Chapter II: His Ideas, Passions and Intelligence (3)

[Footnote 1235: "Correspondance de Napoléon," I. Proclamation of March 27, 1796: "Soldiers, you are naked and poorly fed. The government is vastly indebted to you; it has nothing to give you.... I am going to lead you to the most fertile plains in the world; rich provinces, large cities will be in your power; you will then obtain honor, glory, and wealth."--Proclamation of April 26, 1796:--"Friends, I guarantee that conquest to you!"--Cf. in Marmont's memoirs the way in which Bonaparte plays the part of tempter in offering Marmont, who refuses, an opportunity to rob a treasury chest.]

[Footnote 1236: Miot de Melito, I., 154. (June, 1797, in the gardens of Montebello.) "Such are substantially the most remarkable expressions in this long discourse which I have recorded and preserved."]

[Footnote 1237: Miot de Melito, I. 184. (Conversation with Bonaparte, November 18, 1797, at Turin.) "I remained an hour with the general tête-à-tête. I shall relate the conversation exactly as it occurred, according to my notes, made at the time."]

[Footnote 1238: Mathieu Dumas, "Mémoires," III., 156. "It is certain that he thought of it from this moment and seriously studied the obstacles, means, and chances of success." (Mathieu Dumas cites the testimony of Desaix, who was engaged in the enterprise): "It seems that all was ready, when Bonaparte judged that things were not yet ripe, nor the means sufficient."--Hence his departure. "He wanted to get out of the way of the rule and caprices of these contemptible dictators, while the latter wanted to get rid of him because his military fame and influence in the army were obnoxious to them."]

[Footnote 1239: Larevellière-Lepaux (one of the five directors on duty), "Mémoires," II., 340. "All that is truly grand in this enterprise, as well as all that is bold and extravagant, either in its conception or execution, belongs wholly to Bonaparte. The idea of it never occurred to the Directory nor to any of its members.... His ambition and his pride could not endure the alternative of no longer being prominent or of accepting a post which, however eminent, would have always subjected him to the orders of the Directory."]

[Footnote 1240: Madame de Rémusat, I., 142. "Josephine laid great stress on the Egyptian expedition as the cause of his change of temper and of the daily despotism which made her suffer so much."--"Mes souvenirs sur Napoleon," 325 by the count Chaptal. (Bonaparte's own words to the poet Lemercier who might have accompanied him to the Middle East and there would have learned many things about human nature): "You would have seen a country where the sovereign takes no account of the lives of his subjects, and where the subject himself takes no account of his own life. You would have got rid of your philanthropic 'notions."]

[Footnote 1241: Roederer, III., 461 (Jan. 12, 1803)]

[Footnote 1242: Cf. "The Revolution," Vol. p. 773. (Note I., on the situation, in 1806, of the Conventionalists who had survived the revolution.) For instance, Fouché is minister; Jeanbon-Saint-André, prefect; Drouet (de Varennes), sub-prefect; Chépy (of Grenoble), commissary-general of the police at Brest; 131 regicides are functionaries, among whom we find twenty one prefects and forty-two magistrates.--Occasionally, a chance document that has been preserved allows one to catch "the man in the act." ("Bulletins hebdomadaires de la censure, 1810 and 1814," published by M. Thurot, in the Revue Critique, 1871): "Seizure of 240 copies of an indecent work printed for account of M. Palloy, the author. This Palloy enjoyed some celebrity during the Revolution, being one of the famous patriots of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. The constituent Assembly had conceded to him the ownership of the site of the Bastille, of which he distributed its stones among all the communes. He is a bon vivant, who took it into his head to write out in a very bad style the filthy story of his amours with a prostitute of the Palais-Royal. He was quite willing that the book should be seized on condition that he might retain a few copies of his jovial production. He professes high admiration for, and strong attachment to His Majesty's person, and expresses his sentiments piquantly, in the style of 1789."]

[Footnote 1243: "Mémorial," June 12, 1816.]

[Footnote 1244: Mathieu Dumas, III., 363 (July 4, 1809, a few days before Wagram).--Madame de Rémusat," I., 105: "I have never heard him express any admiration or comprehension of a noble action."--I., 179: On Augustus's clemency and his saying, "Let us be friends, Cinna," the following is his interpretation of it: "I understand this action simply as the feint of a tyrant, and approve as calculation what I find puerile as sentiment."--"Notes par le Comte Chaptal": "He believed neither in virtue nor in probity, often calling these two words nothing but abstractions; this is what rendered him so distrustful and so immoral.... He never experienced a generous sentiment; this is why he was so cold in company, and why he never had a friend. He regarded men as so much counterfeit coin or as mere instruments."]

[Footnote 1245: M. de Metternich, "Mémoires," I., 241.--"Madame de Rémusat," I., 93: "That man has been so harmful (si assommateur de toute vertu...) to all virtue."--Madame de Staël, "Considerations sur la Revolution Française," 4th part, ch. 18. (Napoleon's conduct with M. de Melzi, to destroy him in public opinion in Milan, in 1805.)]

[Footnote 1246: Madame de Rémusat, I., 106; II., 247, 336: "His means for governing man were all derived from those which tend to debase him. ... He tolerated virtue only when he could cover it with ridicule."]

[Footnote 1247: Nearly all his false calculations are due to this defect, combined with an excess of constructive imagination.--Cf. De Pradt, p.94: "The Emperor is all system, all illusion, as one cannot fail to be when one is all imagination. Whoever has watched his course has noticed his creating for himself an imaginary Spain, an imaginary Catholicism, an imaginary England, an imaginary financial state, an imaginary noblesse, and still more an imaginary France, and, in late times, an imaginary congress."]

[Footnote 1248: Roederer, III., 495. (March 8, 1804.)]

[Footnote 1249: Ibid., III., 537 (February 11, 1809.)]

[Footnote 1250: Roederer, III., 514. (November 4, 1804.)]

[Footnote 1251: Marmont, II., 242.]

[Footnote 1252: "Correspondance de Napoléon," I. (Letter to Prince Eugéne, April 14, 1806.)]

[Footnote 1253: M. de Metternich, I., 284.]

[Footnote 1254: Mollien, III., 427.]

[Footnote 1255: "Notes par le Comte Chaptal": During the Consulate, "his opinion not being yet formed on many points, he allowed discussion and it was then possible to enlighten him and enforce an opinion once expressed in his presence. But, from the moment that he possessed ideas of his own, either true or false, on administrative subjects, he consulted no one;... he treated everybody who differed from him in opinion contemptuously, tried to make them appear ridiculous, and often exclaimed, giving his forehead a slap, that here was an instrument far more useful than the counsels of men who were commonly supposed to be instructed and experienced... For four years, he sought to gather around him the able men of both parties. After this, the choice of his agents began to be indifferent to him. Regarding himself as strong enough to rule and carry on the administration himself, the talents and character of those who stood in his way were discarded. What he wanted was valets and not councillors... The ministers were simply head-clerks of the bureaus. The Council of State served only to give form to the decrees emanating from him; he ruled even in petty details. Everybody around him was timid and passive; his will was regarded as that of an oracle and executed without reflection.... Self-isolated from other men, having concentrated in his own hands all powers and all action, thoroughly convinced that another's light and experience could be of no use to him, he thought that arms and hands were all that he required."]

[Footnote 1256: "Souvenirs", by Pasquier (Etienne-Dennis, duc), chancelier de France. In VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. Vol I. chap. IX. and X. pp. 225-268. (Admirable portraiture of his principal agents, Cambacérès, Talleyrand, Maret, Cretet, Real, etc.) Lacuée, director of the conscription, is a perfect type of the imperial functionary. Having received the broad ribbon of the Legion d'Honneur, he exclaimed, at the height of his enthusiasm: "what will not France become under such a man? To what degree of happiness and glory will it not ascend, always provided the conscription furnishes him with 200,000 men a year! And, indeed, that will not be difficult, considering the extent of the empire."--And likewise with Merlin de Douai: "I never knew a man less endowed with the sentiment of the just and the unjust; everything seems to him right and good, as the consequences of a legal text. He was even endowed with a kind of satanic smile which involuntarily rose to his lips... every time the opportunity occurred, when, in applying his odious science, he reached the conclusion that severity is necessary or some condemnation." The same with Defermon, in fiscal matters]

[Footnote 1257: Madame de Rémusat, II., 278; II., 175.]

[Footnote 1258: Ibid., III., 275, II., 45. (Apropos of Savary, his most intimate agent.): "He is a man who must be constantly corrupted."]

[Footnote 1259: Ibid., I., 109; II., 247; III., 366.]

[Footnote 1260: "Madame de Rémusat," II., 142, 167, 245. (Napoleon's own words.) "If I ordered Savary to rid himself of his wife and children, I am sure he would not hesitate."--Marmont, II., 194: "We were at Vienna in 1809. Davoust said, speaking of his own and Maret's devotion: "If the Emperor should say to us both, 'My political interests require the destruction of Paris without any one escaping,' Maret would keep the secret, I am sure; but nevertheless he could not help letting it be known by getting his own family out. I, rather than reveal it I would leave my wife and children there." (These are bravado expressions, wordy exaggerations, but significant.)]

[Footnote 1261: Madame de Rémusat, II., 379.]

[Footnote 1262: "Souvenirs du feu duc de Broglie," I., 230. (Words of Maret, at Dresden, in 1813; he probably repeats one of Napoleon's figures.)]

[Footnote 1263: Mollien, II., 9.]

[Footnote 1264: D'Haussonville, "L'Église Romaine et le premier Empire,"VI., 190, and passim.]

[Footnote 1265: Ibid., III., 460-473.--Cf. on the same scene, "Souvenirs", by Pasquier (Etienne-Dennis, duc), Chancelier de France. (He was both witness and actor.)]

[Footnote 1266: An expression of Cambacérès. M. de Lavalette, II., 154.]

[Footnote 1267: Madame de Rémusat, III. 184]

[Footnote 1268: "Souvenirs", by Pasquier, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893.-, I., 521. Details of the manufacture of counterfeit money, by order of Savary, in an isolated building on the plain of Montrouge.--Metternich, II., 358. (Words of Napoleon to M. de Metternich): "I had 300 millions of banknotes of the Bank of Vienna all ready and was going to flood you with them." Ibid., Correspondence of M. de Metternich with M. de Champagny on this subject (June, 1810).]

[Footnote 1269: "Souvenirs", by Pasquier, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893.--Vol. II. p. 196.]

[Footnote 1270: Madame de Rémusat, II., 335.]

[Footnote 1271: Madame de Rémusat, I., 231.]

[Footnote 1272: Ibid., 335.]

[Footnote 1273: M. de Metternich, I., 284. "One of those to whom he seemed the most attached was Duroc. 'He loves me the same as a dog loves his master,' is the phrase he made use of in speaking of him to me. He compared Berthier's sentiment for his person to that of a child's nurse. Far from being opposed to his theory of the motives influencing men these sentiments were its natural consequence whenever he came across sentiments to which he could not apply the theory of calculation based on cold interest, he sought the cause of it in a kind of instinct."]

[Footnote 1274: Beugnot, "Mémoires," II., 59.]

[Footnote 1275: "Mémorial." "If I had returned victorious from Moscow, I would have brought the Pope not to regret temporal power: I would have converted him into an idol... I would have directed the religious world as well as the political world... My councils would have represented Christianity, and the Pope would have only been president of them."]

[Footnote 1276: De Ségur, III., 312. (In Spain, 1809.)]

[Footnote 1277: "Mémoires du Prince Eugène." (Letters of Napoleon, August, 1806.)]

[Footnote 1278: Letter of Napoleon to Fouché, March 3, 1810. (Left out in the "Correspondance de Napoléon I.," and published by M. Thiers in "Histoire du Consulat et de l'Empire," XII., p. 115.)]

[Footnote 1279: De Ségur, III., 459.]

[Footnote 1280: Words of Napoleon to Marmont, who, after three months in the hospital, returns to him in Spain with a broken arm and his hand in a black sling: "You hold on to that rag then?" Sainte-Beuve, who loves the truth as it really is, quotes the words as they came, which Marmont dared not reproduce. (Causeries du Lundi, VI., 16.)--"Souvenirs", by Pasquier, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893: "M. de Champagny having been dismissed and replaced, a courageous friend defended him and insisted on his merit: "You are right," said the Emperor, "he had some when I took him; but by cramming him too full, I have made him stupid."]

[Footnote 1281: Beugnot, I., 456, 464]

[Footnote 1282: Mme. de Rémusat, II., 272.]

[Footnote 1283: M. de Champagny, "Souvenirs," 117.]

[Footnote 1284: Madame de Rémusat, I., 125.]

[Footnote 1285: De Ségur, III., 456.]

[Footnote 1286: "The Ancient Regime," p. 125.--"æuvres de Louis XIV.," 191: "If there is any peculiar characteristic of this monarchy, it is the free and easy access of the subjects to the king; it an egalité de justice between both, and which, so to say, maintains both in a genial and honest companionship, in spite of the almost infinite distance in birth, rank, and power. This agreeable society, which enables persons of the Court to associate familiarly with us, impresses them and charms them more than one can tell."]

[Footnote 1287: Madame de Rémusat, II., 32, 39.]

[Footnote 1288: Madame de Rémusat, III., 169.]

[Footnote 1289: Ibid., II., 32, 223, 240, 259; III., 169.]

[Footnote 1290: Ibid., I., 112, II., 77.]

[Footnote 1291: M. de Metternich, I., 286.--"It would be difficult to imagine any greater awkwardness than that of Napoleon in a drawing-room.--Varnhagen von Ense, "Ausgewählte Schriften," III., 177. (Audience of July 10, 1810): "I never heard a harsher voice, one so inflexible. When he smiled, it was only with the mouth and a portion of the cheeks; the brow and eyes remained immovably sombre,... This compound of a smile with seriousness had in it something terrible and frightful."--On one occasion, at St. Cloud, Varnhagen heard him exclaim over and over again, twenty times, before a group of ladies, "How hot!"]

[Footnote 1292: Mme. de Rémusat, II., 77, 169.--Thibaudeau, "Mémoires sur le Consulat," p. 18: "He sometimes pays them left-handed compliments on their toilet or adventures, which was his way of censuring morals."--"Mes souvenirs sur Napoléon," 322 by le Comte Chaptal: "At a fête, in the Hôtel de Ville, he exclaimed to Madame----, who had just given her name to him: 'Good God, they told me you were pretty!' To some old persons: 'You haven't long to live! To another lady: 'It is a fine time for you, now your husband is on his campaigns!' In general, the tone of Bonaparte was that of an ill-bred lieutenant. He often invited a dozen or fifteen persons to dinner and rose from the table before the soup was finished... The court was a regular galley where each rowed according to command."]

[Footnote 1293: Madame de Rémusat, I., 114, 122, 206; II., 110, 112.]

[Footnote 1294: Ibid., I., 277.]

[Footnote 1295: "Hansard's Parliamentary History," vol. XXXVI.,.310. Lord Whitworth's dispatch to Lord Hawkesbury, March 14, 1803, and account of the scene with Napoleon. "All this took place loud enough for the two hundred persons present to hear it."--Lord Whitworth (dispatch of March 17) complains of this to Talleyrand and informs him that he shall discontinue his visits to the Tuileries unless he is assured that similar scenes shall not occur again.--Lord Hawkesbury approves of this (dispatch of March 27), and declares that the proceeding is improper and offensive to the King of England.--Similar scenes, the same conceit and intemperate language, with M. de Metternich, at Paris, in 1809, also at Dresden, in 1813: again with Prince Korsakof, at Paris, in 1812; with M. de Balachof, at Wilna, in 1812, and with Prince Cardito, at Milan, in 1805.]

[Footnote 1296: Before the rupture of the peace of Amiens ("Moniteur," Aug. 8, 1802): The French government is now more firmly established than the English government."--("Moniteur" Sept.10, 1802): "What a difference between a people which conquers for love of glory and a people of traders who happen to become conquerors!"--("Moniteur," Feb. 20, 1803): "The government declares with a just pride that England cannot now contend against France."--Campaign of 1805, 9th bulletin, words of Napoleon in the presence of Mack's staff: "I recommend my brother the Emperor of Germany to make peace as quick as he can! Now is the time to remember that all empires come to an end; the idea that an end might come to the house of Lorraine ought to alarm him."--Letter to the Queen of Naples, January 2, 1805: "Let your Majesty listen to what I predict. On the first war breaking out, of which she might be the cause, she and her children will have ceased to reign; her children would go wandering about among the different countries of Europe begging help from their relations."]

[Footnote 1297: 37th bulletin, announcing the march of an army on Naples "to punish the Queen's treachery and cast from the throne that criminal woman, who, with such shamelessness, has violated all that men hold sacred."--Proclamation of May 13, 1809: "Vienna, which the princes of the house of Lorraine have abandoned, not as honorable soldiers yielding to circumstances and the chances of war, but as perjurers pursued by remorse.... In flying from Vienna their adieus to its inhabitants consisted of murder and fire. Like Medea, they have sacrificed their children with their own hands."--13th bulletin: "The rage of the house of Lorraine against the city of Vienna,"]

[Footnote 1298: Letter to the King of Spain, Sept. 18, 1803, and a note to the Spanish minister of foreign affairs, on the Prince de la Paix: "This favorite, who has succeeded by the most criminal ways to a degree unheard of in the annals of history.... Let Your Majesty put away a man who, maintaining in his rank the low passions of his character, has lived wholly on his vices."--After the battle of Jéna, 9th, 17th, 18th, and 19th bulletins, comparison of the Queen of Prussia with Lady Hamilton, open and repeated insinuations, imputing to her an intrigue with the Emperor Alexander. "Everybody admits that the Queen of Prussia is the author of the evils the Prussian nation suffers. This is heard everywhere. How changed she is since that fatal interview with the Emperor Alexander!... The portrait of the Emperor Alexander, presented to her by the Prince, was found in the apartment of the Queen at Potsdam."]

[Footnote 1299: "La Guerre patriotique" (1812-1815), according to the letters of contemporaries, by Doubravine (in Russian). The Report of the Russian envoy, M. de Balachof, is in French,]

[Footnote 12100: An allusion to the murder of Paul I.]

[Footnote 12101: Stanislas de Girardin, "Mémoires," III., 249. (Reception of Nivôse 12, year X.) The First consul addresses the Senate: "Citizens, I warn you that I regard the nomination of Daunou to the senate as a personal insult, and you know that I have never put up with one."--"Correspondance de Napoleon I." (Letter of Sept.23, 1809, to M. de Champagny): "The Emperor Francis insulted me in writing to me that I cede nothing to him, when, out of consideration for him, I have reduced my demands nearly one-half." (Instead of 2,750,000 Austrian subjects he demanded only 1,600,000.)--Roederer, III., 377 (Jan.24, 1801): "The French people must put up with my defects if they find I am of service to them; it is my fault that I cannot endure insults."]

[Footnote 12102: M. de Metternich, II., 378. (Letter to the Emperor of Austria, July 28, 1810.)]

[Footnote 12103: Note presented by the French ambassador, Otto, Aug. 17, 1802.]

[Footnote 12104: Stanislas Girardin, III., 296. (Words of the First consul, Floreal 24, year XI.): "I had proposed to the British minister, for several months, to make an arrangement by which a law should be passed in France and in England prohibiting newspapers and the members of the government from expressing either good or ill of foreign governments. He never would consent to it."--St. Girardin: "He could not."--Bonaparte: "Why?"--St. Girardin: "Because an agreement of that sort would have been opposed to the fundamental law of the country." Bonaparte: "I have a poor opinion," etc.]

[Footnote 12105: Hansard, vol. XXXVI., p.1298. (Dispatch of Lord Whitworth, Feb.21, 1803, conversation with the First consul at the Tuileries.)--Seeley, 'A Short History of Napoleon the First." "Trifles is a softened expression, Lord Whitworth adds in a parenthesis which has never been printed; "the expression he made use of is too insignificant and too low to have a place in a dispatch or anywhere else, save in the mouth of a hack-driver."]

[Footnote 12106: Lanfrey, "Histoire de Napoléon," II., 482. (Words of the First consul to the Swiss delegates, conference of January 29, 1803.)]

[Footnote 12107: Sir Neil Campbell, "Napoleon at Fontainebleau and Elba," p.201. (The words of Napoleon to Sir Neil Campbell and to the other commissioners.)--The Mémorial de Sainte Helene mentions the same plan in almost identical terms.--Pelet de la Lozère, "Opinions de Napoléon au conseil d'état," p.238 (session of March 4, 1806): "Within forty-eight hours after peace with England, I shall interdict foreign commodities and promulgate a navigation act forbidding any other than French vessels entering our ports, built of French timber, and with the crews two-thirds French. Even coal and English 'milords' shall land only under the French flag."--Ibid., 32.]

[Footnote 12108: Moniteur, January 30, 1803 (Sebastiani).]

[Footnote 12109: Hansard, vol. XXXVI., p.1298. (Lord Whitworth's dispatch, Feb.21, 1803, the First Consul's words to Lord Whitworth.)]

[Footnote 12110: "Memorial." (Napoleon's own words, March 24, 1806.)]

[Footnote 12111: Lanfrey, II., 476. (Note to Otto, October 23, 1802.)--Thiers,VI., 249.]

[Footnote 12112: Letter to Clarke, Minister of War, Jan. 18, 1814. "If, at Leipsic, I had had 30,000 cannon balls to fire off on the evening of the 18th, I should to-day be master of the world."]

[Footnote 12113: "Memorial," Nov. 30, 1815.]

[Footnote 12114: Lanfrey, III.,--399. Letters of Talleyrand, October 11 and 27, 1805, and memorandum addressed to Napoleon.]

[Footnote 12115: At the council held in relation to the future marriage of Napoleon, Cambacérès vainly supported an alliance with the Russians. The following week, he says to M. Pasquier: "When one has only one good reason to give and it cannot possibly be given, it is natural that one should be beaten..., You will see that it is so good that one phrase suffices to make its force fully understood. I am deeply convinced that in two years we shall have a war with that of two powers whose daughter the Emperor does not marry. Now a war with Austria does not cause me any uneasiness, and I tremble at a war with Russia. The consequences are incalculable." "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. Vol I., p 293, p 378.).]

[Footnote 12116: M. de Metternich, II., 305. (Letter to the Emperor of Austria, Aug.10, 1809.)--Ibid. 403.. (Letter of Jan.11, 1811.) "My appreciation of Napoleon's plans and projects, at bottom, has never varied. The monstrous purpose of the complete subjection of the continent under one head was, and is still, his object."]

[Footnote 12117: "Correspondance de Napoleon I." (Letter to the King of Wurtemberg, April 2, 1814): "The war will take place in spite of him (the Emperor Alexander), in spite of me, in spite of the interests of France and those of Russia. Having already seen this so often, it is my past experience which enables me to unveil the future,"]

[Footnote 12118: Mollien, III., 135, 190.--In 1810 "prices have increased 400% on sugar, and 100 % on cotton and dye stuffs."--"More than 20,000 custom-house officers were employed on the frontier against more than 100,000 smugglers, in constant activity and favored by the population."--"Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), Librarie Plon, Paris 1893.-, I., 387.--There were licenses for importing colonial products, but on condition of exporting a proportionate quantity of French manufactures; now, England refused to receive them. Consequently, "not being allowed to bring these articles back to France, they were thrown overboard."--"They began at first by devoting the refuse of manufactures to this trade, and then ended by manufacturing articles without other destination; for example, at Lyons, taffetas and satins."]

[Footnote 12119: Proclamation of Dec.27, 1805: "The Naples dynasty has ceased to reign. Its existence is incompatible with the repose of Europe and the honor of my crown."--Message to the Senate, Dec. 10, 1810: "Fresh guarantees having become necessary, the annexation to the Empire of the mouths of the Escaut, the Meuse, the Rhine, the Ems, the Weser, and the Elbe, seemed to me to be the first and most important.... The annexation of the Valais is an anticipated result of the vast works I have undertaken for the past ten years in that section of the Alps."]

[Footnote 12120: We are familiar with the Spanish affair. His treatment of Portugal is anterior and of same order.-" Correspondance." (Letter to Junot, Oct.31, 1807):--'I have already informed you, that in authorizing you to enter as an auxiliary, it was to enable you to possess yourself of the (Portuguese) fleet, but my mind was made up to take Portugal."--(Letter to Junot, Dec. 23, 1807): "Disarm the country. Send all the Portuguese troops to France.... I want them out of the country. Have all princes, ministers, and other men who serve as rallying points, sent to France."--(Decree of Dec. 23, 1807): "An extra contribution of 100 million francs shall be imposed on the kingdom of Portugal, to redeem all property, of whatever denomination, belonging to private parties... All property belonging to the Queen of Portugal, to the prince-regent, and to princes in appanage;.... all the possessions of the nobles who have followed the king, on his abandoning the country, and who had not returned to the kingdom before February 1, shall be put under sequestration."--Cf. M. d'Haussonville, "L'Église Romaine et le premier Empire," 5 vols. (especially the last volume). No other work enables one to see into Napoleon's object and proceedings better nor more closely.]

[Footnote 12121: "Souvenirs du feu duc de Broglie," p.143. (As a specimen of steps taken in time of war, see the register of Marshal Bessières' orders, commandant at Valladolid from April 11 to July 15, 1811.)--"Correspondance du Roi Jérome," letter of Jerome to Napoleon, Dec. 5, 1811. (Showing the situation of a vanquished people in times of peace): "If war should break out, all countries between the Rhine and the Oder will become the center of a vast and active insurrection. The mighty cause of this dangerous movement is not merely hatred of the French, and impatience of a foreign yoke, but rather in the misfortunes of the day, in the total ruin of all classes, in over-taxation, consisting of war levies, the maintenance of troops, soldiers traversing the country, and every sort of constantly renewed vexation.... At Hanover, Magdebourg, and in the principal towns of my kingdom, owners of property are abandoning their dwellings and vainly trying to dispose of them at the lowest prices.... Misery everywhere presses on families; capital is exhausted; the noble, the peasant, the bourgeois, are crushed with debt and want.... The despair of populations no longer having anything to lose, because all has been taken away, is to be feared."--De Pradt, p.73. (Specimen of military proceedings in allied countries.) At Wolburch, in the Bishop of Cujavie's chateau, "I found his secretary, canon of Cujavie, decorated with the ribbon and cross of his order, who showed me his jaw, broken by the vigorous blows administered to him the previous evening by General Count Vandamme, because he had refused to serve Tokay wine, imperiously demanded by the general; he was told that the King of Westphalia had lodged in the castle the day before, and had carted away all this wine."]

[Footnote 12122: Fievée, "Correspondance et relations avec Bonaparte, de 1802 à 1813," III., 82. (Dec. 1811), (On the populations annexed or conquered): "There is no hesitation in depriving them of their patrimony, their language, their legislatures, in disturbing all their habits, and that without any warrant but throwing a bulletin des lois at their heads (inapplicable).... How could they be expected to recognize this, or even become resigned to it?... Is it possible not to feel that one no longer has a country, that one is under constraint, wounded in feeling and humiliated?... Prussia, and a large part of Germany, has been so impoverished that there is more to gain by taking a pitchfork to kill a man than to stir up a pile of manure."]

[Footnote 12123: "Correspondance," letter to King Joseph, Feb. 18, 1814. "If I had signed the treaty reducing France to its ancient limits, I should have gone to war two years after"--Marmont, V., 133 (1813): "Napoleon, in the last years of his reign, always preferred to lose all rather than to yield anything."]

[Footnote 12124: M. de Metternich, II., 205.]

[Footnote 12125: Words of Richelieu on his death-bed: "Behold my judge," said he, pointing to the Host, "the judge who will soon pronounce his verdict. I pray that he will condemn me, if, during my ministry, I have proposed to myself aught else than the good of religion and of the State."]

[Footnote 12126: Miot de Melito, "Mémoires,"II., 48, 152.]

[Footnote 12127: "Souvenirs," by Gaudin, duc de Gaëte (3rd vol. of the "Mémoires," p.67).]

[Footnote 12128: M. de Metternich, II., 120. (Letter to Stadion, July 26, 1807.)]

[Footnote 12129: Ibid., II., 291. (Letter of April 11, 1809.)]

[Footnote 12130: Ibid., II., 400. (Letter of Jan.17, 1811.) In lucid moments, Napoleon takes the same view. Cf. Pelet de la Lozère, "Opinions de Napoleon au conseil d'etat," p. 15: "That will last as long as I do. After me, however, my son will deem himself fortunate if he has 40,000 francs a year."--(De Ségur, "Histoire et Mémoires," III., 155.): "How often at this time (1811) was he heard to foretell that the weight of his empire would crush his heir!" "Poor child," said he, regarding the King of Rome, "what an entanglement I shall leave to you!" From the beginning he frequently passed judgment on himself and foresaw the effect of his action in history." On reaching the isle of Poplars, the First Consul stopped at Rousseau's grave, and said: 'It would have, been better for the repose of France, if that man had never existed.' 'And why, citizen Consul?' 'He is the man who made the French revolution.' 'It seems to me that you need not complain of the French revolution!' 'well, the future must decide whether it would not have been better for the repose of the whole world if neither myself nor Rousseau had ever lived.' He then resumed his promenade in a revery."--Stanislas Girardin; "Journal et Mémoires," III., Visit of the French Consul to Ermenonville.]

[Footnote 12131: Marmont, "Mémoires," III., 337. (On returning from Wagram.)]

[Footnote 12132: On this initial discord, cf. Armand Lefèvre, "Histoire des Cabinets de l'Europe," vol.VI.]

[Footnote 12133: "Correspondance de Napoléon I." (Letter to the King of Wurtemberg, April 2, 1811.)]

[Footnote 12134: Testament of April 25, 1821 "It is my desire that my remains rest on the banks of the Seine, amidst that French people I have so dearly loved."]

[Footnote 12135: "Correspondance de Napoleon I.", XXII., 119. (Note by Napoleon, April, 1811.) "There will always be at Hamburg, Bremen, and Lubeck from 8000 to 10,000 Frenchmen, either as employees or as gendarmes, in the custom-houses and warehouses."]

[Footnote 12136: "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), Librarie Plon, Paris 1893.-, II., 88, and following pages: "During the year 1813, from Jan. 1 to Oct. 7, 840,000 men had already been drafted from imperial France and they had to be furnished."--Other decrees in December, placing at the disposition of the government 300,000 conscripts for the years 1806 to 1814 inclusive.--Another decree in November organizing 140,000 men of the national guard in cohorts, intended for the defense of strongholds.--In all, 1,300,000 men summoned in one year. "Never has any nation been thus asked to let itself be voluntarily led in a mass to the slaughterhouse.--Ibid., II., 59. Senatus-consulte, and order of council for raising 10,000 young men, exempt or redeemed from conscription, as the prefects might choose, arbitrarily, from amongst the highest classes in society. The purpose was plainly "to secure hostages in every family of doubtful loyalty. No measure created for Napoleon more irreconcilable enemies."--Cf. De Ségur, II., 34. (He was charged with organizing and commanding a division of young men.) Many were sons of Vendéans or of Conventionalists, some torn from their wives the day after their marriage, or from the bedside of a wife in her confinement, of a dying father, or of a sick son; "some looked so feeble that they seemed dying." One half perished in the campaign of 1814.--"Correspondance," letter to Clarke, Minister of War, Oct.23, 1813 (in relation to the new levies): "I rely on 100,000 refractory conscripts."]

[Footnote 12137: "Archives nationales," A F.,VI., 1297. (Documents 206 to 210.) (Report to the Emperor by Count Dumas, April 10, 1810.) Besides the 170 millions of penalties 1,675,457 francs of penalty were inflicted on 2335 individuals, "abettors or accomplices."--Ibid., A F.,VI., 1051. (Report of Gen. Lacoste on the department of Haute-Loire, Oct. 13, 1808.) "He always calculated in this department on the desertion of one-half of the conscripts. In most of the cantons the gendarmes traffic with the conscription shamefully; certain conscripts pension them to show them favors."--Ibid., A F.,VI., 1052. (Report by Pelet, Jan. 12, 1812.) "The operation of the conscription has improved (in the Herault); the contingents of 1811 have been furnished. There remained 1800 refractory, or deserters of the previous classes; 1600 have been arrested or made to surrender by the flying column; 200 have still to be pursued." Faber,--"Notice (1807) sur l'intérieur de la France," p. 141: "Desertion, especially on the frontiers, is occasionally frightful; 80 deserters out of 160 have sometimes been arrested."--Ibid., p.149: It has been stated in the public journals that in 1801 the court in session at Lille had condemned 135 refractory out of the annual conscription, and that which holds its sittings at Ghent had condemned 70. Now, 200 conscripts form the maximum of what an arrondissement in a department could furnish."--Ibid, p.145. "France resembles a vast house of detention where everybody is suspicious of his neighbor, where each avoids the other... One often sees a young man with a gendarme at his heels oftentimes, on looking closely, this young man's hands are found tied, or he is handcuffed."--Mathieu Dumas, III., 507 (After the battle of Dresden, in the Dresden hospitals): "I observed, with sorrow, that many of these men were slightly wounded: most of them, young conscripts just arrived in the army, had not been wounded by the enemy's fire, but they had mutilated each other's feet and hands. Antecedents of this kind, of equally bad augury, had already been remarked in the campaign of 1809."]

[Footnote 12138: De Ségur, III., 474.--Thiers, XIV., 159. (One month after crossing the Niemen one hundred and fifty thousand men had dropped out of the ranks.)]

[Footnote 12139: Bulletin 29 (December 3, 1812).]

[Footnote 12140: "De Pradt, Histoire de l'Ambassade de Varsovie," p.219.]

[Footnote 12141: M. de Metternich, I., 147.--Fain, "Manuscript," of 1813, II., 26. (Napoleon's address to his generals.) "What we want is a complete triumph. To abandon this or that province is not the question; our political superiority and our existence depend on it. "--II., 41, 42. (Words of Napoleon to Metternich.) "And it is my father-in-law who favors such a project! And he sends you! In what attitude does he wish to place me before the French people? He is strangely deluded if he thinks that a mutilated throne can offer an asylum to his daughter and grandson.... Ah, Metternich, how much has England given you to make you play this part against me?" (This last phrase, omitted in Metternich's narrative, is a characteristic trait; Napoleon at this decisive moment, remains insulting and aggressive, gratuitously and even to his own destruction.)]

[Footnote 12142: "Souvenirs du feu duc de Broglie," I., 235.]

[Footnote 12143: Ibid., I., 230. Some days before Napoleon had said to M. de Narbonne, who told me that very evening: "After all, what has this (the Russian campaign) cost me? 300,000 men, among whom, again, were a good many Germans."--"Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. II. 110. (Apropos of the Frankfurt basis, and accepted by Napoleon when too late.) "What characterizes this mistake is that it was committed much more against the interests of France than against his own.... He sacrificed her to the perplexities of his personal situation, to the mauvaise honte of his own ambition, to the difficulty he finds in standing alone to a certain extent before a nation which had done everything for him and which could justly reproach him with having sacrificed so much treasure and spilled so much blood on enterprises proved to have been foolish and impracticable."]

[Footnote 12144: Leonce de Lavergne, "Economie rurale de la France," P.40. (According to the former director of the conscription under the Empire.)]

BOOK SECOND. FORMATION AND CHARACTER OF THE NEW STATE.