“Des dieux que nous servons connais la différence:Les tiens t’ont commandé le meurtre et la vengeance:Et le mien, quand ton bras vient de m’assassiner,M’ordonne de te plaindre et de te pardonner.”
“Des dieux que nous servons connais la différence:Les tiens t’ont commandé le meurtre et la vengeance:Et le mien, quand ton bras vient de m’assassiner,M’ordonne de te plaindre et de te pardonner.”
“Des dieux que nous servons connais la différence:Les tiens t’ont commandé le meurtre et la vengeance:Et le mien, quand ton bras vient de m’assassiner,M’ordonne de te plaindre et de te pardonner.”
“Des dieux que nous servons connais la différence:
Les tiens t’ont commandé le meurtre et la vengeance:
Et le mien, quand ton bras vient de m’assassiner,
M’ordonne de te plaindre et de te pardonner.”
As he half whispered the line,
“Et le mien, quand ton bras vient de m’assassiner,”
“Et le mien, quand ton bras vient de m’assassiner,”
“Et le mien, quand ton bras vient de m’assassiner,”
“Et le mien, quand ton bras vient de m’assassiner,”
I could not refrain from raising my eyes and looking at him. He smiled, and went on repeating the verses. In truth, at that moment I did believe that he had deceived his wife and everybody else, and was planning a grand scene of magnanimous pardon. I caught eagerly at this idea, and it restored me to composure. My imagination was very juvenile in those days, and I longed so much to be able to hope!
“You like poetry?” Bonaparte asked me. How I longed to answer, “Especially when the lines are applicable;” but I did not dare to utter the words. I may as well mention in this place that the very day after I had set down the above reminiscence, a friend lent me a book entitled “Mémoires Secrètes sur la Vie de Lucien Bonaparte.” This work, which is probably written by a secretary of Lucien’s, is inaccurate in several instances. Some notes added at the end are said to be written by a person worthy of belief. I found among them the following, which struck me as curious: “Lucien was informed of the death of the Duc d’Enghien by General Hullin, a relative of Mme. Jouberthon, who came to her house some hours after that event, looking the image of grief and consternation. The Military Council had been assured that the First Consul only purposed to assert his authority, and fully intended to pardon the prince, and certain lines from ‘Alzire’, commencing
‘Des dieux que nous servons connais la différence,’
‘Des dieux que nous servons connais la différence,’
‘Des dieux que nous servons connais la différence,’
‘Des dieux que nous servons connais la différence,’
had been quoted to them.”
But to resume. We went on with our game, and his gayety gave me more and more confidence. We were still playing when the sound of carriage-wheels was heard, and presently General Hullin was announced. Bonaparte pushed away the chess-table roughly, rose, and went into the adjoining gallery. There he remained all the rest of the evening, with Murat, Hullin, and Savary. We saw no more of him, and yet I went to my room feeling more easy. I could not believe but that Bonaparte must be moved by the fact of having such a victim in his hands. I hoped the prince would ask to see him; and in fact he did so, adding, “If the First Consul would consent to see me, he would do me justice, for he would know that I have done my duty.” My idea was that Bonaparte would go to Vincennes, and publicly grant the prince pardon in person. If he were not going to act thus, why should he have quoted those lines from “Alzire”?
That night, that terrible night, passed. Early in the morning I went down to the drawing-room, and there I found Savary. He was deadly pale, and I must do him the justice to say that his face betrayed great agitation. He spoke to me with trembling lips, but his words were quite insignificant. I did not question him; for persons of his kind will always say what they want to say without being asked, although they never give answers.
Mme. Bonaparte came in, looked at me very sadly, and, as she took her seat, said to Savary, “Well—so it is done?” “Yes, madame,” he answered. “He died this morning, and, I am bound to acknowledge, with great courage.” I was struck dumb with horror.
Mme. Bonaparte asked for details. They have all been made known since. The prince was taken to one of the trenches of the château. Being offered a handkerchief to bind his eyes with, he rejected it with dignity, and, addressing the gendarmes, said, “You are Frenchmen: at least you will do me the service not to miss your aim.” He placed in Savary’s hands a ring, a lock of hair, and a letter for Mme. de Rohan; and all these Savary showed to Mme. Bonaparte. The letter was open; it was brief and tender. I do not know whether these last wishes of the unfortunate prince were carried out.
“After his death,” said Savary, “the gendarmes were told that they might take his clothes, his watch, and the money he had in his pocket; but not one of them would touch anything. People may say what they like, but one can not see a man like that die as coolly as one can see others. I feel it hard to get over it.”
Presently Eugène de Beauharnais made his appearance. He was too young to have recollections of the past, and in his eyes the Duc d’Enghien was simply a conspirator against the life of his master. Then came certain generals, whose names I will not set down here; and they approved of the deed so loudly that Mme. Bonaparte thought it necessary to apologize for her own dejection, by repeating over and over again the unmeaning sentence, “I am a woman, you know, and I confess I could cry.”
In the course of the morning a number of visitors came to the Tuileries. Among them were the Consuls, the Ministers, and Louis Bonaparte and his wife. Louis preserved a sullen silence, which seemed to imply disapprobation. Mme. Louis was so frightened that she did not dare to feel, and seemed to be asking what she ought to think. Women, even more than men, were subjugated by the magic of that sacramental phrase of Bonaparte’s—“My policy.” With those words he crushed one’s thoughts, feelings, and even impressions; and, when he uttered them, no one in the palace, especially no woman, would have dared to ask him what he meant.
My husband also came during the morning, and his presence relieved me from the terrible oppression from which I was suffering. He, like myself, was grieved and downcast. How grateful I was to him for not lecturing me upon the absolute necessity of our appearing perfectly composed under the circumstances! We sympathized in every feeling. He told me that the general sentiment in Paris was one of disgust, and that the heads of the Jacobin party said, “He belongs to us now.” He added the following words, which I have frequently recalled to mind since: “The Consul has taken a line which will force him into laying aside the useful, in order to efface this recollection, and into dazzling us by the extraordinary and the unexpected.” He also said to Mme. Bonaparte: “There is one important piece of advice which you ought to give the First Consul. It is that he should not lose a moment in restoring public confidence. Opinion is apt to be precipitate in Paris. He ought at least to prove to the people that the event which has just occurred is not due to the development of a cruel disposition, but to reasons whose force I am not called upon to determine, and which ought to make him very circumspect.”
Mme. Bonaparte fully appreciated the advice of M. de Rémusat, and immediately repeated his words to her husband. He seemed well disposed to listen to her, and answered briefly, “That is quite true.” On rejoining Mme. Bonaparte before dinner, I found her in the gallery, with her daughter and M. de Caulaincourt, who had just arrived. He had superintended the arrest of the prince, but had not accompanied him to Paris. I recoiled at the sight of him. “And you, too,” said he, addressing me, so that all could hear him, “you are going to detest me! And yet I am only unfortunate; but that I am in no small degree, for the Consul has disgraced me by this act. Such is the reward of my devotion to him. I have been shamefully deceived, and I am now ruined.” He shed tears while speaking, and I could not but pity him.
Mme. Bonaparte assured me afterward that he had spoken in the same way to the First Consul, and I was myself a witness to his maintenance of a severe and angry bearing toward Bonaparte, who made many advances to him, but for a long time in vain. The First Consul laid out his plans before him, but found him cold and uninterested; then he made him brilliant offers, by way of amends, which were at first rejected. Perhaps they ought to have been always refused.
In the mean time public opinion declared itself strongly against M. de Caulaincourt. Certain persons condemned the aide-de-camp mercilessly, while they made excuses for the master; and such injustice exasperated M. de Caulaincourt, who might have bowed his head before frank and candid censure, fairly distributed between them. When, however, he saw that every sort of affront was to be heaped on him, in order that the real culprit might go quite free, he conceived an utter disdain for these people, and consented to force them into silence by placing himself in a position of such authority as would enable him to overrule them. He was urged to take this course by Bonaparte, and also by his own ambition. “Do not act like a fool,” said the former. “If you retreat before the blows which are aimed at you, you will be done for; no one will give you any thanks or credit for your tardy opposition to my wishes, and you will be all the more heavily censured because you are not formidable.” By dint of similar reasoning frequently reiterated, and by the employment of every sort of device for consoling and coaxing M. de Caulaincourt, Bonaparte succeeded in appeasing his resentment, and by degrees he raised him to posts of great dignity about his own person. The weakness which induced M. de Caulaincourt to pardon the indelible injury which the First Consul had done him may be more or less blamed; but, at least, it should be admitted that he was never a blind or servile courtier, and that he remained to the last among the small number of Bonaparte’s servants who never neglected an opportunity of telling him the truth.
Before dinner, both Mme. Bonaparte and her daughter entreated me to command my countenance as much as possible. The former told me that her husband had asked her that morning what effect the deplorable news had produced upon me; and on her replying that I had wept, he said, “That is a matter of course; she merely did what was to be expected of her as a woman. You don’t understand anything about our business; but it will all subside and everybody will see that I have not made a blunder.”
At length dinner was announced. In addition to the household officers on duty for that week, the dinner-party included M. and Mme. Louis Bonaparte, Eugène Beauharnais, M. de Caulaincourt, and General Hullin, who was then Commandant of Paris. The sight of this man affected me painfully. His expression of face, perfectly unmoved, was just the same on that day as it had been on the preceding. I quite believe that he did not think he had done an ill deed, or that he had performed an act of zeal in presiding over the military commission which condemned the prince. Bonaparte rewarded the fatal service which he had rendered him with money and promotion, but he said more than once, when he noted Hullin’s presence, “The sight of him annoys me; he reminds me of things which I do not like.”
Bonaparte did not come into the drawing-room at all; he went from his cabinet to the dinner-table. He affected no high spirits that day; on the contrary, he remained during the whole time of dinner in a profound reverie. We were all very silent. Just as we were about to rise from table, the First Consul said, in a harsh, abrupt tone, as if in reply to his own thoughts, “At least they will see what we are capable of, and henceforth, I hope, they will leave us alone.” He then passed on into the drawing-room, where he talked for a long time in a low voice with his wife, looking at me now and then, but without any anger in his glance. I sat apart from all, downcast and ill, without either the power or the wish to utter a word.
Presently Joseph Bonaparte and M. and Mme. Bacciochi arrived, accompanied by M. de Fontanes. Lucien was on bad terms with his brother, who had objected to his marriage with Mme. Jouberthon, and came no more to the palace; indeed, he was then making ready to leave France. During the evening, Murat, Dubois, who was Prefect of Police, the members of the Council of the State, and others arrived, all with composed faces. The conversation was at first trifling and awkward: the women sitting silent, the men standing in a semicircle, Bonaparte walking about from one side of the room to the other. Presently he began a discussion, half literary, half historical, with M. de Fontanes. The mention of certain names which belong to history gave him an opportunity of bringing out his opinion of some of our kings and great military commanders. I remarked on this evening that he dwelt on the dethronements of every kind, both actual and such as are effected by a change of mind. He lauded Charlemagne, but maintained that France had always beenen décadenceunder the Valois. He depreciated the greatness of Henry IV. “He was wanting,” said he, “in gravity. Good nature is an affectation which a sovereign ought to avoid. What does he want? Is it to remind those who surround him that he is a man like any other? What nonsense! So soon as a man is a king he is apart from all, and I have always held that the instinct of true policy was in Alexander’s idea of making himself out to be the descendant of a god.” He added that Louis XIV. knew the French better than Henry IV.; but he hastened to add that Louis had allowed “priests and an old woman” to get the better of him, and he made some coarse remarks on that point. Then he held forth on Louis XIV.’s generals, and on military science in general.
“Military science,” said Bonaparte, “consists in calculating all the chances accurately in the first place, and then in giving accident exactly, almost mathematically, its place in one’s calculations. It is upon this point that one must not deceive one’s self, and that a decimal more or less may change all. Now, this apportioning of accident and science can not get into any head except that of a genius, for genius must exist wherever there is a creation; and assuredly the grandest improvisation of the human mind is the gift of an existence to that which has it not. Accident, hazard, chance, whatever you choose to call it, a mystery to ordinary minds, becomes a reality to superior men. Turenne did not think about it, and so he had nothing but method. I think,” he added with a smile, “I should have beaten him. Condé had a better notion of it than Turenne, but then he gave himself up to it with impetuosity. Prince Eugène is one of those who understood it best. Henry IV. always put bravery in the place of everything; he only fought actions—he would not have come well out of a pitched battle. Catinat has been cried up chiefly from the democratic point of view; I have, for my own part, carried off a victory on the spot where he was beaten. The philosophers have worked up his reputation after their own fancy, and that was all the easier to do, because one may say anything one likes about ordinary people who have been lifted into eminence by circumstances not of their own creating. A man, to be really great, no matter in what order of greatness, must have actually improvised a portion of his own glory—must have shown himself superior to the event which he has brought about. For instance, Cæsar acted now and then with weakness, which makes me suspect the praises that are lavished on him in history.
“I am rather doubtful of your friends the historians, M. de Fontanes. Even your Tacitus himself explains nothing; he arrives at certain results without indicating the routes that have been followed. He is, I think, able as a writer, but hardly so as a statesman. He depicts Nero as an execrable tyrant, and then he tells us, almost in the same page with a description of the pleasure he felt in burning down Rome, that the people loved him. All that is not plain and clear. Believe me, we are sometimes the dupes of our beliefs—of writers who have fabricated history for us in accordance with the natural bent of their own minds. But do you know whose history I should like to read, if it were well written? That of King Frederick II. of Prussia. I hold him to be one of those who has best understood his business in every sort of way. These ladies”—here he turned to us—“will not be of my opinion; they will say that he was harsh and selfish. But, after all, is a great statesman made for feeling? Is he not a completely eccentric personage, who stands always alone, on his own side, with the world on the other? The glass through which he looks is that of his policy; his sole concern ought to be that it should neither magnify nor diminish. And, while he observes objects with attention, he must also be careful to hold the reins equally; for the chariot which he drives is often drawn by ill-matched horses. How, then, is he to occupy himself with those fine distinctions of feelings which are important to the generality of mankind? Can he consider the affections, the ties of kinship, the puerile arrangements of society? In such a position as his, how many actions are regarded separately, and condemned, although they are to contribute as a whole to that great work which the public does not discern? One day, those deeds will terminate the creation of the Colossus which will be the wonder of posterity. And you, mistaken as you are—you will withhold your praises, because you are afraid lest the movement of that great machine should crush you, as Gulliver crushed the Lilliputians when he moved his legs. Be advised; go on in advance of the time, enlarge your imagination, look out afar, and you will see that those great personages whom you think violent and cruel are only politic. They know themselves better, they judge themselves more correctly than you do; and, when they are really able men, they know how to master their passions, for they even calculate the effects of them.”
From this, which was a kind of manifesto, the opinions of Bonaparte may be gathered, and also a notion of the rapid succession in which his ideas followed each other when he allowed himself to talk. It sometimes happened that his discourse would be less consecutive, for he put up well enough with interruptions; but on the day in question every one seemed to be benumbed in his presence; no one ventured to take up certain applications of his words, which it was evident he intended. He had never ceased walking to and fro while he was talking, and this for more than an hour. Many other things which he said have escaped my memory. At length, abruptly breaking off the chain of his ideas, he directed M. de Fontanes to read aloud certain extracts from Drake’s correspondence, which I have already mentioned, all relating to the conspiracy. When the reading of the extracts was concluded, “There are proofs here,” said he, “that can not be disputed. These people wanted to throw France into confusion, and to destroy the Revolution by destroying me; it was my duty both to defend and to avenge the Revolution. I have proved of what it is capable. The Duc d’Enghien was a conspirator like any other, and he had to be treated as such. The whole affair, moreover, was arranged without caution or accurate knowledge of the ground, on the faith of some obscure correspondence; a few credulous old women wrote letters, and were believed. The Bourbons will never see anything except through theŒil-de-Bœuf, and they are fated to be perpetually deluded. The Polignacs made sure that every house in Paris would be open to them; and, when they arrived here, not a single noble would receive them. If all these fools were to kill me, they would not get their own way; they would only put angry Jacobins in my place. The day of etiquette is over, but the Bourbons can not give it up. If ever you see them return, mark my words that will be the first subject that will occupy their minds. Ah! it would have been another story could they have been seen, like Henry IV., covered with dust and blood on a battle-field. A kingdom is not got back by dating a letter from London, and signing it ‘Louis.’ Nevertheless, such a letter compromises imprudent people, and I am obliged to punish them, although I feel a sort of pity for them. I have shed blood; it was necessary to do so. I may have to shed more, but not out of anger—simply because blood-letting is one of the remedies in political medicine. I am the man of the State; I am the French Revolution, I say it, and I will uphold it.”
After this last declaration, Bonaparte dismissed us all. We dispersed without daring to interchange our ideas, and thus ended this fatal day.
CHAPTER VI
THE First Consul spared no pains to allay the excitement which was caused by this event. He perceived that his conduct had raised the question of his real character, and he set himself to prove, both by his speeches in the Council of State, and also to all of us, that political considerations only, and not passion of any kind, had led to the death of the Duc d’Enghien. As I said before, he made no attempt to check the genuine indignation evinced by M. de Caulaincourt, and toward me he displayed indulgence which once more unsettled my opinions. How strong a power of persuasion do sovereigns, whatever their character, exercise over us! Our feelings, and, to be frank, our vanity also, run to meet their slightest advances half-way. I grieved, but I felt myself being slowly won over by the adroitness of Bonaparte; and I cried
“Plut à Dieu ce fut dernier de ses crimes!”
“Plut à Dieu ce fut dernier de ses crimes!”
Meanwhile we returned to Paris, and then my feelings were again painfully excited by the state of opinion there. I could make no reply to what was said. I could only try to persuade those who believed that this fatal act was but the beginning of a blood-stained reign, that they were mistaken; and although it would be difficult, in point of fact, to exaggerate the impression that such a crime must produce, still party spirit ran so high that, although my own feelings revolted against it, I sometimes found myself endeavoring to offer some sort of excuse for it—uselessly enough, since I was addressing myself to people whose convictions were unalterable.
I had a warm discussion with Mme. de ——, a cousin of Mme. Bonaparte’s. She was one of those persons who did not attend the evening receptions at the Tuileries, but who, having divided the palace into two separate regions, considered that they might appear in Mme. Bonaparte’s apartment on the ground floor in the morning, without departing from their principles or sullying their reminiscences by recognition of the actual government on the first floor.
She was a clever, animated woman, with rather highflown notions. Mme. Bonaparte was frightened by her vehement indignation; and, finding me with her one day, she attacked me with equal vigor, and compassionated both of us for being, as she said, bound in chains to a tyrant. She went so far that I tried to make her understand the distress she was inflicting on her cousin. Then she turned violently upon me, and accused me of not sufficiently appreciating the horror of the event that had just taken place. “As for me,” she said, “every sense and every feeling is so outraged that, if your Consul were to come into this room, you would see me fly on the instant, as one flies from a venomous beast.” “Ah, madame,” I answered (little thinking that my words would prove prophetic), “refrain from expressions which at some future day may prove embarrassing to you. Weep with us, but reflect that the recollection of words uttered in a moment of excitement often complicates one’s subsequent actions. To-day you are angry with me for my apparent moderation; yet, perhaps, my feelings will last longer than yours.” And, in fact, a few months later, Mme. de —— became lady-in-waiting to her cousin, the newly made Empress.
Hume says somewhere that Cromwell, having established a sort of phantom of royalty, very soon found himself surrounded by that particular class of nobles who conceive themselves called on to live in palaces so soon as their doors are reopened. The First Consul, on assuming the insignia of the power he already wielded, offered a salve to the conscience of the old nobility which vanity always readily applies; for who can resist the temptation of recovering the rank he feels himself made to adorn? I am about to draw a very homely comparison, but I believe a true one. In the nature of thegrand seigneurthere is something of the character of the cat, which remains faithful to the same house, no matter who may become the proprietor of it.
Bonaparte, stained with the blood of the Duc d’Enghien, but having become an Emperor, succeeded in obtaining from the French nobles that for which he would have vainly sought so long as he was only First Consul; and when, in later days, he maintained to one of his ministers that this murder was indeed a crime, but not a blunder—“for,” he added, “the consequences that I foresaw have all exactly happened”—he was, in that sense, right.
And yet, if we look at things from a higher standpoint, the consequences of this act of his reached further than he thought for. He succeeded, doubtless, in moderating certain opinions, for there are numbers of people who give up feeling when there is nothing to hope; but, as M. de Rémusat said, the odium which the crime cast upon him obliged him to divert our thoughts from it by a succession of extraordinary feats, which would impose silence respecting the past. Moreover, he bound himself, as it were, to be always successful, for by success alone could he be justified. If we contemplate the tortuous and difficult path he was henceforth obliged to tread, we shall conclude that a noble and pure policy, based upon the prosperity of the human race and the free exercise of its rights, would have been then, as it is always, the best on which a sovereign can act.
By the death of the Duc d’Enghien, Bonaparte succeeded in compromising, first ourselves, then the French nobility, finally the whole nation and all Europe. Our fate was united with his, it is true—this was a great point for him; but, when he dishonored us, he lost the right to that devotion and adherence which he claimed in vain when the hour of his ill fortune came. How could he reckon on a link forged, it must be owned, at the cost of the noblest feelings of the soul? Alas! I judge by my own case. From that time forward I began to blush in secret at the chain I wore; and this hidden feeling, which I stifled at different times with more or less success, afterward became the general sentiment.
On his return to Paris, the First Consul was struck by the effect he had produced. He perceived that feelings go more slowly than opinions, and that men’s countenances wore a new expression in his presence. Weary of a remembrance that he would have liked to render a bygone from the very first, he thought the best plan was to let the people wear out their emotions as quickly as possible; and so he determined to appear in public, although certain persons advised him to defer doing so for a while. “But we must, at any cost,” he answered, “throw that event into the past; and it will remain new so long as anything fresh is to be felt about it. If we change nothing in our habits, the public will soon regard the occurrence as an old affair.” It was therefore arranged that he should go to the opera.
On that evening I was in attendance on Mme. Bonaparte; her carriage followed her husband’s. His usual custom was not to wait for her, but to pass rapidly up the staircase and show himself in his box; on this occasion, however, he waited in the little anteroom adjoining it until Mme. Bonaparte arrived. She was trembling very much, and he was excessively pale; he looked round at us all, as if mutely asking us how we thought he would be received; and then he went forward at last like a man marching up to a battery. He was greeted in the usual way, either because the sight of him produced its customary effect—for the multitude do not change their habits in a moment—or because the police had taken measures of precaution beforehand. I had greatly feared he would not be applauded, and yet, when I saw that he was, my heart sank within me.
He remained only a few days in Paris; thence he removed to Saint Cloud, and I believe from that time forth he began to carry his projects of sovereignty into execution. He felt the necessity of imposing an authority which could no longer be contested upon Europe, and, at the very moment when he had just broken with all parties by deeds which he himself regarded as merely acts of vigor, he thought it well to reveal the goal toward which he had been advancing with more or less precaution. He began by obtaining from the Corps Législatif, now assembled, a levy of sixty thousand men; not that he wanted them for the war with England, which could only be carried on by sea, but because he required to assume an imposing attitude when about to astonish Europe by an altogether novel incident. The Code of Civil Laws had just been completed; this was an important work, and was said to be worthy of general approval. The halls wherein the three great bodies of the State assembled rang on this occasion with the praises of Bonaparte. M. Marcorelle, a deputy of the Corps Législatif, moved, amid loud acclamations, on the 24th of March, three days after the death of the Duc d’Enghien, that a bust of the First Consul should be placed in the Chamber of Deputies. “Let us,” he said, “by a striking mark of our affection, proclaim to Europe that he who has been threatened by the daggers of vile assassins is the object of our attachment and admiration.”
A few days later, Fourcroy, a member of the Council of State, closed the session in the name of the Government. He alluded to the princes of the house of Bourbon as “members of that unnatural family which would have drowned France in her own blood, so that they might reign over her,” and added that they must be threatened with death if they ventured to pollute French territory by their presence.
Meanwhile, preparations for the great trial were going on; every day more Chouans were arrested, either in Brittany or in Paris, who were concerned in this conspiracy, and Georges Cadoudal, Pichegru, and Moreau had already been examined several times. The two first, it was said, answered with firmness; Moreau appeared to be much dejected. No clear information was obtained by these interrogatories.
One morning General Pichegru was found strangled in his prison. This event made a great sensation. It was unhesitatingly attributed to the need of getting rid of a formidable enemy. Pichegru’s determination of character would, it was said, have led him, when the proceeding became public, to utter strong language, which would have had an undesirable effect. He would, perhaps, have created a party in his favor; he would have cleared Moreau, whose guilt it was already so difficult to prove. On the other hand, the partisans of Bonaparte said: “Nobody can doubt that Pichegru came to Paris in order to get up an insurrection. He himself does not deny it. His own avowals would have convinced the most incredulous; his absence will prevent that full light, which is so desirable, from being thrown on the proceedings.”
Many years afterward I asked M. de Talleyrand one day what he thought of the death of Pichegru. “I think,” said he, “that it happened very suddenly and in the nick of time!” But just then M. de Talleyrand had fallen out with Bonaparte, and took every opportunity of bringing accusations against him; I therefore by no means commit myself to any statement respecting this event. The subject was not spoken of at Saint Cloud, and every one refrained from the slightest reflection on it.
About this time Lucien Bonaparte left France, having quarreled irrevocably with his brother. His marriage with Mme. Jouberthon, which Bonaparte had been unable to prevent, was the cause of the rupture. The Consul, full of his great projects, made a last attempt to induce him to renounce this marriage; but it was in vain that Lucien was apprised of the approaching grandeur of his family, in vain that a marriage with the Queen of Etruria was proposed to him. “Love was the strongest,” and he refused everything. A violent scene ensued, and Lucien was exiled from France.
On this occasion I happened to see the First Consul give way to one of those rare bursts of emotion of which I have before spoken. It was at Saint Cloud, rather late one evening. Mme. Bonaparte was anxiously waiting the result of this final conference between the two brothers; M. de Rémusat and I were the only persons with her. She did not care for Lucien, but she deprecated any family scandal. It was near midnight when Bonaparte came into the room; he was deeply dejected, and, throwing himself into an arm-chair, he exclaimed, in a troubled voice, “It is all over! I have broken with Lucien, and ordered him from my presence.” Mme. Bonaparte began to expostulate. “You are a good woman,” he said, “to plead for him.” Then he rose from his chair, took his wife in his arms, and laid her head softly on his shoulder, and with his hand still resting on the beautiful head which formed a contrast to the sad, set countenance so near it, he told us that Lucien had resisted all his entreaties, and that he had resorted equally in vain to both threats and persuasion. “It is hard, though,” he added, “to find in one’s own family such stubborn opposition to interests of such magnitude. Must I, then, isolate myself from every one? Must I rely on myself alone? Well! I will suffice to myself, and you, Josephine—you will be my comfort always.”
I retain a pleasurable recollection of this little scene. Tears were in Bonaparte’s eyes as he spoke. I felt inclined to thank him when he betrayed feelings like those of other men. Shortly after this, his brother Louis crossed his wishes in another way, and this incident had probably a great influence on the fate of Mme. Bonaparte.
The Consul, being quite resolved to raise himself to the throne of France and to found a dynasty, had occasionally glanced at the question of a divorce already; but, either because of his attachment to his wife being still too strong, or because his existing relations with Europe did not permit him to hope for an alliance which would strengthen his political position, he seemed just then disinclined to break with Josephine, and disposed to adopt the young Louis Napoleon, who was his own nephew and also Josephine’s grandson.
He no sooner allowed this project to be discerned than his family rebelled. Joseph Bonaparte ventured to represent to him that he had done nothing to forfeit the right to the crown which, as eldest brother, he would acquire, and he defended that right as if it had really existed of old.
Bonaparte, who was always irritated by opposition, grew very angry, and only the more determined. He confided his intentions to his wife, who was overjoyed, and spoke to me as though the realization of this project would bring her own anxieties to an end. Mme. Louis assented, but without displaying any gratification. She was not at all ambitious, and, in fact, could not help fearing that such an elevation would bring down misfortune on the head of her son.
One day, when Bonaparte was surrounded by his family, he placed the little Napoleon between his knees, and said, while playing with him, “Do you know, my little fellow, that you run the risk of being a king some day?” “And Achille?” immediately asked Murat, who was present. “Oh, Achille,” answered Bonaparte, “will be a great soldier.” This reply incensed Mme. Murat; but Bonaparte, pretending not to notice her, and stung by his brother’s opposition, which he believed with reason to have been prompted by Mme. Murat, went on to say to his little step-grandson, “And mind, my poor child, I advise you, if you value your life, not to accept invitations to dine with your cousins.”
We may imagine to what feelings such bitter words would give rise. From that moment Louis Bonaparte was beset by his family, who adroitly reminded him of the rumors respecting his wife, and that he ought not to sacrifice the interests of his own kinsfolk to those of a child who was at least half a Beauharnais; and, as Louis Bonaparte was not quite so destitute of ambition as people have since made him out, he, like Joseph, went to the First Consul to ask why the sacrifice of his own rights should be demanded of him. “Why,” said he, “should I yield my share of inheritance to my son? How have I deserved to be cut off? What will my position be when this child, having become yours, finds himself very much higher placed than I, and quite independent of me, standing next to yourself, and regarding me with suspicion, if not with contempt? No; I will never consent to this; and, rather than renounce the proper course of succession to the royalty which is to be yours, rather than consent to humble myself before my own son, I will leave France, taking Napoleon with me, and we shall see whether you will dare openly to take a child from his father!”
The First Consul, powerful as he was, found it impossible to overcome his brother’s opposition. His wrath availed nothing, and he was obliged to yield, for fear of a vexatious and even ridiculous scandal; for such it certainly would have been, to see this whole family quarreling beforehand over the crown which France had not yet actually conferred.
The strife was hushed up, and Napoleon was obliged to draw up the scheme of succession, and the possible case of adoption which he reserved to himself the power of making, in the terms to be found in the decree relating to the elevation of the First Consul to the Empire.
These quarrels embittered the enmity already existing between the Bonapartes and the Beauharnais. The former regarded the plan of adoption as the result of Mme. Bonaparte’s scheming. Louis gave stricter orders to his wife than before that she should hold no familiar intercourse with her mother. “If you consult her interests at the cost of mine,” he told her harshly, “I swear to you that I will make you repent. I will separate you from your son; I will shut you up in some out-of-the-way place, and no power on earth shall deliver you. You shall pay for your concessions to your own family by the wretchedness of the rest of your life. And take care, above all, that none of my threats reach the ears of my brother. Even his power should not save you from my anger.”
Mme. Louis bowed her head, a patient victim to this violence. She was then expecting the birth of her second child. Grief and anxiety told upon her health, which was permanently injured; the fresh complexion, her only beauty, disappeared. She had possessed natural spirits, but they now died away for ever; and she became silent and timid. She refrained from confiding her troubles to her mother, whose indiscretion and hasty temper she dreaded; and neither would she further irritate the First Consul. He, knowing well his brother’s character, felt grateful to her for her reticence, and guessed at the sufferings she had to endure. From that time forth he never let an opportunity pass without exhibiting the interest—I may even say the respect—with which the mild and prudent demeanor of his step-daughter inspired him.
What I have just said is quite opposed to the general opinion which has unfortunately been entertained of this unhappy woman; but her vindictive sisters-in-law never missed an opportunity of injuring her reputation by the most odious calumnies, and, as she bore the name of Bonaparte, the public, when they came to hate the Imperial despotism, included every one belonging to the family in their impartial contempt, readily believed every calumny against Mme. Louis. Her husband (whose ill treatment of her irritated him all the more against her), obliged to own that she could not love him after the tyranny he had exercised, jealous with the jealousy of pride, and naturally suspicious, embittered by ill health, and utterly selfish, made her feel the full weight of conjugal despotism. She was surrounded by spies; her letters were opened before they reached her hands; her conversations even with female friends were resented; and, if she complained of this insulting severity, he would say to her, “You can not love me. You are a woman—consequently a being all made up of evil and deceit; you are the daughter of an unprincipled mother; you belong to a family that I loathe. Are not these reasons enough for me to suspect you?”
Mme. Louis, from whom I obtained these details long afterward, found her only comfort in the affection of her brother, whose conduct, though jealously watched by the Bonapartes, was unassailable. Eugène, who was simple and frank, light-hearted, and open in all his dealings, displaying no ambition, holding himself aloof from every intrigue, and doing his duty wherever he was placed, disarmed calumny before it could reach him, and knew nothing of all that took place in the palace. His sister loved him passionately, and confided her sorrows to him only, during the few moments that the jealous watchfulness of Louis allowed them to pass together.
Meanwhile, the First Consul, having complained to the Elector of Bavaria of the correspondence which Mr. Drake kept up in France, and this English gentleman entertaining some apprehensions as to his own safety, as did also Sir Spencer Smith, the British Envoy at the Court of Würtemburg, they both suddenly disappeared. Lord Morpeth asked the Government, in the House of Commons, for an explanation of Drake’s conduct. The Chancellor of the Exchequer replied that the envoy had been given authority for his proceedings, and that a fuller explanation should be afforded when the ambassador had furnished the information that had been demanded from him.
At this time Bonaparte held long and frequent consultations with M. de Talleyrand. The latter, whose opinions were essentially monarchical, urged the Consul to change his title to that of King. He has since owned to me that the name of Emperor alarmed him; it conveyed a sense of vagueness and immensity, which was precisely what charmed the imagination of Bonaparte. He added, “A combination of the Roman Republic and of Charlemagne in the title turned his head. I amused myself one day by mystifying Berthier. I took him aside, and said to him, ‘You know of the great scheme that is occupying us. Go to the Consul, and urge him to take the title of King; it will please him.’ Accordingly Berthier, who was delighted to have an opportunity of speaking to Bonaparte on an agreeable subject, went up to him at the other end of the room in which we were all assembled, and I drew back a little, foreseeing the storm. Berthier began his little speech, but at the word ‘King’ Bonaparte’s eyes flashed fire; he seized Berthier by the throat, and pushed him back against the wall. ‘You idiot!’ he said; ‘who has been advising you to come here and excite my anger? Another time, don’t take such a task on yourself.’ Poor Berthier, in dire confusion, looked piteously at me, and it was a long time before he forgave my sorry jest.”
At last, on April 30, 1804, the tribune Curée, who had no doubt learnt his part, and who, later on, was rewarded for his complaisance by being created a senator, made what was then called “a motion of order” in the Tribunate, demanding that the government of the Republic should be confided to an Emperor, and that the Empire should be made hereditary in the family of Napoleon Bonaparte. His speech was effective. He regarded an hereditary succession, he said, as a guarantee against plots from without, and that in reality the title of Emperor only meant “Victorious Consul.” Nearly all the tribunes put down their names to speak. A commission of thirteen members was appointed. Carnot alone had the courage to protest against this proposal. He declared that he would vote against an Empire, for the same reason that he had voted against a life Consulship, but without any personal animosity, and that he was quite prepared to render obedience to the Emperor should he be elected. He spoke in high praise of the American form of government, and added that Bonaparte might have adopted it at the time of the treaty of Amiens; that the abuses of despotism led to worse results than the abuses of liberty; and that, before smoothing the way to this despotism, which would be all the more dangerous because it was reared on military success, it would have been advisable to create institutions for its due repression. Notwithstanding Carnot’s opposition, the motion was put to the vote and adopted.
On May 4th a deputation from the Tribunate carried it to the Senate, who were already prepared for it. The Vice-President, François de Neufchateau, replied that the Senate had expected the vote, and would take it into consideration. At the same sitting it was decided that the motion of the Tribunate and the answer of the Vice-President should be laid before the First Consul.
On May 5th the Senate sent an address to Bonaparte, asking him, without further explanation, for a final act which would insure the future peace of France. His answer to this address may be read in the “Moniteur.” “I beg you,” he said, “to let me know your entire purpose. I desire that we may be able to say to the French nation on the 14th of next July, ‘The possessions that you acquired fifteen years ago, liberty, equality, and glory, are now beyond the reach of every storm.’ ” In reply, the Senate voted unanimously for imperial government, adding that, in the interests of the French people, it was important that it should be intrusted to Napoleon Bonaparte.
After May 8th addresses from the towns poured in at Saint Cloud. An address from Lyons came first; a little later came those from Paris and other places. At the same time came the vote from Klein’s division, and then one from the troops in camp at Montreuil under the orders of General Ney; and the other divisions promptly followed these examples. M. de Fontanes addressed the First Consul in the name of the Corps Législatif, which at this moment was not sitting; but those among its members who were then in Paris met, and voted as the Senate had done. The excitement that these events caused at Saint Cloud may readily be imagined.
I have already recorded the disappointment which Louis Bonaparte’s rejection of the project of adoption had inflicted on his mother-in-law. She still hoped, however, that the First Consul would contrive, if he himself remained in the same mind, to overcome the opposition of his brother; and she expressed to me her delight that her husband’s new prospects had not induced him to reconsider the terrible question of the divorce. Whenever Bonaparte was displeased with his brothers, Mme. Bonaparte always rose in his estimation, because he found consolation in the unfailing sweetness of her disposition. She never tried to extract from him any promise either for herself or for her children; and the confidence she showed in his affection, together with the disinterestedness of Eugène, when contrasted with the exactions of the Bonaparte family, could not fail to please him. Mme. Bacciochi and Murat, who were in great anxiety about coming events, endeavored to worm out of M. de Talleyrand, or out of Fouché, the secret projects of the First Consul, so that they might know what to expect. Their perturbation was beyond their power to conceal; and it was with some amusement that I detected it in their troubled glances and in every word they let fall.
At last we were told, one evening, that on the following day the Senate was to come in great state and lay before Bonaparte the decree which should give him a crown. When I recall that evening, the emotions I experienced on hearing the news return to me. The First Consul, when informing his wife of the coming event, had told her he intended to surround himself with a more numerous Court, but that he would fitly distinguish between the new-comers and those old servants who had first devoted themselves to his service. He particularly desired her to assure M. de Rémusat and me of his good will toward us. I have already told how he bore with the anguish which I was unable to hide on the occasion of the death of the Duc d’Enghien. His indulgence on this point did not diminish; perhaps it amused him to pry into my secret feelings, and gradually to appease them by such marked kindness that it revived my flagging attachment to him.
I could not as yet overcome my feelings toward him. I grieved over his great fault; but when I saw that he was, so to speak, a better man than formerly, though I believed he had made a fatal mistake, I felt grateful to him for keeping his word and being gentle and kind afterward, as he had promised. The fact is that at this period he could not afford to dispense with anybody, and he therefore neglected no means of success. His dexterous behaviour toward M. de Caulaincourt had won him over so that he had gradually recovered his former serenity of mind, and was at this epoch one of the confidants of the First Consul’s schemes. Bonaparte, having questioned his wife as to what each person at Court had said at the time of the prince’s death, learned from her that M. de Rémusat, who was habitually reticent both from inclination and from prudence, but who always spoke the truth when asked, had not hesitated to own his indignation. Being apparently resolved that nothing should irritate him, he broached the subject to M. de Rémusat, and, having revealed to him as much of his policy as he thought proper, succeeded in convincing my husband that he had really believed the Duke’s death indispensable to the safety of France. My husband, when repeating this conversation to me, said, “I am far from agreeing with him that this deed of blood was needed to establish his authority, and I did not hesitate to tell him so; but I own that it is a relief to me to think that he did not commit the crime out of revenge. He is evidently distressed, no matter what he may say, by the effect it has produced; and I believe he will never again seek to strengthen his authority by such terrible means. I did not neglect to point out to him that in an age like ours, and in a nation like ours, it is playing a dangerous game to rule by terror and bloodshed; and I think that the earnest attention with which he listened to me augurs well for the future.”
This sincere avowal of what we both felt shows how much need we had of hope. Severe judges of other people might blame us, no doubt, for the facility with which we again deceived ourselves, and impute our credulity, with apparent justice, to our own position in the Court. Ah! it is so hard to have to blush in secret for the calling one has chosen, it is so pleasant to like one’s self-imposed duties, it is so natural to paint in bright colors one’s own and one’s country’s future, that it is only after a long struggle the conviction of a truth which must shatter one’s whole life is admitted. Such a truth did come home to us, slowly, but with a strength that could not be gainsaid; and we paid dearly for an error to which all well-disposed persons clung as long as possible.
On May 18, 1804, the Second Consul, Cambacérès, President of the Senate, came to Saint Cloud, accompanied by all the senators and escorted by a large body of troops. He made a set speech, and gave to Bonaparte for the first time the title of “Your Majesty.” Bonaparte took it calmly, just as though he had borne it all his life. The Senate then proceeded to the apartment of Mme. Bonaparte, who in her turn was proclaimed Empress. She replied with that natural grace which always raised her to the level of any position, however lofty, in which she might be placed.
At the same time, the Grand Dignitaries, as they were called, were created—Grand Elector, Joseph Bonaparte; High Constable, Louis Bonaparte; Arch-Chancellor of the Empire, Cambacérès; Arch-Treasurer, Le Brun. The Ministers, Maret (the Secretary of State, who ranked with the Ministers), the Colonels-general of the Guards, Duroc (the Governor of the Palace), and the aides-de-camp took the oaths; and the next day the officers of the army, among whom was Colonel Eugène Beauharnais, were presented to the Emperor by the new Constable.
The opposition which Bonaparte had encountered in his own family, to his intended adoption of the little Louis, induced him to postpone that project. The succession was therefore declared to belong to the heirs male of Napoleon Bonaparte, and failing these, to the sons of Joseph and of Louis, who were created Imperial Princes. The organicsenatus consultumdeclared that the Emperor might adopt as his successor any one of his nephews whom he chose, but not until the selected individual had reached the age of eighteen, and that no further act of adoption could take place in the family.
The civil list was to be the same as that granted to the King in 1791, and the princes were to be endowed in accordance with the law of December 20, 1791. The great dignitaries were to have one third of the sum settled on the princes. They were to preside over the electoral colleges of the six largest towns in the Empire, and the princes, from the eighteenth year of their age, were to be permanent members of the Senate and the Council of State.
Fourteen Marshals of France were created at this date, and the title of Marshal was conferred on four of the Senators. The new Marshals were Berthier, Murat, Moncey, Jourdan, Masséna, Augereau, Bernadotte, Soult, Brune, Lannes, Mortier, Ney, Davoust, Bessières; the four Senators were Kellermann, Lefebvre, Pérignon, and Serrurier.
An article in the “Moniteur” apprised the public that the title of Imperial Highness was to be given to the princes, that of Serene Highness and Monseigneur to the great dignitaries; that the Ministers were to be called Monseigneur by public officials and all petitioners, and the Marshals Monsieur le Maréchal.
Thus disappeared the title of “Citizen,” which had long since been disused in society, where “Monsieur” had resumed its former place, but which Bonaparte was always most careful to employ. On the same day, the 18th of May, his brothers, with Cambacérès and Le Brun and the officers of his household, were invited to dine with him, and we heard him use the old word “Monsieur” for the first time, without being betrayed by habit into saying “Citizen” even once.
Titles were also accorded to the great officers of the Empire, eight inspectors and colonels-general of artillery, engineers, cavalry, and the navy, and the great civil officers of the Crown, to whom I shall refer hereafter.