ESTABLISHMENT AT LONGWOOD. (continued 3)

In addition to this, our physical and moral privations must be taken into account; it must be recollected that we are not in the full enjoyment of even the few resources which the island affords, and of which arbitrary feeling and caprice in part deprive us; for we are not permitted to regale our eyes with the sight of the grass and foliage, in places at a certain distance from Longwood. The Admiral had promised that the Emperor should be free to ride over the whole of the island, and that he would make arrangements with respect to his guard, so as to relieve him from all annoyance. It has already been seen how, on our second attempt to avail ourselves of it, the Admiral broke this kind of engagement; and by his orders an officer insisted on accompanying the Emperor in his rides. The Emperor consequently renounced the idea of taking any excursion whatever, and we now remain cut off from all communication with mankind.

With respect to our physical existence, our situation is most miserable, either through unavoidable circumstances or mismanagement. Scarcely any of the provisions are eatable. The wine is execrable; the oil unfit for use; the coffee and sugar almost exhausted, and, as I have already observed, we have nearly bred a famine in the island. Of course, we can endure all these privations, and might contrive to exist under many more. But, when it is asserted that we are treated in a style of magnificence, when it is declared that we are very well off, we are induced to unfold our real situation, and to shew that we are destitute of every comfort. And, lest our silence hereafter should lead to the inference that we are happy, let it be understood that our moral strength may 349enable us to endure miseries which language would be inadequate to express.

MY SON’S INDISPOSITION.—THE EMPEROR GIVES ME A HORSE.

2nd.—My son having been, for some time past, troubled with a pain in his chest, accompanied by violent palpitation of the heart, I called in three surgeons, and they ordered him to be bled.—Bleeding is at present the favourite remedy with the English; it is their universal panacea. They employ it in all disorders, and sometimes where there is no disorder at all. They laughed at the astonishment we evinced at a treatment which was altogether new to us.

About the middle of the day we took a ride in the calash. On our return home, the Emperor wished to see a horse that had just been purchased for him: he thought him very handsome and well made. He tried him, declared that he liked him uncommonly, and then, with the most captivating good-nature, made me a present of him. However, I could not ride him: he proved vicious, and he was transferred to General Gourgaud, who is a much better horseman than I am.

THE EMPEROR’S PROGRESS IN LEARNING ENGLISH.

3rd–6th. The 3rd was a terrible day; the rain fell incessantly, and we found it impossible to stir out. The weather has continued wet for several days in succession. I never imagined that we could have contrived to stay for such a length of time within doors. The damp is penetrating on every side of our dwelling, and the rain is making its way through the roof. The bad weather without doors had an unpleasant effect upon us within.—I became very dull; the Emperor was by no means well, and I was not better. “What is the matter with you?” said he to me, one morning; “you seem quite altered for these few days past. Is your mind ailing? Are you conjuring up dragons, like Madame de Sevigné?”—“Sire,” I replied, “my illness is altogether bodily. The state of my eyes afflicts me exceedingly. As for my mind, I know how to keep that under the bridle. I can even use the curb, if needful; and your Majesty has 350given me a pair of spurs which will be my last and victorious resource.”

The Emperor devoted three, four, and even five hours at a time to the study of English. His progress was really very remarkable; he felt this, and was delighted at it. He frequently says that he is indebted to me for this conquest, and that he considers it a very important one. For my part, however, I can claim no other merit than the method which I adopted with regard to the other occupations of the Emperor. I first suggested the idea, and then continually reverted to it: and when it was once fairly set on foot, I followed up its execution with a promptitude and daily regularity which stimulated the Emperor to proceed. If any of us happened not to be ready at the moment he wanted us, if it was found necessary to postpone any business till the following day, he was immediately seized with disgust, and his labours were suspended until some circumstance occurred to induce him to renew them. “I stand in need of excitement,” said he, in one of these transient interruptions, “nothing but the pleasure of advancement can bear me through: for, between you and me, it must needs be confessed that there is nothing very amusing in all this. Indeed there is very little diversion in the whole routine of our present existence.”

The Emperor still continued to play two or three games at chess before dinner; in the afternoons we resumed reversis, long abandoned. Formerly we had not been regular in paying our debts of honour; and we henceforth agreedagreed to pay the sums that we owed to each other into a general bank. We began to consider how the money thus accumulated should be disposed of. The Emperor asked our opinions, and one proposed that the money should be applied to the liberation of the prettiest female slave in the island. This idea was universally approved; we sat down to play with great spirit, and the first evening produced two Napoleons and a half.

THE EMPEROR LEARNS THE DEATH OF MURAT.

7th—8th. The Theban frigate arrived from the Cape, and brought us some newspapers. I translated them to 351the Emperor while we walked in the garden. One of these papers brought intelligence of a great catastrophe. I read that Murat, having landed in Calabria, with a few troops, had been seized and shot. At this unexpected news, the Emperor interrupted me by exclaiming, “The Calabrians were more humane, more generous, than those who sent me hither.” This was all he said; and after a few moments’ silence, as he said nothing, I continued to read.

Murat, without real judgment, without solid views, without a character proportioned to the circumstances in which he was placed, had perished in an attempt evidently desperate. It is not impossible that the Emperor’s return from Elba may have turned his brain, and inspired him with the hope of renewing the prodigy in his own person. Such was the miserable end of him who had been one of the most active causes of our reverses! In 1814, his courage and intrepidity might have saved us from the abyss in which his treachery involved us. He neutralized the Viceroy on the Po, and fought against him; whereas, by uniting together, they might have forced the passes of the Tyrol, made a descent into Germany, and arrived on Bâle and the banks of the Rhine, to destroy the rear of the allies and cut off their retreat from France.

The Emperor, while he was at Elba, disdained all communication with the King of Naples; but, on departing for France, he wrote to inform him that, being about to resume possession of his throne, he felt pleasure in declaring to him that all their past differences were at an end. He pardoned his late conduct, tendered him his friendship, sent some one to sign the guarantee of his States, and recommended him to maintain a good understanding with the Austrians, and to content himself with merely keeping them in check, in case they should attempt to march upon France. Murat, at this moment, inspired with the sentiments of his early youth, would receive neither guarantee nor signature. He declared that the Emperor’s promise and friendship were sufficient for him, and that he would prove he had been more unfortunate than guilty. His devotedness and 352ardour, he added, would obtain for him oblivion of the past.

“Murat,” said the Emperor, “was doomed to be our bane. He ruined us by forsaking us, and he ruined us by too warmly espousing our cause. He observed no sort of discretion. He himself attacked the Austrians, without any reasonable plan and without adequate forces; and he was subdued without striking a blow.”

The Austrians, when rid of Murat, cited his conduct either as a reason or as a pretence for attributing ambitious views to Napoleon when he again appeared on the scene. They constantly referred to Murat, whenever the Emperor made protestations of his moderation.

Before these unlucky hostilities of the King of Naples, the Emperor had already set on foot negotiations with Austria. Other inferior states, which I think it unnecessary to mention by name, had signified to him that he might rely on their neutrality. Doubtless the fall of the King of Naples gave another turn to affairs.

Endeavours have been made to represent Napoleon as a man of furious and implacable temper; but the truth is that he was a stranger to revenge, and he never cherished any vindictive feeling, whatever wrong he suffered. His anger was usually vented in violent transports, and was soon at an end. Those who knew him must be convinced of this fact. Murat had scandalously betrayed him; as I have already observed, he had twice ruined his prospects, and yet Murat came to seek an asylum at Toulon. “I should have taken him with me to Waterloo,” said Napoleon; “but such was the patriotic and moral feeling of the French army that it was doubtful whether the troops would surmount the disgust and horror which they felt for the man who had betrayed and lost France. I did not consider myself sufficiently powerful to protect him. Yet he might have enabled us to gain the victory. How useful would he have been at certain periods of the battle! For what was required, at certain moments of the day, to insure our success?—to break through three or four English squares; and Murat was admirable in such a service as this—he was precisely the man for it. At the head of a body of cavalry, 353no man was ever more resolute, more courageous, or more brilliant.

“As to drawing a parallel,” said the Emperor, ”between the circumstances of Napoleon and Murat—between the landing of the former in France and the entrance of the latter into the Neapolitan territory; no such parallel exists. Murat could have no good argument to support his cause, except success; which was purely chimerical, at the time and in the manner in which he commenced his enterprise. Napoleon was the chosen ruler of a people; he was their legitimate sovereign according to modern doctrines. But Murat was not a Neapolitan; the Neapolitans had not chosen Murat; how, therefore, could it be expected that he should excite any lively interest in his favour? Thus his proclamation was totally false, and destitute of facts. Ferdinand of Naples could view him in no other light than as an instigator of insurrection; he did so, and he treated him accordingly.

“How different was it with me!” continued the Emperor: “before my arrival, one universal sentiment pervaded France, and my proclamation on landing was imbued with that sentiment:—every one found that it echoed the feelings of his own heart. France was discontented; I was her resource. The evil and its remedy were immediately in unison. This is the whole secret of that electric movement which is unexampled in history. It had its source solely in the nature of things. There was no conspiracy, and the impulse was general; not a word was spoken, yet a general understanding prevailed throughout the country. Whole towns threw themselves at the feet of their deliverer. The first battalion which my presence gained over to me immediately placed the whole army in my power. I found myself borne on to Paris. The existing government and its agency disappeared without effort, like clouds before the sun. And yet,” concluded the Emperor, “had I been subdued, had I fallen into the hands of my enemies, I was not a mere insurrectionary chief; I was a Sovereign acknowledged by all Europe. I had my title, my standard, my troops; and I was advancing to wage war upon my enemy.”

354

PORLIER—FERDINAND.

9th.—In the papers which I was translating to the Emperor, I found the history of the Spanish General Porlier, one of the most distinguished chiefs of the famous Guerillas. He had made an attempt to excite the Spaniards to rise against the tyranny of Ferdinand; but he failed, was arrested, and hanged.

The Emperor said, “I am not in the least surprised that such an attempt should have been made in Spain. Those very Spaniards, who proved themselves my most inveterate enemies when I invaded their country, and who acquired the highest glory by the resistance they opposed to me, immediately appealed to me on my return from Elba. They had, they said, fought against me as their tyrant; but they now came to implore my aid as their deliverer. They required only a small sum to emancipate themselves, and to produce in the Peninsula a revolution similar to mine. Had I conquered at Waterloo, it was my intention immediately to have assisted the Spaniards. This circumstance sufficiently explains to me the attempt that has lately been made. There is little doubt that it will be renewed. Ferdinand, in his madness, may grasp his sceptre as firmly as he will; but one day or other it will slip through his fingers like an eel.”

About four o’clock, I presented to the Emperor the Captain of the Theban, who was to sail next day for Europe, and Colonel Macoy, of the Ceylon regiment. This brave soldier looked like a mutilated monument; he had not only lost one of his legs, but his face was disfigured by a sabre-cut across his forehead, and several other scars. He had been wounded on the field of battle in Calabria, and made prisoner by General Parthonaux. The Emperor received him with particular attention; it was easy to see that they felt a mutual sympathy for each other. Colonel Macoy had held the rank of Major in the Corsican regiment, commanded by the new Governor, whom we expected. The Colonel remarked to some person, that he thought the Emperor was very ill-treated here; but that he had too high an idea of General Lowe’s liberality of mind, not 355to believe that, having accepted the Government of the Island, he would do every thing in his power to meliorate our condition.

The Emperor afterwards rode out on horseback, when we again went up the valley, and did not return until about seven o’clock. The Emperor then resumed his walk in the garden; the temperature was very mild, and the moon shone delightfully. The fine weather had completely returned.

ON EGYPT.—PLAN FOR ALTERING THE COURSE OF THE NILE.

10th.—The Emperor now begins to make rapid advancement in English; and, with the assistance of his dictionary, might manage tolerably without me. He was delighted with the decided progress he had made. His lesson for to-day was the task of reading in the Encyclopedia Britannica the article on the Nile, of which he now and then made memorandums to assist him in his dictations to the Grand Marshal. In this article the Emperor found a fact related which I had formerly mentioned to him, but which he had hitherto considered as an absurd story. The great Albuquerque proposed to the King of Portugal to turn the course of the Nile previous to its entrance into the valley of Egypt, so as to make it fall into the Red Sea, which would have rendered Egypt an impassable desert, and made the Cape of Good Hope the only channel for the great trade of India. Bruce thinks the execution of this gigantic idea not entirely impossible; the Emperor was forcibly struck with it.

About five o’clock the Emperor took an airing in the calash; the drive was extremely pleasant, and the circumstance of some trees having been cut down has, by forming several circuitous roads, made our original space three times as large as before. On our return, we took advantage of the fineness of the evening to walk for a long time in the garden: the conversation was most interesting. It turned on various important subjects, viz. on the variety of religions; on the spirit that had given them birth; the ridiculous absurdities 356with which they were mingled; the excesses by which they had been degraded; the objections that had been urged against them, &c. The Emperor treated all these subjects with his usual superiority.

UNIFORMITY.—ENNUI.—THE EMPEROR’S SOLITUDE.—CARICATURES.

11th.—The Emperor read this morning the article entitled Egypt, in the Encyclopedia, and made some notes from it which cannot fail to be of service to him for his Campaign of Egypt. This circumstance gave him a great deal of pleasure; and he repeated several times in the course of the day how much he was delighted with the progress he had made. He is now sufficiently advanced to read without assistance.

About four o’clock I accompanied the Emperor into the garden: we walked by ourselves for some time, but were afterwards joined by the rest of the company. The weather was very mild. The Emperor remarked the calmness of our solitude. It was Sunday, and no workmen were to be seen. He added that we could not, at least, be accused of dissipation, or of the ardent pursuit of pleasure; in fact, it is difficult to imagine a state of greater uniformity, or a more complete absence of every sort of amusement.

The Emperor endures this mode of life admirably. He surpasses us all in equality and serenity of temper. He says, himself, that it would be difficult to be more philosophic and tranquil than he is.—He retires to bed at ten o’clock, and does not rise, that is to say, does not go out, before five or six o’clock, so that he was never more than four hours out of doors; like a prisoner who is led from his cell once a day to breathe the fresh air. But then how intense is the occupation of each day! how various are the thoughts which occupy his mind during his long solitary hours! With regard to mental exertion, the Emperor said he felt as capable of bearing it as he had ever been; that he did not feel himself worn out or withered in any respect. He was astonished himself at the slight impression that had been made on him by all the late events in which he had been 357the principal actor. It was like lead which had passed over marble. The spring might have been for a moment compressed, but it had not been broken, and had risen again with all its elasticity. He did not think any one in the world knew better than himself how to yield to necessity; this, he said, was the real triumph of reason and strength of mind.

The hour for our ride had now arrived. As the Emperor was going to meet the calash, he happened to see little Hortense, Madame Bertrand’s daughter, whom he is very fond of. He called her to him, caressed her two or three times, and took her out in the carriage along with little Tristan de Montholon. During the drive, the Grand Marshal, who had been looking over the papers, gave an account of some bons-mots and caricatures he had found among them. One possessed a good deal of point. The picture consisted of two actions; one represented Napoleon giving to the Princess of Hasfield, with directions to commit it to the flames, the letter whose disappearance saved her husband; underneath was written, Tyrannical Act of an Usurper. The companion was quite of another character. We described to the Emperor a great number of the caricatures with which we had been inundated after the restoration. Some of them afforded him great amusement. One in particular made him smile: it referred to a change of dynasty.

The Emperor observed that, if caricatures sometimes avenge misfortune, they form a continual annoyance to power. “I think I have had my share of them,” said he. He then desired us to describe some of those which had been made upon him, and very much approved of one as being in good taste. It was a sketch representing George III. on the coast of England, throwing an enormous beet-root, in a great passion, at the head of Napoleon, who was on the opposite shore, and saying, “Go, and be made sugar.”

THE EMPEROR’S LONG WALK.

12th.—Fine weather had now fairly set in. About four o’clock the Emperor walked in the garden. The 358temperature was delightful, and we all acknowledged that it was like one of our finest evenings in Europe. We had enjoyed nothing equal to it since we had been on the island. The Emperor ordered the calash; and by way of a change, instead of driving along by the gum-trees, to get into the road leading to the Grand Marshal’s house, he wished to take the road which encircles the upper hollow of our favourite valley, and to gain, if possible, the spot on which is situated the residence of Miss Mason, and which is on the opposite side, facing Longwood. The Emperor invited Madame Bertrand to take a drive in the calash, in which Madame de Montholon and myself were already seated: the rest of our party followed on horseback, so that we were now all assembled together. At a few paces from Madame Bertrand’s, at the military post, which is established near the house, the ground was very steep and uneven; the horses refused to advance, and we were obliged to alight from the calash. The barrier was scarcely wide enough to allow the carriage to pass; but the English soldiers came to our assistance, and in a moment pushed it through by main force. However, when we had reached the hollow of the valley, we found walking so agreeable that the Emperor wished to continue it; and, after a short time, he ordered the carriage to be driven along the road as far as the gate of Miss Mason’s house, while we proceeded with our walk in the valley. The evening was really most delightful; the shades of night were beginning to overspread the sky, but the moon shone brilliantly. Our walk reminded us of those strolls which we had been accustomed to enjoy on fine summer evenings, in the neighbourhood of our country residences in Europe.

The calash had now returned; but the Emperor declined getting into it. He directed that it should wait at Madame Bertrand’s door; but when the Emperor got there, he chose to walk on to Longwood, where he arrived very much fatigued. He had walked nearly six miles, which is a great deal for him, who never was accustomed to walk at any period of his life.

359

BAD TEMPERATURE OF ST. HELENA.—OBSERVATION ON THE SPIRIT OF THIS JOURNAL.

13th—16th. I have already observed that there is no regular course of seasons at St. Helena, but merely irregular successions of good and bad weather. It would be difficult to find four words to express any deviation from our accustomed routine, during these four days. And here I take the opportunity of observing, once for all, that if, in the course of my journal, the events of several days are occasionally found combined in one article, it is because I have cancelled a portion of the notes relating to each day separately. I have been induced to do this from various motives. Sometimes my notes appeared to me too puerile; sometimes, on the other hand, they seemed to be too serious, and calculated for a more distant period; or occasionally they consisted of personalities, and I make it a rule studiously to avoid every thing of that kind. If, in spite of all my care, any offensive personal allusions have escaped me, it can only be when I have been led to them by the essential object of my journal; namely, to describe the character of the Emperor. Even then, I may reflect, for my own satisfaction, that these personalities relate only to public characters, and refer to facts already circulated in the world.

I am, however, perfectly well aware that the task I have undertaken may subject me to many inconveniences; but I consider it as a sacred duty, and shall endeavour to fulfil it to the best of my abilities, happen what will.

THE EMPEROR’S VIEWS OF FRENCH POLITICS.

17th.—At six o’clock in the morning, the Emperor mounted his horse, and we rode round the park, commencing in the neighbourhood of our valley, and proceeding as far as the road leading from the camp to the Grand Marshal’s residence. A party of about 150 or 200 sailors, belonging to the Northumberland, who were daily employed in removing planks of wood or stones for the service of Longwood or the camp, ranged themselves 360in a line fronting Marshal Bertrand’s house, while the Emperor passed by. The Emperor spoke to the officers, and smiled complacently on his old ship-mates; they appeared delighted at seeing him.

I have already mentioned that we occasionally received parcels of newspapers from Europe, the contents of which occupied our attention, and occasioned the Emperor to draw some lively and animated pictures. Conversing to-day on the subject of the intelligence we had recently received, the Emperor observed that the condition of France was by no means improved. “The Bourbons,” he repeated, “have now no other resource than severity. Four months have already elapsed; the Allied forces are about to be withdrawn, and none but half measures have been taken. The affair has been badly managed. A government can exist only by its principle. The principle of the French government evidently is to return to old maxims; and it should do this openly. In present circumstances, the Chambers, above all, will be fatal; they will inspire the King with false confidence, and will have no weight with the nation. The King will soon be deprived of all means of communication with them. They will no longer follow the same religion, nor speak the same language. No individual will henceforth have a right to undeceive the people with regard to any absurdities that may be propagated; even if it should be wished to make them believe that all the springs of water are poisoned, and that trains of gunpowder are laid under ground.” The Emperor concluded by observing that there would be some juridical executions, and an extreme desire of re-action, which would be sufficiently strong to irritate, but not to subdue.

As to Europe, the Emperor considered it to be as violently agitated as it had ever been. The powers of Europe had destroyed France, but she might one day revive through commotions arising among the people of different nations, whom the policy of the sovereigns was calculated to alienate; the glory of France might also be restored through a misunderstanding among the Allied powers themselves, which would probably ensue.

361As to our own personal affairs, they could only be improved through the medium of England; and she could only be induced to favour us by political interests, a change in her ministers or her sovereign, or the sentiment of national glory excited by the torrent of public opinion. As for political interests, there were circumstances which might affect them; the change of individuals depends on accidents; finally, with respect to the sentiment of national glory, so easy to be understood, the present ministry had disavowed it, but another might not be insensible to it.

PICTURE OF DOMESTIC HAPPINESS DRAWN BY THE EMPEROR.—TWO YOUNG LADIES OF THE ISLAND.

18th.—The Emperor sent for me about ten o’clock; he had just returned home. Some one had informed me that he had been out shooting; but he said that he had not. He rode out on horseback as early as six o’clock; but he gave orders that His Excellency’s slumbers should not be disturbed. We set to work with the English lesson. Breakfast was served up; it was most detestable; and I could not refrain from making the observation. He pitied me for making so bad a meal, and added that it was certainly necessary to have a good appetite to make a repast on such fare. We continued our lesson until nearly one o’clock, when the excessive heat obliged us to desist, and take a little repose.

About five the Emperor went to walk in the garden. He began to draw a sketch of the happiness of a private man in easy circumstances, peacefully enjoying life in his native province, in the house and surrounded by the lands which he had inherited from his forefathers. Certainly nothing could be more philosophic. We could not refrain from smiling at the tranquil domestic picture, and some of us got our ears pinched for our pains. “Felicity of this kind,” continued the Emperor, “is now unknown in France except by tradition. The Revolution has destroyed it. The old families have been deprived of this happiness, and the new ones have not yet been long enough established in the enjoyment of it. The picture which I have sketched has now no real existence.”—He 362observed that, to be driven from our native home, from the fields in which we had roamed in childhood, to possess no paternal abode, was in reality to be deprived of a country. Some one here remarked that the man who had been robbed of the home which he had created for himself after the storm had blown over; who was driven from the house in which he had dwelt with his wife, and which had been the birth-place of his children; might truly say that he had lost a second country. How many individuals are reduced to that extremity; and what vicissitudes the present age has produced!

We seated ourselves in the calash, and took our accustomed airing. During dinner, the conversation turned on two young ladies, residents of the island: the one tall, handsome, and very fascinating; the other not so pretty, but perfectly well bred, and pleasing in her deportment and manners. Opinions were divided respecting them. The Emperor, who was only acquainted with the one first described, declared himself in her favour. Some one remarked that, if he were to see the second, he would not be induced to change his mind. The Emperor then wished to know the gentleman’s own opinion respecting the ladies, and he replied, that he was an admirer of the second. This seemed rather contradictory, and the Emperor requested him to explain himself. “Why,” said he, “if I wished to purchase a slave, I should certainly fix on the first; but if I thought I should derive any happiness from becoming a slave myself, I should address myself to the second.”—“That is to say,” resumed the Emperor, quickly, “that you have no very high opinion of my taste?”—“Not so, Sire, but I suspect your Majesty’s views and mine would be different.” The Emperor smiled, and said nothing more on the subject.

19th.—The Emperor rode on horseback very early this morning; it was scarcely six o’clock when he went out. I was quite ready; for I had ordered some one to call me; and the Emperor was astonished to see me so active. We strolled about the park at random, and returned about nine: the sun was already beginning to be warm.

About four o’clock the Emperor wished to take his 363English lesson; but he was not very well. He said that every thing had gone wrong with him to-day; and that nothing had done him any good. His walk in the garden did not restore him; he was not well at dinner-time. He did not play his usual number of games at chess; but retired, indisposed, after the first game.

THE EMPEROR’S WORKS IN THE ISLAND OF ELBA.—PREDILECTION OF THE ALGERINES FOR THE EMPEROR.

20th.—The weather had been extremely bad. The Emperor had been rather unwell the whole of the night, but felt himself much better in the morning. He did not leave his room before five o’clock. About six we took advantage of a gleam of fine weather to drive round the park in the calash. The horses which have been provided for us are vicious; they shy at the first object that comes in their way, and become restive. They stood still several times during our drive. The rain, indeed, had rendered the roads very heavy, and at one time it required all our efforts to obviate the necessity of returning on foot. The Grand Marshal and General Gourgaud were in one instance obliged to alight and put their shoulders to the wheel. At length, after a great deal of trouble we reached home. The conversation, during our drive, turned on the Island of Elba. The Emperor spoke of the roads he had made, and the houses he had built, which the best painters of Italy begged, as a favour, to be permitted to adorn with their works.

The Emperor observed that his flag had become the first in the Mediterranean. It was held sacred, he said, by the Barbary ships, who usually made presents to the Elba Captains, telling them that they were paying the debt of Moscow. The Grand Marshal told us that some Barbary ships, having anchored off the Island of Elba, had caused great alarm among the inhabitants, who questioned the pirates with regard to their intentions, and ended by asking them plainly whether they came with any hostile views.—“Against the Great Napoleon!” said the Algerines: “Oh! never ... we do not wage war against God!”

Whenever the flag of the Island of Elba entered any 364of the ports of the Mediterranean, Leghorn excepted, it was received with loud acclamations: all the national feeling seemed to return. The crews of some French ships from Britanny and Flanders, which touched at the Island of Elba, testified the same sentiment.

“Every thing is judged by comparison in this world,” said the Emperor; “the Island of Elba, which, a year ago, was thought so disagreeable, is a paradise compared to St. Helena. As for this island, it may set all future regret at defiance.”

PIONTKOWSKI.—CARICATURE.

21st—22nd. The Emperor continued to rise early and ride out on horseback, in the park and among the gum-trees. He rode only at a walking pace, but this light exercise was of advantage to him, as it enabled him to enjoy the fresh air. He returned with a better appetite, and pursued the occupations of the day with greater spirit. He breakfasted in the garden, under some trees which had been twined together to afford him a shade. One morning, as he was sitting down to breakfast, he perceived at a distance the Pole Piontkowski, and sent for him to breakfast with him. He always takes pleasure in conversing with him whenever he meets him.

Piontkowski, with whose origin we are not very well acquainted, came to the Island of Elba, and obtained permission to serve as a private in the Guards. On the Emperor’s return from Elba, he had gained the rank of lieutenant. When we departed from Paris, he received permission to follow us; and we left him at Plymouth, among those who were separated from us by order of the English ministers. Piontkowski, having more fidelity, or more address, than his comrades, obtained leave to come to St. Helena. The Emperor had never known, and never spoken to him, till he came here.

Piontkowski was, indeed, equally unknown to us all. The English were surprised that we did not give him a warmer greeting on his arrival. Some individuals, who seized all opportunities of saying any thing to our disadvantage, wrote to England that we had received Piontkowski very ill. This story was totally false: but it 365furnished the English ministerial prints with a subject on which to exercise their usual courtesy and wit. It was asserted that the Emperor had beaten Piontkowski; and I heard of a caricature in which Napoleon was seizing the Polish officer in his talons, while I had leaped upon him to devour him; and it was only by a stick being thrust between my teeth, by the keeper of the beasts, that I was prevented from biting a mouthful out of his shoulder. Such were the elegant accounts that were given of us.

THE EMPEROR’S RETURN FROM ELBA.

24th.—After dinner, while we were taking our coffee, the Emperor observed that, about this time last year, he quitted the Island of Elba. The Grand Marshal informed him that it was on the 26th of February and on a Sunday. “Sire,” said he, “you directed mass to be performed at an earlier hour than usual, that you might have the more time for issuing the necessary orders.”

They sailed in the afternoon, and next morning at ten o’clock they were still within sight, to the great anxiety of those who were interested in their success.

The Emperor entered into conversation on this subject, and was, for upwards of an hour, engaged in describing the details of that event, which is unparalleled in history, both for the boldness of the enterprise, and the miracle of its execution. I shall insert in another part of my journal, the particulars which I collected on this subject.

CAMPAIGNS OF ITALY AND EGYPT.—THE EMPEROR’S OPINION OF THE GREAT FRENCH POETS.—TRAGEDIES BY LATE WRITERS.—HECTOR.—THE ETATS DE BLOIS.—TALMA.

25th—28th. Our days were for the most part very much alike; if they seemed long in detail, they were rapidly shortened in a retrospective view. They were without character or interest, and left only imperfect recollections behind. In English he went on gradually improving. The Emperor confessed that he had felt a moment of disgust; his furia Francese had, he said, at one time, given way; but he added that I had reanimated 366him by means of a plan which he considered more certain and infallible than any other—that of reading and analyzing a single page over and over again until it was thoroughly learnt. The grammatical rules were explained by the way. In this manner, there is not a moment lost to study and memory. The progress at first appears slow, the learner seems to advance but little in his studies; but by the time he has come to the fiftieth page, he is astonished to find that he knows the language. We had added a page of Telemachus to the rest of our lesson, and we found the benefit of it. By this time, however, the Emperor, though he had only had twenty or twenty-five complete lessons, could understand any book; and would have been able to make himself understood in writing. He did not comprehend all that was said, it is true; but, as he observed, nothing could be concealed from him for the future, and this was a great thing—this was a decided victory.

The Campaign of Egypt was completed with the assistance of Bertrand, as far as the want of materials would permit. The Emperor now commenced, with another of the gentlemen, a new and very important period; namely—from his departure from Fontainebleau, up to his return to Paris and his second abdication. He possessed no document relating to these rapid events; but it was that very rapidity which induced me to entreat him to employ his memory in recording circumstances which the hurry of events or party spirit might enfeeble or distort.

The Emperor also employed himself very frequently with me, in revising the different chapters of the Campaign of Italy; this was generally done immediately before dinner. He had directed me to arrange each chapter in a regular and uniform manner; to mark out the proper divisions of the paragraphs, and to note down and collect the illustrative articles. This he called the digestive business of an editor. “And your interest is concerned in it,” said he to me one day, with an air of kindness which affected me; “henceforward it is your property: the Campaign of Italy shall bear your name, and the Campaign of Egypt that of Bertrand. I intend 367that it shall add at once to your fortune and to your fame. There will be at least a hundred thousand francs in your pocket, and your name will last as long as the remembrance of my battles.”

With regard to our evenings, the reversis had been relinquished a second time; we could not continue it long. After the second or third round, the cards were abandoned for conversation. We resumed our readings: our stock of novels was exhausted, and plays occupied our attention for the future, tragedies in particular. The Emperor is uncommonly fond of analyzing them, which he does in a singular mode of reasoning, and with great taste. He remembers an immense quantity of poetry, which he learned when he was eighteen years old, at which time, he says, he knew much more than he does at present. The Emperor is delighted with Racine, in whom he finds a profusion of beauties. He greatly admires Corneille, but thinks very little of Voltaire, who, he says, is full of bombast and tinsel: always incorrect; unacquainted either with men or things, with truth or the sublimity of the passions of mankind.

At one of the couchers at St. Cloud the Emperor analyzed a piece which had just been brought out; it was Hector by Luce de Lancival: this piece pleased him very much; it possessed warmth and energy of character. He called it a head-quarter piece; and said that a soldier would be better prepared to meet the enemy afterafter seeing or reading it. He added that it would be well if there were a greater number of plays written in the same spirit.—Then, adverting to those dramatic productions called drames in French, and which he termed waiting-maids’ tragedies, he said they would not bear more than one representation, after which they suffered a gradual diminution of interest. A good tragedy, on the contrary, gains upon us every day. The higher walk of tragedy, continued he, is the school of great men; it is the duty of sovereigns to encourage and disseminate a taste for it. Nor is it necessary, he said, to be a poet, to be enabled to judge of the merits of a tragedy; it is sufficient to be acquainted with men and things, to possess an elevated mind, and to be a statesman. Then, 368becoming gradually more animated, he added, with enthusiasm,—”Tragedy fires the soul, elevates the heart, and is calculated to generate heroes. Considered under this point of view, perhaps, France owes to Corneille a part of her great actions; and, gentlemen, had he lived in my time, I would have made him a prince.”

On a similar occasion, he analyzed and condemned the Etats de Blois, which had just been presented for the first time at the theatre of the Court; and perceiving among the company present the Arch-Treasurer Lebrun, who was distinguished for his literary acquirements, he asked his opinion of it. Lebrun, who was undoubtedly in the author’s interest, contented himself with remarking that the subject was a bad one. “That,” replied the Emperor, “was M. Renouard’s first fault; he chose it himself, it was not forced upon him. Besides, there is no subject, however bad, which great talent cannot turn to some account, and Corneille would still have been himself even in one like this. As for M. Renouard, he has totally failed. He has shewn no other talent but that of versification; every thing else is bad, very bad; his conception, his details, his result, are altogether defective. He violates the truth of history; his characters are false, and their political tendency is dangerous, and perhaps prejudicial. This is an additional proof of what, however, is very well known, that there is a wide difference between the reading and the representation of a play. I thought at first that this piece might have been allowed to pass; it was not until this evening that I perceived its improprieties. Of these, the praises lavished on the Bourbons are the least; the declamations against the Revolutionists are much worse. M. Renouard has made the Chief of the Sixteen the Capuchine Chabot of the Convention. There is matter in his piece to inflame every party and every passion: were I to allow it to be represented in Paris, I should probably hear of half a hundred people murdering one another in the pit. Besides, the author has made Henri IV. a true Philinte, and the Duke de Guise a Figaro, which is by far too great an outrage on history. The duke of Guise 369was one of the most distinguished men of his time; and if he had but ventured, he might, at that time, have established the fourth dynasty. Besides, he was related to the Empress; he was a Prince of the house of Austria, with whom we are in friendship, and whose Ambassador was present this evening at the representation. The author has, in more than one instance, shewn a strange disregard of propriety.” The Emperor afterwards said that he felt more than ever fixed in the determination he had formed not to permit any new tragedy to be played on the public stage before it had undergone a trial at the theatre of the Court. He therefore prohibited the representation of the Etats de Blois. It is worthy of remark, that, since the restoration of the King, this piece was revived with the greatest pomp, and supported by all the favour which the prohibition of the Emperor would naturally procure for it. But, notwithstanding all this, it failed; so correct was the judgment which Napoleon had passed upon it.

Talma, the celebrated tragedian, had frequent interviews with the Emperor, who greatly admired his talent, and rewarded him magnificently. When the First Consul became Emperor, it was reported all over Paris, that he had Talma to give him lessons in attitude and costume. The Emperor, who always knew every thing that was said against him, rallied Talma one day on the subject, and, finding him look quite disconcerted and confounded,—“You are wrong,“ said he, “I certainly could not have employed myself better, if I had had leisure for it.” On the contrary, it was the Emperor who gave Talma lessons in his art. “Racine,” said he to him, “has loaded his character of Orestes with imbecilities, and you only add to their extravagance. In the Mort de Pompée, you do not play Cæsar like a hero; in Britannicus, you do not play Nero like a tyrant.” Every one knows the corrections which Talma afterwards made in his performances of these celebrated characters.

370

CONTRACTORS, &C. DURING THE REVOLUTION.—THE EMPEROR’S CREDIT ON HIS RETURN FROM ELBA.—HIS REPUTATION IN THE PUBLIC OFFICES AS A RIGID INVESTIGATOR.—MINISTERS OF FINANCE AND THE TREASURY.—CADASTRE.

29th.—At six o’clock, the Emperor, having finished his daily occupations, walked in the garden. We then took a drive in the calash: it was quite dark, and rained very fast when we returned.

After dinner, while coffee was served round, which we took without rising from our seats at the dining-table, the conversation turned on what were termed Agents daring the Revolution, and the great fortunes which they acquired. The Emperor knew the name, the family, the profession, and the character, of every one of these men.

Scarcely had Napoleon attained the Consulship when he became engaged in a dispute with the celebrated Madame Recamier, whose father held a situation in the Post-office department. Napoleon, on first taking the reins of Government, was obliged to sign in confidence a great number of lists; but he soon established the most rigid inspection in every department. He discovered that a correspondence with the Chouans was going on under the connivance of M. Bernard, the father of Madame Recamier. He was immediately dismissed, and narrowly escaped being brought to a trial, by which he would doubtless have been condemned to death. His daughter flew to the First Consul, and, at her solicitation, Napoleon exempted M. Bernard from taking his trial, but was resolute with respect to his dismissal. Madame Recamier, who had been accustomed to ask for every thing, and to obtain every thing, would be satisfied with nothing less than the re-instatement of her father. Such were the manners of those times. The severity of the First Consul excited loud animadversions; it was a thing quite unusual. Madame Recamier and her party, which was very numerous, never forgave him.

The contractors and agents were the class which, 371above all, excited the uneasiness of the new Supreme Magistrate, who called them the scourge and the plague of the nation. The Emperor observed that all France would not have satisfied the ambition of those of Paris alone; that, when he came to the head of affairs, they constituted an absolute power; and that they were most dangerous to the state, whose springs were obstructed by their intrigues, joined to those of their numerous dependents.—In truth, said he, they could never be regarded as any thing but sources of corruption and ruin, like Jews and usurers. They had disgraced the Directory, and they wished in like manner to control the Consulate. It may be said that at that period they enjoyed the highest rank and influence in society.

“One of the principal retrograde steps,” said the Emperor, “which I took, with the view of restoring the past state and manners of society, was to throw all this false lustre back into the crowd. I never would raise any of this class to distinction: of all aristocracies this appeared to me the worst.” The Emperor rendered to Lebrun the justice of having especially confirmed him in this principle. “The party always disliked me for this,” said the Emperor; “but they were still less inclined to pardon the rigid enquiry which I instituted into their accounts with the Government.”

The Emperor said that in business of this sort he turned the service of his Council of State to the best account. He used to appoint a committee of four or five members of the Council, men of integrity and intelligence. They made their report to him, and, if the case required farther investigation, they wrote at the bottom of the report: Referred to the Grand Judge to enforce the laws. The individuals implicated generally endeavoured to compromise the affair, when it arrived at this point. They would disgorge, one, two, three, or four millions, rather than suffer the business to be legally investigated. The Emperor was well aware, that all these facts were misrepresented in the different circles of the capital, that they produced him many enemies, and drew down upon him the reproach of arbitrariness and tyranny. But he thus acquitted a great duty 372to the mass of society, who must have been grateful to him for the measures he adopted towards these bloodsuckers of the public.

“Men are always the same,” said the Emperor: “from the time of Pharamond downwards, contractors have always acted thus, and people have always acted in the same way towards them. But at no period of the monarchy were they ever attacked in so legal a form, or assailed so energetically and openly as by me. Even among the contractors themselves, the few individuals who possessed honesty and integrity found in this extreme severity a new guarantee for their own conduct. A remarkable instance of this occurred after my return from Elba. Some houses in London and Amsterdam secretly negotiated with me a loan of from 80 to 100,000,000, at a profit of seven or eight per cent. The net sum which was deposited in the Treasury of Paris, was paid to them by rentes on the great book at fifty, which were then distributed among the public at fifty-six or fifty-seven.”

This resource, so useful in the crisis in which the Emperor was placed, and which must at the same time have been so satisfactory and flattering to himself personally, proves the real opinion that was entertained of Napoleon in Europe, and the confidence which he inspired. This negotiation, which was unknown at the time, explains whence the Emperor derived the financial resources of which he suddenly found himself possessed on his return from Elba; which was a great subject of conjecture at the time.

The Emperor himself said that he enjoyed singular reputation among the heads of offices and accountants. The examination of accounts was a thing which he very well understood. “The circumstance that first gained me reputation, in this way, was that, while balancing a yearly account during the Consulate, I discovered an error of 2,000,000 to the disadvantage of the Republic. M. Dufresne, who was then chief of the treasury, and who was a perfectly honest man, at first would not believe that the error existed. However, it was an affair of figures; the fact could not be denied. At the treasury 373several months were occupied in endeavouring to discover the error. It was at length found in an account of the contractor Seguin, who immediately acknowledged it, on being shewn the accounts, and restored the money, saying it was a mistake.”

On another occasion as the Emperor was examining the accounts of the pay of the garrison of Paris, he observed an article of sixty and some odd thousand francs set down to a detachment which had never been in the capital. The minister made a note of the error, merely from complaisance, but was convinced in his own mind that the Emperor was mistaken. Napoleon however proved to be right, and the sum was restored.

The Emperor regarded as a matter of the highest importance the separation of the departments of finance and the treasury, both for the sake of keeping the business of the two departments distinct, and for enabling them to become mutual checks to each other. The minister of the treasury, under a sovereign like Napoleon, was the most important man in the empire; not merely as a minister of the treasury, but as comptroller-general. All the accounts of the empire came under his examination, and he was thus enabled to detect every kind of peculation and abuse, and to make them known to the sovereign; and communications of this nature were daily made. To special appropriations Napoleon also attached the greatest importance, as having been among the happiest springs of his administration.

Speaking of the cadastre, he said that, according to the plan which he had drawn up, it might be considered as the real constitution of the Empire. It was the true guarantee of property, and the security for the independence of each individual; for, the tax being once fixed and established by the legislature, each individual might make his own arrangements, and had nothing to fear from the authority or arbitrary conduct of assessors, which is always the point most sensibly felt, and the surest to enforce submission. During this conversation, the Emperor gave his opinion of the talents of Messrs. Gaudin, Mollien, and Louis, as well as most of his other Ministers and Councillors of State. He concluded by 374observing that he had succeeded in creating a system of administration doubtless the purest and most energetic in Europe; and that he himself had the details so much at his command that he was sure he now could, merely with the help of the Moniteur, trace the complete history of the financial transactions of the Empire during his reign.

March 1st.—To-day two vessels arrived from the Cape. One, the Wellesley, a seventy-four, had another ship which had been taken to pieces in her hold. Both were India built of teak-wood, three-fourths cheaper than they could have been built in England. This is an excellent kind of wood; and ships made of it are said to last much longer than European-built ships; though hitherto it has been complained that they are not such good sailers. However, it is not improbable that this teak wood may produce a revolution in the materials and construction of English ships.

2nd.—The China fleet is arrived. Several vessels successively entered the road in the course of the day, and many others are within sight. This is a sort of festival and harvest for the people of St. Helena. The money which these transient visitors circulate in the Island constitutes a chief portion of the revenues of the inhabitants.

At five o’clock the Emperor proceeded to the garden, and went on foot as far as an opening between some of the hills, whence we could discern several vessels in full sail, making for the Island. The last ship that arrived from the Cape had brought a phaeton for the Emperor. He wished to try it this evening, and he got into it, accompanied by the Grand Marshal, and rode round the park. He, however, thinks that this kind of equipage is both useless and ridiculous, in present circumstances. After dinner the Emperor felt much fatigued; he has been indisposed for some days, and he retired this evening at an early hour.

THE INVASION OF ENGLAND.

3rd.—The Emperor sent for me at two o’clock; I found him shaving. He told me that I beheld in him 375a man who was on the point of death, on the brink of the grave. He added that I must have been aware that he was ill, because he must have waked me often during the night. I had, indeed, heard him cough and sneeze continually: he had a violent cold in his head, which he had caught in consequence of staying out too long in the damp air on the preceding evening. He stated his determination, in future, always to return in doors at six o’clock. After he had dressed, he sat down to his English lesson; but he did not continue at it long, for his head ached severely. He told me to sit down by him, and made me talk for more than two hours about what I had observed in London during my emigration. Among other things, he inquired, “Were the English very much afraid of my invasion? What was the general opinion at the time?”—“Sire,“ I replied, “I cannot inform you: I had then returned to France. But in the saloons of Paris we laughed heartily at the idea of an invasion of England; and the English who were there at the time did so too. It was said that even Brunet laughed at the scheme, and that you had caused him to be imprisoned because he had been insolent enough in one of his parts, to set some nut-shells afloat in a tub of water, which he called manœuvring his little flotilla.” “Well!” replied the Emperor, “You might laugh in Paris, but Pitt did not laugh in London. He soon comprehended the extent of the danger, and therefore threw a coalition on my shoulders at the moment when I was raising my arm to strike. Never was the English oligarchy exposed to greater danger.

“I had taken measures to ensure the possibility of my landing. I had the best army in the world; I need only say it was the army of Austerlitz. In four days I should have been in London; I should have entered the English capital, not as a conqueror but as a liberator. I should have been another William III.; but I would have acted with greater generosity and disinterestedness. The discipline of my army was perfect. My troops would have behaved in London just as they would in Paris. No sacrifices, not even contributions, would have been exacted from the English. We should have 376presented ourselves to them, not as conquerors but as brothers, who came to restore to them their rights and liberties. I would have assembled the citizens, and directed them to labour in the task of their regeneration; because the English had already preceded us in political legislation; I would have declared that our only wish was to be able to rejoice in the happiness and prosperity of the English people; and to these professions I would have strictly adhered. In the course of a few months, the two nations, which had been such determined enemies, would have thenceforward composed only one people, identified in principles, maxims and interests. I should have departed from England, in order to effect from south to north, under republican colours (for I was then First Consul) the regeneration of Europe, which, at a later period, I was on the point of effecting from north to south under monarchical forms. Both systems were equally good, since both would have been attended with the same result, and would have been carried into execution with firmness, moderation, and good faith. How many ills that are now endured, and how many that are yet to be experienced, would not unhappy Europe have escaped! Never was a project so favourable to the interests of civilization conceived with more disinterested intentions, or so near being carried into execution. It is a remarkable fact that the obstacles which occasioned my failure were not the work of men, but all proceeded from the elements. In the south, the sea frustrated my plans; the burning of Moscow, the snow and the winter, completed my ruin in the north. Thus water, air, and fire, all nature and nature alone, was hostile to the universal regeneration which nature herself called for!... The problems of Providence are insoluble!”

After a few moment’s silence, he reverted to the subject of the English invasion. “It was supposed,” said he, “that my scheme was merely a vain threat, because it did not appear that I possessed any reasonable means of attempting its execution. But I had laid my plans deeply, and without being observed. I had dispersed all our French ships; and the English were sailing 377after them to different parts of the world. Our ships were to return suddenly and at the same time, and to assemble in a mass along the French coasts. I should have had seventy or eighty French or Spanish ships in the Channel; and I calculated that I should continue master of it for two months. Three or four thousand small vessels were to be ready at a signal. A hundred thousand men were every day drilled in embarking and landing, as a part of their exercise. They were full of ardour, and eager for the enterprise, which was very popular with the French, and was supported by the wishes of a great number of the English. After landing my troops, I calculated upon only one pitched battle, the result of which could not be doubtful; and victory would have brought us to London. The nature of the country would not admit of a war of monœuvring. My conduct would have done the rest. The people of England groaned under the yoke of an oligarchy. On feeling that their pride had not been humbled, they would have ranged themselves on our side. We should have been considered only as Allies come to effect their deliverance. We should have presented ourselves with the magical words of liberty and equality,” &c.

After adverting to a great number of the minor details of the plan, which were all admirable, and remarking how very near execution it had been, he abruptly stopped, and said, “Let us go out, and take a turn.”

We walked for some time; it had been raining for three days, but now the weather was perfectly fine. The Emperor, not forgetting his resolution to be in-doors always by six o’clock, immediately ordered the calash; took a drive, and returned home in good time. My son followed on horse-back; it was the first time he had enjoyed such an honour. He acquitted himself very well, and the Emperor complimented him on the occasion.

The Emperor continued unwell, and retired to rest very early.

THE CHINESE FLEET.

4th.—To-day the Emperor received some captains of the China fleet. He conversed a long time with them 378respecting their trade, the facility of their intercourse with the Chinese, the manners of that people, &c. The ships which trade to China are from 14 to 1500 tons’ burthen, nearly equal to sixty-fours; and they draw from twenty-two to twenty-three feet of water: they are laden almost exclusively with tea. One of those just arrived had nearly 1500 tons on board. The cargoes of the six ships which came into the road last night are valued at about sixty millions; and as they will be subject to a duty of 100 per cent., on their arrival in England, 120 millions will thus at once be thrown into circulation in Europe.

Europeans are allowed very little liberty at Canton. Their residence is chiefly limited to the suburbs. They are treated with the greatest contempt by the Chinese, who assume an air of great superiority, and conduct themselves in a very arbitrary manner. The Chinese are very intelligent, industrious, and active; but they are great thieves and extremely treacherous. They transact all business in the European languages, which they speak with facility.

The arrival of fleets at St. Helena is a circumstance equally pleasing to the crews and the inhabitants of the Island. The latter sell their merchandize and purchase provisions; the seamen, on their part, are enabled to set foot on land, and to refresh themselves. This state of things usually continues for a fortnight or three weeks; but, on the present occasion, the Admiral, to the great disappointment of every body, limited the period of refreshment to two days only for the first two ships that had anchored off the town. The others were ordered to remain under sail, and to come up to the town in succession, two by two. It must be supposed that he has received very strict orders, or is under some very great apprehension, of which we are not aware.

The Emperor walked for some time in the garden before he got into his calash. Among the trees in the neighbourhood, we perceived some officers newly arrived at the Island, who were endeavouring to get a peep at the Emperor, the sight of whom seemed to be an object of great importance to them.

379

ETIQUETTE OF THE EMPEROR’S COURT.—CIRCUMSTANCE THAT TOOK PLACE AT TARARE.—OFFICERS OF STATE.—CHAMBERLAINS.—UNEQUALLED SPLENDOUR OF THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES.—ADMIRABLE REGULATION OF THE PALACE.—THE EMPEROR’S LEVEES.—DINING IN STATE.—THE COURT AND THE CITY.

5th.—To-day the Emperor conversed a great deal about this Court and the etiquette observed in it. The following is the substance of what fell from him on this subject.

At the period of the Revolution, the Courts of Spain and Naples still imitated the ceremony and grandeur of Louis XIV., mingled with the pomp and exaggeration of the Castilians and Moors. They were insipid and ridiculous. The court of St. Petersburg had assumed the tone and forms of the drawing-room; that of Vienna had become quite citizen-like; and there no longer remained any vestige of the wit, the grace, and the good taste of the Court of Versailles.

When, therefore, Napoleon attained the sovereign power, he found a clear road before him, and he had an opportunity of forming a Court according to his own taste. He was desirous of adopting a rational medium by accommodating the dignity of the throne to modern customs, and, particularly, by making the creation of a Court contribute to improve the manners of the great, and promote the industry of the mass of the people. It certainly was no easy matter to re-construct a throne on the very spot where a reigning monarch had been judicially executed, and where the people had constitutionally sworn hatred to kings. It was not easy to restore dignities, titles, and decorations, among a people who for the space of fifteen years had waged a war of proscription against them. Napoleon, however, who seemed always to possess the power of effecting what he wished, perhaps because he had the art of wishing for what was just and proper, after a great struggle, surmounted all these difficulties. When he became Emperor, he created a class of nobility, and formed a Court. Victory seemed all on a sudden to do her utmost to consolidate 380and shed a lustre over this new order of things. All Europe acknowledged the Emperor; and at one period it might have been said that all the Courts of the Continent had flocked to Paris to add to the splendour of the Tuileries, which was the most brilliant and numerous Court ever seen. There was a continued series of parties, balls, and entertainments; and the Court was always distinguished for extraordinary magnificence and grandeur. The person of the sovereign was alone remarkable for extreme simplicity, which, indeed, was a characteristic that served to distinguish him amidst the surrounding splendour. He encouraged all this magnificence, he said, from motives of policy, and not because it accorded with his own taste. It was calculated to encourage manufactures and national industry. The ceremonies and festivities which took place on the marriage of the Empress and the birth of the King of Rome, far surpassed any which had preceded them, and probably will never again be equalled.

The Emperor endeavoured to establish, in his foreign relations, every thing that was calculated to place him in harmony with the other Courts of Europe; but at home he constantly tried to adapt old forms to new manners.

He established the levers and couchers of the old kings of France; but with him they were merely nominal, and did not exist in reality, as in former times. Instead of being occupied in the most minute and indelicate details of the toilet, these hours under the Emperor were, in fact, appropriated to receiving in the morning and dismissing in the evening, such persons of his household as had to receive orders directly from him, and who were privileged to pay their court to him at those times.

The Emperor also established special presentations to his person and admission to his Court: but instead of making noble birth the only means of securing these honours, the title for obtaining them was founded solely on the combined bases of fortune, influence, and public services.

Napoleon, moreover, created titles, the qualifications for which were nearly similar to those of the old feudal 381system. These titles, however, possessed no real value, and were established for an object purely national. Those which were unaccompanied by any prerogatives or privileges might be enjoyed by persons of any rank or profession, and were bestowed as rewards for all kinds of services. The Emperor observed that abroad they had the useful effect of appearing to be an approximation to the old manners of Europe, while at the same time they served as a toy for amusing the vanities of many individuals at home; “for,” said he, “how many superior men are children oftener than once a day!”

The Emperor revived decorations of honour, and distributed crosses and ribands. But instead of confining them to particular and exclusive classes, he extended them to society in general as rewards for every kind of talent and public service. By a happy privilege, perhaps peculiar to Napoleon, it happened that the value of these honours was enhanced in proportion to the number distributed. He estimated that he had conferred about 25,000 decorations of the Legion of Honour; and the desire to obtain the honour, he said, increased until it became a kind of mania.

After the battle of Wagram, he sent the decoration of the Legion of Honour to the Archduke Charles, and, by a refinement in compliment, peculiar to Napoleon, he sent him merely the silver cross, which was worn by the private soldiers.

The Emperor said that it was only by acting strictly and voluntarily in conformity with these maxims that he had become the real national monarch; and an adherence to the same course would have rendered the fourth dynasty the truly constitutional one. Of these facts, said he, the people of the lowest rank frequently evinced an instinctive knowledge.

The Emperor related the following anecdote:—On returning from his coronation in Italy, as he approached the environs of Lyons, he found all the population assembled on the roads to see him pass, and he took a fancy to ascend the hill of Tarare alone. He gave orders that nobody should follow him, and, mingling with the crowd, he accosted an old woman, and asked what all 382the bustle was about. She replied, that the Emperor was expected. After some little conversation he said to her: “My good woman, formerly you had the tyrant Capet; now you have the tyrant Napoleon; what have you gained by the change?” The force of this argument disconcerted the old woman for a moment; but she immediately recollected herself, and replied, “Pardon me, sir, there is a great difference. We ourselves chose this one; but we got the other by chance.” “The old woman was right,” said the Emperor, “and she exhibited more instinctive good sense than many men who are possessed of great information and talent.”

The Emperor surrounded himself with great Crown officers. He established a numerous household of chamberlains, equerries, &c. He selected persons to fill these offices indiscriminately from among those whom the Revolution had elevated, and from the ancient families which it had ruined. The former considered themselves as standing on ground which they had acquired; the latter on that which they thought they had recovered. The Emperor had in view, by this mixture of persons, the extinction of hatred and the amalgamation of parties. He observed, however, that it was easy to perceive a variety of manners. The individuals belonging to the ancient families performed their duties with the greatest courtesy and assiduity. A Madame de Montmorency would have stooped down to tie the Empress’s shoes; a lady of the new school would have hesitated to do this, lest she should be taken for a real waiting-woman; but Madame de Montmorency had no such apprehension. These posts of honour were for the most part without emolument; they were even attended with expense. But they brought the individuals who filled them daily under the eye of the Sovereign—of an all-powerful Sovereign, the source of honour and emoluments; and who had declared that he would not have the lowest officer in his household solicit a favour from any one but himself.

At the time of his marriage with the Empress Maria-Louisa, the Emperor made an extensive recruit of chamberlains from among the highest ranks of the old 383aristocracy; this he did with the view of proving to Europe that there existed but one party in France, and rallying round the Empress those individuals whose names must have been familiar to her. It is understood that the Emperor even hesitated whether or not to select the lady of honour from that class; but his fear lest the Empress, with whose character he was unacquainted, might be imbued with prejudices respecting birth, that might too much elate the old party, induced him to make another choice.

From this moment until the period of our disasters, the most ancient and illustrious families eagerly solicited places in the household of the Emperor; and how could it be otherwise? The Emperor governed the world: he had raised France and the French people above the level of other nations. Power, glory, constituted his retinue. Happy were they who inhaled the atmosphere of the Imperial Court. To be immediately connected with the Emperor’s person, furnished, both abroad and at home, a title to consideration, homage, and respect.

Upon the Restoration, a royalist, who had preserved himself pure, and in whose sight I had found grace, said to me, in the most serious tone, (for, what a difference in ideas does not difference of party produce!) that with my name, and the openness of conduct I had maintained, I ought not to despair of still obtaining a situation near the King, or in the household of some of the Princes or Princesses. How greatly was he astonished when I replied:—“My friend, I have rendered that impossible: I have served the most powerful master upon earth: I cannot in future, without degradation, stand in the same relation to any other. Know, that when we conveyed the orders of the Emperor to a distance, into foreign Courts, wearing his uniform, we considered ourselves, and were every where treated, as upon an equality with princes. He has presented to us the spectacle of not fewer than seven Kings waiting in his saloons, in the midst of us, and with us. On his marriage, four Queens bore the robe of the Empress, of whom, moreover, one of us was the Gentleman Usher, another the Equerry. 384Believe then, my friend, that a noble ambition is perfectly satisfied with such honours.”

Besides, the magnificence and splendour that composed this unexampled Court, rested on a system and a regularity of administration that has excited the astonishment and admiration of those who have searched amid its wrecks. The Emperor himself inspected the accounts several times in the course of the year. All his mansions were found to be repaired and decorated: they contained nearly forty millions in household furniture, besides four millions in plate. If he had enjoyed a few years of peace, imagination can scarcely fix limits, he said, to what he would have accomplished.

The Emperor said he had conceived an excellent idea, which he was much grieved at not having put in execution: it was to have commissioned some persons to collect the most important petitions. “They should have named, every day,” said he, “three or four individuals from the provinces, who would have been admitted to my levee, and have explained their business to me in person; I would have discussed it with them immediately, and administered justice to them without delay.”

I observed to the Emperor that the Commission he had created at a very early period, under the name of “Commission of Petitions,” came very near the idea in question, and was, in fact, productive of much good. I was President of it on his return from Elba, and in the first month I had already done justice to more than four thousand petitions. “It is true,” I observed, “that circumstances originally, and custom afterwards, had never allowed this establishment to enjoy the most valuable prerogative with which its organization had been endowed, that which would undoubtedly have produced the greatest effect on public opinion; namely to present to him officially, at his great audience on Sunday, the result of the week’s labours.” But the nature of things, the constant expeditions of the Emperor, and, above all, the jealousy of the Ministers, had concurred to deprive the Commission of this high privilege.

The Emperor said, also, he was sorry he had not 385established it as part of the etiquette of the Court that all persons who had been presented, females particularly, who had any claim to obtain an audience of him, should have the unquestioned right of entering the ante-chamber. The Emperor, passing through it several times in the day, might have taken the opportunity to satisfy some of their requests; and might in this manner have spared the refusal of audiences, or the loss of time occasioned by them. The Emperor had hesitated for some time, he said, about re-establishing the grand couvert of the kings of France, that is, the dining in public, every Sunday, of the whole Imperial family. He asked our opinion of it. We differed. Some approved of it, represented this family spectacle as beneficial to public morals, and fitted to produce the bestbest effects on public spirit; besides, said they, it afforded means for every individual to see his Sovereign. Others opposed it, objecting that this ceremony involved something of divine right and feudality, of ignorance and servility, which had no place in our habits or the modern dignity of them. They might go to see the Sovereign at the church or the theatre: there they joined at least in the performance of his religious duties, or took part in his pleasures; but to go to see him eat was only to bring ridicule on both parties. The sovereignty having now become, as the Emperor had so well said, a magistracy, should only be seen in full activity; conferring favours, redressing injuries, transacting business, reviewing armies, and above all, divested of the infirmities and the wants of human nature, &c.... Its utility, its benefits, should form its new charm: the image of the sovereign should be present continually and unlooked-for, like Providence. Such was the new school:—such had been ours.

“Well,” said the Emperor, “it may be true that the circumstances of the time should have limited this ceremony to the Imperial heir, and only during his youth; for he was the child of the whole nation; he ought to become thenceforth the object of the sentiments and the sight of all.”

On his return from Elba, the Emperor said he had an 386idea of dining every Sunday in the Galerie de DianeGalerie de Diane with four or five hundred guests: this, said he, would undoubtedly have produced a great effect on the public, particularly at the time of the Champ de Mai, on the assembling of the Deputies from the departments at Paris; but the rapidity and the importance of business prevented it. Besides, he was apprehensive, perhaps, that there might have been observed in this measure too great an affectation of popularity, and that his enemies abroad might give it the semblance of fear on his part.

It is the custom, said the Emperor, to talk of the influence of the tone and manners of the Court upon those of a nation; he was far from having brought about any such result; but it was the fault of circumstances and of several unperceived combinations: he had reflected much on the subject, and he thought that it would have been accomplished in time.

“The Court,” he continued, “taken collectively, does not exert this influence; it is only because its elements, those who compose it, go to communicate, each in his own sphere of action, that which they have collected from the common source; the tone of the Court, then, is not infused into a whole nation, but through intermediate societies. Now, we had no such societies, nor could we yet have them. Those delightful assemblies, where one enjoys so fully the advantages of civilization, suddenly disappear at the approach of revolutions, and are re-established but slowly, when the tempests dissipate. The indispensable bases of society are indolence and luxury; but we were all still in a state of agitation, and great fortunes were not yet firmly established. A great number of theatres, a multitude of public establishments, moreover, presented pleasures more ready, less constrained, and more exciting. The women of the day, taken collectively, were young; they liked better to be out, and to shew themselves in public, than to remain at home and compose a narrower circle. But they would have grown old, and with a little time and tranquillity, everyevery thing would have fallen into its natural course. And then again,” he observed, “it would perhaps be an error to judge of a modern Court by the remembrance of the 387old ones. The power certainly resided in the old Courts; they said, the Court and the City;—at the present day, if we desired to speak correctly, we were obliged to say the City and the Court. The feudal lords, since they have lost their power, seek to make themselves amends in their enjoyments. Sovereigns themselves seemed to be, for the future, subjected to this law: the throne, with our liberal ideas, insensibly ceased to be a signory, and became purely a magistracy; the Prince having only a simple practical character to sustain, always sufficiently dull and tedious in the long run, must seek to withdraw from it, to come as a mere citizen, and take his share in the pleasures of society.”

Among a great number of new measures projected by the Emperor for a more tranquil futurity, his favourite idea had been, peace being obtained and repose secured, to devote his life to purifying the administration and to local meliorations; to be occupied in perpetual tours in the departments: he would have visited, not hurried over; sojourned, not posted through: he would have used his own horses, would have been surrounded by the Empress, the King of Rome, his whole Court. At the same time he wished this great equipage not to be burdensome to any, but rather a benefit to all: a suite of tapestry hangings and all the other appendages, following the train, would have furnished and decorated his places of rest. The other persons of the Court, he said, would have been quartered on the citizens, who would have looked upon their guests as a benefit rather than a burden, because they would always have been the sure means of their acquiring some advantage or some favours. “It is thus,” he continued, “that I should have been able in every place to prevent frauds, punish misappropriations, direct edifices, bridges, roads; drain marshes, fertilize lands, &c.—If Heaven had then,” he continued, “granted me a few years, I would certainly have made Paris the capital of the world, and all France a real fairy-land.” He often repeated these last words: how many people have already said this, or will repeat it after him!

388

SET OF CHESSMEN FROM CHINA.—PRESENTATION OF THE CAPTAINS OF THE CHINA FLEET.

6th.—The Emperor mounted his horse at seven o’clock: he told me to call my son to accompany us; this was a great favour. During our ride the Emperor dismounted five or six times to observe, with the help of a glass, some vessels that were in sight: he ascertained one to be a Dutchman; the three colours are always, with us, an object of lively emotion. On one of these occasions, the most mettlesome horse in the company got loose, and occasioned a long pursuit; my son came up with him, brought him back in triumph, and the Emperor observed that in a tournament this would be a victory.

On our return, the Emperor breakfasted within doors: he detained us all.

Before and after breakfast, the Emperor conversed with me in private on serious matters which I cannot trust to paper.

The heat was become excessive: he retired. It was half-past four when he sent for me again; he was finishing dressing. The Doctor brought him a set of chessmen, which he had been buying on board the vessels from China; the Emperor had wished to have one. For this he had paid thirty Napoleons: it was an object of great admiration with the worthy Doctor; and, at the same time, nothing seemed more ridiculous to the Emperor. All the pieces, instead of resembling ours, were coarse and clumsy images of the figures indicated by the names: thus, a knight was armed at all points, and the castle rested on an enormous elephant, &c. The Emperor could not make use of them, saying, pleasantly, that every piece would require a crane to move it.

In the mean time many officers and others employed in the China fleet were sauntering in the garden. Their curiosity had led them some hours before to our dwelling; we had been literally invaded in our chambers. One said, the pride of his life would be to have seen Napoleon: another, that he durst not appear in his wife’s presence in England, if he could not tell her that he had been fortunate enough to behold his features; another, 389that he would willingly forego all the profits of his voyage for a single glance, &c.

The Emperor caused them to be admitted: it would be difficult to describe their satisfaction and joy: they had not ventured to expect or to hope for so much. The Emperor, according to custom, proposed many questions to them concerning China, its commerce, its inhabitants: their revenues, their manners; the missionaries, &c. He detained them above half an hour, before he dismissed them. At their departure we described to him the enthusiasm we had witnessed in these officers, and repeated all that had fallen from them relative to him. “I believe it,” said he; “you do not perceive that they are our friends. All that you have observed in them belongs to the commonalty of England—the natural enemies, perhaps without giving themselves credit for it, of their old and insolent Aristocracy.”

At dinner the Emperor ate little; he was unwell: after coffee, he attempted a game at chess, but he was too much inclined to sleep, and retired almost immediately.

A TRICK.

7th.—The Emperor mounted his horse at a very early hour; he told me again to call my son to accompany him. The evening before, the Emperor seeing him on horseback, had asked me if I did not make him learn to groom his horse; that nothing was more useful; that he had given particular orders for it in the military school at St. Germain. I was vexed that such an idea had escaped me; I seized it eagerly, and my son still more so. He was at this moment on a horse that no one had touched but himself. The Emperor, whom I informed of it, seemed pleased, and condescended to make him go through a sort of little examination. Our ride lasted nearly two hours and a half, rambling all the time about Longwood.

At our return the Emperor had breakfast in the garden, to which he detained us all.

A short time before dinner, I presented myself as usual in the drawing-room: the Emperor was playing at chess 390with the Grand Marshal. The valet-de-chambre in waiting at the door of the room brought me a letter, on which was written Very urgent. Out of respect to the Emperor, I went aside to read it: it was in English; it stated that I had composed an excellent work; that, nevertheless, it was not without faults; that if I would correct them in a new edition, no doubt the work would be more valuable for it; and then went on to pray that God would keep me in his gracious and holy protection. Such a letter excited my astonishment, and made me rather angry; the colour rushed to my face: I did not, at first, give myself time to consider the writing. In reading it over again I recognised the hand, notwithstanding its being much better written than usual, and I could not help laughing a good deal to myself. But the Emperor, who cast a side-glance at me, asked me from whom the letter came that was given to me. I replied, that it was a paper that had caused a very different feeling in me at first from that which it would leave permanently. I said this with so much simplicity, the mystification had been so complete, that he laughed till tears came in his eyes. The letter was from him; the pupil had a mind to jest with his master, and try his powers at his expense. I carefully preserve this letter; the gaiety, the style, and the whole circumstance, render it more valuable to me than any diploma the Emperor could have put into my hands when he was in power.

AN OPPORTUNITY FOR THE EMPEROR TO MAKE USE OF HIS ENGLISH.—ON MEDICINE.—CORVISART.—DEFINITION.—ON THE PLAGUE.—MEDICAL PRACTICE IN BABYLON.

8th.—The Emperor had had no sleep during the night; he had, therefore, amused himself with writing me another letter in English; he sent it to me sealed; I corrected the errors in it, and sent him an answer also in English, by the return of the courier. He understood me perfectly: this convinced him of the progress he had made, and satisfied him that for the future he could, strictly speaking, correspond in his new tongue.

For nearly a fortnight past, General Gourgaud had 391been unwell; his indisposition had turned to a very malignant dysentery, which occasioned some alarm. The Admiral now sent him the Surgeon of the Northumberland (Dr. Warden); the Emperor detained this gentleman to dinner. During the repast, and for a long time afterwards, the conversation was exclusively on medicine; sometimes lively, sometimes serious and profound. The Emperor was in good spirits: he talked with great volubility; he overwhelmed the Doctor with questions, and with ingenious and subtle arguments, that perplexed him much: the latter was much dazzled by this brilliancy; so that, after dinner, he took me aside to ask me how it happened that the Emperor was so well informed on these matters: he did not doubt but they were his usual topics of conversation. “Not more than any thing else,” I said, with truth; “but there are few subjects with which the Emperor is unacquainted, and he treats them all in a new and engaging manner.”

The Emperor has no faith in medicine, or its remedies, of which he makes no use. “Doctor,” said he, “our body is a machine for the purpose of life: it is organized to that end—that is its nature. Leave the life there at its ease, let it take care of itself, it will do better than if you paralyze it by loading it with medicines. It is like a well-made watch, destined to go for a certain time; the watch-maker has not the power of opening it, he cannot meddle with it but at random, and with his eyes bandaged. For one who, by dint of racking it with his ill-formed instruments, succeeds in doing it any good, how many blockheads destroy it altogether!”

The Emperor, then, did not admit the utility of medicine but in a few cases, in disorders that were known and distinctly ascertained by time and experience: and he then compared the art of the physician with that of the engineer in regular sieges, where the maxims of Vauban, and the rules of experience, have brought all the chances within the scope of known laws. In accordance, too, with these principles, the Emperor had conceived the idea of a law which should have allowed to the mass of medical practitioners in France the use of simple medicines only, and forbidden them to employ 392heroic remedies, that is, such as may cause death, unless they made three or four thousand francs, at least, by their profession; which, said he, afforded grounds for supposing them to have education, judgment, and a certain public reputation. “This measure,” said he, “was certainly just and beneficent; but in my circumstances it was unseasonable: information was not yet sufficiently diffused. No doubt the mass of the people would have seen only an act of tyranny in the law, which, nevertheless, would have rescued them from their executioners.”

The Emperor had frequently attacked the celebrated Corvisart, his physician, upon the subject of medicine. The latter, waving the honour of the profession and of his colleagues, confessed that he entertained nearly the same opinions, and even acted upon them. He was a great enemy to medicines, and employed them very sparingly: the Empress Maria-Louisa, suffering much during her pregnancy, and teazing him for relief, he artfully gave her some pills composed of crumb of bread, which she observed did her a great deal of good.