Chapter VIII: Book III (3)

[174] Henri Gratien Comte Bertrand (1773-1844), Napoleon's intimate and confidant, accompanied him to Elba and St. Helena, and never left his side until his death. He had been sentenced to death by contumacy in 1816. On his return from St. Helena, in 1821, Louis XVIII. remitted his penalty and restored him to his rank. In 1840, he accompanied the Prince de Joinville to St. Helena and, with him, brought back the remains of Napoleon to France. He is buried at the Invalides by the Emperor's side.--T.

[175] Comte Drouot (1774-1847), the great artillery general. Napoleon made him Governor of Elba. He returned to France with the Emperor at Waterloo, and fought with extraordinary gallantry. He was proscribed by Louis XVIII. and tried by court-martial, but acquitted. He ended his days in retirement, and lost his sight some years before his death. Napoleon left him 100,000 francs in his will.--T.

[176] TRUCHSESS-WALDBURG, _A Narrative of Napoleon Buonaparte's Journey from Fontainebleau to Fréjus in April 1814_ (London: John Murray, 1816).--T.

[177] In 1799, after the capture of Jaffa, Bonaparte had the garrison murdered in cold blood, as well as some thousands of prisoners of whom he had a difficulty in disposing.--T

[178] According to several historians, the Marquis de Maubreuil was a needy adventurer, as destitute of scruples as of money, who is supposed to have been charged by Talleyrand, in April 1814, to assassinate Napoleon. Dupont, the Minister for War, Anglès, the Minister for Police, and Bourrienne, the Postmaster-General, the commanders of the Russian and Austrian troops, the Emperor of Russia, the Emperor of Austria himself are said to have approved of the mission entrusted to Maubreuil. All this is an abominable calumny.

The royalist zeal of which Maubreuil had given signs, after the entry of the Allies into Paris, had earned for him the good graces of M. Laborie, the assistant-secretary to the Provisional Government; but his protector, failing to procure him a post, he invented a stroke of the boldest character.

Under the pretext that he was going in search of a portion of the Crown diamonds, which had been removed from Paris and were not to be found, on the 21st of April, at the village of Fossard, near Montereau, he waylaid the Queen of Westphalia, who was returning to Germany, and seized eleven cases containing the Queen's jewelry and diamonds and 80,000 francs in gold. When the news of this great stroke reached Paris, the Sovereigns, and the Emperor Alexander in particular, displayed the liveliest annoyance and demanded the punishment of the culprits. Maubreuil, meantime, had returned to Paris, on the night of the 23rd of April; he carried to the Tuileries the cases which he had taken, one of them, according to him, having been broken and its contents scattered on the road. At the same time, he handed over four sacks, containing gold, he said. The next day, when the cases were opened by the locksmith who had made the keys, they were found to be almost empty; the sacks contained silver pieces of twenty sous, instead of gold pieces of twenty francs. The police, before long, had proofs that the broken case, which was just that which had contained the most precious objects, had been opened at Versailles, in a room at an inn, by Maubreuil and his accomplice, a certain Dasies. Moreover, in one of the apartments occupied by Maubreuil in Paris--he had three or four--they found on the bed a magnificent diamond which had belonged to the Queen of Westphalia. The evidences of the theft were incontestable. Maubreuil put a bold face upon it. He declared that he had left Paris with the mission to assassinate the Emperor; that this mission had been given him by M. de Talleyrand; that, in spite of the horror with which it inspired him, he had accepted it for fear lest it should be given to another. "He had," he continued, "arranged everything to deceive the criminal intentions of those who had employed him, and he had sought, by bringing them a treasure and contenting their greed, to appease their dissatisfaction." This could not stand proof; but, in the then circumstances, those lies might have produced the most deplorable and baleful effects among the public, particularly the soldiers. The Government thought it the wisest course to hurry nothing, to keep the accused in prison, and to await aid and counsel from time and the progress of events. _Cf._ the _Souvenirs du comte de Semallé_ and Vol. II. of the _Mémoires du chancelier Pasquier._--B.

[179] Jean Baptiste Germain Fabry (1780-1821), author of the _Itinéraire de Buonaparte de Doulevent à Fréjus_ (1821) and of numerous publications, written with talent and animated with a profoundly religious and royalist spirit.--B.

[180] Sir Walter Scott, Bart (1771-1832). The above extract is taken from his _Life of Napoleon Buonaparte_ (1827), chap, lxxxi.--T.

[181] Philippe Paul Comte de Ségur (1786-1873), author of the _Histoire de Napoléon et de la grande armée en 1812_ (1824), from which the above incident is quoted.--T.

[182] Hinton was boatswain on board the _Undaunted_, which conveyed Napoleon to Elba.--T.

[183] Louis XVIII. landed at Calais on the 24th of April 1814. He had left France on the 22nd of June 1791.--B.

[184] Louis Pierre Louvel (1753-1820), the assassin of the Duc de Berry (13 February 1820). He declared in one of his interrogatories that, on the first day of the Restoration, he had sworn to exterminate all the Bourbons and that, in April 1814, he had gone on foot from Metz to Calais with the object of stabbing Louis XVIII.--T.

[185] Nicolas Joseph Maréchal Comte Maison (1771-1840) rallied to the new Government and was made Governor of Paris and a peer of France (1814). He refused to accept any post from Napoleon on the return of the latter from Elba, and in 1817 was created a marquis. He commanded the Morean Expedition in 1828, and was made a marshal of France in the following year. Maison was one of the commissaries appointed to accompany Charles X. to Cherbourg in 1830. Under Louis-Philippe he was Ambassador to Vienna (1831-1833), to St. Petersburg (1833-1835), and Minister of War (1835-1836).--T.

[186] Joan of Arc (1410-1430) was captured by the English on the 24th of May 1430, on attempting a sortie from Compiègne, besieged by the English and Burgundians. Louis XVIII. arrived at Compiègne on the 29th of April 1814.--T.

[187] Louis XIV. (1638-1715) was the direct ancestor of Louis XVIII. in the fifth generation (great-great-great-grandfather).--T.

[188] Étienne Jacques Joseph Alexandre Macdonald, Maréchal Duc de Tarente (1765-1840), a fine soldier, of Irish descent. He was made a peer of France, after Napoleon's abdication, and Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honour, a dignity which he retained until 1831.--T.

[189] Michel Ney, Maréchal Duc d'Elchingen, Prince de la Moskowa (1769-1815), was, at the end of the next year, sentenced to be shot for his treachery to the King, the sentence being executed on the 7th of December 1815.--T.

[190] Bon Adrien Jeannot Moncey, Maréchal Duc de Conégliano (1754-1842), was imprisoned for three months in 1815 at Ham for refusing to try Marshal Ney, and excluded from the House of Peers, to which he was not readmitted until 1819. In 1823 he was given a command in Spain in the war of French intervention. He ended his life as Governor of the Invalides, where he received the remains of Napoleon.--T.

[191] Jean Marie Philippe Maréchal Comte Sérurier (1742-1819) was Governor of the Invalides, in 1814, and burnt the flags captured from the enemy in the court-yard to save them from being restored to the Allies. Louis made him a peer of France and Grand Cross of St. Louis, but he resigned all his functions in December 1815.--T.

[192] Marshal Guillaume Marie Anne Brune (1763-1815) rejoined Napoleon on his return from Elba, and was killed by the Royalist mob at Avignon shortly after the Battle of Waterloo.--T.

[193] Alexandre Berthier, Maréchal Prince de Wagram, Prince de Neuchâtel (1753-1815), committed suicide on the return of Napoleon, from the balcony of his mother-in-law, the Duke of Birkenfeld's palace at Bamberg, during a fit of fever (1 June 1815).--T.

[194] _Cf. Compiègne, avril_ 1814 (Paris: Le Normant, 1814).--B.

[195] The musketeers of the King's Military Household, so called because of their red uniform.--B.

[196] The manuscript of the Memoirs says forty years. Is this simply a _lapsus calami_, or did Chateaubriand, who, it is true, was an indifferent calculator, really reckon forty years between 1792 and 1814?--B.

[197] Charles II. King of England (1630-1685) dated his reign from 1649, the year of the execution of Charles I., and not from 1660, the year of his restoration.--T.

[198] In spite of what Chateaubriand says, it is only just to recognise that Louis XVIII. had given proof of a truly royal dignity in not consenting to accept the crown at the hands of the senators, and in proclaiming that he held it in his own right. The Comte de Lille, the exile of Hartwell, had, in fact, no other title to occupy the throne than as the descendant of Louis XIV., the brother of Louis XVI., and the successor of Louis XVII.--B.

[199] Chateaubriand here commits a slight error of date. The Emperor Alexander left Paris on the 2nd of June 1814. It was not then, nor on the eve of his departure, that he had a religious service celebrated on the Place Louis XV. This ceremony had taken place almost immediately after the entry of the Allies, before either the Comte d'Artois or Louis XVIII. had arrived in Paris, on Sunday the 10th of April. On that day, the Emperor of Russia, the King of Prussia and Prince von Schwarzenberg, representing the Emperor of Austria, reviewed their respective troops, drawn up in line, to the number of 80,000 men, from the Boulevard de l'Arsenal to the Boulevard de la Madeleine. At one o'clock, a mass was said on the Place Louis XV. by a bishop and six priests of the Greek rite. A _Te Deum_ was sung to thank God for giving peace to France and the world. The Allied troops defiled before the altar, which was surrounded by the National Guard of Paris, under the orders of its commandant, General Dessolle.--B.

[200] Joseph Anne Auguste Maximilien de Croy, Duc d'Havré (1744-1839). He was a brigadier-general, in 1789, when elected a deputy to the States-General by the nobles of the bailiwick of Amiens and Ham. In 1814, Louis XVIII. made him a peer of France, a lieutenant-general and a captain of the Body-guards. He was then seventy years of age.--B.

[201] Victor Perrin, Maréchal Duc de Bellune (1766-1841), known as Marshal Victor, had been seriously wounded in the campaign of 1814. He remained faithful to Louis XVIII. during the Hundred Days, and was created a peer of France in 1815. He was Minister for War for a few days under the Bourbons.--T.

[202] Philippe Louis Marie Antoine de Noailles, Prince de Poix, Duc de Mouchy (1752-1819). His career resembled that of the Duc d'Havré in every particular. He was sent to the States-General in 1789 by the nobles of the bailiwick of Amiens and Ham, and was created a peer, a lieutenant-general and a captain of the Body-guards in 1814.--B.

[203] Nicolas Charles Oudinot, Maréchal Duc de Reggio (1767-1847), one of the bravest of Napoleon's generals, was wounded no less than thirty-two times. Under the Restoration, to which he continued faithful in 1815, he became a peer of France, Major-General of the Royal Guard and Commander-in-Chief of the National Guard of Paris. Louis-Philippe appointed Oudinot Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honour (1839) and Governor of the Invalides (1842).--T.

[204] THUC. III. 38.--T.

[205] Madame de Talleyrand-Périgord, _née_ Worley, was born at Pondichéry, where her father was harbour-master. At sixteen years of age, she married a Swiss, Mr. Grant, who lived with her successively at Chandernagor and Calcutta; she allowed herself to be eloped with and carried to Europe. After numerous adventures, she became Talleyrand's mistress under the Directory and lived with him publicly. The First Consul ordered his minister to marry her, which was done, after Talleyrand had received a brief from the Court of Rome releasing him from his vows, and after Mr. Grant, then in Paris, had agreed to a divorce, in consideration of a large sum of money and a good place... at the Cape of Good Hope. The marriage of the ex-Bishop of Autun was, for that matter, a purely civil one. When the Restoration came, he settled a pension of 60,000 francs on his wife, on condition that she went to live in England.--B.

[206] François Pierre Guillaume Guizot (1787-1874) became Minister of the Interior in 1830, under Louis-Philippe, was French Ambassador to England for a few months in 1840, and Prime Minister from 1840 to 1848.--T.

[207] Pierre Victor Baron Malouet (1740-1814) served in the Admiralty all his life: under Louis XVI.; as Commissary-general of Marine under Bonaparte; and as Minister of Marine under the Restoration.--T.

[208] Jacques Claude Comte Beugnot (1761-1835) had, under the Empire, been Prefect of Rouen, a councillor of State, Minister of Finance to King Jerome, and Prefect of Lille. Louis XVIII. made him Minister of Marine in December 1814. He accompanied the King to Ghent and, on the return, became Postmaster-general. He was made a peer of France in 1730.--B.

[209] Pierre Antoine Comte Dupont de L'Étang (1765-1840), had been one of the most brilliant generals of the Empire, but was cashiered for his capitulation at Baylen (1808), and kept in prison until 1814. He remained only a few months at the War Office. In 1836, Dupont published a translation in verse of the Odes of Horace and, in 1839, the _Art de la guerre_, a poem in ten cantos.--T.

[210] Nicolas Jean-de-Dieu Soult, Maréchal Duc de Dalmatie (1769-1852), Napoleon's greatest tactician. He became Major-general of Napoleon's army during the Hundred Days, and was exiled by the Bourbons at the Second Restoration; returned to France in 1819, and was raised to the peerage, in 1827, by Charles X. But, in 1830, he devoted himself to Louis-Philippe; became Minister of War and President of the Council; reorganized the French Army in 1832; represented France at the coronation of Victoria in 1838, and received a veritable ovation in England. In 1839 and again in 1840, Soult resumed the office of Minister of War, together with the Presidency of the Council; but was obliged by the state of his health to resign, in 1847, and received the quite exceptional title of Marshal-General, which only Turenne, Villars and Saxe had borne before him.--T.

[211] Pierre Louis Casimir Duc de Blacas d'Aulps (1770-1839) accompanied Louis XVIII. to Ghent, was created a peer under the Second Restoration, and Ambassador to Naples and later to Rome. In 1823, he was reappointed to Naples, where he remained till 1830, when he followed the Bourbons into exile, dying at Prague in 1839.--T.

[212] Jules Jean Baptiste Comte Anglès (1778-1828). He again became Prefect of Police in 1818, and retained that post until 1821.--B.

[213] Charles Dambray (1760-1829) was made Chancellor, Minister of Justice and President of the Chamber in 1814. He took refuge in England during the Hundred Days, and resumed the presidency of the Chamber on his return.--T.

[214] Joseph Dominique Baron Louis (1755-1837) had taken orders and assisted as deacon to the Bishop of Autun at the Feast of the Federation in 1790. He emigrated, nevertheless, and employed his exile in studying the financial system of England. He was several times Minister of Finance: in 1814, 1816, 1818 and 1831.--T.

[215] Lazare Nicolas Marguerite Carnot (1753-1823), the famous "Organizer of Victory." He became Minister of the Interior during the Hundred Days, and was exiled during the Second Restoration, retiring first to Warsaw and next to Magdeburg, where he died. He was the author of several works, including the _Mémoire adressé au roi en juillet 1814_, the letter in question.--T.

[216] _Réflexions politiques sur quelques écrits du jour et sur les intérêts de tous les Français_ (December 1814). This is one of Chateaubriand's finest writings.--B.

[217] Jean Henri Joachim Hostein, Vicomte Lainé (1767-1835), became Minister of the Interior in 1816, a member of the French Academy in the same year, and a viscount and peer of France in 1823.--T.

[218] Claire Duchesse de Duras (1777-1829), _née_ de Coëtnempren de Kersaint, married in 1797, in England, Amédée Bretagne Malo de Durfort, who, three years later, on the death of his father, became Duc de Duras. On the return of the Bourbons, the Duc de Duras was made a peer of France and First Lord of the Bed-chamber. The duchess at that time had one of the most popular salons in Paris. She wrote several little novels: _Édouard, Ourika, Frère Ange, Olivier_, and the _Mémoires de Sophie_, of which the two first were published in 1820 and 1824 respectively; the other three are still in manuscript. Towards the end of her life, the Duchesse de Duras wrote some eminently Christian pages, which were published, ten years after her death, in 1839, under the title of _Réflexions et prières inédites._--B.

[219] Claire Louise Augustine Félicité Magloire de Durfort (_b._ 1798), known as Félicie, married, first (1813), Charles Léopold Henri de La Trémoille, Prince de Talmont (_d._ 1815), and, secondly (1819), Brigadier-general Auguste du Vergier, Comte de La Rochejacquelein.--B.

[220] Claire Henriette Philippine Benjamine de Durfort (1799-1863), known as Clara, married (1819) Henri Louis Comte de Chastellux, created Duc de Rauzan on the occasion of his marriage.--B.

[221] In January 1829.--B.

[222] Madame Julie Récamier (1777-1849), _née_ Bernard, of whom much will be read in the sequel, was very intimate with Madame de Staël, and had been banished from Paris by Napoleon for the frequency of her visits to Madame de Staël at Coppet.--T.

[223] The old Cemetière de la Madeleine, at No. 48, Rue d'Anjou-Saint-Honoré.--B.

[224] Pierre François Fontaine (1762-1865), an eminent modern French architect and member of the Academy of Arts, who, together with Percier, _quem vide infra_, constructed the Expiatory Chapel at the corner of the Rue d'Anjou and the Boulevard Haussmann, mentioned below, and a number of other public works, including the great staircase at the Louvre, the restorations at Versailles, etc.--T

[225] Charles Percier (1764-1840), member of the Institute, and Fontaine's friend and collaborator.--T.

[226] _Vide_ Vol. I. p. 157.--T.

[227] The Oriflamme, which, under the Capets, became the standard of France, was originally the private banner of the Abbey of Saint-Denis.--T.

[228] The tombs of the Kings at Saint-Denis were opened in 1793, by order of the Convention (6 August), and restored, together with the church, by Napoleon, in 1806.--T.

[229] Chateaubriand: _Le Vingt-et-un janvier_ (Paris: Le Normant, 1815).--B.

[230] The service in memory of the martyrdom of King Charles I. was struck out of the Prayer-book in the year 1859.--T.

[230b] M. Descloseaux (not Ducluzeau, as the previous editions of the Memoirs have it) was a faithful Royalist, who had become the proprietor of the old Cemetière de la Madeleine to save the remains of the King and Queen from profanation.--B.