Part 20

It appears that Austria, on the retreat from Moscow, exerted sincere efforts in London for negotiating a peace with Napoleon; but the influence of the Russian Cabinet was all-powerful in London, and no proposals for peace were listened to. The armistice of Dresden then arrived, and Austria declared for war.

During this interval, the Austrian minister in London could never obtain a hearing. He however remained for a considerable time in the English capital, and did not leave it until the Allies had reached the heart of France, and Lord Castlereagh hinted at the possibility, for a moment, that the heroic success of Napoleon might render negotiations indispensable.

If this minister had not previously been sent to London, he would have been destined for Paris; and there probably his influence might have brought about a turn of negotiations different from those which arose during his absence between the Tuileries and Vienna.

In the height of the crisis he found himself detained in England as if by force. In his impatience to reach the grand centre of negotiations, he quitted his post, and proceeded to Holland, braving a violent tempest. No sooner had he arrived on the theatre of events than he fell into the hands of Napoleon at Saint-Dizier; but the fate of France was then decided, though the fact was not yet known at the French head-quarters. Alexander was entering Paris.

The Austrian minister in London exerted every endeavour to procure a passport to enable him to join his Sovereign by passing through Calais and Paris; but in vain. This circumstance; whether accidental, or premeditated, was another fatality. But for this disappointment, the Austrian minister would have reached Paris before the Allies, would have joined Maria-Louisa, would have defeated the last projects of M. de Talleyrand, and would have altogether produced new combinations.

Opinion was divided in the Austrian Cabinet. One party was for the union with France; the other was for the alliance with Russia. Intrigue or chance decided in favour of Russia, and Austria, from that moment, was merely led on.

14th.—The coffee that was served at our breakfast this morning was better than usual; it was even good. The Emperor expressed himself pleased with it. Some moments after he observed, placing his hand on his stomach, that he felt the benefit of it. It would be difficult to express what were my feelings on hearing this simple remark. The Emperor, by thus appreciating so trivial an enjoyment, contrary to his custom, unconsciously proved to me the effect of all the privations he had suffered, but of which he never complained.

When we returned from our evening walk, the Emperor read to me a chapter on the _Provisional Consuls_, which he had dictated to M. de Montholon. Having finished reading, the Emperor took a piece of ribbon, and began to tie together the loose sheets of paper. It was late; the silence of night prevailed around us. My reflections were on that day of a melancholy cast. I gazed on the Emperor. I looked on those hands which had wielded so many sceptres, and which were now tranquilly, and perhaps, not without some degree of pleasure, occupied in the humble task of tying together a few sheets of paper. On these sheets, indeed, were traced events that will never be forgotten; portraits that will decide the judgment of posterity. It is the book of life or death to many whose names are recorded in it. These were the reflections that passed in my mind. “And the Emperor,” thought I, “reads to me what he writes; he familiarly converses with me, asks my opinion, and I freely give it. After all, I am not to be pitied in my exile at St. Helena.”

15th.—Immediately after dinner the Emperor walked in his favourite path. He had his coffee carried down to him in the garden, and he drank it as he walked about. The conversation turned on love. I must have made some very fine and sentimental remarks on this important subject; for the Emperor laughed at what he styled my prattle, and said that he understood none of my romantic verbiage. Then speaking with an air of levity, he wished to make me believe that he was better acquainted with sensations than sentiments. I made free to remark that he was trying to be thought worse than he was described to be in the authentic, but very secret, accounts that were circulated about the palace. “And what was said of me?” resumed he, with an air of gaiety. “Sire,” I replied, “it is understood that, when in the summit of your power, you suffered yourself to be bound in the chains of love; that you became a hero of romance; that, fired by an unexpected resistance, you conceived an attachment for a lady in private life; that you wrote her above a dozen love-letters; and that her power over you prevailed so far as to compel you to disguise yourself, and to visit her secretly and alone, at her own residence, in the heart of Paris.”—”And how came this to be known?” said he, smiling; which of course amounted to an admission of the fact. “And it was doubtless added,” continued he, “that that was the most imprudent act of my whole life; for, had my mistress proved treacherous, what might not have been my fate—alone and disguised, in the circumstances in which I was placed, amidst the snares with which I was surrounded? But what more is said of me?”—“Sire, it is affirmed that your Majesty’s posterity is not confined to the King of Rome. The secret chronicle states that he has two elder brothers: one the offspring of a fair foreigner, whom you loved in a distant country; the other, the fruit of a connection nearer at hand, in the bosom of your own capital. It was asserted that both had been conveyed to Malmaison, before our departure; the one brought by his mother, and the other introduced by his tutor; and they were described to be the living portraits of their father.”[23]

Footnote 23:

It is said, that a codicil in the Emperor’s will, which, however, must remain secret, completely confirms the above conjectures.

The Emperor laughed much at the extent of my information, as he termed it; and being now in a merry vein, he began to take a frank retrospect of his early years, relating many of the love-affairs and numerous adventures in which he had been engaged. I omit the first; amongst the second he mentioned a supper that took place in the neighbourhood of the Saone at the commencement of the Revolution, and at which he had been present in company with the faithful Desmazzis. He described the whole with the utmost pleasantry.—He had got himself, he observed, into a wasp’s nest, where his patriotic eloquence had to contend strenuously against the contrary doctrines of the other guests, and had nearly brought him into a serious scrape. “You and I,” he continued, “were at that time very far from each other.”—”Not so very far, in point of distance, Sire,” replied, “though certainly very remote with respect to doctrines. At that time I was also in the neighbourhood of the Saone, on one of the quays of Lyons, where crowds of patriots were declaiming against the cannon which they had just discovered in some boats, and which they termed a counter-revolution. I very inopportunely proposed that they should make sure of the cannon, by administering to them the _civic oath_. However, I narrowly escaped being hanged for my folly. You see, Sire, that I might precisely at that moment have balanced your account, had any disaster befallen you among your aristocrat companions.” This was not the only curious coincidence that was mentioned in the course of the evening. The Emperor, having related to me an interesting circumstance that took place in 1788, said, “Where were you at that time.”—“Sire,” replied I, after a few moments recollection, “I was then at Martinique, supping every evening with the future Empress Josephine.”

A shower of rain came on and we were obliged to retire from our favourite path, which, the Emperor observed, we might probably at a future period look back to with pleasure. “Perhaps so,” I replied; “but certainly that will not be until we have forsaken it for ever. Meanwhile we must content ourselves with naming it the Path of Philosophy, since it cannot be called the Path of Lethe.”

THE FAUXBOURG SAINT-GERMAIN, &C.—THE EMPEROR’S FREEDOM FROM PREJUDICE AND ILL-WILL.—CHARACTERISTIC LANGUAGE.

16th.—To-day the Emperor put some questions to me relative to the Fauxbourg Saint-Germain; that last bulwark of the old aristocracy, that refuge of old-fashioned prejudices; the _Germanic League_, as he called it. I told him that, before his last misfortune, his power had extended into every part of it: it had been invaded, and its name alone remained; it had been shaken and vanquished by glory; and the victories of Austerlitz and Jena, and the triumph of Tilsit, had achieved its conquest. The younger portion of the inhabitants, and all who had generous hearts, could not be insensible to the glory of their country. The Emperor’s marriage with Maria-Louisa gave it the last blow. The few malcontents who remained were either those whose ambition had not been gratified, and who are to be found in all classes, or some obstinate old men, and silly old women, bewailing their past influence. All reasonable and sensible persons had yielded to the superior talents of the Head of the State, and endeavoured to console themselves for their losses in the hope of a better prospect for their children. This became the point towards which all their ideas were directed. They gave the Emperor credit for his partiality to old family names; they agreed that any one else in his place would have annihilated them. They prized very highly the confidence with which the Emperor had collected individuals of ancient family about his person; and they valued him no less for the language he had made use of in making choice of their children to serve in the army:—“These names belong to France and to History; I am the guardian of their glory, I will not allow them to perish.” These and other such expressions had gained him numbers of proselytes. The Emperor here expressed his apprehension that sufficient favour had not been shewn to this party. “My system of amalgamation,” said he, “required it: I wished and even directed favours to be conferred on them: but the ministers, who were the great mediators, never properly fulfilled my real intentions in that respect; either because they had not sufficient foresight, or because they feared that they might thus create rivals for favour, and diminish their own chances. M. Talleyrand, in particular, always shewed great opposition to such a measure, and always resisted my favourable intuitions towards the old nobility.” I observed, however, that the greater part of those whom he had placed near him had soon shewn themselves attached to his person; that they had served him conscientiously, and had, generally speaking, remained faithful to him at the critical moment. The Emperor did not deny it, and even went so far as to say that the twofold event of the King’s return and his own abdication must naturally have had great influence on certain doctrines; and that, for his own part, he could see a great difference between the same conduct pursued in 1814 and in 1815.

And here I must observe that, since I have become acquainted with the Emperor’s character, I have never known him to evince, for a single moment, the least feeling of anger or animosity against those individuals who had been most to blame in their conduct towards him. He gives no great credit to those who distinguished themselves by their good conduct: they had only done their duty. He is not very indignant against those who acted basely; he partly saw through their characters: they yielded to the impulses of their nature. He speaks of them coolly, and without animosity; attributing their conduct in some measure to existing circumstances, which he acknowledged were of a very perplexing nature, and placing the rest to the account of human weakness. Vanity was the ruin of Marmont: “Posterity will justly cast a shade upon his character,” said he; “yet his heart will be more valued than the memory of his career. The conduct of Augereau was the result of his want of information, and the baseness of those who surrounded him; that of Berthier, of his want of spirit, and his absolute nullity of character.”

I remarked that the latter had let slip the best and easiest opportunity of rendering himself for ever illustrious, by frankly making his submission to the King, and intreating his Majesty’s permission to withdraw from the world, and mourn in solitude the fate of him who had honoured him with the title of his companion in arms, and had called him his friend. “Yes,” said the Emperor; “even this step, simple as it was, was beyond his power.”—“His talents, his understanding,” said I, “had always been a subject of doubt with us. Your Majesty’s choice, your confidence, your great attachment, surprised us exceedingly.”—“To say the truth,” replied the Emperor, “Berthier was not without talent, and I am far from wishing to disavow his merit, or my partiality for him; but his talent and merit were special and technical; beyond a limited point he had no mind whatever: and then he was so undecided.”—I observed that “he was, notwithstanding, full of pretensions and pride in his conduct towards us.”—“Do you think, then, that the title of Favourite goes for nothing?” said the Emperor. I added, that “he was very harsh and overbearing.” “And what,” said he, “my dear Las Cases, is more overbearing than weakness which feels itself protected by strength? Look at women, for example.”

Berthier accompanied the Emperor in his carriage during his campaigns. As they drove along, the Emperor would examine the order-book and the report of the positions, whence he formed his resolutions, adopted his plans, and arranged the necessary movements. Berthier noted down his directions, and at the first station they came to, or during the first moments allotted to rest, whether by night or by day, he made out, in his turn, all the orders and individual details with admirable regularity, precision, and despatch. This was a kind of duty at which he shewed himself always ready and indefatigable. “This was the special merit of Berthier,” said the Emperor: “it was most valuable to me; no other talent could have made up for the want of it.”

I now return to notice some characteristic traits of the Emperor. He invariably speaks with perfect coolness, without passion, without prejudice, and without resentment, of the events and the persons connected with his life. It is evident that he would be capable of becoming the ally of his most cruel enemy, and of living with the man who had done him the greatest wrong. He speaks of his past history as if it had occurred three centuries ago: in his recitals and his observations he speaks the language of past ages: he is like a spirit discoursing in the Elysian fields; his conversations are true Dialogues of the Dead. He speaks of himself as of a third person; noticing the Emperor’s actions, pointing out the faults with which history may reproach him, and analysing the reasons and the motives which might be alleged in his justification.

He never can excuse himself, he says, by throwing blame on others, since he never followed any but his own decision. He may complain, at the worst, of false information, but never of bad counsel. He had surrounded himself with the best possible advisers, but he had always adhered to his own opinion, and he was far from repenting of having done so. “It is,” said he, “the indecision and anarchy of agents which produce anarchy and feebleness in results. In order to form a just opinion respecting the faults produced by the sole personal decision of the Emperor, it will be necessary to throw into the scale the great actions which he would have been prevented from performing, and the other faults which he would have been induced to commit, by those very counsels which he is blamed for not having followed.”

In viewing the complicated circumstances of his fall, looks upon things so much in a mass, and from so high a point, that individuals escape his notice. He never evinces the least symptom of virulence towards those of whom it might be supposed he has the greatest reason to complain. His greatest mark of reprobation, and I have had frequent occasion to notice it, is to preserve silence with respect to them, whenever they are mentioned in his presence. But how often has he not been heard to restrain the violent and less reserved expressions of those about him? “You are not acquainted with men,” he has said to us; “they are difficult to comprehend, if one wishes to be strictly just. Can they understand or explain even their own characters? Almost all those who abandoned me would, had I continued to be prosperous, never, perhaps have dreamed of their own defection. There are vices and virtues which depend on circumstances. Our last trials were beyond all human strength! Besides I was forsaken rather than betrayed; there was more of weakness than of perfidy around me. It was the _denial of St. Peter_: tears and repentance are probably at hand. And where will you find, in the page of history, any one possessing a greater number of friends and partisans? Who was ever more popular and more beloved? Who was ever more ardently and deeply regretted? Here, from this very rock, on viewing the present disorders in France, who would not be tempted to say that I still reign there? The Kings and princes, my allies, have remained faithful to me to the last, they were carried away by the people in a mass: and those who were around me, found themselves enveloped and overwhelmed by an irresistible whirlwind.... No! human nature might have appeared in a light still more odious, and I might have had still greater cause of complaint!”

ON THE OFFICERS OF THE EMPEROR’S HOUSEHOLD IN 1814.—PLAN OF ADDRESS TO THE KING.

17th.—The Emperor asked me some questions to-day relative to the officers of his household. With the exception of two or three, at the most, who had drawn upon themselves the contempt of the very party to which they had gone over, nothing could be said against them: the majority had even evinced an ardent devotion to the Emperor’s interests. The Emperor then made enquiries respecting some of these individuals in

## particular, calling them by their names; and I could not but express my

approbation of them all. “What do you tell me?” said he, interrupting me hastily while I was speaking of one of them; “and yet I gave him so bad a reception at the Tuileries on my return! Ah! I fear I have committed some involuntary acts of injustice! This comes of being obliged to take for granted the first story that is told, and of not having a single moment to spare for verification! I fear too that I have left many debts of gratitude in arrear! How unfortunate it is to be incapable of doing every thing one’s self!”

I replied—“Sire, it is true that, if blame be attached to the officers of your household, it must be shared equally by all; a fact, however, which must humble us strangely in the eyes of foreign nations. As soon as the King appeared, all hastened to him, not as to the sovereign whom your abdication had left us, but as to one who had never ceased to be our sovereign; not with the dignity of men proud of having always fulfilled their duties, but with the equivocal embarrassment of unskilful courtiers. Each sought only to justify himself: your Majesty was from that instant disavowed and abjured; the title of Emperor was dropped. The Ministers, the Nobles, the intimate friends of your Majesty, styled you simply '_Buonaparte_,’ and blushed not for themselves or their nation. They excused themselves by saying that they had been compelled to serve; that they could not do otherwise, through dread of the treatment they might have experienced.” The Emperor here recognised a true picture of our national character. He said we were still the same people as our ancestors the Gauls: that we still retained the same levity, the same inconstancy, and, above all, the same vanity. “When shall we,” said he, “exchange this vanity for a little pride?”

“The officers of your Majesty’s household,” said I, “neglected a noble opportunity of acquiring both honour and popularity. There were above one hundred and fifty officers of the household; a great number of them belonged to the first families, and were men of independent fortune. It was for them to set an example, which, being followed by others, might have given another impulse to the national attitude, and afforded us a claim on public esteem.”[24]—“Yes,” said the Emperor, “if all the upper classes had acted in that way, affairs might have turned out very differently. The old editors of the public journals would not then have indulged in their chimeras of the good old times; we should not then have been annoyed with their dissertations on the straight line and the curve line; the King would have adhered honestly to his charter; I should never have dreamed of quitting the Island of Elba; the head of the nation would have been recorded in history with greater honour and dignity; and we should all have been gainers.”

Footnote 24:

In this spirit, and in imitation of the example of other bodies, a plan of Address to the King was drawn up in the name of the Officers of the Emperor’s Household. It was in substance as follows:—

“Sire—The undersigned, who formed a part of the household of the Emperor Napoleon, solicit from your Majesty the favour of particular attention.

“Heirs to the duties of their fathers, they were, at a former period, faithful defenders of the throne; many of them followed your Majesty through long years of exile, into a foreign land, and sealed their devotedness by the forfeiture of their patrimony.

“It was precisely these well-known principles, and this acknowledged conduct, which constituted their claim, and called attention to them, when it was in contemplation to raise up a new throne and to surround it with adherents.

“The expectations of him who rallied us around him were not, could not be, disappointed: we fulfilled our new duties with _honour and fidelity_. These sentiments, Sire, the surest pledges of every other, would be sufficient to secure our own esteem, if it were possible for us to remain in indolent retirement. But what good and loyal Frenchman would desire a state of absolute repose? And yet, should any of us feel ourselves, through motives of delicacy, reduced to await, in silence, our appointment to new duties, might not our motive be misconstrued? On the other hand, might not the feelings of those also be misunderstood who, yielding to the impulse of their hearts, eagerly hastened to receive the favours of your Majesty?

“Such, Sire, is the peculiar and delicate situation in which we are placed: but all our embarrassments will cease, if your Majesty deign to lend an ear to our Address. Your royal heart will feel the delicacy of the impulse by which we are guided at this moment, and will accept our sincere wishes to serve your Majesty and our country with our accustomed zeal and fidelity.”