the bottom of the wood where he had ordered the carriage to take him up. I had some particulars of no great moment to communicate, which personally concerned him. We observed, in the course of our ride, two vessels under sail for the island.

At dinner, the Emperor was very talkative. He had been just employed on his campaign in Egypt, which he had, for some time, neglected, and which, he said, would be as interesting as an episode of romance. In speaking of his position at St. Jean d’Acre, he observed:—It was certainly a daring thing to post myself thus in the heart of Syria, with only 12,000 men. I was 500 leagues from Desaix, who formed the other extremity of my army. It has been related, by Sydney Smith, that I lost 18,000 men before Acre, although my army consisted but of 12,000. An obscure person, M...., who had just left college, as it seemed, who knows nothing of what he describes, and whose only talent is that of tacking some sentences together, with a view, no doubt, of converting them to his emolument, the brother, however, of one whom I have loaded with favours, and who was one of my Council of State, has recently published something on that subject, on which I have cast a glance, and which vexes me on account of its silliness and the unfavourable colouring which he endeavours to throw over the glory and exploits of that army.

“Had I been master of the sea, I should have been master of the East, and the thing was so practicable that it failed only through the stupidity or bad conduct of some seamen.

“Volney, who travelled in Egypt before the revolution, had stated his opinion that that country could not be occupied without three great wars, against England, the Grand Signor, and the inhabitants. The latter, in particular, seemed difficult and terrible to him. He was altogether mistaken in that respect, for it gave us no trouble. We had even succeeded in making friends of the inhabitants, in the course of a short time, and of uniting their cause with ours. A handful of Frenchmen had thus been sufficient to conquer that fine country, which they ought never to have lost. We had actually accomplished prodigies in war and in politics. Our undertaking was altogether different from the crusades; the crusaders were innumerable and hurried on by fanaticism. My army, on the contrary, was very small, and the soldiers were so far from being prepossessed in favour of the enterprise that, at first, they were frequently tempted to carry off the colours and return. I had, however, succeeded in familiarizing them with the country, which supplied every thing in abundance, and at so cheap a rate that I was one time on the point of placing them on half-pay for the purpose of laying by the other half for them. I had acquired such an ascendancy over them, that I should have been able, by a mere order of the day, to make them Mahometan. They would have treated it as a joke, the population would have been gratified, and the very Christians of the East would have considered themselves gainers, and approved it, knowing that we could do nothing better for them and for ourselves.

“The English were struck with consternation at seeing us in possession of Egypt. We exposed to Europe the certain means of wresting India from them. They have not yet dismissed their apprehensions, and they are in the right. If 40 or 50,000 European families ever succeed in establishing their industry, laws, and government in Egypt, India will be more effectually lost to the English by the commanding influence of circumstances than by the force of arms.”

In the course of the evening, the Grand Marshal put the Emperor in mind of one of his conversations with Monge, the mathematician, at Cutakié, in the midst of the desert. “What do you think of all this, citizen Monge?” said Napoleon.—“Why, citizen general,” answered Monge, “I think, if there are ever seen in this place as many equipages as at the Opera house, there must first be some wonderful revolutions on the globe.” The Emperor laughed very heartily at the recollection. He had, however, he observed, a carriage with six horses on the spot. It was unquestionably the first of the kind that travelled over the desert, and accordingly it very much surprised the Arabs.

The Emperor remarked that the desert always had a peculiar influence on his feelings. He had never crossed it without being subject to a certain emotion. To him, he said, it was an image of immensity: it seemed to have no bounds, neither beginning nor end; it was an ocean on terra firma. His imagination was delighted with the sight, and he took pleasure in drawing our attention to the observation that Napoleon meant _Lion of the Desert_!...

The Emperor also told us that, when he was in Syria, it was a settled opinion at Cairo that he never would be seen there again, and he noticed the thievery and impudence of a little Chinese, who was one of his servants. “It was,” said he, “a little deformed dwarf, whom Josephine once took a fancy to at Paris. He was the only Chinese in France; thenceforth she would always have him behind her carriage. She took him to Italy, but as he was in the constant habit of pilfering, she wished to get rid of him. With that view, I took him with me on my Egyptian expedition. Egypt was a lift to him half-way on his journey. This little monster was entrusted with the care of my cellar, and I had no sooner crossed the desert than he sold, at a very low price, 2000 bottles of capital claret. His only object was to make money, convinced that I should never come back. He was not at all disconcerted at my return, but came eagerly to meet me, and acquainted me, as he said, like a faithful servant, with the loss of my wine. The robbery was so glaring that he was himself compelled to confess it. I was much urged to have him hanged, but I refused, because, in strict justice, I ought to have done as much to those in embroidered clothes, who had knowingly bought and drunk the wine. I contented myself with discharging and sending him to Suez, where he was at liberty to do what he pleased.”

On this subject I must observe that we were induced, in this place, to give momentary credit to a very singular coincidence. We were informed a few months ago, that on board one of the Chinese traders, which were then off the island, on their return to Europe, there was a Chinese, who said he had been in the Emperor’s service in Egypt. The Emperor instantly exclaimed, that it must be his little thief, whose story I have just told; but it was, in fact, a cook of Kleber’s.

The Emperor put a sudden stop to the conversation, and, with more gaiety than usual, turning to Madame Bertrand, said with a smile, “When shall you be at your apartments in the Tuileries? When will you give your splendid dinners to the ambassadors? But you will be obliged, at least, I am told so, to have new furniture, for it is reported that the fashions have entirely changed.” The conversation then naturally turned on the magnificence and luxury which we had witnessed under the Emperor.

PATERNAL ADVICE—REMARKABLE CONVERSATION—CAGLIOSTRO;
MESMER, GALL, LAVATER, &C.

22nd.—The Emperor came to my apartment about 10 o’clock, and took me out to walk. We all breakfasted under the trees. The weather was delightful, and the heat, though great, was not unwholesome. The Emperor ordered his calash; two of us were with him, and the third accompanied us on horseback. The Grand Marshal could not attend. The Emperor recurred to some misunderstanding which had taken place among us a few days before. He took a view of our situation and our natural wants;—“You are bound,” said he, “when you are one day restored to the world, to consider yourselves as _brothers_, on my account. My memory will dictate this conduct to you. Be so, then, from this moment!” He next described how we might be of mutual advantage to each other, the sufferings we had it in our power to alleviate, &c. It was, at once, a family and moral lesson, a lesson of feeling and conduct. It ought to have been written in letters of gold. It lasted nearly an hour and a quarter, and will, I think, never be forgotten by any of us. For myself, not only the principles and the words, but the tone, the expression, the action, and above all, the heart with which he delivered them, will never be forgotten by me.

About five o’clock, the Emperor entered my apartment where I was employed with my son, on the chapter of the battle of Arcole. He had something to say to me, and I followed him to the garden, where he resumed, at great length, the conversation that had taken place in the calash....

We now dined in the old topographical cabinet, adjoining to that of the Emperor, and the apartment formerly occupied by Montholon’s family, which, with the help of the books and shelves lately received from England, was converted into a tolerable library.

As the damage done by the fire in the saloon was long in repairing, we were obliged to continue at table in our new dining-room until the Emperor withdrew. This circumstance, however, gave additional interest to the conversation.

The Emperor was very communicative to-day. The conversation turned on dreams, presentiments, and foresights, which the English call _second sight_. We exhausted every common-place topic, ordinarily connected with these objects, and came at last to speak of sorcerers and ghosts. The Emperor concluded with observing, “All these quackeries, and many others, such as those of Cagliostro, Mesmer, Gall, Lavater, &c. are destroyed by this sole and simple argument: _All that may exist, but it does not exist._

“Man is fond of the marvellous; it has for him irresistible fascinations; he is ever ready to abandon what is near at hand, to run after what is fabricated for him. He voluntarily gives way to delusion. The truth is, that every thing about us is a wonder. There is nothing which can be properly called a phenomenon. Every thing in nature is a phenomenon. My existence is a phenomenon. The wood that is put on the fire and warms me, is a phenomenon; that candle yonder, which gives me light, is a phenomenon. All the first causes, my understanding, my faculties, are phenomena; for they all exist and we cannot define them. I take leave of you here,” said he, “and lo! I am at Paris, entering my box at the Opera. I bow to the audience; I hear their acclamations; I see the performers; I listen to the music. But if I can bound over the distance from Saint Helena, why should I not bound over the distance of centuries? Why should I not see the future as well as the past? Why should the one be more extraordinary, more wonderful, than the other? The only reason is, that it does not exist. This is the argument which will always annihilate, without the possibility of reply, all visionary wonders. All these quacks deal in very ingenious speculations; their reasoning may be just and seductive, but their conclusions are false, because they are unsupported by facts.

“Mesmer and Mesmerism have never recovered from the blow dealt at them by the report of Bailly on behalf of the Academy of Sciences. Mesmer produced effects upon a person by magnetizing him to his face, yet the same person, magnetized behind, without his knowing it, experienced no effect whatever. It was therefore, on his part, an error of the imagination, a debility of the senses; it was the act of the somnabule, who, at night runs along the roof without danger, because he is not afraid; but who would break his neck in the day, because his senses would confound him.

“I once attacked the quack Puységur, on his somnabulism, at one of my public audiences. He would have assumed a very lofty tone: I brought him down to his proper level with only these words: If your doctrine is so instructive, let it tell us something new! Mankind will, no doubt, make very great progress in the next two hundred years; let it specify any single improvement which is to take place within that period! Let it tell me what I shall do within the following week! Let it declare the numbers of the lottery, which will be drawn to-morrow!

“I behaved in the same manner to Gall, and contributed very much to the discredit of his theory. Corvisart was his principal follower. He and his colleagues have a great propensity to materialism, which is calculated to strengthen their theory and influence. But nature is not so poor. Were she so clumsy as to make herself known by external forms, we should do our business more promptly and know a great deal more. Her secrets are more subtle, more delicate, more evanescent, and have hitherto escaped the most minute researches. We find a great genius in a little hunchback; and a man, with a fine commanding person, turns out to be a stupid fellow. A big head, with a large brain, is sometimes destitute of a single idea; while a small brain is found to possess a vast understanding. And observe the imbecility of _Gall_. He attributes to certain protuberances propensities and crimes, which are not in nature, but arise solely from society and the conventional usages of mankind. What would become of the protuberance of theft, if there were no property; of drunkenness, if there were no fermented liquors; and of ambition, if there were no society?

“The same remarks apply to that egregious charlatan, Lavater, with his physical and moral relations. Our credulity lies in the defect of our nature. It is inherent in us to wish for the acquisition of positive ideas, when we ought, on the contrary, to be carefully on our guard against them. We scarcely look at a man’s features, before we pretend to know his character. We should be wise enough to repel the idea and to neutralize those deceitful appearances. I was robbed by a person who had grey eyes, and from that moment am I never to look at grey eyes without the idea, the fear, of being robbed? A weapon wounded me, and I am afraid of it wherever I see it; but was it the grey eyes that robbed me? Reason and experience, and I have been enabled to derive great benefit from both, prove that all those external signs are so many lies; that we cannot be too strictly on our guard against them, and that the only true way of appreciating and gaining a thorough knowledge of mankind is by trying and associating with them. After all, we meet with countenances so hideous, it must be allowed,” (and as an instance he described one; it was that of the governor,) “that the most powerful understanding is confounded, and condemns them in spite of itself.”

SINGULAR SERIES OF VEXATIONS, &C.

23d.—The Emperor called upon me about three o’clock. He wished to take a walk. He had a gloomy look, and had suffered much since yesterday. He was seriously affected by the intense heat during his ride in the calash. He had observed a new outer door which was making, and which would have altered the whole interior of the topographical cabinet and of Madame Montholon’s former apartment. He had not been consulted on the occasion, and was sensibly affected at it. He sent instantly for the person who had given the directions, and the wretched reasons he assigned served only to vex him still more. We had come out to walk; but it seemed decided that every thing was to irritate and put him in ill humour that evening. He saw some English officers on his way, and turned aside from them almost in anger, observing that shortly it would be impossible for him to put his foot out of doors. A few paces off he was joined by the Doctor, who came to tell him, unseasonably enough, of some arrangements that were making for him, (the Emperor) and to ask his opinion on the subject. It was one of the topics which, perhaps, hurt his feelings most. He made no answer, his ordinary resource against disappointment; but this time he kept silence with a fretfulness which he could not conceal. He came up with the carriage, and got in; but on our way we met some more English officers, and then he suddenly ordered the coachman to drive off, at a gallop, in another direction.

The new door-way, however, which had been made in the house without his knowledge, and which he found so inconvenient, still lay heavy on his heart. He was about to lighten the load by a lively playfulness with the wife of the person who had ordered it, and who happened to be in the calash. “Ah,” said he, “are you there? You are in my power; you shall pay the penalty. The husband is the guilty person; it is the wife that shall answer for him.” But instead of accommodating herself to the sense in which the words were uttered, which she might have done without the least inconvenience, and with the certainty of a satisfactory result, she persisted in making lame excuses for her husband, and repeating reasons, which served but to revive his dissatisfaction. Finally, to fill up the chapter of cross-purposes, one of us, on discovering the tents of the camp, informed him that the evolutions and manœuvres of the preceding day were in celebration of one of the great victories gained by the English in Spain, and that the regiment which executed them had been very nearly destroyed in that battle. “A regiment. Sir, is never destroyed by the enemy; it is immortalized,” was his only answer. It is true, that it was delivered very dryly.

For myself, I meditated in silence on this accumulation of contrarieties, which struck such repeated blows in so short a time. It was a precious moment for an observer. I estimated the mortification which they were calculated to produce, and I remarked with admiration, how little he betrayed. I said to myself: This is the _intractable man_, this the _tyrant_! One would have supposed that he knew what was passing in my mind, for, when we left the calash, and were a few paces before the others, he said to me in a low tone, “If you like to study mankind, learn how far patience can go, and all that one can put up with,” &c.

On his return, he called for tea; I had never seen him take any. Madame de Montholon was, for the first time, in possession of her new saloon. He wished to see it, and observed that she would be much better accommodated than any of us. He called for fire, and played at chess with several of us successively. He gradually recovered his natural temper and ate a little at dinner, which completely restored him. He indulged in conversation, and again reverted to his early years, which always possessed fresh charms for him. He spoke a great deal of his early acquaintances, and of the difficulties which some of them experienced in obtaining admission to him after his elevation, and observed that, “if the threshold of his palace was impassable, it was in spite of himself. What then,” said he, “must be the situation of other sovereigns in that respect!”

We continued the conversation until eleven, without noticing the lateness of the hour.

MADAME DE B—— —ANECDOTES RESPECTING
THE EMIGRANTS.

24th.—To-day the Emperor tried the billiard-table which had just been placed, and went out, but the weather being very damp, he returned almost immediately.

He conversed with me in his apartment, before dinner, on the emigrants, and the name of Madame de B...., who had been _dame d’atours_ to Madame, and was very conspicuous in the commencement of our affairs, was mentioned. The Emperor observed, “But is not this Madame de B.... a very dangerous woman?”—“Certainly not,” I replied; “she is, on the contrary, one of the best women in the world, with a great deal of wit, and an excellent judgment.” “If that is the case,” said the Emperor, “she must have much cause to complain of me. This is the painful consequence of false representations; she was pointed out as a very dangerous character.”—“Yes, Sire, you made her very unhappy. Madame de B.... placed all her happiness in the charms of society, and you banished her from Paris. I met with her in one of my missions, confined within her province, and pining away with vexation, yet she expressed no resentment against your Majesty, and spoke of you with great moderation.” “Well, then! why did you not come to me, and set me right?”—“Ah, Sire, your character was then so little known to us, compared with what I know it to be at present, that I should not have dared to do so. But I will mention an anecdote of Madame de B.... when in London, during the high tide of our emigration, which will make you better acquainted with her than any thing I could say. At the time of your accession to the Consulate, a person, just arrived from Paris, was invited to a small party at her house. He engrossed the attention of the company, in consequence of all the particulars that he had to communicate respecting a place, which interested us so very materially. He was asked several questions respecting the Consul. He cannot, said he, live long, he is most delightfully _sallow_. These were his words. He grew more animated by degrees, and gave as a toast—The death of the First Consul! Oh horrible! was the instantaneous exclamation of Madame de B..... What, drink to the death of a fellow creature! For shame! I will give a much better one: The King’s health!”

“Well,” said the Emperor, “I repeat that she was very ill used by me, in consequence of the representations which were made to me. She had been described to me as a person fond of political intrigues, and remarkable for the bitterness of her sarcasms. And this puts me in mind of an expression which is perhaps wrongly attributed to her, but which struck me, however, solely on account of its wit. I was assured that a distinguished personage, who was very much attached to her, was seized with a fit of jealousy, for which she clearly proved that she had given no cause. He persisted however, and observed that she ought to know that the wife of Cæsar should be free from suspicion. Madame de B.... replied that the remark contained two important mistakes; for it was known to all the world that she was not his wife, and that he was not Cæsar.”

After dinner, the Emperor read to us parts of the comedies of the Dissipateur and the Glorieux, but he was so little pleased with them that he left off; they did not possess a sufficient degree of interest. He had a severe pain in his right side. It was the effect of the damp to which he had been exposed during his morning walk, and we were not without apprehensions of its being a symptom of the ordinary malady of this scorching climate.

On my return home, I found a letter from England, with a parcel, containing some articles for my toilet. The Griffin ship of war had just arrived from England.

THE EMPEROR RECEIVES LETTERS FROM HIS FAMILY.—CONVERSATION WITH THE
ADMIRAL.—THE COMMISSIONERS OF THE ALLIED POWERS.

25th.—About nine o’clock, I received from the Grand Marshal three letters for the Emperor. They were from Madame Mère, the Princess Pauline, and Prince Lucien. The latter was enclosed in one addressed to me, from Rome, by Prince Lucien, dated the 6th of March. I also received two from my agent in London.

The Emperor passed the whole of the morning in reading the papers from the 25th of April to the 13th of May. They contained accounts of the death of the Empress of Austria, the prorogation of the French Chambers, Cambrone’s acquittal, the condemnation of General Bertrand, &c. He made many remarks upon all these subjects.

About three, Admiral Malcolm requested to be presented to the Emperor. He brought him a series of the Journal des Debats to the 13th of May. The Emperor desired me to introduce him, and he conversed with him nearly three hours. He gave great pleasure to the Emperor, who treated him, from the first moment, with a great deal of freedom and good nature, as if he had been an old acquaintance. The Admiral was entirely of his opinion with respect to a great number of subjects. He admitted that it was extremely difficult to escape from St. Helena, and he could see no inconvenience in allowing him to be at large in the island. He considered it absurd that Plantation-house had not been given up to the Emperor, and felt, but only since his arrival, he confessed, that the title of General might be offensive. It struck him that Lady Loudon’s conduct had been ridiculous here, and would be laughed at in London. He thought that the Governor had good intentions, but did not know how to act. Ministers had, in his opinion, been embarrassed with respect to the Emperor, but entertained no hatred against him; they did not know how to dispose of him. Had he remained in England, he would have been, and was still, a terror to the Continent; he would have been too dangerous and efficient an instrument in the hands of Opposition, &c. He was apprehensive, however, that all these circumstances put together would detain us here a long time; and he expressed his confidence that it was the intention of Ministers, with the exception of the necessary precautions to prevent his escape, that Napoleon should be treated with every possible indulgence at St. Helena, &c. He delivered himself upon all these points in so satisfactory a manner that the Emperor discussed the business with him, with as little warmth as if he had not been concerned in the matter.