Note Back to Main Text — MEMOIRS, &c. &c. (continued 3)

The day on which these plenipotentiaries departed, M. S*** came to congratulate Napoleon. "The allies," answered the Emperor, "are too deeply interested in imposing the Bourbons on you, to give you my son. My son will reign over France, but his time is not yet arrived. The instructions given the deputies, I have been assured, are in favour of my dynasty: if this be true, other persons should have been chosen to defend it. La Fayette, Sébastiani, Pontécoulant, and Benjamin Constant, have conspired against me. They are my enemies: and the enemies of the father will never be the friends of the son. Besides, the chambers have not sufficient energy, to display an independent will: they obey the directions of Fouché. If they had bestowed on me what they lavish on him, I would have saved France. My presence alone at the head of the army would have done more, than all your negotiations. I would have obtained my son, as the price of my abdication: you will not obtain him. Fouché is not sincere: he has sold himself to the Duke of Orleans. He will make fools of the chambers; the allies will make a fool of him; and you will have Louis XVIII. He thinks himself able, to manage every thing as he pleases; but he is mistaken. He will find, that it requires a hand of a different stamp from his, to guide the reins of a nation, particularly when an enemy is in the land.... The chamber of peers has not done its duty: it has behaved like a chicken. It has suffered Lucien to be insulted, and my son to be dethroned. If it had stood firm, it would have had the army on its side: the generals there would have given it to it[69]. Its order of the day has ruined France, and brought you back the Bourbons, I alone could repair all: but your party-leaders will never consent to it: they would rather be swallowed up in the gulf, than join with me to close it."