part I

remained quietly at home.”—“Ah, that is too much for me to put up with,” said the Emperor, “the villanous aristocrat! How! And you were really guilty of such an absurdity?”—“Alas! I was,” replied the accused, “and yet here I am near you, and at St. Helena.” The Emperor smiled, and let go the ear.

After breakfast, a captain of the English artillery, who had been six years at the Isle of France, called upon me. He was to sail for Europe the next day. He entreated me in a thousand ways to procure him the happiness of seeing the Emperor. He would, he said, give all he had in the world for such a favour; his gratitude would be boundless, &c.

We conversed together for a long time; the Emperor was taking his round in the calash. On his return, I was fortunate enough to fulfil the English officer’s wishes. The Emperor received him for upwards of a quarter of an hour; his joy was extreme, as he was aware that the favour became every day more rare. Every thing about the Emperor had struck him, he declared, in a most extraordinary manner; his features, his affability, the sound of his voice, his expressions, the questions he had asked; he was, he exclaimed, a hero, a god!...

The weather was delightful. The Emperor continued to walk in the garden in the midst of us. He discussed the failure of a negotiation undertaken by one of us; a business which the Emperor had judged very easy, but which turned out to be of the most delicate nature for the person entrusted with it. The object of it was to prevail upon some English officers to publish a certain paper in England.

The Emperor expressed his disapprobation of the failure in his usual mode of reasoning, and with the intelligence and point that are familiar to him: he was, however, very much disappointed at it: his observations were rather strong; he pushed them to a degree of ill humour of which the person he found fault with had never, perhaps, before, received any proofs. At length, he concluded with saying: “After all, Sir, would you not have accepted yourself what you proposed to others, had you been in their place?”—“No, Sire.”—“Why not? Well then,” he added, in a tone of reproof, “you should not be my Minister of Police.” “And your Majesty would be in the right,” quickly replied the other, who felt himself vexed in his turn; “I feel no inclination whatever for such an office.” The Emperor, seeing him enter the saloon, a little before dinner, said: “Ah! there is our little Officer of Police! Come, approach, my little Officer of Police;” and he pinched his ear. Although hours had passed since the warm conversation took place, the Emperor recollected it; he knew that the person who had been the subject of it was full of sensibility, and it was evident that he wished to efface the impression it had made upon him. These are characteristic shades, and those which arise from the most trifling causes are the most natural and the most marked.

After dinner, the Emperor was led, by the turn which the conversation took, to review the special subject of his maritime quarrel with England. “Her pretensions to blockade on paper,” he observed, “produced my famous Berlin decree. The British council, in a fit of resentment, issued its orders; it established a right of toll on the seas. I instantly replied by the celebrated Milan decrees, which denationalized every flag that submitted to the English acts; and it was then that the war became, in England truly personal. Every one connected with trade was enraged against me. England was exasperated at a struggle and energy, of which she had no example. She had uniformly found those who had preceded me more complaisant.”

The Emperor explained, on a later occasion, the means, by which he had forced the Americans to make war against the English. He had, he said, discovered the way of connecting their interests with their rights; for people, he remarked, fight much more readily for the former than for the latter.

At present, the Emperor expected, he said, some approaching attempt, on the part of the English, on the sovereignty of the seas, for the establishment of the right of universal toll, &c. “It is,” said he, “one of the principal resources left them for discharging their debts, for extricating themselves from the abyss into which they are plunged; in a word, for getting rid of their embarrassments. If they have among them an enterprising genius, a man of a strong intellect, they will certainly undertake something of that kind. Nobody is powerful enough to oppose it, and they set up their claim with a sort of justice. They may plead, in its justification, that it was for the safety of Europe they involved themselves in difficulties; that they succeeded, and that they are entitled to some compensation. And then, the only ships of war in Europe are theirs. They reign, in fact, at present, over the seas. There is an end to existence of public rights when the ballance is the broken, &c., &c.

“The English may now be omnipotent, if they will but confine themselves to their navy. But they will endanger their superiority, complicate their affairs, and insensibly lose their importance, if they persevere in keeping soldiers on the continent.”

ACCOUNT OF THE CAMPAIGN OF WATERLOO DICTATED BY NAPOLEON.

26th.—The Emperor went out early in the morning, before seven o’clock; he did not wish to disturb any of us. He began to work alone in the garden beneath the tent, where he sent for us all to breakfast with him. He continued there until two o’clock.

At dinner, he conversed a great deal about our situation in the island. He would not, he said, leave Longwood; he did not care for any visitors; but he was desirous that we should take some diversion, and find out some means of amusement. It would, he said, be a pleasure to him to see us move about and get abroad more.

The narrative of the battle of Waterloo, which the Emperor had dictated to General Gourgaud, was read by his desire. What a story! It is painful to think of it. The destinies of France suspended by so slight a thread!

This production was published in Europe in 1820. The measures contrived to transmit it clandestinely from St. Helena proved successful, in spite of every kind of vigilance. The instant this narrative appeared, every body was agreed as to its author. An exclamation burst from every quarter that Napoleon alone was capable of describing in that manner, and it is confidently stated that the Generalissimo, his antagonist, expressed himself precisely in the same way. What noble chapters! It would be impossible to attempt an analysis of them, or to pretend to convey their excellence in terms adequate to their merits. We literally transcribe, however, in this place, the last pages, containing, in the shape of a summary, nine observations of Napoleon, on the faults with which he has been reproached in that campaign.

They are points which will become classic, and we are of opinion that our readers will not be displeased at again finding here subjects which become, every time the occasion presents itself, topics of earnest and important discussion.

We shall preface these observations with a description, also from Napoleon’s dictation, of the resources which France still possessed after the loss of the battle.

“The situation of France was critical, but not desperate, after the battle of Waterloo. Every preparatory measure had been taken, on the supposition of the failure of the attack upon Belgium. Seventy thousand men were rallied on the 27th, between Paris and Laon; from 25 to 30,000, including the depôts of the guard, were on their march from Paris and the depots; General Rapp, with 25,000 men, chosen troops, was expected on the Marne, in the beginning of July; all the losses sustained in the _materiel_ of the artillery had been repaired. Paris, alone, contained 500 pieces of field-artillery, and only 170 had been lost. Thus an army of 120,000 men, equal to that which had passed the Sambre on the 15th, with a train of artillery, consisting of 350 pieces of cannon, would cover Paris by the 1st of July. That capital possessed, independently of these means, for its defence, 36,000 men of the National Guard, 30,000 sharpshooters, 6000 gunners, 600 battering cannon, formidable entrenchments on the right bank of the Seine, and, in a few days, those of the left bank would have been entirely completed. The Anglo-Dutch and Prusso-Saxon armies, diminished, however, by more than 80,000 men, and no longer exceeding 140,000, could not cross the Somme with more than 90,000; they would have to wait there for the co-operation of the Austrian and Russian armies, which could not be on the Marne before the 15th of July. Paris had, consequently, twenty-five days to prepare for its defence, to complete the arming of its inhabitants, its fortifications, its supplies of provisions, and to draw troops from every point of France. Even by the 15th of July, not more than 30, or 40,000 men could have arrived on the Rhine. The mass of the Russian and Austrian armies could not take the field before a later period. Neither arms, nor ammunition, nor officers were wanting in the capital; the number of sharpshooters might be easily augmented to 80,000, and the field artillery could be increased to 600 pieces.

“Marshal Suchet, in conjunction with General Lécourbe, would have had, at the same time, upwards of 30,000 men before Lyons, independently of the garrison of that city, which would have been well armed, well supplied with provisions, and well protected by entrenchments. The defence of all the strong places was secured; they were commanded by chosen officers, and garrisoned by faithful troops. Every thing might be repaired, but decision, energy, and firmness, on the part of the officers, of the Government, of the Chambers, and of the whole nation, were necessary. It was requisite that France should be animated by the sentiment of honour, of glory, of national independence; that she should fix her eyes upon Rome after the battle of Cannæ, and not upon Carthage after that of Zama!!! If France had raised herself to that height, she would have been invincible. Her people contained more of the military elements than any other people in the world. The _materiel_ of war existed in abundance, and was adequate to every want.

“On the 21st of June, Marshal Blucher and the Duke of Wellington entered the French territory at the head of two columns. On the 22nd, the powder magazine at Avesnes took fire, and the place surrendered. On the 24th, the Prussians entered Guise, and the Duke of Wellington was at Cambray. He was at Peronne on the 26th. During the whole of this time, the fortresses on the first, second, and third line in Flanders were invested. The two generals learned, however, on the 25th, the Emperor’s abdication, which had taken place on the 22d, the insurrection of the Chambers, the discouragement occasioned by these circumstances in the army, and the hopes excited among our internal enemies. From that moment, they thought only of marching upon the capital, under the walls of which they arrived at the latter end of June, with fewer than 90,000 men; an enterprise that would have proved fatal to them, and drawn on their total ruin, had they hazarded it in the presence of Napoleon: but that Prince had abdicated!!! The troops of the line at Paris, more than 6000 men of the depôts of the guard, the sharpshooters of the National Guard, chosen from among the people of that great capital, were devoted to him; they had it in their power to exterminate the domestic enemy!!! But in order to explain the motives which regulated his conduct in that important crisis, which was attended with such fatal results both for him and for France, the narrative must go back to an earlier period.

_First Observation._—“The Emperor has been reproached, 1st, With having resigned the dictatorship, at the moment when France stood most in need of a dictator; 2nd, With having altered the constitutions of the empire, at a moment when it was necessary to think only of preserving it from invasion; 3rd, With having permitted the Vendeans to be alarmed, who had, at first, refused to take arms against the imperial government; 4th, With having assembled the Chambers, when he ought to have assembled the army; 5th, With having abdicated and left France at the mercy of a divided and inexperienced assembly; for, in fine, if it be true, that it was impossible for the Prince to save the country without the confidence of the nation, it is not less true that the nation could not, in these critical circumstances, preserve either its happiness or its independence without Napoleon.

_Second Observation._—“The art, with which the movements of the different bodies of the army were concealed from the enemy’s knowledge, on the opening of the campaign, cannot be too attentively remarked. Marshal Blucher and the Duke of Wellington were surprised; they saw nothing, knew nothing, of the operations which were carrying on near their advanced posts.

“In order to attack the two hostile armies, the French might have out-flanked their right or left, or penetrated their centre. In the first case, they might have advanced by the way of Lisle, and fallen in with the Anglo-Dutch army; in the second, they might have moved forward by Givet and Charlemont, and have fallen in with the Prusso-Saxon army. These two armies would have remained united, since they must have been pressed the one upon the other, from the right to the left, and from the left to the right. The Emperor adopted the plan of covering his movements with the Sambre, and piercing the line of the two armies at Charleroi, their point of junction, executing his manœuvres with rapidity and skill. He thus discovered, in the secrets of the art, means to supply the place of 100,000 men, whom he needed. The plan was executed with boldness and prudence.

_Third Observation._—“The character of several generals had been affected by the events of 1814; they had lost somewhat of that spirit, of that resolution, and that confidence, by which they had gained so much glory and so much contributed to the success of former campaigns.

“1st.—On the 15th of June, the third corps was to march at three o’clock in the morning, and arrive at Charleroi at ten; it did not arrive until three o’clock in the afternoon.

“2ndly.—The same day the attack on the woods in front of Fleurus, which had been ordered at four in the afternoon, did not take place until seven. Night came on before the troops could enter Fleurus, where the Commander in Chief had intended to establish his head-quarters the same day. The loss of seven hours was very vexatious on the opening of a campaign.

“3rdly.—Ney received orders to advance on the 16th with 43,000 men, who composed the left under his command, in front of Quatre-Bras, to take up a position there at day-break, and even to entrench himself; he hesitated, and lost eight hours. The Prince of Orange, with only 9000 men, retained, on the 16th until three o’clock in the afternoon, that important position. When at length, the Marshal received at twelve o’clock at noon the order dated from Fleurus, and saw, that the Emperor was on the point of attacking the Prussians, he advanced against Quatre-Bras, but only with half his force, leaving the other half to cover his retreat at the distance of two leagues in the rear; he forgot it until six in the evening, when he felt the want of it for his own defence. In other campaigns, that General would have made himself master of the position in front of Quatre-Bras at six o’clock in the morning; he would have routed and captured the whole of the Belgic division, and either turned the Prussian army by sending a detachment on the Namur road to fall on the rear of their line of battle; or, by moving rapidly along the road to Gennapes, he would have surprised and destroyed the Brunswick division on its march, and the fifth English division as it advanced from Brussels. He would have afterwards marched to meet the third and fourth English divisions, which were advancing by way of Nivelles, and were both destitute of cavalry and artillery, and overwhelmed with fatigue. Ney, who was always first in the heat of battle, forgot the troops that were not directly engaged. The courage which a Commander in Chief should display is different from that of a general of division, as that of the latter ought to differ from the bravery of a captain of grenadiers.

“4thly.—The advanced guard of the French army did not arrive on the 16th, in front of Waterloo, until six o’clock in the evening; it would have arrived at three but for some vexatious hesitations. The Emperor was very much mortified at the delay, and, pointing at the sun, exclaimed, “What would I now give to have the power of Joshua, and to stop its progress for two hours!”

_Fourth Observation._—“The French soldier never displayed more bravery, cheerfulness, and enthusiasm; he was animated with the sentiment of his superiority over all the soldiers of Europe. His confidence in the Emperor was altogether unabated; it had, perhaps, increased: but he was suspicious and distrustful of his other Commanders. The treasons of 1814 were always in his thoughts, and he was uneasy at every movement which he did not understand; he thought he was betrayed. At the moment when the first cannon-shots were firing near St. Amand, an old corporal approached the Emperor and said: “Sire, beware of General Soult; be assured that he is a traitor.”—“Fear nothing,” replied the Emperor, “I can answer for him as for myself.” In the middle of the battle, an officer informed Marshal Soult that General Vandamme had gone over to the enemy, and that his soldiers demanded, with loud cries, that the Emperor should be made acquainted with it. At the close of the battle, a dragoon, with his sabre covered with blood, galloped up to him crying, “Sire, come instantly to the division. General Dhénin is persuading the dragoons to go over to the enemy.”—“Did you hear him?“—“No, Sire, but an officer, who is looking for you, saw him and ordered me to tell your Majesty.” During this time, the gallant General Dhénin received a cannon shot, which carried off one of his legs, after he had repulsed the enemy’s charge.

“On the 14th, in the evening, Lieutenant-General B——, Colonel C——, and V——, an officer of the staff, deserted and went over to the enemy. Their names will be held in execration as long as the French shall constitute a nation. The uneasy feelings of the troops had been considerably aggravated by that desertion. It appears nearly certain that the cry of Sauve _qui peut_ was raised among the soldiers of the fourth division of the first corps, on the evening of the battle of Waterloo, when Marshal Blucher attacked the village of La Haye. That village was not defended as it ought to have been.[11] It is equally probable that several officers, charged with the communication of orders, disappeared. But, if some officers deserted, not a single private was guilty of that crime. Several killed themselves on the field of battle, where they lay wounded, when they learned the defeat of the army.

Footnote 11:

General Durutte, who was mutilated on that disastrous day, and who commanded the fourth division here mentioned, declares that there must be some mistake in regard to the number specified in this dictation of Napoleon’s; or that there was some inaccuracy or malice in the report that was made to him.

_Fifth Observation._—“In the battle of the 17th, the French army was divided into three bodies; 69,000 men under the Emperor’s command, marched against Brussels by the way of Charleroi; 34,000, under the command of Marshal Grouchy, directed their operations against that capital by way of Wavres, in pursuit of the Prussians; 7 or 8000 men remained on the field of battle at Ligny, of whom 3000, belonging to Girard’s division, were employed in assisting the wounded, and in forming a reserve for any unexpected casualty at Quatre-Bras; and 4 or 5000 continued with the reserve at Fleurus and at Charleroi. The 34,000 men under the command of Marshal Grouchy, with 108 pieces of cannon, were sufficient to drive the Prussian rear-guard from any position it might take up, to press upon the retreat of the conquered army, and to keep it in check. It was a glorious result of the victory of Ligny, to be thus enabled to oppose 34,000 men to an army which had consisted of 120,000. The 69,000 men, under the Emperor’s command, were sufficient to beat the Anglo-Dutch army, composed of 90,000. The disproportion which existed on the 15th between the two belligerent masses in the ratio of one to two, was materially changed, and it no longer exceeded three to four. Had the Anglo-Dutch army defeated the 69,000 men opposed to it, Napoleon might have been reproached with having ill-calculated his measures; but it is undeniable, even from the enemy’s admission, that, unless General Blucher had arrived, the Anglo-Dutch army would have been driven from the field of battle between eight and nine o’clock at night. If Marshal Blucher had not arrived at eight with his first and second corps, the march on Brussels with two columns, during the battle of the 17th, would have been attended with several advantages. The left would have pressed upon and kept in check the Anglo-Dutch army; the right, under the command of Marshal Grouchy, would have pursued and restrained the operations of the Prusso-Saxon army; and in the evening, the whole of the French army would have effected its junction on a line of less than five leagues from Mont Saint Jean to Wavres, with its advanced posts on the edge of the forest. But the fault committed by Marshal Grouchy, in stopping on the 17th at Gembloux, having marched scarcely two leagues in the course of the day, instead of pushing on three leagues more in front of Wavres, was aggravated and rendered irreparable by that which he committed the following day, the 18th, in losing twelve hours, and arriving at four o’clock in the afternoon in front of Wavres, when he should have been there at six in the morning.

“1st,—Grouchy, charged with the pursuit of Marshal Blucher, lost sight of him for twenty-four hours, from four o’clock in the afternoon of the 17th until a quarter past twelve at noon on the 18th.

“2dly,—The movement of the cavalry on the plain, while General Bulow’s attack was not yet repulsed, proved a distressing accident. It was the intention of the Commander in Chief to order that movement, but not until an hour later, and then it was to have been sustained by the sixteen battalions of infantry belonging to the guard, with one hundred pieces of cannon.

“3dly.—The horse grenadiers and the dragoons of the guard, under the command of General Guyot, engaged without orders. Thus, at five in the afternoon, the army found itself without a reserve of cavalry. If, at half past eight, that reserve had existed, the storm which swept all before it on the field of battle would have been dispersed, the enemy’s charges of cavalry driven back, and the two armies would have slept on the field, notwithstanding the successive arrivals of General Bulow and Marshal Blucher: the advantage would also have been in favour of the French army, as Marshal Grouchy’s 34,000 men, with 108 pieces of cannon, were fresh troops and bivouacked on the field of battle. The enemy’s two armies would have placed themselves in the night under cover of the forest of Soignes. The constant practice in every battle was for the horse-grenadiers and the dragoons of the guard never to lose sight of the Emperor, and never to make a charge but in consequence of an order verbally given by that Prince to the General who commanded them.

“Marshal Mortier, who was Commander in Chief of the guards, gave up the command on the 15th, at Beaumont, just as hostilities were on the point of commencing, and no one was appointed in his stead, which was attended with several inconvenient results.

_Sixth Observation._—“1st, The French army manœuvred on the right of the Sambre, on the 13th and 14th. It encamped, the night between the 14th and 15th, within half a league of the Prussian advanced posts; and yet Marshal Blucher had no knowledge of it, and when, on the morning of the 15th, he learned at his head-quarters at Namur that the Emperor had entered Charleroi, the Prusso-Saxon army was still cantoned over an extent of thirty leagues; two days were necessary for him to effect the junction of his troops. It was his duty, from the 15th of May, to advance his head-quarters to Fleurus, to concentrate the cantonments of his army within a radius of eight leagues, with his advanced posts on the Meuse and Sambre. His army might then have been assembled at Ligny on the 15th at noon, to await in that position the attack of the French army, or to march against it in the evening of the 15th, for the purpose of driving it into the Sambre.

“2dly.—Yet, notwithstanding this surprise of Marshal Blucher, he persisted in the project of collecting his troops on the heights of Ligny, behind Fleurus, exposing himself to the hazard of being attacked before the arrival of his army. On the morning of the 16th, he had collected but two corps, and the French army was already at Fleurus. The third corps joined in the course of the day, but the fourth, commanded by General Bulow, was unable to get up in time for the battle. Marshal Blucher, the instant he learned the arrival of the French at Charleroi, that is to say, on the evening of the 15th, ought to have assigned, as a point of junction for his troops, neither Fleurus nor Ligny, which were under the enemy’s cannon, but Wavres, which the French could not have reached until the 17th. He would have also had the whole of the 16th, and the night between the 16th and 17th, to effect the total junction of his army.

“3dly.—After having lost the battle of Ligny, the Prussian General, instead of making his retreat on Wavres, ought to have effected it upon the army of the Duke of Wellington, whether at Quatre-Bras, where the latter had maintained himself, or at Waterloo. The whole of Marshal Blucher’s retreat on the morning of the 17th was contrary to common sense, since the two armies, which were, on the evening of the 16th, little more than three miles from each other, and had a fine road for their point of communication, in consequence of which their junction might have been considered as effected, found themselves, on the evening of the 17th, separated by a distance of nearly twelve miles, and by defiles and impassable ways.

“The Prussian General violated the three grand rules of war; 1st, To keep his cantonments near each other; 2dly, To assign as a point of junction a place where his troops can all assemble before those of the enemy; 3dly, To make his retreat upon his reinforcements.

_Seventh Observation._—“1st, The Duke of Wellington was surprised in his cantonments; he ought to have concentrated them on the 15th of May, at eight leagues about Brussels, and kept advanced guards on the roads from Flanders. The French army was for three days manœuvring close upon his advanced posts; it had commenced hostilities twenty four hours, and its head-quarters had been twelve hours at Charleroi, and yet the English General was at Brussels, ignorant of what was passing, and all the cantonments of his army were still in full security, extended over a space of more than twenty leagues.

“2dly.—The Prince of Saxe-Weimar, who belonged to the Anglo-Dutch army, was, on the 16th, at four o’clock in the afternoon in position before Frasne, and knew that the French army was at Charleroi. If he had immediately despatched an aide-de-camp to Brussels, he would have arrived there at six in the evening; and yet the Duke of Wellington was not informed that the French army was at Charleroi until eleven at night. He thus lost five hours, in a crisis, and against a man, that rendered the loss of a single hour highly important.

“3dly.—The infantry, cavalry, and artillery of that army were in cantonments, so remote from each other that the infantry was engaged at Waterloo without cavalry or artillery, which exposed it to considerable loss, since it was obliged to form in close columns to make head against the charges of the cuirassiers, under the fire of fifty pieces of cannon. These brave men were slaughtered without cavalry to protect or artillery to avenge them. As the three branches of an army cannot, for an instant, dispense with each other’s assistance, they should be always cantoned and placed in such a way as to be able to assist each other.

“4th.—The English General, although surprised, assigned Quatre-Bras, which had been, for the last four-and-twenty hours in possession of the French, as the rallying point of his army. He exposed his troops to

## partial defeats as they gradually arrived; the danger which they

incurred was still more considerable, since they came without artillery and without cavalry; he delivered up his infantry to his enemy piece-meal, and destitute of the assistance of the two other branches. He should have fixed upon Waterloo for his point of junction; he would then have had the day of the 16th, and the night between the 16th and 17th, an interval quite sufficient, to collect the whole of his army, infantry, cavalry, and artillery. The French could not have arrived until the 17th, and would have found all his troops in position.

_Eighth Observation._—“1st, The English General gave battle at Waterloo on the 18th; that measure was contrary to the interests of his nation, to the general system of war adopted by the Allies, and to all the rules of war. It was not the interest of England, who wants so many men to recruit her armies in India, in her American colonies, and in her vast establishments, to expose herself, with a generous vivacity, to a sanguinary contest in which she might lose the only army she had, and expend, at the very least, her best blood. The plan of the Allies consisted in operating in a mass and in avoiding all partial actions. Nothing was more contrary to their interests and their plan than to expose the success of their cause in a doubtful battle with a nearly equal force, in which all the probabilities were against them. If the Anglo-Dutch army had been destroyed at Waterloo, of what use to the allies would have been the great number of armies that were preparing to cross the Rhine, the Alps, and the Pyrenees?

“2ndly.—The English General, in accepting the battle of Waterloo, placed his reliance on the co-operation of the Prussians, but that co-operation could not be carried into effect until the afternoon; he therefore continued exposed alone from four o’clock in the morning until five in the afternoon, that is to say, for thirteen hours; no battle lasts generally more than six hours; that co-operation was therefore an illusion.

“But, if he relied upon the co-operation of the Prussians, he must have supposed that the whole of the French army was opposed to him, and he must consequently have undertaken to defend his field of battle, during thirteen hours, with 90,000 men of different nations, against an army of 104,000 French. That calculation was evidently false; he could not have maintained himself three hours; the battle would have been decided by eight o’clock in the morning, and the Prussians would have arrived only to be taken in flank. Both armies would have been destroyed in one battle. If he calculated that a part of the French army had, conformably to the rules of war, pursued the Prussian army, he ought, in that case, to have been convinced that he could receive no assistance from it, and that the Prussians, beaten at Ligny, having lost from 25 to 30,000 men on the field of battle, having 20,000 scattered and dispersed over the country, and pursued by from 35 to 40,000 victorious French, would not have risked any fresh operation, and would have considered themselves scarcely sufficient to maintain a defensive position. In that case, the Anglo-Dutch army alone would have had to sustain the shock of 69,000 French during the whole of the 18th, and there is no Englishman who will not admit that the result of that struggle could not have been doubtful, and that their army was not so constituted as to be capable of sustaining the attack of the imperial army for four hours.

“During the whole of the night between the 17th and 18th, the weather was horrible, and the roads were impassable until nine o’clock in the morning. This loss of six hours from day-break, was entirely in the enemy’s favour; but could the English General stake the fate of such a struggle upon the weather which happened in the night between the 17th and 18th? Marshal Grouchy, with 34,000 men and 180 pieces of cannon, found out the secret, which one would suppose was not to be found out, of not being in the engagement of the 18th, either on the field of battle of Mont St. Jean or of Wavres. But, had that Marshal pledged himself to the English General to be led astray in so strange a manner? The conduct of Marshal Grouchy was as unexpected as that his army should, on its march, be swallowed up by an earthquake. Let us recapitulate. If Marshal Grouchy had been on the field of battle of Mont St. Jean, as he was supposed to be by the English General and the Prussian General, during the whole night between the 17th and 18th, and all the morning of the 18th, and the weather had allowed the French army to be drawn up in order of battle at four o’clock in the morning, the Anglo-Dutch army would have been dispersed and cut in pieces before seven; its ruin would have been complete, and if the weather had not allowed the French army to range itself in order of battle until ten, the fate of the Anglo-Dutch army would have been decided before one o’clock; the remains of it would have been driven either beyond the forest or in the direction of Hal, and there would have been quite time enough in the afternoon to go and meet Marshal Blucher, and treat him in a similar manner. If Marshal Grouchy had encamped in front of Wavres in the night between the 17th and 18th, no detachment could have been sent by the Prussians to save the English army, which must have been completely beaten by the 69,000 French opposed to it.

“3dly.—The position of Mont St. Jean was ill chosen. The first requisite of a field of battle is to be without defiles in its rear. The English General derived no advantage, during the battle, from his numerous cavalry; he did not think that he ought to be and would be attacked on the left; he believed that the attack would be made on his right. Notwithstanding the diversion operated in his favour by General Bulow’s 30,000 Prussians, he would have twice effected his retreat, during the battle, had that measure been possible. Thus, in reality, how strange and capricious are human events! the bad choice of his field of battle, which prevented all possibility of retreat, was the cause of his success!!!

_Ninth Observation._—“It may be asked, what then should have been the conduct of the English General, after the battle of Ligny and the engagement of Quatre Bras? On this point posterity will not entertain two opinions: he ought, in the night between the 17th and 18th, to have crossed the forest of Soignes, by the road of Charleroi; the Prussian army ought also to have crossed it by the road of Wavres; the armies would have effected a junction by break of day in Brussels; left their rearguards for the defence of the forest, gained some days in order to give time to the Prussians, dispersed after the battle of Ligny, to join their army; reinforced themselves with fourteen English regiments, which were in garrison in the fortresses of Belgium, or had been just landed at Ostend, on their return from America, and let the Emperor of the French manœuvre as he pleased.

“Would he, with an army of 100,000 men have traversed the forest of Soignes to attack in an open country the two united armies, consisting of more than 200,000 men, and in position? It would have certainly been the most advantageous thing that could have happened to the allies. Would he have been content with taking up a position himself? He could not have long remained in an inactive state, since 300,000 Russians, Austrians, Bavarians, &c. were on their march to the Rhine; they would have been in a few weeks on the Marne, which would have compelled him to hasten to the assistance of his capital. It was then that the Anglo-Prussian army ought to have marched and effected its junction with the Allies, under the walls of Paris. It would have exposed itself to no risk, suffered no loss, and have acted conformably to the interests of the English nation, and the general plan of carrying on the war adopted by the Allies, and sanctioned by the rules of the military art. From the 15th to the 18th, the Duke of Wellington invariably manœuvred as his enemy wished; he executed nothing which the latter apprehended he would. The English infantry was firm and solid; the cavalry might have conducted itself better: the Anglo-Dutch army was twice saved, in the course of the day, by the Prussians—the first time before three o’clock, by the arrival of General Bulow with 30,000 men, and the second time by the arrival of Marshal Blucher with 31,000 men. In that battle, 69,000 French beat 120,000 men; the victory was wrested from them, between eight and nine, by 150,000 men.

“Let the feelings of the people of London be imagined, if they had been doomed to hear of the destruction of their army, and the prodigal waste of their best blood, in support of the cause of kings against that of nations, of privileges against equality, of the oligarchs against the liberals, and of the principles of the Holy Alliance against those of the sovereignty of the people!!!”

PLAN FOR A POLITICAL DEFENCE OF NAPOLEON; SKETCHED BY HIMSELF.

Tuesday, August 27th.—About four o’clock I joined the Emperor in the garden: he had been engaged in dictating during the whole of the morning. The wind was very rough, and the Emperor declined riding out in the calash: he therefore walked about for a considerable time in the great alley through the wood, attended by all the persons of his suite. He jokingly teased one of the party, by observing that he was sulky, and accusing him of being very often discontented and ill-humoured, &c.

The Emperor, on rising from the dinner table, adverted to his recent protest against the treaty of the 2d of August. He expatiated with warmth on the subject, and remarked, while he walked rapidly about the apartment, that he intended to draw up another protest, on a more extensive and important scale, against the Bill that had been passed in the British Parliament. He would prove, he said, that the Bill was not a law, but a violation of every existing law. Napoleon was proscribed, and not judged by it. The English Parliament had done, not what was just, but what was deemed to be expedient; it had imitated Themistocles, without hearing Aristides. The Emperor then arraigned himself before all the nations in Europe, and proved that each would successively acquit him. He took a review of the different acts of his reign, and justified them all.

“The French and the Italians,” said he, “lament my absence; I carry with me the gratitude of the Poles, and even the late and bitter regrets of the Spaniards. Europe will soon deplore the loss of the equilibrium, to the maintenance of which my French empire was absolutely necessary. The Continent is now in the most perilous situation, being continually exposed to the risk of being overrun by Cossacks and Tartars. And the English,” said he in conclusion, “the English will deplore their victory at Waterloo! Things will be carried to such a length that posterity, together with every well-informed and well-disposed person among our contemporaries, will regret that I did not succeed in all my enterprises.”

In course of his remarks, the Emperor occasionally rose to a pitch of sublimity. I shall not follow him into all his details. He promised to dictate the observations he had made, and said that he had already sketched out a plan for his political defence, in fourteen paragraphs.

CATINAT; TURENNE; CONDÉ.—QUESTIONS RESPECTING THE GREATEST BATTLE FOUGHT BY THE EMPEROR; THE BEST TROOPS, &C.

28th.—The Emperor did not go out until four o’clock; he had spent three hours in the bath. The weather was very unpleasant, and in consequence he merely took a few turns in the garden. He had just written to inform the Governor that henceforth he would receive no strangers, unless they were admitted to Longwood by passes from the Grand Marshal, as in the time of Admiral Cockburn.

The Emperor proposed playing a game at chess; but, before he sat down to do so, he took up a volume of Fenelon. It was _La Direction de Conscience d’un Roi_. He read to us several articles, criticising them with considerable spirit and gaiety. At length he threw down the volume, saying that the name of an author had never influenced him in forming an opinion of his writings; that he always judged of works according to the sentiments with which they inspired him; being always equally willing to praise or to censure. He added that, in spite of the name of Fenelon, he had no hesitation in declaring that the work he had just looked through was a mere string of rhapsodies; and truly it would be difficult to refute this assertion.

After dinner, the Emperor conversed about the old marine establishment, and alluded to M. de Grasse, and his defeat on the 12th of April. He wished to learn some particulars on this subject; and he asked for the Dictionary of Sieges and Battles. He looked over it, and it afforded him matter for a multitude of observations. Catinat came under his consideration, and the remarks he made on that commander lowered him infinitely in our estimation. Napoleon said that he thought him very inferior to the reputation he enjoyed, after viewing the scenes of his operations in Italy, and reading his correspondence with Louvois. “Having risen from the _tiers-état_,” said he, “and being educated for the law, distinguished for urbanity of manners and moral integrity, affecting the practice of equality, residing at St. Gratien, at the gates of Paris, Catinat became the favourite of the _literati_ of the capital and the philosophers of the day, who exalted him beyond his real merits. He was in no way comparable to Vendôme.”

The Emperor said, that he had endeavoured, in the same manner, to study the characters of Turenne and Condé, suspecting that they were also the objects of exaggerated eulogy; but that he was convinced those two men were fully entitled to all the commendation that has been bestowed on them. With regard to Turenne, he remarked that his intrepidity encreased in proportion as he acquired experience; as he grew old, he evinced greater courage than he seemed to possess in early life. The contrary was observable in Condé, who displayed so much dauntless valour at the commencement of his career.

Now that I am alluding to Turenne, Condé, and other distinguished men, I may mention, as a curious fact, that I never, by any chance, heard Napoleon utter the name of Frederick the Great. Yet many circumstances prove that Frederick held a high rank in Napoleon’s regard. The large silver watch, a kind of alarum used by that Prince, which hangs by the fire-place in the Emperor’s apartment at St. Helena;—the eagerness with which Napoleon, on his entrance into Potzdam, seized the sword of the Prussian hero, exclaiming, “Let those who will seek other spoil; I value this beyond millions!”—finally, his long and silent contemplation of the tomb of Frederick—sufficiently attest the deep interest which Napoleon attached to every thing connected with that sovereign.[12]

Footnote 12:

After my removal from Longwood, Napoleon undertook a special work on Frederick the Great, with notes and Commentaries on his Campaigns.

In the Dictionary of Sieges and Battles, which the Emperor was looking over to-day, he found his name mentioned in every page; but connected with anecdotes either totally false, or at least misstated. This led him to exclaim against the whole swarm of inferior writers, and their unworthy abuse of the pen. “Literature,” he said, “had become the food of the vulgar, while it ought to have been reserved exclusively for people of refined taste.

“For example,” said the Emperor, “it is affirmed that, when at Arcole, I one night took the post of a sentinel who had fallen asleep. This idea was doubtless conceived by a citizen, by a lawyer, perhaps, but certainly not by a soldier. The author evidently wishes to represent me in a favourable point of view; and he of course imagined that nothing could reflect greater credit on me than the story he has invented. He certainly wrote it with the view of doing me honour; but he knew not that I was totally incapable of the action he describes. I was much too fatigued for any such thing; and it is very probable that I should myself have fallen asleep before the sentinel.”

We then enumerated about fifty or sixty great battles that had been fought by the Emperor. Some one present having asked which was the greatest, the Emperor replied that it was difficult to answer that question, since it was first necessary to enquire what was meant by the greatest battle. “Mine,” continued he, “cannot be judged of separately. They had no unity of place, action or design. They formed merely a portion of extensive plans. They can therefore only be judged of by their results. The battle of Marengo, which was so long undecided, procured for us the dominion of all Italy; Ulm annihilated a whole army; Jena threw the whole Prussian monarchy into our hands; Friedland opened to us the Russian empire; and Eckmühl decided the fate of a war. The battle of Moscow was one in which the greatest talent was displayed, and in which the fewest results were obtained. Waterloo, where every thing failed, would, had every thing succeeded, have saved France and re-established Europe.”

Madame de Montholon having asked what troops might be accounted the best, “Those who gain victories, Madam,” replied the Emperor. “But,” added he, “soldiers are capricious and inconstant, like you ladies. The best troops were the Carthagenians under Hannibal; the Romans under the Scipios; the Macedonians under Alexander; and the Prussians under Frederick.” He thought, however, he might safely affirm that the French troops were, of all others, those who could most easily be rendered the best, and preserved so.

“With my complete guard of 40 or 50,000 men, I would have pledged myself to march through all Europe. It may, perhaps, be possible to produce troops as good as those who composed my army of Italy and Austerlitz; but certainly nothing can ever surpass them.”

The Emperor, who had dwelt for a considerable time on this subject, which was so interesting to him, suddenly recollecting himself, asked what it was o’clock. He was informed that it was eleven.—“Well,” said he, rising, “we at least have the merit of having got through our evening without the help of either tragedy or comedy.”

MADAME DE COTTIN’S MATHILDE, &C.—ALL FRENCHMEN INTERESTED IN NAPOLEON.—DESAIX AND NAPOLEON AT MARENGO.—SIR SIDNEY SMITH.—CAUSE OF GENERAL BONAPARTE’S RETURN TO FRANCE.—ACCOUNT OF HIS VOYAGE.—INSTANCES OF THE CAPRICE OF FORTUNE.

29th. About two o’clock the Emperor desired me to attend him in his chamber, and he gave me some private orders. At four I rejoined him. I found him sitting under the tent, surrounded by all his suite; he was swinging backward and forward on his chair, laughing, talking, and making every effort to be cheerful, while, at the same time, he continually repeated that he felt dull and languid. He rose and took a drive in the calash.

After dinner, the conversation turned on romance writing. Some one mentioned Madame Cottin’s Mathilde, the scene of which is laid in Syria. The Emperor asked the person who had alluded to the work whether he had ever seen Madame Cottin, whether she liked him (Napoleon), whether her work was favourable to him, &c., but as he did not receive a ready answer he thus continued: “But every body has loved me and hated me: every one has been for me and against me by turns. I may truly say that there is not a single Frenchman in whom I have not excited interest. All must have loved me, from Collot d’Herbois (had he lived) to the Prince of Condé; only not all at the same time but at different intervals and periods. I was like the sun which crosses the equator to travel through the ecliptic. According as my influence was felt in each different climate, all hopes expanded, and I was blessed and adored; but when I had departed, when I was no longer understood, unfavourable sentiments arose.”

Egypt next became the subject of conversation; and the Emperor again sketched the characters of Kleber and Desaix. The latter joined the First Consul on the eve of the battle of Marengo. Napoleon asked him how he could have thought of signing the capitulation of Egypt; since the army was sufficiently numerous to maintain possession of it. “We ought not to have lost Egypt,” he observed.—“That’s very true,” replied Desaix, “and the army was certainly numerous enough to enable us to retain possession of the country. But the General-in-chief left us; and at that distance from home, the General-in-chief is not a single man in the army; he is the half, the three-fourths, the five-sixths of it. I had no alternative but to resign the possession of the country. I doubt whether I could have succeeded had I acted otherwise; besides, it would have been criminal to make the attempt, for in such a case it is a soldier’s duty to obey, and I did so.”

Desaix, immediately after his arrival at Marengo, obtained the command of the reserve. Towards the end of the battle, and amidst the greatest apparent disorder, Napoleon came up to him:—“Well,” said Desaix, “affairs are going on very badly, the battle is lost. I can only secure the retreat. Is it not so?”—“Quite the contrary,” said the First Consul; “to me the result of the battle was never for a moment doubtful. Those masses, which you see in disorder on the right and left, are marching to form in your rear. The battle is gained. Order your column to advance: you have but to reap the glory of the victory.”

The Emperor afterwards spoke of Sir Sidney Smith, He had, he said, just read in the Moniteur the documents relating to the convention of El-Arish, in which he remarked that Sir Sidney had evinced a great share of intelligence and integrity. The Emperor said he bewildered Kleber by the stories which he made him believe. But when Sir Sidney received intelligence of the refusal of the English Government to ratify the treaty, he was very much dissatisfied, and behaved very honourably to the French army. “After all,” said the Emperor, “Sir Sidney Smith is not a bad man. I now entertain a better opinion of him than I did;

## particularly after what I daily witness in the conduct of his

confederates.”

It was Sir Sidney Smith who, by communicating the European journals to Napoleon, brought about the departure of the General-in-chief, and consequently the dénouement of Brumaire. The French, on their return from St. Jean d’Acre, were totally ignorant of all that had taken place in Europe for several months. Napoleon, eager to obtain intelligence, sent a flag of truce on board the Turkish admiral’s ship, under the pretence of treating for the ransom of the prisoners whom he had taken at Aboukir, not doubting that the envoy would be stopped by Sir Sidney Smith, who carefully prevented all direct communication between the French and the Turks. Accordingly, the French flag of truce received directions from Sir Sidney to go on board his ship. He experienced the handsomest treatment; and the English commander, having among other things ascertained that the disasters of Italy were quite unknown to Napoleon, he indulged in the malicious pleasure of sending him a file of newspapers.

Napoleon spent the whole night in his tent, perusing the papers; and he came to the determination of immediately proceeding to Europe, to repair the disasters of France, and, if possible, to save her from destruction.

Admiral Ganthaume, who brought Napoleon from Egypt in Le Murion frigate, frequently related to me the details of his voyage. The Admiral remained at head-quarters after the destruction of the fleet at Aboukir. Shortly after the return from Syria, and immediately after a communication with the English squadron, the General-in-chief sent for him and directed him to proceed forthwith to Alexandria, to fit out secretly, and with all possible speed, one of the Venetian frigates that were lying off that port, and to let him know when the vessel was ready to sail.

These orders were executed. The General-in-chief, who was making a tour of inspection, proceeded to an unfrequented part of the coast, with a party of his guides. Boats were in readiness to receive them, and they were conveyed to the frigate without passing through Alexandria.

The frigate weighed that very evening, in order to get out of sight of the English cruisers and the fleet that was anchored at Aboukir, before daylight. Unfortunately, a calm ensued while the vessel was still within sight of the coast, and from the tops the English ships at Aboukir were still discernible.

The utmost alarm prevailed on board the frigate. It was proposed to return to Alexandria; but Napoleon opposed this suggestion. The die was cast; and happily they soon got beyond the reach of observation.

The voyage was very long and very unfavourable. The idea of being overtaken by the English frequently occasioned alarm. Though no one knew the intentions of the General, each formed his own conjectures, and the utmost anxiety prevailed. Napoleon alone was calm and undisturbed. During the greater part of the day he used to shut himself up in his cabin, where, as Ganthaume informed me, he employed himself in reading sometimes the Bible, and sometimes the Koran. Whenever he appeared on deck, he displayed the utmost cheerfulness and ease, and conversed on the most indifferent subjects.

General Menou was the last person to whom Napoleon spoke on shore. He said to him, “My dear General, you must take care of yourselves here. If I have the happiness to reach France, the reign of ranting shall he at an end.”

On a perusal of the papers furnished by Sir Sidney Smith, Napoleon formed such an idea of the disasters of France that he concluded the enemy had crossed the Alps, and was already in possession of several of our Southern Departments. When therefore the frigate approached the coast of Europe, Napoleon directed the Admiral to make for Collioure and Port-Vendre, situated at the extremity of the Gulf of Lyons. A gale of wind drove them upon the coast of Corsica. They then entered Ajaccio, where they obtained intelligence of the state of affairs in France.

Ganthaume informed me that he saw, at Ajaccio, the house which was occupied by Napoleon’s family, the patrimonial abode. The arrival of their celebrated countryman immediately set all the inhabitants of the island in motion. A crowd of cousins came to welcome him, and the streets were thronged with people.

Napoleon again set sail, and the frigate now steered towards Marseilles and Toulon. However, just as they were on the point of reaching the place of their destination, a new source of alarm arose. At sunset, on the larboard of the frigate, and precisely in the sun’s rays, they observed thirty sail making towards them with the wind aft. Ganthaume proposed that the long boat of the frigate should be manned with the best sailors, and that the General should get on board, and under favour of the night, endeavour to gain the shore. But Napoleon declined this proposition, observing that there would always be time enough for that mode of escape; and he directed the captain to continue his course as though nothing had occurred. Meanwhile, night set in, and the enemy’s signal-guns were heard, at a distance, and right astern: thus it appeared that the frigate had not been observed. Next day they anchored at Frejus. The rest is well known.

The Emperor concluded the evening’s conversation, by relating to us three curious instances of the caprice of fortune, which took place in the same quarter of the world, and about the same period.

A corporal, who deserted from one of the regiments of the army of Egypt, joined the Mamelukes, and was made a Bey. After his elevation, he wrote a letter to his former General.

A fat sutler’s wife who had followed the French army, became the favourite of the Pasha of Jerusalem. She could not write, but she sent a messenger with her compliments to her old friends, assuring them that she would never forget her country, but would always afford protection to the French and the Christians. “She was,” said the Emperor, “the Zaire of the day.”

A young peasant-girl of Cape Corso, being seized in a fishing-boat by corsairs, was conveyed to Barbary, and subsequently became the ruling favourite of the King of Morocco. The Emperor, after some diplomatic communications, caused the brother of this young girl to be brought from Corsica to Paris, and, after having him suitably fitted out, sent him to his sister; but he never heard of them afterwards.

It was late when the Emperor retired to rest; he had spent upwards of three hours in conversation.

30th.—I attended the Emperor at four o’clock. He had been engaged in dictating under the tent. The Governor had returned answers to the letters which M. de Montholon addressed to him by the Emperor’s orders.

To the first communication, containing the protest against the treaty of the 2d of August, and various other complaints, no answer was returned, except that the Governor wished to be informed what letter he had kept back. This we could not tell him, since we had not seen the letters. We had asked _him_ that question; and he was the only person capable of answering it.

To the second letter, which stated that the Emperor would not receive strangers at Longwood unless they were admitted by the Grand Marshal’s passes, as was usual in the time of Admiral Cockburn, the Governor replied that he had been sorry to see General Bonaparte troubled by intrusive visitors at Longwood, and that he wished to prevent such importunity for the future. This was a most revolting piece of irony, considering the situation in which the Emperor was placed, and the tenor of M. de Montholon’s letter.

After dinner the Emperor retired to the drawing-room, and desired us all to seat ourselves round the table, to form, as he said, an academic sitting. He began to dictate to us on some subjects; but when the parts that had been written were read over to him, he resolved to cancel them. Conversation was then resumed, and was kept up for a considerable time,

## partly in a serious and partly in a lively strain. It was near one

o’clock when the Emperor retired. For some time past we have sat up later than we used to do. This is a good sign: the Emperor feels better, and he is more cheerful and talkative than he lately was.

HISTORICAL DOUBTS.—THE REGENCY OF THE DUKE OF ORLEANS.—MADAME DE MAINTENON.—HER MARRIAGE WITH LOUIS XIV.

31st.—The Emperor rose very early, and took a turn round the park alone. On his return, not wishing to have any one disturbed, he desired my son, who had risen, to sit down under the tent, and write from his dictation: in this manner he employed himself for two hours. We all breakfasted with him.

We took an airing in the calash. The conversation turned on the doubts that were attached to various points of history. The Emperor made some very curious remarks on this subject, and concluded with a circumstance relating to the Regent. “If,” said he, “Louis XV. had died in his childhood, and nothing was more possible, who would have doubted that the Duke of Orleans had poisoned the whole royal family? Who would have ventured to defend him? Had not one child survived, that Prince would not have had justice done him.” The Emperor then alluded to the character of the Duke of Orleans, and particularly to his errors in the affair of the legitimate princes. “There he degraded himself,” said Napoleon; “not to say, however, that their cause was good. Louis XIV. usurped a right in nominating them to the succession. On the extinction of the Royal House, the choice of a Sovereign is unquestionably the prerogative of the nation. The act of Louis XIV. was doubtless an error into which that Monarch was betrayed by his own greatness. He conceived that every thing emanating from him must necessarily be great. Yet he seemed to entertain a suspicion that the world might not be exactly of his opinion; for he took precautions to consolidate his work by giving his natural children in marriage to the legitimate princes and princesses of the royal family. As to the Regency, it is very certain that it devolved by right on the Duke of Orleans. Louis XIV.’s will was a downright absurdity: it was a violation of our fundamental laws. France was a monarchy, and he gave us a republic for a Regency.”

The Emperor then mentioned Madame de Maintenon, whose career, he said, was most extraordinary. She was, he observed, the Bianca Capello[13] of her age; but less romantic, and not quite so amusing. Pursuing his historical doubts, he said a great deal on the subject of Madame de Maintenon’s marriage with Louis XIV. He declared that he was sometimes inclined to regard the circumstance as very problematical, in spite of all that was said about it in the Memoirs of the time.

Footnote 13:

A noble Venetian lady of great beauty, whose adventures form a truly romantic and dramatic history. She eloped from her father’s house to follow a young Florentine pedlar, and was reduced to the greatest wretchedness. She subsequently became Grand Duchess of Tuscany, and she closed her career by coolly poisoning herself at table, in a fit of vexation at seeing the Grand Duke, her husband, partake of a poisoned dish, which she had prepared for her brother-in-law, Cardinal de Medicis, who, on his part, obstinately abstained from tasting it.

“The fact is,” observed he, “that there does not, and never did, exist any official and authentic proof of the marriage. What could be Louis XIV.’s object in keeping the measure so strictly secret, both from his contemporaries and posterity? and how happened it that the Noailles family, to whom Madame de Maintenon was related, suffered nothing to transpire on the subject? This was the more singular considering that Madame de Maintenon survived Louis XIV.”

The Emperor, feeling somewhat fatigued this evening, retired to rest early. He seemed indisposed and low spirited.

THE FRENCH MINISTERS, &C.—ANECDOTE OF M. DARU.—FADED FINERY AT ST. HELENA.

Sunday, September 1st.—The Emperor went out about three o’clock: he said that he had felt feeble, languid, and dull the whole of the day. We all felt indisposed in the same way: it was the effect of the weather. We strolled out to the great path in the wood, while the calash was preparing; but no sooner had we reached the extremity of the path than a shower of rain came on. It was so heavy that the Emperor was obliged to take refuge at the foot of a gum-tree, the scanty foliage of which, however, afforded but little shelter. The calash soon arrived to take us up; and we were returning home with all speed, when we perceived the Governor, at some distance, making towards us. The Emperor immediately ordered the coachman to turn, observing, that of two evils he would choose the least; and we took a circuitous route homewards, in spite of the wind and rain. We, however, escaped Sir Hudson Lowe: that was an advantage.

Before dinner, the Emperor, in his chamber, took a review of the individuals who had been attached to his Household, the Council of State, and the different ministerial departments. Alluding to M. Daru, he observed that he was a man distinguished for probity and for indefatigable application to business. At the retreat from Moscow, M. Daru’s firmness and presence of mind were remarkable, and the Emperor often afterwards said that he laboured like an ox, while he displayed the courage of a lion.

Business seemed to be M. Daru’s element; he was incessantly occupied. Soon after he was appointed Secretary of State, one of his friends was expressing a fear that the immense business in which he would thenceforth be absorbed might prove too much for him. “On the contrary,” replied Daru, “I assure you that, since I have entered upon my new functions, I seem to have absolutely nothing to do.” On one occasion only was his vigour ever known to relax. The Emperor called him up, after midnight, to write from his dictation: M. Daru was so completely overcome by fatigue that he scarcely knew what he was writing; at length he could hold out no longer, and he fell asleep over his paper. After enjoying a sound nap, he awoke, and, to his astonishment, perceived the Emperor by his side quietly engaged in writing. The shortness of the candles informed him that his slumber had been of considerable duration. While he sat for a few moments overwhelmed with confusion, his eyes met those of the Emperor, who said to him: “Well, Sir, you see I have been doing your work, since you would not do it yourself. I suppose you have eaten a hearty supper, and passed a pleasant evening; but business must not be neglected.”—“I pass a pleasant evening, Sire!” said M. Daru. “I have been for several nights without sleep, and closely engaged. Of this your Majesty now sees the consequence, and I am exceedingly sorry for it.”—“Why did you not inform me of this?” said the Emperor, “I do not want to kill you. Go to bed. Good night, M. Daru.” This was certainly a characteristic trait, and one that was well calculated to remove the false notions which were generally entertained respecting Napoleon’s harshness of temper. But I know not by what fatality facts of this kind were concealed from our knowledge, while any absurd inventions unfavourable to the Emperor were so actively circulated. Was it because the courtiers reserved their flattery for the interior of the palace, and sought to create a sort of counterpoise, by assuming elsewhere an air of opposition and independence? Be this as it may, had any individual related traits of the above kind in the saloons of Paris, he would probably have been told that he had invented them, or would have been looked upon as a fool for giving credit to them.

The Grand Marshal and his lady came to dine at Longwood, which they were accustomed to do every Sunday.

During dinner, the Emperor jokingly alluded to the faded finery of the ladies. He said that their dresses would soon resemble the gay trappings of those old misers who purchase their wardrobes from the dealers in second-hand clothes; they no longer displayed the freshness and elegance that characterized the millinery of Leroi, Despeaux, Herbault, &c. The ladies craved indulgence for St. Helena; and their husbands reminded the Emperor of his fastidiousness with regard to female dress at the Tuileries, which, it was remarked, had proved the ruin of some families. At this the Emperor laughed, and said that the idea of his scrupulous taste in dress was a mere invention of the ladies of the Court, who made it a pretence, or an excuse, for their extravagance. The conversation then turned on our splendour at St. Helena. The Emperor said that he had told Marchand he would wear every day the hunting-coat which he then had on, until it was completely worn out: it was already very far gone.

Both before and after dinner the Emperor played a few games at chess: he felt low-spirited and nervous, and retired to bed early.

THE CAMPAIGN OF SAXONY IN 1813.—REFLECTIONS.—ANALYSIS.—BATTLES| OF LUTZEN AND WURTZEN.—NEGOTIATIONS.—BATTLES| OF DRESDEN, LEIPSIC, HANAU,| &c.

Sept. 2.—To-day there was some horse-racing at the camp, at which one of the Emperor’s suite was present.

The Emperor did not go out until late, and he walked to the calash. The wind blew very hard, and he renounced his intention of taking a drive. He sat down beneath the tent: but, finding it not very pleasant without doors, he retired to his library, where he took up the Letters of Madame de Chateauroux, looked through the Expedition to Bohemia, and analysed the Life of Marshal de Belle-Isle. He again went out to take a walk in the garden; but he returned almost immediately, and directed me to follow him.

He took up a book relating to our last campaigns, and, after perusing it for some time, he threw it down, saying, “It is a downright rhapsody—a mere tissue of contradictions and absurdities.” He conversed for a considerable time on the two celebrated campaigns of Saxony: his observations were principally moral, and few or none military; I noted down the following as the most remarkable: “That memorable campaign,” said he, “will be regarded as the triumph of courage in the youth of France; of intrigue and cunning in English diplomacy; of intelligence on the part of the Russians; and of effrontery in the Austrian Cabinet. It will mark the period of the disorganization of political societies, the great separation of subjects from their Sovereigns; finally, the decay of the first military virtues—fidelity, loyalty, and honour. In vain people may write and comment, invent falsehoods and suppositions; to this odious and mortifying result we must all come at last: time will develop both its truth and its consequences.

“But it is a remarkable circumstance, in this case, that all discredit is equally removed from sovereigns, soldiers, and people. It was entirely the work of a few military intriguers and headlong politicians, who, under the specious pretext of shaking off the foreign yoke and recovering the national independence, purposely sold their own rulers to envious rival Cabinets. The results soon became manifest: the King of Saxony lost half his dominions, and the King of Bavaria was compelled to make valuable restitutions. What did the traitors care for that? They enjoyed their rewards and their wealth, and those who had proved themselves most upright and innocent were visited with the severest punishment. The King of Saxony, the most honest man who ever wielded a sceptre, was stripped of half his territories; and the King of Denmark, so faithful to all his engagements, was deprived of a crown! This, however, was affirmed to be the restoration and the triumph of morality!... Such is the distributive justice of this world!...

“To the honour of human nature, and even to the honour of Kings, I must once more declare that never was more virtue manifested than amidst the baseness which marked this period. I never for a moment had cause to complain individually of the Princes our allies. The good King of Saxony continued faithful to the last; the King of Bavaria loyally avowed to me that he was no longer his own master; the generosity of the King of Würtemburg was particularly remarkable; the Prince of Baden yielded only to force, and in the very last extremity. All, I must render them this justice, gave me due notice of the storm that was gathering, in order that I might take the necessary precautions. But, on the other hand, how odious was the conduct of subaltern agents! Military history will never obliterate the infamy of the Saxons, who returned to our ranks for the purpose of destroying us! Their treachery became proverbial among the troops, who still use the term _Saxonner_ to designate the act of a soldier who assassinates another. To crown all, it was a Frenchman, a man for whom French blood purchased a crown, a nursling of France, who gave the finishing stroke to our disasters! Gracious God!

“But in the situation in which I was placed, the circumstance which served to fill up the measure of my distress was that I beheld the decisive hour gradually approach. The star paled; I felt the reins slip from my hands, and yet I could do nothing. Only a sudden turn of fortune could save us: to treat, to conclude any compact, would have been to yield like a fool to the enemy. I was convinced of this, and the event sufficiently proved that I was not mistaken. We had, therefore, no alternative but to fight; and every day, by some fatality or other, our chances diminished. Treason began to penetrate into our ranks. Great numbers of our troops sunk under the effects of fatigue and discouragement. My lieutenants became dispirited, and, consequently, unfortunate. They were no longer the same men who figured at the commencement of the Revolution, or who had distinguished themselves in the brilliant moments of my success. I have been informed that some presumed to allege, in their defence, that at first they fought for the Republic and for their country; while afterwards they fought only for a single man, for his individual interests, and his ambition.

“Base subterfuge! Ask the young and brave soldiers, and the officers of intermediate rank in the French army, whether such a calculation ever entered their thoughts;—whether they ever saw before them any thing but the enemy, or behind them any thing save the honour, glory, and triumph of France! These men never fought better than at the period alluded to. Why dissemble? Why not make a candid avowal? The truth is that, generally speaking, the officers of high rank had gained every object of their ambition. They were sated with wealth and honours. They had drunk of the cup of pleasure, and they henceforth wished for repose, which they would have purchased at any price. The sacred flame was extinguished; they were willing to sink to the level of Louis XV.’s marshals.”

If the words above quoted require any comment—if the sense here, or in other similar passages of my Journal, should be found to be incomplete, I must not be held responsible. I have literally noted down what Napoleon uttered, and I am accountable for nothing more. I have already several times mentioned that, when the Emperor spoke, I never ventured to interrupt him by questions or remarks. On the subject of the celebrated campaign of 1813, I may mention that, from various detached conversations of Napoleon, which I have not noted down at the time when they occurred, he was far from being deceived as to the crisis which threatened France, and he correctly estimated the full extent of the risk by which he was surrounded in the opening of the campaign. Ever since his return from Moscow, he had seen the danger, he said, and endeavoured to avert it. From that moment he resolved on making the greatest sacrifices; but the choice of the proper moment for proclaiming these sacrifices was the difficult point, and that which chiefly occupied his consideration. If the influence of material power be great, he said, the power of opinion is still greater; it is magical in its effects. His object was to preserve it; and a false step, a word inadvertently uttered, might for ever have destroyed the illusion. He found it indispensable to exert the greatest circumspection, and to manifest the utmost apparent confidence in his own strength. It was, above all, necessary to look forward to the future.

His great fault, his fundamental error, was in supposing that his adversaries always had as much judgment and knowledge of their own interests, as he himself possessed. From the first, he said, he suspected that Austria would avail herself of the difficulties in which he was placed, in order to secure great advantages to herself; but he never could have believed that the Monarch was so blind, or his advisers so treacherous as to wish to bring about his (Napoleon’s) downfall, and thereby leave their own country henceforth at the mercy of the uncontrolled power of Russia. The Emperor pursued the same train of reasoning with regard to the Confederation of the Rhine, which, he admitted, might, perhaps, have cause to be dissatisfied with him; but which, he concluded, must dread still more the idea of falling under the power of Austria and Prussia. Napoleon conceived that the same arguments were not inapplicable to Prussia; which, he presumed, could not wish entirely to destroy a counterpoise, that was necessary to her independence, and her very existence. Napoleon made full allowance for the hatred of his enemies, and for the dissatisfaction and malevolence which, perhaps, existed among his allies; but he could not suppose that either wished for his destruction, since he felt himself to be so necessary to all; and he acted accordingly. Such was Napoleon’s ruling idea throughout the whole of this important period. It was the key of his whole conduct to the very last hour, and even to the moment of his fall. It must be carefully borne in mind, for it serves to explain many things, perhaps, all;—his hostile attitude, his haughty language, his refusal to treat, his determination to fight, &c.

If he should be successful, he thought he could then make honourable sacrifices, and a glorious peace; while the illusion of his superiority would remain undiminished. If, on the contrary, he should experience reverses, it would still be time enough to make concessions; and he concluded that the interest of the Austrians and all true Germans must secure him the support of their arms or of their diplomacy; for he supposed they were convinced, as he himself was, that his power had henceforth become indispensable to the structure, repose, security, and existence of Europe. But that of which he had reason to doubt proved most prosperous: victory continued faithful to him; his first successes were admirable, and almost incredible. On the other hand, that which he believed to be infallible was precisely what failed him:—his natural allies betrayed him, and hastened his downfall.

In support of what I have just alleged, and with the view of throwing light on the Emperor’s remarks above quoted, I shall here insert a brief recapitulation of the events of that fatal campaign. In France, at the time, we were made acquainted only with its results; the bulletins gave us but little information, and we received no foreign publications. Besides, the period is now distant, and so many important events have since occurred to occupy public attention, that these details may be

## partly forgotten by those who once knew them. They are here arranged in

chronological order.

I extract this recapitulation from a work written by M. de Montveran, which was published in 1820. The author has bestowed great care on the collection of official and authentic documents; and he has availed himself of the information furnished by preceding writers. I am, therefore, of opinion, that this work is, unquestionably, the best that has been written on the subject. M. de Montveran is far from being favourable to Napoleon; however, it is but just to admit that he maintains a tone of impartiality which does credit to his character, while, at the same time, it enhances the merit of his work.

“On the 2nd of May, Napoleon opened the campaign of Saxony by the victory of Lützen, a most surprising event, and one which reflects immortal honour on the conquerors. A newly embodied army, without cavalry, marched to face the veteran bands of Russia and Prussia; but the genius of the Chief, and the valour of the young troops whom he commanded, made amends for all. The French had no cavalry; but bodies of infantry advanced in squares, flanked by an immense mass of artillery, presenting the appearance of so many moving fortresses. Eighty-four thousand infantry, consisting of French troops, or troops of the Confederation, with only 4,000 cavalry, beat 107,000 Russians or Prussians with more than 20,000 cavalry. Alexander and the King of Prussia witnessed the conflict in person. Their celebrated guards could not maintain their ground against our young conscripts. The enemy lost 18,000 men; our loss amounted to 12,000, and our want of cavalry prevented us from reaping the usual fruit of our conquests. However, the moral result of the victory was immense. The enthusiasm of our troops resumed its ascendency, and the Emperor recovered the full influence of opinion. The Allies retreated before him without venturing the chances of another battle.[14]

Footnote 14:

At the victory of Lützen the Emperor sustained a severe loss in the death of the brave and loyal Marshal Bessières, Duke of Istria, who was so sincerely devoted to Napoleon. The King of Saxony raised a monument to his memory on the very spot where he received his death-blow. By a glorious coincidence the monument is similar to that of Gustavus Adolphus, and is placed not far distant from it. It consists of a simple stone surrounded by poplars. This is not the only instance in which foreigners have rendered that homage to the memory of brave Frenchmen, which their own countrymen have neglected.

“On the 9th, Napoleon entered Dresden as a conqueror, conducting back to his capital the King of Saxony, who, from the consciousness of his own interests, as well as the wish to remain faithful to his engagements, had retired on the approach of the Allies, whose proposals he had constantly rejected.

“On the 21st and 22d, Napoleon again triumphed at Würtzen and Bautzen. The Allies had chosen their ground, which the brilliant campaigns of Frederick had rendered classic. They had intrenched themselves, and they thought their position impregnable: but every thing yielded to the grand views and well-conducted plans of the French general who, at the very commencement of the conflict, declared himself to be certain of the victory.

“The Allies lost 18,000 or 20,000 men. They were unable to retain their position, and they retired in disorder. The Emperor pursued them. He had already passed through Lusatia, crossed Silesia, and reached the Oder, when the Allies demanded an armistice to treat for peace; and Napoleon, thinking the favourable moment had arrived, granted it.

“On the 4th of June, the armistice of Pleissvitz was concluded. This event had the most decisive influence in producing our misfortunes; it was the fatal knot to which were attached all the chances and destinies of the campaign.

“Should the Emperor have granted this armistice, or have followed up his advantages? This was, at the moment, a problem which time, and the events that have proved so fatal to us, solved when too late. The Emperor, crowned with victory, halted before his fallen enemies, to whom he could now make concessions without compromising his dignity; his sacrifices could be regarded only as moderation. Austria, hitherto uncertain as to what course she should pursue, struck with our success, rejoined us. Napoleon now reasonably hoped to see the ratification of a peace which he wished for, and he would not let slip so favourable an opportunity, to run the risk of a check that might have lost all, and which was the more likely to take place since his army had marched forward in haste and in the utmost disorder, and his rear was uncovered and harassed by the enemy. He conceived that the armistice, at all events, afforded him an opportunity of concentrating and organizing his forces, and opening his communications with France, by which means he should be enabled to receive immense reinforcements, and to create a corps of cavalry.”

Unfortunately, in spite of all the Emperor’s calculations, this fatal armistice proved advantageous only to our enemies: it was maintained for nearly three months, and it served only to bring about their triumph and our destruction. Austria, who was still our ally, by a deception, which history will justly characterize, availed herself of that title to oppose us with the greater advantage. Requiring delay, she obtained it. The Russians, who were waiting for reinforcements, received them; the Prussians doubled their numbers; the English subsidies arrived, and the Swedish army rejoined. Secret associations were set on foot; a general insurrection of the whole German population was excited; while, at the same time, the defection of the Cabinets of the Rhenish Confederation, and the corruption of the Allied officers, were effected. Treason also began to creep into the superior ranks. General Jomini, the Chief of the Staff of one of our army corps, went over to the enemy with all the information he had been able to collect respecting the plans of the campaign, &c.[15]

Footnote 15:

A reference to Count Montholon’s Memoirs of Napoleon will shew that the Emperor admits the falsehood of this charge against Jomini, who he says was not even acquainted with his plans.

The result sufficiently proved to the Emperor all the errors of the armistice, and convinced him that he would have done better had he persisted in pressing forward; for had he continued successful, the Allies, alarmed at finding themselves deprived of the aid of Austria, with whom they could no longer have maintained intelligence, cut off from the Prince of Sweden, who would have remained behind, seeing blockades of the fortresses of the Oder raised, and the war carried back to Poland, to the gates of Dantzick, amidst a people ready to rise in a mass—the Allies, I say, would infallibly have treated. If, on the other hand, we had sustained a reverse, the consequences could not have been more fatal than those which were actually experienced. The judicious calculations of the Emperor ruined him: that which seemed to be indiscretion and temerity would probably have saved him.

CONGRESS OF PRAGUE ON THE 29TH OF JULY.—

“After two months of difficulties and obstacles, the Congress opened under the mediation of Austria; if, indeed, the term Congress can be properly applied to an assembly in which no deliberations took place, and where one party had determined beforehand that none should be held.

“The mediator and the adversaries were equally our enemies; all concurred in their hostility to us, and they had already decided on war. Why then did they wait? Because Austria still possessed a shade of modesty, and she wished, in the debates, to gain a pretence for declaring war against us. Prussia and Russia, on their part, thought it necessary to preserve their credit in Europe by this false manifestation of their desire and their efforts to preserve peace. All were merely affixing the seal to their Machiavelian system.

“For them the real Congress was not the assembly at Prague; it had already taken place two months before. Time has since thrown into our hands the authentic records of the intrigues, machinations, and even treaties, in which they were engaged during that interval. It is now evident that the armistice was resorted to by pretended friends and avowed enemies, only for the sake of artfully cementing the union that was to effect the overthrow of Napoleon, and creating the triumvirate destined to oppress Europe while it pretended to deliver her.

“Austria had, from interested motives, long delayed the opening of the Congress of Prague. Resolved to repair her losses at any price, she did not hesitate to sacrifice her honour, the better to ensure her success. She masked her perfidy under the disguise of friendship. Declaring herself our ally, and eagerly complimenting us on every new triumph, she insisted, with an air of the warmest interest, on being our mediatrix when she had already entered into an agreement to make common cause with our enemies. Her propositions were accepted. But she wished to gain time for her preparations; and thus every day fresh obstacles were started, while the utmost tardiness was evinced in settling them.

“Austria at first offered her services as a mediatrix; but, changing her tone in proportion as her warlike preparations advanced, she soon signified her wish to become an arbitress, at the same time intimating that she expected great advantages in return for the services she might render. At length, after an armistice of two months, when Austria thought herself perfectly prepared, and when every thing was agreed upon among the coalesced powers, they opened the Congress, not to treat of peace and to establish amicable relations, but to develop their real sentiments, and to insult us unreservedly. The Russians, in particular, behaved with unusual ill grace. They were no longer the Russians who anxiously solicited an armistice after the routs of Lützen, Würtzen, and Bautzen. They now looked upon themselves as the dictators of Europe, which, indeed, they have since really become, by the spirit of their diplomacy, the blindness of their allies, their geographical situation, and finally by the force of things. But whom did Alexander select as his minister to this Congress? Precisely one who, by personal circumstances, was, according to the laws of France, unqualified for such a post;—one who was by birth a Frenchman. Certainly it would have been difficult to offer a more personal and direct insult. Napoleon felt it; but he concealed his resentment.

“Under such circumstances much could not be expected from the Congress: during the few days of its sitting, our enemies merely drew up a series of notes more or less acrimonious, while the conduct of Austria was marked by the most odious partiality.

“On the 10th of August, only two days after the first meeting of the negotiators, the Russians and Prussians haughtily withdrew; and on the 12th, Austria, that faithful ally, that obsequious and devoted friend, who had shewn herself so eager to become our mediatrix and arbitress, suddenly laid aside those titles to declare war against us, allowing no interval save that required for the signature of the manifesto, which she had been for two months secretly concerting with her new allies, and which will ever remain a record of her shame and degradation, since it acknowledges the sacrifice of an Archduchess to the necessity of crouching before a detested ally. History will decide on these acts. However, to the honour of the throne and of morality, there is reason to believe that most of these transactions, and in particular the real course of affairs, was unknown to the Emperor Francis, who is reputed to be the most gentle, upright, moral, and pious of princes. It has been affirmed that many of these acts were determined on without his knowledge, and that others were represented to him under a totally false colouring. The whole of these disgraceful proceedings must be attributed to British gold, to the craftiness of Russian diplomacy, and to the passions of the Austrian aristocracy, excited by the English faction which at that time ruled Europe.

“The Congress broke up with mutual feelings of irritation. The Emperor then expressed his sentiments in official and public documents, in the most forcible language, and in a tone of the highest superiority. But this he did with the view of creating a favourable impression on the public mind; for he remained so far master of himself as that, though hastening to take up arms, he nevertheless demanded a renewal of the negotiations, which were resumed at Prague. He deemed it advisable not to lose the advantages of constant communications: Austria would be easily detached if we obtained advantages, and she would be easily convinced if we sustained reverses. Such was the Congress of Prague.

“It will perhaps be asked whether Napoleon was duped by this Congress and the circumstances arising out of it. The answer is that he was not, or at least not entirely. If he had not a knowledge of every fact, he was never for a moment mistaken as to the intentions and sentiments that were really entertained.

“Napoleon, from the moment of his first victory at Lutzen, had authentically proposed a general congress. This he conceived to be the only means of treating for a general peace, insuring the independence of France, and the guarantee of the modern system. Every other mode of negotiation appeared to him merely a lure; and if he seemed to depart from this principle, in accepting the mediation of Austria, and agreeing to the conferences at Prague, it was because, as time advanced, affairs became more complicated. The defeat of Vittoria, the evacuation of Spain, and the spirit of the French people, which was declining, had considerably diminished his prosperity. He anticipated the result of the negotiations: but he wished to gain time, in his turn, and to await the course of events. He was not deceived as to the part which Austria would act; and, without knowing precisely how far she would carry her deception, he could well discern, from her mysterious conduct and delays, what was likely to be her determination. At Dresden, he had even had personal conversations with the first negotiator of the Austrian government, who had sufficiently indicated the line of conduct he intended to pursue. The Emperor having remarked that he had, after all, eight hundred thousand men to oppose the enemy, the negotiator eagerly added, ‘Your Majesty may say twelve hundred thousand; for you may, if you please, join our force to your own.’ But what was to be the price of this advantage? Nothing less than the restitution of Illyria, the cession of the Duchy of Warsaw, the frontier of the Inn, &c. ‘And after all,’ said the Emperor, ‘what should I have gained by this? Had we made all these concessions, should we not have been humbling ourselves for nothing, and furnishing Austria with the means of making farther demands, and afterwards opposing us with greater advantage?’ He never relinquished the idea that the true interests of Austria being closely connected with our danger, we should be more certain of regaining her by our misfortunes than of securing her by our concessions. Napoleon was therefore deaf to every demand; but he had so little doubt of the engagements which Austria had already contracted with our enemies that he is described as having said, half good-humouredly and half indignantly, to the Austrian negotiator: ‘Come now, confess: tell me how much they have paid you for this.’”

How severely did Napoleon suffer on this occasion! What trials of patience did he not undergo! And yet he was accused at the time of not wishing for peace! “How was I perplexed,” said he, “when conversing on this subject, to find myself the only one to judge of the extent of our danger and to adopt means to avert it. I was harassed on the one hand by the coalesced Powers, who threatened our very existence, and on the other by the spirit of my own subjects, who in their blindness, seemed to make common cause with them; by our enemies, who were labouring for my destruction, and by the importunities of my people and even my Ministers, who urged me to throw myself on the mercy of foreigners. And I was obliged to keep up a bold look in this embarrassing situation: to reply haughtily to some, and sharply to rebuff others, who created difficulties in my rear, encouraged the mistaken course of public opinion, instead of seeking to give it a proper direction, and suffered me to be tormented by demands for peace, when they ought to have proved that the only means of obtaining it was to urge me ostensibly to war.

“However, my determination was fixed. I awaited the result of events, firmly resolved to enter into no concessions or treaties which could present only a temporary reparation, and would inevitably have been attended by fatal consequences. Any middle course must have been dangerous; there was no safety except in victory, which would have preserved my power, or in some catastrophe, which would have brought back my allies.”

I beg to call the reader’s attention to this last idea, which I have already noticed on a former occasion. It will perhaps be thought I attach great importance to it; but this is because I feel the necessity of rendering it intelligible. Though I now enter into it completely, yet it was long before I understood it, and it appeared to me paradoxical and subtle.

“In what a situation was I placed!” continued the Emperor. “I saw that France, her destinies, her principles, depended on me alone!”—“Sire!” I ventured to observe, “this was the opinion generally entertained; and yet some parties reproached you for it, exclaiming, with bitterness, Why would he connect every thing with himself personally?”—“That was a vulgar accusation,” resumed the Emperor warmly. “My situation was not one of my own choosing, nor did it arise out of any fault of mine; it was produced entirely by the nature and force of circumstances—by the conflict of two opposite orders of things. Would the individuals who held this language, if indeed they were sincere, have preferred to go back to the period preceding Brumaire, when our internal dissolution was complete, foreign invasion certain, and the destruction of France inevitable? From the moment when we decided on the concentration of power, which could alone save us; when we determined on the unity of doctrines and resources which rendered us a mighty nation, the destinies of France depended solely on the character, the measures, and the principles of him whom she had invested with this accidental dictatorship: from that moment the public welfare, _the State_, _was myself_. These words, which I addressed to men who were capable of understanding them, were strongly censured by the narrow-minded and ill-disposed; but the enemy felt the full force of them, and, therefore, his first object was to effect my overthrow. The same outcry was raised against other words which I uttered in the sincerity of my heart: when I said that _France had more need of me than I of her_. This profound truth was declared to be merely excess of vanity. But, my dear Las Cases, you now see that I can relinquish every thing; and as to what I endure here, my sufferings cannot be long. My life is limited; but the existence of France...!” Then, resuming his former idea, he said: “The circumstances in which we were placed were extraordinary and unprecedented; it would be vain to seek for any parallel to them. I was myself the keystone of an edifice totally new, and raised on a slight foundation! Its stability depended on each of my battles! Had I been conquered at Marengo, France would have encountered all the disasters of 1814 and 1815, without those prodigies of glory which succeeded, and which will be immortal. It was the same at Austerlitz and Jena, and again at Eylau and elsewhere. The vulgar failed not to blame my ambition as the cause of all these wars. But they were not of my choosing; they were produced by the nature and force of events; they arose out of that conflict between the past and the future—that constant and permanent coalition of our enemies, which obliged us to subdue under pain of being subdued.”

But to return to the negotiations of 1813. On a reference to the documents and manifestoes published at the time by the two parties, whether because we can now peruse them with more impartiality, or because our eyes have been opened by the conduct of those who triumphed, it is impossible to avoid feeling astonished at the two-fold error which led the Germans to rise so furiously against him from whose yoke they pretended to free themselves, and in favour of those whom they expected to become their regenerators!

_Renewal of Hostilities—Battle of Dresden—26th and 27th of August._—“The hostile powers again presented themselves on the field of battle. The French, with a force of 300,000, of which 40,000 were cavalry, occupied the heart of Saxony, on the left bank of the Elbe; and the Allies, with 500,000 men, of whom 100,000 were cavalry, threatened them in three different directions, from Berlin, Silesia, and Bohemia, on Dresden. This prodigious disproportion of numbers had no effect on Napoleon: he concentrated his forces, and boldly assumed the offensive. Having fortified the line of the Elbe, which had now become his _point d’appui_, and, protecting his extreme right by the mountains of Bohemia, he directed one of his masses on Berlin against Bernadotte, who commanded an army of Prussians and Swedes, while another marched upon Silesia, against Blucher, who commanded a corps composed of Prussians and Russians, and a third was stationed at Dresden, as the key of the position, to observe the great Austrian and Russian army in Bohemia. Finally, a fourth mass was placed as a reserve, at Zittau, with the threefold object:—1st, to penetrate into Bohemia, in case we should gain advantages over Blucher; 2d, to keep the great body of the allied force confined in Bohemia, through the fear of being attacked on their rear, should they attempt to debouch by the banks of the Elbe; 3d, to assist, if necessary, in assailing Blucher, or in the defence of Dresden; in case that city should be attacked.

“The Emperor, who had already made a rapid movement against Blucher, kept him in action before him, when he was suddenly called away for the defence of Dresden, where 65,000 French troops found themselves opposed to 180,000 of the allied forces. Prince Schwartzenberg, the General-in-chief, had on the 26th made a faint attack upon Dresden, instead of making a precipitate and decided assault; which, it was affirmed, was the intention of the deserter Jomini, who so well understood the real state of things. Napoleon came up with the rapidity of lightning and he combined a force of 100,000 French troops to oppose the 180,000 Allies. The affair was not for a moment doubtful; and to his sagacity and penetration the whole success must be attributed. The enemy was overwhelmed: he lost 40,000 men, and was for some time threatened with total destruction. The Emperor Alexander was present at the battle, and Moreau was killed by one of the first balls fired by our imperial guard, only a short time after he had spoken with the Russian Emperor.[16]

Footnote 16:

The death of the celebrated Moreau, while fighting under the Russian banner, and opposed to a French army, was and will ever continue to be a source of affliction to his sincerest friends and warmest partizans.

The happy chance, so anxiously looked for by Napoleon, which was expected to re-establish our affairs, to procure peace, and to save France, had at length arrived. Accordingly, on the ensuing day, Austria despatched an agent to the Emperor with amicable propositions. But such is the uncertainty of human destiny! From that moment, by an unexampled fatality, Napoleon had to encounter a chain of disasters. At every point, except that at which he was himself present, we sustained reverses. Our army in Silesia lost 25,000 men in opposing Blucher; the force which attacked Berlin was defeated by the Prince of Sweden with great loss; and finally, nearly the whole of Vandamme’s corps, which, after the victory of Dresden, was sent into Bohemia with the view of assailing the enemy’s rear and accomplishing his destruction, being abandoned to itself and to the temerity of its chief, was cut in pieces by that part of the Allied army which was precipitately falling back. This fatal disaster and the safety of the Austrians, were owing to a sudden indisposition of Napoleon’s, who, at the moment, was supposed to have been poisoned. His presence no longer excited the ardour of the different corps in maintaining the pursuit; indecision and dejection ensued; Vandamme’s force was destroyed, and all the fruit of the splendid victory of Dresden was lost!

After these repeated checks, the spell was broken; the spirit of the French troops became depressed, while that of the Allies was the more highly excited. The hostile forces were now to be estimated only by their numerical value; and a catastrophe seemed to be at hand. Napoleon, in despair, made vain efforts; he hastened to every threatened point, and was immediately called away by some new disaster. Wherever he appeared, the Allies retreated before him; and they advanced again as soon as his back was turned. Meanwhile, all the enemy’s masses were constantly gaining ground; they had effected communications with each other, and they now formed a semicircle, which was gradually closing round the French, who were driven back upon the Elbe, and threatened completely to surround them. On the other hand, our rear, which was uncovered, was assailed by detached parties. The kingdom of Westphalia was in open insurrection; our convoys were intercepted, and we could no longer maintain free communications with France.

It was in this state of things that the negotiators of Prague submitted to the Emperor the result of their new conferences. In addition to numerous restitutions required from Napoleon and his allies, two propositions were made: 1st, the surrender of all the influence and acquisitions of France in Italy; 2nd, the resignation of the French influence and acquisitions in Germany. Napoleon was to take his choice of one of these two divisions of power; but the other was to be consigned to the Allies, to be entirely at their disposal, without any interference on his part. Neither friends nor enemies entertained a doubt that Napoleon would eagerly accept these proposals. “For,” said those about him, “if you choose Italy, you remain at the gates of Vienna, and the Allies will soon dispute among themselves respecting the division of Germany. If, on the contrary, you prefer the surrender of Italy, you will thereby secure the friendship of Austria, to whose share it will fall, and you will remain in the heart of Germany. In either case you will soon re-appear in the character of a mediator, or a ruler.” Napoleon, however, was not of this opinion: he rejected the propositions, and persisted in following up his own ideas.

Certainly, said he to himself, such proposals in themselves, and in the natural course of things, are most acceptable; but where is the guarantee of their sincerity? He saw plainly that the Allies were only endeavouring to lure him into the snare. They determined thenceforth to abide neither by faith nor law. They did not conceive themselves bound by any law of nations, or any rule of integrity in their conduct towards us. In opposition to the suggestions of his counsellors, Napoleon said; “If I relinquish Germany, Austria will but contend the more perseveringly until she obtains Italy. If, on the other hand, I surrender Italy to her, she will, in order to secure the possession of it, endeavour to expel me from Germany. Thus, one concession granted will only serve as an inducement for seeking or enforcing new ones. The first stone of the edifice being removed, the downfall of the whole will inevitably ensue. I shall be urged on from one concession to another, until I am driven back to the Tuileries, whence the French people, enraged at my weakness, and blaming me for their disasters, will doubtless banish me, and perhaps justly, though they may themselves immediately become the prey of foreigners.”

May not this be regarded as a literal prediction of the events which succeeded the insidious declaration of Frankfort, the propositions of Chatillon, &c.?

“It would be a thousand times better to perish in battle amidst the fury of the enemy’s triumph,” continued the Emperor; “for even defeats leave behind them the respect due to adversity, when they are attended by magnanimous perseverance. I therefore prefer to give battle; for, if I should be conquered, we still have with us the true political interests of the majority of our enemies. But, if I should be victorious, I may save all. I have still chances in my favour—I am far from despairing.”

_Intended movement on Berlin._—“In this state of things, the King of Bavaria, the chief of the Confederation of the Rhine, wrote to the Emperor, assuring him, confidentially, that he would continue his alliance for six weeks longer. “This was long enough,” said Napoleon, “to render it very probable that he would no longer find it necessary to abandon us.” He determined immediately to attempt a great movement, which he had long contemplated, and which plainly indicates the resources of his enterprising mind. Pressed upon the Elbe, the right bank of which was already lined by the great mass of the Allied force, and nearly turned on his rear, he conceived the bold idea of changing positions with the enemy, place for place; to penetrate the enemy’s line, to form in his rear, and compel him to pass in his turn, with his whole force, to the left bank of the river. If, in this situation, he abandoned his communications with France, he would have in his rear the enemy’s territory, a tract of country not yet ravaged by war, and which was capable of maintaining his troops, Berlin, Brandenburg, and Mecklenburg, he would recover his fortresses, with their immense garrisons, the separation and the loss of which would be a great fault after a reverse of fortune, and would be regarded as resources of genius in case of triumph. Napoleon now looked forward to new combinations, and a new prospect of future success: he beheld before him only the errors, the astonishment, and the stupor of his enemies, and the brilliancy of his own enterprise and his hopes.

_Battles of Leipsic_, (16th, 18th, and 19th Oct.)—“At first fortune seemed to smile on the Emperor. But soon a letter from the King of Würtemberg informed him that the Bavarian army, seduced by the intrigues and the prevailing spirit of the moment, had joined the Austrians, against whom it was intended to be opposed; that it was marching on the Rhine to cut off the communication with France; and that the King of Würtemburg was himself under the necessity of yielding to circumstances. This unexpected event obliged Napoleon to suspend his preparations, and to fall back, in order to secure his retreat. This complication of false movements proved servicable to the Allies, who pressed and surrounded us: a great battle seemed inevitable. Napoleon assembled his forces in the plains of Leipsic. His army consisted of 157,000 men, and six hundred pieces of artillery; but the Allies possessed 1000 pieces of artillery, and 350,000 men. During the first day, the action was furiously maintained: The French remained triumphant and the victory would have been decisive, if one of the corps stationed at Dresden had taken part in the battle, as the Emperor hoped it would. General Merfeld was taken prisoner, but liberated on parole, with an intimation that the Emperor was at length willing to renounce Germany. But the Allies, who were encouraged by the arrival of an immense reinforcement, resumed the engagement on the following day; and they were now so numerous that, when their troops were exhausted, they were regularly relieved by fresh corps, as on the parade. The most inconceivable fatality was now combined with inequality of numbers; the most infamous treachery unexpectedly broke out in our ranks; the Saxons, our allies, deserted us, went over to the enemy, and turned their artillery against us. Still, however, the presence of mind, energy, and skill of the French general, together with the courage of our troops, made amends for all, and we again remained masters of the field.

“These two terrible engagements, which history will record as battles of giants, had cost the enemy 150,000 of his best troops, 50,000 of whom lay dead on the field of battle. Our loss amounted to 50,000 only. Thus the difference between our forces was considerably diminished: and a third engagement presented itself, with changes much more favourable. But our ammunition was exhausted; our parks contained no more than 16,000 charges; we had fired 220,000 during the two preceding days. We were compelled to make arrangements for our retreat, which commenced during the night, on Leipsic. At day-break the Allies assailed us; they entered Leipsic along with us, and an engagement commenced in the streets of the city. Our rear-guard was defending itself valiantly and without sustaining great loss, when a fatal occurrence ruined all: the only bridge across the Elster, by which our retreat could be effected, was, by some accident or misunderstanding, blown up. Thus all our forces on the Leipsic bank of the river were lost, and all on the opposite bank marched in haste and disorder upon Mentz. At Hanau we were compelled to force a passage through 50,000 Bavarian troops. Only the wrecks of our army returned to France; and, to render the misfortune complete, they brought contagion along with them.”

Such was the fatal campaign of Saxony, our last national effort, the tomb of our gigantic power. Opposed to the united efforts of all the forces of Europe, and in spite of all the chances that were accumulated against us, the genius of a single man had, in the course of this campaign, been four times on the point of restoring our ascendancy, and cementing it by peace: after the victories of Lützen and Bautzen, after the battle of Dresden, at the time of the last movement on Berlin, and finally on the plains of Leipsic.

Napoleon failed only by a complication of fatalities and perfidies, of which history furnishes no example. I here note down only those which occur to me on a retrospective view of the events of this period.

FATALITIES.

(A.) Sudden indisposition of Napoleon.

(B.) Unexpected overflow of the Bober.

(C.) Confidential letter from the King of Bavaria.

(D.) Orders which did not reach the corps at Dresden.

(E.) Deficiency of ammunition after the two battles of Leipsic.

(F.) Blowing up of the bridge across the Elster.

PERFIDIES.

(G.) Machinations and bad faith of Austria, the first and true cause of our disasters.

(H.) Violation of the armistice of Pleisswitz, relative to our blockaded fortresses.

(I.) Desertion of the chief of the staff of the 3d corps.

(K.) Defection of the Bavarian government.

(L.) Treachery of the Saxons.

(M.) Violation of the capitulation of Dresden, &c.

The following are a few lines of explanation:—

(A.) After the victory of Dresden, some one complimented Napoleon on his great success. “Oh! this is nothing,” observed he, while his countenance beamed with satisfaction; “Vandamme is in their rear, it is there that we must look for the great result.” The Emperor was proceeding in person to assist in accomplishing this decisive operation, when, unfortunately, after one of his meals, he was seized with so violent a retching, that he was supposed to have been poisoned, and it was found necessary to convey him back to Dresden. Thus the operations were interrupted. The fatal consequences that ensued are well known. How trivial was the cause, and how calamitous were the results!

(B.) A sudden overflow of the Bober in Silesia was the principal cause of the disasters of Marshal Macdonald. His corps, while in full operation, were overtaken by the flood, which impeded their operations, and caused the terrible losses which have been above described.

(C.) About the end of September, the King of Bavaria addressed a confidential letter to Napoleon, stating that he would maintain his alliance with him for six weeks or two months longer; and that during that interval he would obstinately refuse every advantage that might be held out to him. The Emperor, who was placed in a most critical situation, and who, but for this circumstance, might, perhaps, have lent an ear to the propositions that were made to him, now no longer hesitated, but immediately determined on the bold movement which he had contemplated on Berlin. He conceived that six weeks would be sufficient to change the state of affairs, and to remove the fears of his allies. Unfortunately, military intrigues proved more powerful than the wishes of the King of Bavaria. Napoleon was forced to suspend his movement, and to give battle at Leipsic with disadvantage. The consequences have already been seen.

(D.) Napoleon, in making his arrangements for the battles of Leipsic, had relied on a diversion of those corps of the army which he had left in Dresden. Their co-operation might have rendered the victory decisive, and have given a new turn to affairs. But, unfortunately the enemy’s force was so numerous, and we were so completely surrounded, that the Emperor’s orders could not be transmitted to Dresden.

(F.) After the two terrible engagements at Leipsic, the French were effecting their retreat across the Elster by a single bridge. An officer who was stationed to guard it was ordered to blow it up if the enemy should present himself in pursuit of our rear-guard. Unluckily this officer was, by some mistake or other, informed that the Emperor wanted him. He immediately obeyed the summons, and in his absence a corporal of sappers, at the first sight of some detached Russian corps, fired the train and blew up the bridge, thus dooming to perdition that portion of our force which still remained on the Leipsic bank of the river. The whole of our rear-guard and baggage, two hundred pieces of artillery, and thirty thousand prisoners (stragglers, wounded and sick), fell into the hands of the enemy.

On the publication of the bulletins containing this intelligence, a general outcry was raised by the discontented party in Paris. It was asserted that the whole was a fabrication, and that the Emperor himself had ordered the blowing up of the bridge, with a view to ensure his own safety at the expense of the rest of the army. It was in vain to refer to the statement of the officer, who confirmed the fact, while he attempted to justify himself. This was declared to be another fabrication or a piece of complaisance on the part of the officer. Such was the language of the time.[17]

Footnote 17:

When I visited London in 1814, public attention was occupied by the recent events of the Continent, and the battle of Leipsic was the general topic of conversation. It was related that, at the moment of the defeat, Napoleon’s presence of mind completely forsook him. He wandered about the city, and lost his way in a lonely street. Though on horseback, faintness obliged him to support himself against a wall, and in this situation he inquired his way of an old woman, and asked her for a glass of water. The blowing up of the bridge was not forgotten, and the story was related precisely as at Paris. These details, which were echoed in the drawing-rooms, and circulated about the streets, were credited among the higher ranks, as well as by the vulgar. Prints, representing the different events of the battle, were exhibited in the shop-windows. The subject of one of these engravings was the above described incident in the street of Leipsic. Such a multitude of absurdities was circulated that people of common sense had no resource but to shrug up their shoulders and patiently endure all that they heard.

(G.) The duplicity and bad faith of Austria, the numerous contradictions between her acts and her professions, have already been mentioned. Unmindful of the generosity of which she had been the object after the battles of Leoben, Austerlitz, and Wagram, she discharged her debt of gratitude according to the rules of policy, by eagerly seizing the opportunity of repairing her losses at any price.

She ruined us by making us consent to the armistice of Pleisswitz; and her conduct was the more odious, as she was determined to make war against us; and a few days afterwards, though still our friend and ally, and offering herself as a mediatrix, she entered into engagements hostile to us. Her participation in the conventions of Rechembach about the middle of June, and in the conferences of Trachenbergh, at the commencement of July, is now well known. The necessity of maintaining a certain appearance of decorum occasioned these matters to be kept a secret for about a month after the commencement of hostilities. They were at first proposed to Francis merely as eventual and precautionary measures; and he was induced to affix his signature to them only by the representations of his ministers, who described Napoleon as the scourge of mankind, and attributed to him the delays in the opening of the Congress, which in reality were occasioned by themselves. (_Montveran,_ vol. vi. p. 262.)

But, in spite of the conduct of Austria, Napoleon still cherished the hope of seeing her resume her alliance with him; not that he could calculate on any misunderstanding between her and the other coalesced Powers, but because he supposed her to be sufficiently clear-sighted with respect to her own interests. This idea never forsook him until the moment of signing his abdication.[18]

Footnote 18:

This supposition was not altogether ill-founded; for it still remains doubtful whether the consent of Austria to the dethronement of the Emperor was compulsory or voluntary. By one of those fatalities which attended the close of Napoleon’s career, a momentary success separated the Austrians and the Russians, and the order for marching upon Paris, as well as the famous declaration proscribing Napoleon and his family, proceeded solely from Alexander. When Francis presented himself, he had no alternative but to give his assent to measures which were already determined on; but many circumstances induce the belief that he did so with great repugnance and dissatisfaction.

(H.) The fortresses occupied by French troops in those places which were in the possession of the Allied forces, were to have a clear circuit of one league, and to receive supplies of provisions every five days; but this article was not honestly fulfilled.

When the Armistice was prolonged, the French commissaries demanded that officers of their army should be sent to the commanders of the fortresses; but the Russian General-in-chief objected to this, and circumstances were such that we were obliged to give up the point. (_Montveran_, vol. vi. p. 270.)

(I.) The chief of the staff of the 3d corps, a Swiss by birth, but educated in our ranks, went over to the enemy a few days before the renewal of hostilities, taking with him all the information he could collect. For this service the Emperor of Russia rewarded him with

## particular favour and made him one of his Aides-de-camp. It has been

said that this officer, who was possessed of great talent, had reason to complain of some injustice; but can any thing palliate such an act, or remove the disgrace attending it?

(K.) Part of Napoleon’s plan of Campaign was that the Bavarian army, stationed on the Danube, should act in concert with the army of Italy stationed in Illyria, and that their combined efforts should be directed upon Vienna. The important effect which these measures must have produced on the fate of the Campaign may be easily conceived. But the chief of the Bavarian army, under some pretence or other, but in reality because he had entered into an understanding with the enemy, remained constantly inactive, and thus paralyzed the efforts of the Viceroy, who had to oppose the great bulk of the Austrian force. It has already been stated that the open defection of the Bavarians, at the most critical moment of the campaign, mainly contributed to bring about our disasters.

(L.) But nothing equalled the infamous and disgraceful treachery of the Saxons, who, though they were then serving in our ranks and were our companions in danger and glory, suddenly turned against us. Whatever might be the fatal effects of their desertion, the disgrace attached to themselves is greater than all the mischief they occasioned to us.

The conduct of Napoleon during this period, when he was described as a monster of deception and bad faith, presents, on the contrary, an example of singular magnanimity.

He had added a corps of Saxons to his Imperial guard; but, on the desertion of their countrymen, he ranged them round their Sovereign, whom he left at Leipsic,[19] releasing him from all his engagements. There were also some Bavarians in his army, and he wrote to their chief, informing him that, Bavaria having disloyally declared war against him, this circumstance would authorize him in disarming and detaining prisoners all the Bavarians in his service; but that such a measure would destroy the confidence which Napoleon wished that the troops under his orders should repose in him. He therefore ordered them to be supplied with provisions, and dismissed.[20]

Footnote 19:

The venerable and faithful King of Saxony followed his ally Napoleon, at whose head-quarters he established himself. The coalesced powers, on their entrance into Leipsic, seized the person of the King, and announced their design of disposing of his states. His misfortunes are known throughout Europe; they excited a deep interest in every generous heart.

Footnote 20:

Amidst the general disloyalty, the conduct of the King of Würtemburg presents an honourable exception. That prince, though already at war with us, broke the brigade of cavalry, and the corps of infantry, who went over to the enemy, and at the same time withdrew the decoration of his Order from their officers.

(M.) I have before me the notes of a distinguished officer relative to the capitulation of Dresden. Estimating the number of troops which we had left behind us in the fortresses from which we were separated, he concludes that they must have amounted altogether to 177,000. The Emperor had but 157,000 men at Leipsic. How different, therefore, might have been our fate, had those masses, or even a portion of them, been at his disposal in this decisive event. But this unfortunate dispersion was occasioned by extraordinary circumstances, and was not the result of any regular system. The following particulars, relative to the violation of the capitulation of Dresden, are literally quoted from the notes above alluded to:—

“Above all, it is necessary to understand that it was determined in the plan of the coalition against France, of which Prince Schwartzenberg had the credit, that according as offers were made for the capitulation of each of our numerous garrisons, the conditions should be fairly and honourably granted, but without any intention of fulfilling them. This point being established, the reason of the refusal of the capitulation, signed at Dresden by Marshal St.-Cyr and Generals Tolstoy and Klenau, was, that Prince Schwartzenberg could not ratify it, because the Count de Lobau, Napoleon’s aide-de-camp, who was shut up in Dresden with the Marshal, had protested against the capitulation. Some time after, the capitulation of Dantzick, with General Rapp, was declined, under the odiously false pretence that the garrison of Dresden, in spite of the conditions of its capitulation, had entered into service immediately on its arrival at Strasburg, and that, in consequence, the capitulation of Dantzick could not be approved without incurring the risk of similar inconveniences.

“The following is an additional proof of the bad faith of the Allies. The garrison of Dresden, which was composed of two _corps d’armée_, forming altogether 45,000 men, capitulated on the 11th of November.[21]

Footnote 21:

The determination to surrender had been far from unanimous in the garrison. Opinions were divided on this point. Some were for returning to France by means of a capitulation, which course was adopted; others were in favour of an enterprise of a much bolder nature. This was nothing less than to quit Dresden, with the chosen troops of the garrison, to descend the Elbe by successively raising the blockade of Torgau, where there were 28,000 men; of Wittemberg, where there were 5000; of Magdeburg, where there were 20,000, and to proceed to Hamburg where there were 32,000. The army thus collected together, which would have amounted to 60 or 80,000 men, was to repair to France, cutting a passage through the enemy’s ranks, or compelling him to retrograde by manœuvring on his rear; while the levies in mass that might have advanced to assail our veteran bands would have been paralyzed. And even had this plan failed, the issue was not likely to be more fatal than the capitulation. This opinion was warmly advocated by the Count de Lobau, Generals Teste, Mouton-Duvernet, and others. The design was grand, worthy of our glory, and quite in harmony with our past acts. It was the Emperor’s intention to carry it into effect, and for this purpose he issued orders, which, however, did not reach the place of their destination. The despair occasioned by the thought of surrendering was such that a portion of the troops urged the officer who was at the head of the opposing party to take the command upon himself. Respect for discipline at length prevailed over enthusiasm; but the officer above alluded to expressed himself in the most violent way in the council. It is said that, in his indignation, he exclaimed to the General-in-chief;—“The Emperor will tell me that, pistol in hand, I ought to have taken the command upon myself.“

“According to the terms of the capitulation, the French were to evacuate the fortress in six columns and in six successive days, and to repair to Strasburgh.

“This capitulation was fulfilled, so far at least as regarded our evacuation of the fortress and its occupation by the enemy; but our sixth column had scarcely made a day’s march from the town when it was announced that the capitulation was declined and rejected by the General-in-chief, Prince Schwartzenberg, by an order of the 19th of November.

“When Marshal Saint-Cyr remonstrated against this conduct, it was proposed, by way of compensation for the injustice, that he should be permitted to re-enter Dresden with his troops, and be again placed in possession of all the means of defence which he had before the capitulation: this was merely a piece of irony.

“In vain did the Marshal negotiate for the literal fulfilment of the articles agreed upon by Count Klenau, who had full powers for so doing; the unfortunate garrison, broken up and dispersed, was under the necessity of repairing to the different cantonments that were assigned to it in Bohemia, instead of pursuing its march towards the Rhine.

“The Marshal, indignant at this flagrant breach of faith, despatched a superior officer to communicate the circumstance to Napoleon; but the Allies retarded his progress under various pretences, and he did not reach Paris until the 18th of December. Subsequent events had by this time rendered the evil past all remedy.”

After the series of deceptions and perfidies which I have here disclosed, and which the Allies had established as a system, it is not surprising that Napoleon should have placed no reliance on the famous declaration of Frankfort, and that he should have felt indignant at the blindness of our Legislative Body, the committee of which, either from evil designs or mistaken views, completed the ruin of affairs. Napoleon assured me that he was several times on the point of summoning the members of this committee before him, in order to consult with them confidentially and sincerely on the real state of things, and the imminent danger with which we were threatened. Sometimes he thought that he should undoubtedly bring them back to a right sense of their duty; sometimes, on the contrary, he feared that obstinacy of opinion, or mischievous intention, might have involved the affair in controversy, which, considering the spirit of the moment, would have weakened our resources and hastened our dissolution.

The Emperor frequently adverted to this critical point in the destinies of France; but I have hitherto refrained from entering upon the detail of a subject which presents nothing either agreeable or consolatory.

BENEVOLENT ACTIONS PERFORMED BY THE EMPEROR.—HIS VISIT TO AMSTERDAM.—OBSERVATIONS ON THE DUTCH, &C.—THE MASSACRES OF THE THIRD OF SEPTEMBER.—REMARKS ON REVOLUTIONS IN GENERAL.—UNHAPPY FATE OF LOUIS XVI.

3rd. About three o’clock, the Emperor sent for me to attend him in his chamber. He had just finished dressing; and, as it was raining at the time, he went into the drawing-room, where he communicated to me some very curious particulars, which, as it may be supposed, concerned him, and in which I played a conspicuous part.

Some time afterwards the Emperor took a turn on the lawn contiguous to his library; but, finding the wind very violent, he soon returned to the house and played at billiards, a thing which he very seldom thought of doing.

In the course of the day, the Emperor related that, as he was once travelling with the Empress, he stopped to breakfast in one of the islands in the Rhine. There was a small farm house in the neighbourhood, and while he was at breakfast he sent for the peasant to whom it belonged, and desired him to ask boldly for whatever he thought would render him happy; and, in order to inspire him with the greater confidence, the Emperor made him drink several glasses of wine. The peasant, who was more prudent and less limited in his choice than the man described in the story of the three wishes, without hesitation specified the object which he was ambitious to possess. The Emperor commanded the prefect of the district immediately to provide him with what he had made choice of, and the expense attending the gratification of his wish did not exceed 6 or 7000 francs.

Napoleon added that, on another occasion, when he was sailing in a yacht in Holland, he entered into conversation with the steersman, and asked him how much his vessel was worth. “My vessel!” said the man, “it is not mine; I should be too happy if it were, it would make my fortune.”—“Well, then,” said the Emperor, “I make you a present of it;” a favour for which the man seemed not particularly grateful. His indifference was imputed to the phlegmatic temperament natural to his countrymen; but this was not the case. “What benefit has he conferred on me?” said he to one of his comrades who was congratulating him; “he has spoken to me, and that is all; he has given me what was not his own to give—a fine present truly!” In the mean time Duroc had purchased the vessel of the owner, and the receipt was put into the hands of the steersman, who, no longer doubting the reality of his good fortune, indulged in the most extravagant demonstrations of joy. The expense of this purchase was about the same as that attending the present made to the countryman. “Thus,” said the Emperor, “it is evident that human wishes are not so immoderate as they are generally supposed, and that it is not so very difficult to render people happy! These two men undoubtedly found themselves completely happy.”

When the Emperor visited Amsterdam, the people, he said, were very hostile to him; but he soon completely ingratiated himself in the public favour. He declined being attended by any other guard than the guard of honour belonging to the city; and this mark of confidence immediately gained him the esteem of the Dutch. He constantly appeared among every class of citizens. On one occasion he addressed a crowd of people in the following blunt manner:—“It is said that you are discontented—but why? France has not conquered, but adopted, you: you are excluded from no benefits which are enjoyed by the French; you are a portion of the same family, and participate in all its advantages. Consider now: I have selected my Prefects, Chamberlains, and Councillors of State from amongst you in a just proportion to the amount of your population, and I have augmented my guard with your Dutch guard. You complain of distress; but, in this respect, France has still greater reason to be dissatisfied. We all suffer, and we must continue to do so until the common enemy, the tyrant of the sea, the vampire of your trade, shall be brought to reason. You complain of the sacrifices you have made; but come to France and see all that you still possess beyond what we do, and then, perhaps, you will deem yourselves less unfortunate. Why not rather congratulate yourselves on the circumstances that have brought about your union with France. In the present state of Europe, what would you be, if left to yourselves?—The slaves of all the world. Instead of which, identified as you are with France, you will one day possess the whole trade of the great Empire.” Then, assuming a tone of gaiety, he said:—“I have done every thing in my power to please you. Have I not sent you as a Governor precisely the man who suits you—the good and pacific Lebrun. You condole with him, he condoles with you: you bewail your distresses together. What more could I do for you?” At these words the assembly burst into a loud fit of laughter. The Emperor had secured the good graces of the multitude.—“However,” said he, “let us hope that the present state of things will not last long. Believe me, I am as anxious for a change as you can be. Every man of discernment among you must be aware that it is neither my wish, nor for my interest, that matters should remain as they now are.”

The Emperor left the people of Amsterdam full of enthusiasm for him; and he, on his part, carried away impressions decidedly in their favour. Previously to his journey he had often complained that whosoever he sent to Holland immediately became a Dutchman. After his return, that circumstance occurred to his recollection in the Council of State, and he said that he had himself become a Dutchman. One day, when a member of the Council spoke slightingly of the Dutch, the Emperor said, “Gentlemen, you may be more agreeable than they; but I can wish you nothing better than to be possessed of their moral qualities.”

After dinner, some one happened to mention the date of the day, the 3rd of September; upon which the Emperor made some very remarkable observations; among which were the following:—“This,” said he, “is the anniversary of horrid and appalling executions, of a repetition, in miniature, of Saint-Bartholomew’s day: less disgraceful, certainly, because fewer victims were sacrificed, and because the atrocities were not committed under the sanction of the Government, which, on the contrary, used its endeavours to punish the crime. It was committed by the mob of Paris; an unbridled power, which rivalled, and even controlled, the Legislature.

“The atrocities of the 3rd of September were the result of fanaticism rather than of absolute brutality: the authors of the massacres put to death one of their own party, for having committed theft during the executions. This dreadful event,” continued the Emperor, “arose out of the force of circumstances and the spirit of the moment. No political change ever takes place unattended by popular fury; the people are never exposed to danger, without committing disorders and sacrificing victims. The Prussians entered the French territory; and the people, before they advanced to meet them, resolved to take revenge on their adherents in Paris. Probably, this circumstance was not without its influence on the safety of France. Who can doubt that if, during recent events, the friends of the invaders had been the victims of similar horrors, France would have fallen under the yoke of foreigners? But this could not have happened, for we had become legitimate. The duration of authority, our victories, our treaties, the re-establishment of our old manners, had rendered our government regular. We could not plunge into the same horrors as had been committed by the multitude; for my part, I neither could nor would be a King of the mob.

“No social revolution ever takes place unaccompanied by violence. Every revolution of this kind is at first merely a revolt. Time and success alone can exalt and render it legitimate; but still it can never be brought about without outrage. If people enjoying authority and fortune are required to relinquish these advantages, they of course resist: force is then resorted to; they are compelled to yield. In France this point was gained by the lantern and public executions. The reign of terror commenced on the 4th of August, with the abolition of titles of nobility, tithes, and feudal rights, the wrecks of which were scattered among the multitude, who then, for the first time, understood and felt really interested in the Revolution. Before this period there was so much of dependence and religious spirit among the people that many doubted whether the crops would ripen as usual without the King and the tithes.

“A revolution,” concluded the Emperor, “is one of the greatest evils by which mankind can be visited. It is the scourge of the generation by which it is brought about; and all the advantages it procures cannot make amends for the misery with which it embitters the lives of those who participate in it. It enriches the poor, who still remain dissatisfied; and it impoverishes the rich, who cannot forget their downfal. It subverts every thing; and, at its commencement, brings misery to all and happiness to none.

“Beyond a doubt, true social happiness consists in the harmony and the peaceful possession of the relative enjoyments of each class of people. In regular and tranquil times, every individual has his share of felicity: the cobbler in his stall is as content as the King on his throne; the soldier is not less happy than the general. The best-founded revolutions, at the outset, bring universal destruction in their train; the advantages they may produce are reserved for a future age. Ours seems to have been an irresistible fatality: it was a moral eruption, which could no more be prevented than a physical eruption. When the chemical combinations necessary to produce the latter are complete, it bursts forth: in France the moral combinations which produce a revolution had arrived at maturity, and the explosion accordingly took place.”

We asked the Emperor whether he thought it would have been possible to suppress the Revolution in its birth; and he replied that, if not impossible, the attempt would at least have been difficult. “Perhaps,” said he “the storm might have been laid or averted by some great Machiavelian act; by striking with one hand the great ringleaders, and with the other making concessions to the nation, granting freely the reformation required by the age, part of which had already been mentioned in the famous royal sitting. And yet, after all,” he observed, “this would only have been guiding and directing the Revolution.” He thought that some other plan of the same kind might perhaps have succeeded on the 10th of August, if the King had remained triumphant. “These two periods,” he said, were the only ones which afforded any chance, however desperate; for, at the affair of Versailles, the people had not yet entirely shaken off their allegiance, and on the 10th of August they were already beginning to be tired of disorder. But those who were chiefly interested in quelling the revolutionary spirit were not adequate to encounter the difficulties of the moment.”

The Emperor then rapidly ran over the series of errors committed during this period. “The line of conduct then pursued,” said he, “was truly pitiable. Louis XVI. should have had a prime minister, and M. Necker under him in the finance department. Prime ministers seem to have been invented for the last reigns of the French monarchy; and yet the prevailing false notions and vanity of the time caused them to be dispensed with.”

A great deal was said respecting the equivocal conduct of several great personages during this critical period, and the Emperor said: “We condemn Louis XVI.; but, independently of his weakness, he was placed in peculiar circumstances. He was the first monarch on whom the experiment of modern principles was tried. His education, his innate ideas, led him to believe sincerely that all that he defended, either openly or secretly, belonged to him of right. There might be a sort of honesty even in his want of faith, if I may so express myself. At a subsequent period, the same conduct would have been inexcusable, and even reprehensible. Add to all this that Louis XVI. had every body against him, and one may form an idea of the innumerable difficulties which Fate had accumulated on that unhappy Prince. The misfortunes of the Stuarts, which have excited such deep interest, were not more severe.”

THE BODY-GUARD OF THE KING OF FRANCE.—A DESERTER IN THE EMPEROR’S SUITE.

4th.—The Emperor sent for me after he had finished his breakfast. He was stretched on a sofa, with several books scattered about him. He wore his nightcap, and looked pale. “Las Cases,” said he, “I am unwell. I have been looking over a great many books, but I can find nothing to interest me. I feel wearied.” He fixed his eye on me; that eye, naturally so animated, was now dim, and its expression told me more than his eye had uttered. “Sit down,” said he, pointing to a chair that was beside him, loaded with books, “and let us chat.” He spoke of the Island of Elba, of the life he had led there, of some visits which he had received, &c. He then put some questions to me concerning Paris and the French Court during the corresponding period. The conversation having led to the mention of the King’s body-guard, some one present remarked, as a curious circumstance, that there was a deserter from the guard in Napoleon’s suite at St. Helena. “How? explain yourself,” said the Emperor.—“Sire,” continued the person who had just spoken, “at the time of the restoration, one of the captains of the guard, for whom I entertained great friendship, and who, in spite of the difference of our opinions, had always evinced a high regard for me, proposed to enter my son in his company, assuring me that he would treat him as though he were his own. I replied that he was too young, and that the appointment might retard the progress of his education; but my friend silenced all my objections. I however requested some time to consider of the matter; and on my mentioning it to some persons of my acquaintance, they were astonished that I should have declined so good an offer, and assured me that in a short time my son might attain great advancement, without any interruption of his education. I then waited on the captain of the guard, and acknowledged that I had not shewn myself sufficiently grateful for his offer; and he replied that he was fully aware I had not understood the extent of the advantage he proposed to me. However, by one circumstance or another, your Majesty returned before my son had the honour of being presented to his colonel, and as I took him from his Lyceum on our departure for St. Helena, he is clearly and truly a deserter.” The Emperor laughed heartily and said; “This is another effect of revolutions! What new interests, connexions, and opinions do they create! It is fortunate when they do not disunite families, and set the best friends at variance with each other.” He then began to question me concerning my family, and concluded by saying, “I saw in Alphonse de Beauchamp’s work, your name mentioned among the individuals who, on the 30th of March, endeavoured to excite demonstrations in favour of the Royal Family in the Place Louis XV. I know it was not you; I think you once explained the matter to me, but I have forgotten the

## particulars.”—“Sire,“ said I, “it was a cousin of mine, of the same

name. The circumstance vexed me a good deal at the time; I inserted contradictions in the journals; and it was rather droll that my cousin, on his part, addressed letters to the public prints, desiring that he might be particularly specified as the individual alluded to. I believe that the general way in which the name was introduced, in Alphonse de Beauchamp’s work, was kindly meant on the part of the author, who wished, by this means, to afford me an opportunity of ingratiating myself in the favour of the ruling party, if I had a mind to do so. I must do my cousin the justice to say that, when I obtained an appointment about your Majesty’s person, I several times offered to solicit for him a post in your household or elsewhere; but this he constantly declined. I wish he may now enjoy the reward of his fidelity.” The Emperor again repeated that all private interests were subverted by revolutions. “And it is these private wounds,” said he, “which occasion the general ferment, and render the shocks so acute and violent.”

The weather was so bad the whole of the day that it was impossible to go out. The Emperor dismissed me and sent for General Gourgaud, to whom he dictated in his library, from two to six o’clock, almost the whole of Moreau’s campaign during the Consulate. After dinner, he read to us Madame de Maintenon’s celebrated sumptuary letter to her brother, in which she fixes her household expenditure at six thousand francs a-year. The Emperor had several volumes of the _Grands Hommes_ brought to him, and, after perusing some articles, he amused himself by looking at the outline portraits at the end of each volume.

NAPOLEON’S REPROOFS, &C. THE GOVERNOR BARGAINS FOR OUR EXISTENCE.

5th.—To-day, in the course of my morning conversation with the Emperor, I happened to mention some acts of oppression and injustice, which excited dissatisfaction in the public mind, and rendered him unpopular, because they were executed in his name, and were by many supposed to emanate from him. “But how?” said he, “was there no one among the multitude that surrounded me, none of my chamberlains, who had sufficient spirit and independence to complain and bring these matters to my knowledge? I would have rendered justice wherever it had been withheld.”—“Sire, few would have ventured to call your attention to these things.”—“Did you really stand so much in awe of me? I suppose you dreaded my sharp rebuffs; but you ought to have known that I always lent a ready ear to every one, and that I never refused to administer justice. You should have balanced the reward of the good action against the danger of the reprimand. After all, I confess that my reproofs were in most instances the result of calculation. They were frequently the only means I possessed of learning a man’s temper, of discovering by stealth the different shades of his character. I had little time for inquiry; and a reprimand was one of my experiments. For example, I lately gave you a repulse, and this enabled me to discover that you were somewhat headstrong, extremely susceptible, sufficiently candid, but sullen; and, I may say, too sensitive,” he added, pinching my ear. “I was,” continued he, “obliged to surround myself, as it were, with a halo of fear; otherwise, having risen as I did from amidst the multitude, many would have made free to eat out of my hand, or to slap me on the shoulder. We are naturally inclined to familiarity.”

The weather continued very bad, and the Emperor spent the chief part of the day in writing, as he did yesterday.

The Governor has renewed his cavilling on the subject of our supplies, descending into petty details about a few bottles of wine, or a few pounds of meat. Instead of eight thousand pounds, the sum fixed by Government, he now applied for an allowance of twelve thousand, which he himself declared to be indispensable; but he insisted on having the surplus delivered into his own hands, or subjecting us to great retrenchments. He bargained for our existence. When this was mentioned to the Emperor he replied that the Governor might do as he pleased; but he desired, at all events, that he might not be troubled about the business.

In the evening the conversation again turned on Madame de Maintenon, and the Emperor made many remarks on her letters, her character, her influence on the affairs of her time, &c. He asked for the Historical Dictionary to read the articles on the Noailles family; and he retired to rest at eleven o’clock.

CONFIDENTIAL CONVERSATION.—THE LETTERS OF MADAME DE MAINTENON AND SEVIGNÉ.

6th.—The weather proved as bad as it had been on the preceding day. After finishing his toilet, the Emperor retired to his library, attended by one of his suite, with whom he held a long confidential conversation on a topic intimately concerning us.

“We have now,” said he, “been at St. Helena more than a year, and with regard to certain points we remain just as we were on the first day of our arrival. I must confess that I have hitherto come to no determination in my own mind upon these subjects. This is very unlike me; but how many mortifications have I to encounter! A victim to the persecutions of Fate and man, I am assailed every where and on all hands. Even you, my faithful friends and consolers, help to lacerate the wound. I am vexed and distressed by your jealousies and dissensions.”—“Sire,” replied the individual to whom he addressed himself, “these things should remain unnoticed by your Majesty. In all that concerns you, our jealousy is merely emulation; and all our dissension ceases on the expression of your slightest wish. We live only for you, and will always be ready to obey you. To us you are the _Old Man of the Mountain_; you may command us in all things, except crime.”—“Well,” said the Emperor, “I will think seriously of the subject I have just alluded to, and each shall have his own particular task.” He dictated a few notes, and afterwards went down to the garden, where he walked about for a short time alone, and then withdrew to his own apartment.

The Emperor did not quit his chamber until the moment dinner was announced. He resumed his remarks on Madame de Maintenon, whose letters he had been reading. “I am charmed,” said he, “with her style, her grace, and the purity of her language. If I am violently offended by what is bad, I am at the same time exquisitely sensible to what is good. I think I prefer Madame de Maintenon’s letters to those of Madame de Sevigné: they tell more. Madame de Sevigné will certainly always remain the true model of the epistolary style; she has a thousand charms and graces, but there is this defect in her writings, that one may read a great deal of them without retaining any impression of what one has read. They are like trifles, which a man may eat till he is tired without overloading his stomach.”

The Emperor then made some observations on grammar. He asked for the grammar of Domairon, who had been our professor at the military school at Paris. He glanced through it with evident pleasure. “Such is the influence of youthful impressions,” said he; “I suspect that Domairon’s is not the best of grammars, yet to me it will always be the most agreeable. I shall never open it without experiencing a certain pleasure.”

ERRORS OF THE ENGLISH MINISTERS.—MEANS OF WHICH ENGLAND MIGHT HAVE AVAILED HERSELF FOR THE LIQUIDATION OF HER DEBT.—THE GOVERNOR’S REDUCTIONS.

7th.—The Emperor remained within doors the whole of the day. The Governor appeared on the grounds accompanied by a numerous party; but we fled at his approach. Several vessels have been observed out at sea.

I was summoned to attend the Emperor, and I found him engaged in perusing a work on the state of England. This became the subject of conversation; the Emperor said a great deal respecting the enormous national debt of England, the disadvantageous peace she had concluded, and the different means by which she might have extricated herself from her difficulties.

Napoleon possesses in an eminent degree the instinct of order and harmony. I once knew a man who, being much engaged in arithmetical calculations, confessed that he could not enter a drawing-room without being led irresistibly to count the people who were in it; and that, when he sat down to table, he could not help summing up the number of plates, glasses, &c. Napoleon, though in a more elevated sphere, has also an irresistible habit of his own, which is to develop the grand and the beautiful in every subject that comes under his attention. If he happens to converse about a city, he immediately suggests improvements and embellishments; if a nation be the object of his consideration, he expatiates on the means of promoting her glory, prosperity, useful institutions, &c. Many of his observations, that have already been noted down, must have rendered this fact obvious to the reader.

Either the contents of the journals and other publications of the day, or the nature of our situation here, occasioned the Emperor’s attention to be constantly directed to the state of England. He frequently adverted to what she ought to have done, as well as to what she still had to do, and which might render her future condition more prosperous. I subjoin here a few of the observations, on this subject, which escaped him at various times:—

“The Colonial system,” said he one day, “is now at an end for all; for England, who possesses every colony, and for the other powers, who possess none. The empire of the seas now belongs indisputably to England; and why should she, in a new situation, wish to continue the old routine? Why does she not adopt plans that would be more profitable to her? She must look forward to a sort of emancipation of her colonies. In the course of time, many will doubtless escape from her dominion, and she should therefore avail herself of the present moment to obtain new securities and more advantageous connexions. Why does she not propose that the majority of her colonies shall purchase their emancipation by taking upon themselves a portion of the general debt, which would thus become specially theirs. The mother-country would by this means relieve herself of her burthens, and would nevertheless preserve all her advantages. She would retain, as pledges, the faith of treaties, reciprocal interests, similarity of language, and the force of habit; she might moreover reserve, by way of guarantee, a single fortified point, a harbour for the ships, after the manner of the factories on the coast of Africa. What would she lose? Nothing; and she would spare herself the trouble and expense of an administration which, too often, serves only to render her odious. Her ministers, it is true, would have fewer places to give away; but the nation would certainly be no loser.

“I doubt not,” added he, “that, with a thorough knowledge of the subject, some useful result might be derived from the ideas which I have just thrown out, however erroneous they may be in their first hasty conception. Even with regard to India, great advantages might be obtained by the adoption of new systems. The English who are here, assure me that England derives nothing from India in the balance of her trade; the expenses swallow up, or even exceed, the profits. It is therefore merely a source of individual advantage, and of a few private fortunes of colossal magnitude; but these are so much food for ministerial patronage, and therefore good care is taken not to meddle with them. Those nabobs, as they are styled, on their return to England, are useful recruits to the aristocracy. It signifies not that they bear the disgrace of having acquired fortunes by rapine and plunder, or that they exercise a baneful influence on public morals by exciting in others the wish to gain the same wealth by the same means; the present ministers are not so scrupulous as to bestow a thought on such matters. These men give them their votes; and, the more corrupt they are, the more easily are they controlled. In this state of things, where is the hope of reform? Thus, on the least proposition of amendment, what an outcry is raised! The English aristocracy is daily taking a stride in advance; but, as soon as there is any proposal for retrograding, were it only for the space of an inch, a general explosion takes place. If the minutest details be touched, the whole edifice begins to totter. This is very natural. If you attempt to deprive a glutton of his mouthful he will defend himself like a hero.”

On another occasion the Emperor said:—“After a twenty year’s war, after the blood and treasures that were lavished in the common cause, after a triumph beyond all hope, what sort of peace has England concluded? Lord Castlereagh had the whole Continent at his disposal, and yet what advantage, what indemnity, has he secured to his own country? He has signed just such a peace as he would have signed had he been conquered. I should not have required him to make greater sacrifices had I been victorious. But, perhaps, England thought herself sufficiently happy in having effected my overthrow; in that case, hatred has avenged me! During our contest, England was animated by two powerful sentiments—her national interest and her hatred of me. In the moment of triumph, the violence of the one caused her to lose sight of the other. She has paid dearly for that moment of passion!“ He developed his idea, glancing at the different measures which demonstrated the blunders of Castlereagh, and the many advantages which he had neglected. “Thousands of years will roll away,” said he, “before there occurs such another opportunity of securing the welfare and real glory of England. Was it ignorance, or corruption, on the part of Castlereagh? He distributed the spoil generously, as he seemed to think, among the Sovereigns of the Continent, and reserved nothing for his own country; but, in so doing, did he not fear the reproach of being considered as the agent rather than the partner of the Holy Allies? He gave away immense territories; Russia, Prussia, and Austria acquired millions of population. Where is the equivalent to England? She, who was the soul of all this success, and who paid so dearly for it, now reaps the fruit of the _gratitude_ of the Continent, and of the errors or treachery of her negotiator. My continental system is continued; and the produce of her manufactures is excluded. Why not have bordered the Continent with free and independent maritime towns, such, for example, as Dantzick, Hamburg, Antwerp, Dunkirk, Genoa, &c., which would of necessity have become the staples of her manufactures, and would have scattered them over Europe, in spite of all the duties in the world. England possessed the right of doing this, and her circumstances required it: her decisions would have been just, and who would have opposed them at the moment of the liberation? Why did she create to herself a difficulty, and, in course of time, a natural enemy, by uniting Belgium to Holland, instead of securing two immense resources for her trade, by keeping them separate? Holland, which has no manufactures of her own, would have been the natural depôt for English goods; and Belgium, which might have become an English colony, governed by an English Prince, would have been the channel for dispersing these goods over France and Germany. Why not have bound down Spain and Portugal by a commercial treaty of long duration, which would have repaid all the expenses incurred for their deliverance, and which might have been obtained under pain of the enfranchisement of their colonies, the trade of which, in either case, England would have commanded? Why not have stipulated for some advantages in the Baltic, and to balance the States of Italy? These would have been but the regular privileges attached to the dominion of the seas. After so long a contest in support of this right, how happened its advantages to be neglected at the moment when it was really secured? Did England, while she sanctioned usurpation in others, fear that opposition would be offered to hers? and by whom could it have been offered? Probably England repents now, when it is too late; the opportunity cannot be recovered; she suffered the favourable moment to escape her!... How many _whys_ and _wherefores_ might I not multiply!... None but Lord Castlereagh would have acted thus: he made himself the man of the Holy Alliance, and in course of time he will be the object of execration. The Lauderdales, the Grenvilles, and the Wellesleys, would have pursued a very different course; they would at least have acted like Englishmen.”

At another time the Emperor said;—“The national debt is the canker-worm that preys on England; it is the chain of all her difficulties. It occasions the enormity of taxation, and this in its turn raises the price of provisions. Hence the distress of the people, the high price of labour and of manufactured goods which are not brought with equal advantage to the continental markets. England then ought at all hazards to contend against this devouring monster; she should assail it on all sides, and at once subdue it _negatively_ and _positively_, that is to say, by the reduction of her expenditure and the increase of her capital.

“Can she not reduce the interest of her debt, the high salaries, the sinecures, and the various expenses attending her army establishment, and renounce the latter, in order to confine herself to her navy? In short, many things might be done, which I cannot now enter into. With regard to the increase of her capital, can she not enrich herself with the ecclesiastical property, which is immense, and which she would acquire by a salutary reform, and by the extinction of titular dignities which would give offence to no one? But if a word be uttered on this subject, the whole aristocracy is up in arms, and succeeds in putting down the opposition; for in England it is the aristocracy that governs, and for which the Government acts. They repeat the favourite adage, that, if the least stone of the old foundation be touched, the whole fabric will fall to the ground. This is devoutly re-echoed by the multitude; consequently reform is stopped, and abuses are suffered to increase and multiply.

“It is but just to acknowledge that, in spite of a compound of odious, antiquated, and ignoble details, the English constitution presents the singular phenomenon of a happy and grand result; and the advantages arising out of it secure the attachment of the multitude, who are fearful of losing any of the blessings they enjoy. But is it to the objectionable nature of the details that this result must be attributed? On the contrary, it would shine with increased lustre if the grand and beautiful machine were freed from its mischievous appendages.

“England,” continued the Emperor, “presents an example of the dangerous effects of the borrowing system. I would never listen to any hints for the adoption of that system in France; I was always a firm opposer of it. It was said, at the time, that I contracted no loans for want of credit, and because I could find no one willing to lend; but this was false. Those who know any thing of mankind and the spirit of stock-jobbing, will be convinced that loans may always be raised by holding out the chance of gain and the attraction of speculation. But this was no part of my system, and, by a special law, I fixed the amount of the public debt at what had generally been supposed to be conducive to the general prosperity, namely, at eighty millions interest for my France in her utmost extent, and after the union with Holland, which of itself produced an augmentation of twenty millions. This sum was reasonable and proper; a greater one would have been attended by mischievous consequences. What was the result of this system? What resources have I left behind me? France, after so many gigantic efforts and terrible disasters, is now more prosperous than ever! Are not her finances the first in Europe? To whom and to what are these advantages to be attributed? So far was I from wishing to swallow up the future, that I had resolved to leave a treasure behind me. I had even formed one, the funds of which I lent to different banking-houses, embarrassed families, and persons who held offices about me.

“I should not only have carefully preserved the sinking fund, but I calculated on having, in course of time, funds which would have been constantly increasing, and which might have been actively applied for the furtherance of public works and improvements. I should have had the fund of the Empire for general works; the fund of the departments for local works; the fund of the communes for municipal works, &c.”

In the course of another conversation, the Emperor observed:—“England is said to traffic in every thing: why, then, does she not sell liberty, for which she might get a high price, and without any fear of exhausting her own stock; for modern liberty is essentially moral, and does not betray its engagements. For example, what would not the poor Spaniards give her to free them from the yoke to which they have been again subjected? I am confident that they would willingly pay any price to recover their freedom. It was I who inspired them with this sentiment; and the error into which I fell might, at least, be turned to good account by another government. As to the Italians, I have planted in their hearts principles that never can be rooted out. What can England do better than to promote and assist the noble impulses of modern regeneration? Sooner or later, this regeneration must be accomplished. Sovereigns and old aristocratic institutions may exert their efforts to oppose it, but in vain. They are dooming themselves to the punishment of Sisyphus; but, sooner or later, some arms will tire of resistance, and, on the first failure, the whole will tumble about their ears. Would it not be better to yield with a good grace?—this was my intention. Why does England refuse to avail herself of the glory and advantage she might derive from this course of proceeding? Every thing passes away in England as well as elsewhere. Castlereagh’s administration will pass away, and that which may succeed it, and which is doomed to inherit the fruit of so many errors, may become great by only discontinuing the system that has hitherto been pursued. He who may happen to be placed at the head of the English cabinet, has merely to allow things to take their course, and to obey the winds that blow. By becoming the leader of liberal principles, instead of leaguing with absolute power, like Castlereagh, he will render himself the object of universal benediction, and England will forget her wrongs. Fox was capable of so acting, but Pitt was not; the reason is, that, in Fox, the heart warmed the genius; while, in Pitt, the genius withered the heart. But it may be asked, why I, all-powerful as I was, did not pursue the course I have here traced out?—how, since I can speak so well, I could have acted so ill? I reply to those who make this inquiry with sincerity, that there is no comparison between my situation and that of the English government. England may work on a soil which extends to the very bowels of the earth; while I could labour only on a sandy surface. England reigns over an established order of things; while I had to take upon myself the great charge, the immense difficulty, of consolidating and establishing. I purified a revolution, in spite of hostile factions. I combined together all the scattered benefits that could be preserved; but I was obliged to protect them with a nervous arm against the attacks of all

## parties; and in this situation it may truly be said that the public

interest, _the State, was myself_.

“Our principles were attacked from without; and, in the name of these very principles, I was assailed in the opposite sense at home. Had I relaxed ever so little, we should soon have been brought back to the time of the Directory; I should have been the object, and France the infallible victim, of a _counter-Brumaire_. We are in our nature so restless, so busy, so loquacious! If twenty revolutions were to happen, we should have twenty constitutions. This is one of the subjects that are studied most, and observed the least. We have much need to grow older in this fair and glorious path; for here our great men have all shewn themselves to be mere children. May the present generation profit by the faults that have hitherto been committed, and prove as wise as it is enthusiastic!”

To-day the Governor commenced his grand reductions, and it was thought proper to deprive us of eight English domestics, who had formerly been granted to us. To the servants this was a subject of deep regret, and it was gratifying to ourselves to observe that we won the regard of all who were permitted to approach us. We are now absolutely in want of daily necessaries, to supply which the Emperor proposes to dispose of his plate; this is his only resource.

After dinner the Emperor read the _Cercle_, and retired immediately, although it was very early in the evening. He was indisposed, and could not sleep. He sent for me about midnight. By chance I had not retired to rest, and I remained in conversation with him for two hours.

THE EMPEROR’S COURT AT THE TUILERIES.—THE PRESENTATION OF THE LADIES.—ON WOMEN’S AGES.—MANUSCRIPT OF THE ISLAND OF ELBA.

8th.—The Emperor sent for me very early: he was just finishing his toilet. He had had no sleep during the night, and he seemed much fatigued. The weather had become somewhat tolerable, and he desired to have his breakfast under the tent. While it was preparing, he took a few turns about the garden, and resumed the conversation he had had with me on the preceding night.

He invited Madame de Montholon to breakfast, and afterwards we took a drive in the calash, of which the Emperor had made no use for a considerable time. He had scarcely breathed the fresh air for several days.

The conversation once more turned on the subject of the Emperor’s Court at the Tuileries, the multitude of persons composing it, the spirit and address with which Napoleon went through the ceremony of the presentations, &c. I pass over many of the observations that were made, for the sake of avoiding repetition.

“It is more difficult than is generally supposed,” said the Emperor, “to speak to every body in a crowded assemblage, and yet say nothing to any one; to seem to know a multitude of people, nine-tenths of whom are total strangers to one.”

Again, when alluding to the period when he was in the plentitude of his power, he observed that it was at once easy and difficult to approach him, to communicate with him, and to be appreciated by him; and that it depended on the merest chance in the world whether his courtiers made or missed their fortune. “Now that I am myself entirely out of the question,” said he, “now that I am a mere private individual, and can reflect philosophically on the time when I was called to execute the designs of Providence, without, however, ceasing to be a man, I see how much the fate of those I governed really depended upon chance; and how often favour and credit were purely accidental. Intrigue is so dexterous, and merit often so awkward, and these extremes approximate so closely to each other that, with the best intentions in the world, I find that my benefits were distributed like prizes in a lottery. And yet could I have done better? “Was I faulty in my intentions, or remiss in my exertions? Have other sovereigns done better than I did? It is only thus that I can be judged. The fault was in the nature of my situation, and in the force of things.”

We then spoke of the presentation of the ladies at Court, their embarrassment, and the plans, views, and hopes that were formed by some of them. Madame de Montholon revealed the secrets of several of her acquaintance, by which it appeared that if in the saloons of Paris some were heard to exclaim against the Emperor’s coarseness of manners, harshness of expression, and ugliness of person, others, who were better disposed, better informed, and differently affected, extolled the sweetness of his voice, the grace of his manners, the delicacy of his smile, and above all, his famous hand, which was said to be ridiculously handsome.

These advantages, it was observed, combined with great power and still greater glory, were naturally calculated to excite and to give rise to certain romantic stories. Thus at the Tuileries how many endeavoured to render themselves pleasing to the sovereign! How many sought to inspire a sentiment which it is probable they themselves really felt!

The Emperor smiled at our remarks and conjectures; and he confessed that, notwithstanding the mass of business and the cloud of flattery in which he was enveloped, he had oftener than once observed the sentiments to which we alluded. A few of the least timid among his admirers had, he said, even solicited and obtained interviews. We now laughed in our turn, and said that, at the time, these stories had been the subject of a great deal of mirth. But the Emperor seriously protested that they were void of foundation. In a more private conversation at the Briars, during one of our walks by moonlight, the Emperor, as I have stated in a former part of my Journal, made the same assertion, and contradicted every report of this nature, except one.

Our next subject of conversation was the repugnance of women to let their age be known. The Emperor made some very lively and entertaining remarks. An instance was mentioned of a woman who preferred losing an important law-suit to confessing her age. The case would have been decided in her favour, had she produced the register of her baptism, but this she could not be prevailed on to do.

Another anecdote of the same kind was mentioned. A certain lady was much attached to a gentleman, and was convinced that her union with him would render her happy; but she could not marry without proving the date of her birth, and she preferred remaining single.

The Emperor informed us that a distinguished lady, at the time of her marriage, had deceived her husband, and represented herself to be five or six years younger than she really was, by producing the baptismal register of her younger sister, who had been dead some time.

“However,” said the Emperor, “in so doing, poor Josephine exposed herself to some risk. This might really have proved a case of nullity of marriage.” These words furnished us with the key to certain dates, which, at the Tuileries, were the subject of jesting and ridicule, and which we then attributed wholly to the gallantry and extreme complaisance of the Imperial Almanack.

About four o’clock the Emperor took a short walk. I did not accompany him. On his return, he informed us that he had visited the Company’s garden, where he had met several very pretty women. “But I had not my interpreter with me,” he added, pointing to me. “The rogue left me, and nothing could be more provoking, for I never felt more inclined to avail myself of his assistance.” This little walk, however, did the Emperor no good, for he was presently seized with a severe tooth-ache.

A vessel, which had come from the Cape some time ago, sailed for Europe this day. Several English military officers, who were passengers in this ship, had not been permitted to wait on the Emperor, in spite of their repeated solicitations. This was a new instance of the Governor’s spite. These officers were men of distinction, and their reports on their return home might have had some influence. The Governor, in defiance of all truth, informed them that Napoleon had determined to receive no one.

The Emperor some time ago analyzed to us a subject which he said he intended to dictate in fourteen chapters, and which had forcibly struck me by its truth, its force, its just reasoning, and its dignity. I frequently alluded to it when I happened to be alone with him; and he laughed more than once at the perseverance I shewed, which, he said, was not usual with me. To-day he informed me that he had at length produced something, though not in fourteen chapters, nor on the promised subject; but that I must be content with it. I have read it, and it is certainly a very remarkable fragment. I do not believe that the Revolution has produced any thing more comprehensive and energetic on the governments of the last twenty-five years in France, namely, the Republic, the Consulate, and the Empire.

The exposition and development of the ten chapters which compose this work may be regarded as a perfect outline of the subject. The style is remarkably simple and nervous. Each chapter is full and forcible, and the whole, which consists of fifty pages, is struck off and finished with a masterly hand. I have understood that the substance of these ideas was to have formed the Emperor’s manifesto at the time of his landing from Elba.

Since my return to Europe, this little work has been published, under the title of _Manuscrit de l’Ile d’Elbe_; though I have reason to believe that at first another title was intended for it. Be this as it may, since the work is but little known, and as those who have read it may be ignorant of its real origin, I here transcribe almost literally several chapters, which will serve to prove its source and its authenticity.

CHAP. I.—In the sixteenth century, the Pope, Spain, and the Sixteen, attempt in vain to raise a fourth dynasty to the throne of France. Henry IV. succeeds Henry III. without an interregnum: he conquers the League; but finds that the only way to secure himself on the throne is by sincerely joining the party which constitutes the majority of the nation.

”Henry IV. was proclaimed King at St. Cloud, on the day on which Henry III. died. His sovereignty was acknowledged by all the Protestant churches and by a part of the Catholic nobility. The Holy League which had been formed against Henry III., in hatred of the Protestants, and to avenge the death of the Duke of Guise, was master of Paris, and commanded five-sixths of the kingdom. The Leaguers refused to acknowledge Henry IV., but they proclaimed no other sovereign. The Duke of Mayenne, the chief of the League, exercised authority under the title of Lieutenant-general of the kingdom. The accession of Henry IV. produced no change in the forms adopted by the League for exercising its power; each town was governed as in disturbed and factious times, by local or military authorities. At no period, not even on the day succeeding his entrance into Paris, did Henry IV. acknowledge the acts of the League, and the latter never set up any pretensions that he should do so. No law, no regulation, emanated from the League. The Parliament of Paris was divided into two parties; one for the Leaguers, which sat at Paris, and the other for Henry IV., which assembled at Tours. But these parliaments drew up and registered none but judicial acts. The provinces retained their own organization and privileges, and were governed by their own common laws. It has already been observed that the League had not proclaimed any other sovereign; but it acknowledged for a moment as King, the Cardinal de Bourbon, Henry’s uncle. The Cardinal, however, did not consent to second the designs of the enemies of his house. Besides, Henry had seized his person; no act emanated from him, and the League continued subject to the authority of the Lieutenant-general the Duke of Mayenne. There was therefore no interregnum between Hen. III. and Hen. IV.

“The League was split into several parties. The Sorbonne had decided that the rights of birth could confer no right to the crown on a Prince who was an enemy to the Church. The Pope had declared that Henry IV. having relapsed, had forfeited his rights for ever; and that he could not recover them, even though he should return to the bosom of the Church. Henry IV., King of Navarre, was born a Protestant; but on the massacre of St. Bartholomew, he was compelled to marry Margaret de Valois, and to abjure the reformed religion. However, as soon as he withdrew from the Court, and found himself amidst the Protestants on the left bank of the Loire, he declared that his abjuration had been wholly compulsory, and he again embraced the Protestant faith. This step caused him to be characterized as an obstinate renegado; but the majority of the League were of opinion that it would be proper to summon Henry to return to the bosom of the Catholic, Apostolic, and Romish Church; and acknowledge him as sovereign, as soon as he should abjure Protestantism and receive absolution from the Bishops.

“The leaguers convoked the States-general of the kingdom at Paris. The Spanish ambassadors now unmasked the designs of their sovereign, and urged the States to establish a fourth dynasty on the throne of France, on the ground that Henry and Condé, having, by their apostacy, forfeited their rights to the crown, the male line of the Capets was extinct. They accordingly set forth the claims of the Infanta of Spain, the daughter of Henry II. of France, who was the first in the female line. Even supposing that, by the extinction of the male line of descent, the nation possessed the right of disposing of the crown, they still insisted that its choice ought to fall on the Infanta, for two reasons: first, because it was impossible to select a princess of more illustrious family; and secondly, because France was indebted to Philip II. for his exertions in supporting the cause of the League. The Infanta was to marry a French Prince, and mention was even made of the Duke of Guise, the son of the Duke who had been assassinated at Blois. There was already a body of Spanish troops in Paris, commanded by the Duke of Mayenne; and it was proposed that an army of 50,000 Spaniards should be maintained in Paris by the Court of Madrid, which would devote its whole power and resources to ensure the triumph of this fourth dynasty. The sixteen supported these propositions, which were sanctioned by the Court of Rome, and seconded by the utmost efforts of the Legate. But all was vain; public spirit was roused at the idea of a foreign nation disposing of the throne of France. That part of the Parliament which sat at Paris addressed remonstrances to the Duke of Mayenne the Lieutenant-general of the kingdom, and urged him to enforce the observance of the fundamental laws of the monarchy, and of the Salic law in particular. Had the designs of the Spanish faction succeeded; had the Statesgeneral declared the crown forfeited by the descendants of Hugues Capet; had a fourth dynasty been raised to the throne, accepted by the nation, and sanctioned by the religion acknowledged among the powers of Europe, the rights of the third dynasty would have been extinct.

“Henry conquered the League at Arques and on the plains of Ivry, and he then besieged Paris. However, he was convinced of the impossibility of reigning in France, unless he joined the national party. He had conquered with an army composed entirely of French troops: if he had under his command a small corps of English, the Leaguers had a still more considerable number of Spaniards and Italians. On both sides, therefore, the contest had been maintained by Frenchmen against Frenchmen; the foreigners were merely auxiliaries; the national honour and independence could not be compromised, whichever party might be declared victorious. _Ventre Saint-gris! Paris vaut bien une messe!_ were the exclamations by which Henry used to sound the opinion of the Huguenots; and when, at the Council of Beauvais, he assembled the principal leaders of the Protestant party, to deliberate on the resolution which it was most expedient to adopt, the majority, and in

## particular the most intelligent persons among them, advised the King to

abjure his faith and to join the national party. Henry pronounced his abjuration at Saint-Denis, and received absolution from the Bishops; the gates of Paris were thrown open to him, and his authority was acknowledged by the whole kingdom. He now frankly espoused the national party. Almost all the public posts were occupied by the Leaguers. The Protestants, those who had constantly served the King, and to whom he was indebted for his victories, frequently raised complaints against him, and taxed him with ingratitude. Still, however, in spite of all the discretion that was observed, the nation continued long to mistrust the secret intentions of Henry. It was remarked that _what is bred in the bone will never be out of the flesh_.

CHAP. II.—The republic sanctioned by the will of the people, by religion, by victory, and by all the Powers of Europe.

Hugues Capet ascended the throne by the choice of the Parliament, consisting of Lords and Bishops, which two classes then constituted the nation. The French monarchy was never absolute; the intervention of the States General has always been necessary for sanctioning the principal acts of the Legislature, and for levying new taxes. Subsequently, the French Parliaments, under the pretence of being States General on a small scale, and seconded by the Court, usurped the rights of the nation. In 1788, the Parliaments were the first to acknowledge them. Louis XVI. convoked the States General in 1789, and the nation exercised a portion of the sovereignty. The Constituent Assembly framed a new constitution for the state, which was sanctioned by the approval of the whole French people, and which Louis XVI. accepted and swore to maintain. The Legislative Assembly suspended the King. The convention, which consisted of the deputies of all the primary assemblies in the Kingdom, and which was invested with special powers, proclaimed the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of the Republic. The adherents of the royal party fled from France, and solicited the aid of foreign arms. Austria and Prussia signed the convention of Pilnitz; and Austrian and Prussian armies, joined by the French royalist forces, commenced the war of the first coalition to subdue the French people. The whole nation took up arms; and the Austrians and Prussians were conquered. The second coalition was afterwards formed by Austria, England, and Russia; but this was destroyed like the first, and all the Powers in Europe acknowledged the French Republic.

1st.—The Republic of Genoa, by an extraordinary embassy, on the 15th of June, 1792.

2d.—The Porte, by a declaration, on the 27th of March, 1793.

3d.—Tuscany, by the treaty of the 9th of February, 1795.

4th.—Holland, by the treaty of 16th of May, 1795.

5th.—The Venetian Republic, by an extraordinary embassy, on the 30th of December, 1795.

6th.—The King of Prussia, by the treaty signed at Bâle, on the 5th of April, 1795.

7th.—The King of Spain, by the treaty signed at Bâle, on the 22nd of July, 1795.

8th.—Hesse-Cassel, by the treaty of the 28th of July, 1795.

9th.—Switzerland, by the treaty of the 19th of August, 1795.

10th.—Denmark, by a declaration, on the 18th of August, 1795.

11th.—Sweden, by an embassy, on the 23rd of April, 1795.

12th.—Sardinia, by the treaty of Paris, on the 28th of April, 1796.

13th.—America, by an extraordinary embassy, on the 30th of December, 1796.

14th.—Naples, by the treaty of the 10th of October, 1796.

15th.—Parma, by the treaty of the 5th of November, 1796.

16th.—Wurtemburgh, by the treaty of the 7th of August, 1796.

17th.—Baden, by the treaty of the 22d of August, 1796.

18th.—Bavaria, by the treaty of the 24th of July, 1797.

19th.—Portugal, by the treaty of the 19th of August, 1797.

20th.—The Pope, by the treaty signed at Tolentino on the 19th of February, 1797.

21st.—The Emperor of Germany, by the treaty of Campo-Formio, on the 7th of October, 1797.

22d.—The Emperor of Russia, by a treaty signed on the 8th of October, 1801.

23d.—The King of England, by the treaty signed at Amiens on the 27th of March 1802.

“The government of the Republic sent ambassadors to all the Powers of Europe, and received envoys from those powers in return. The tri-coloured flag was acknowledged in every sea, and throughout the world. At Tolentino, the Pope had treated with the Republic as a temporal sovereign; but he acknowledged and treated with it as head of the Catholic religion, by the Concordat which was signed at Paris on the 18th of April, 1802. Most of the Bishops, who had followed the Royalist party abroad, now submitted to the Republican government, and those who refused forfeited their sees. In short, the French Republic, which was sanctioned by the citizens, and victorious by its armies, was acknowledged by every sovereign, every power, and every religion, in the world, and in particular by the Catholic Church.

“Not only was the Republic acknowledged by all the powers in the world, after the death of Louis XVI., but none of these powers ever acknowledged a successor to him. In the year 1800, therefore, the third dynasty was ended as completely as the first and second. The rights and titles of the Merovingians were extinguished by the rights and titles of the Carlovingians; the rights and titles of the Carlovingians were extinguished by the rights and titles of the Capetians; and the rights of the Capetians were, in like manner, extinguished by the Republic. Every legitimate government supersedes the rights and the legitimacy of the governments that have preceded it. The Republic was a government, in fact and in right, rendered legitimate by the will of the nation, sanctioned by the Church, and by the adhesion of all the world.

CHAP. III.—The Revolution rendered France a new nation:—it emancipated the Gauls from the tyranny of the Franks: it created new interests, and a new order of things conformable with the welfare and rights of the people, and the justice and knowledge of the age.

“The French Revolution was not produced by the jarring interests of two families disputing the possession of the throne; it was a general rising of the mass of the nation against the privileged classes. The French nobility, like that of every country in Europe, dates its origin from the incursion of the barbarians, who divided the Roman Empire among them. In France, nobles represented the Franks, and the Burgundians, and the rest of the nation, the Gauls. The feudal system which was introduced established the principle that all land should have a lord. All political privileges were exercised by the Priests and the Nobles; the peasants were slaves, and in part attached to the glebe. The progress of civilization and knowledge emancipated the people. This new state of things promoted industry and trade. The chief portion of the land, wealth, and information, belonged to the people in the eighteenth century. The nobles, however, still continued to be a privileged class: they were empowered to administer justice, and they possessed feudal rights under various denominations and forms: they enjoyed the privilege of being exempt from all the burdens of the state, and of possessing exclusively the most honourable posts. These abuses roused the indignation of the citizens. The principal object of the Revolution was to destroy all privileges; to abolish signorial jurisdictions, justice being an inseparable attribute of sovereign authority; to suppress feudal rights, as being a remnant of the old slavery of the people; to subject alike all citizens and all property, to the burdens of the state. In short, the Revolution proclaimed equality of rights. A citizen might attain any public employment, according to his talent and the chances of fortune. The kingdom was composed of provinces which had been united to the Crown at various periods: they had no natural limits, and were differently divided, unequal in extent and in population. They possessed many laws of their own, civil as well as criminal: they were more or less privileged, and very unequally taxed, both with respect to the amount and the nature of the contributions, which rendered it necessary to detach them from each other by lines of custom-houses. France was not a state, but a combination of several states, connected together without amalgamation. The whole had been determined by chance and by the events of past ages. The Revolution, guided by the principle of equality, both with respect to the citizens and the different portions of the territory, destroyed all these small nations: there was no longer a Brittany, a Normandy, a Burgundy, a Champagne, a Provence, or a Lorraine; but the whole formed a France. A division of homogeneous territory, prescribed by local circumstances, confounded the limits of all the provinces. They possessed the same judicial and administrative organization, the same civil and criminal laws, and the same system of taxation. The dreams of the upright men of all ages were realized. The opposition which the Court, the Clergy, and the Nobility, raised against the Revolution and the war with foreign powers, produced the law of emigration and the sequestration of emigrant property, which subsequently it was found necessary to sell, in order to provide for the charges of the war. A great portion of the French nobility enrolled themselves under the banner of the princes of the Bourbon family, and formed an army which marched in conjunction with the Austrian, Prussian, and English forces. Gentlemen who had been brought up in the enjoyment of competency served as private soldiers: numbers were cut off by fatigue and the sword; others perished of want in foreign countries; and the wars of La Vendée and of the Chouans, and the revolutionary tribunals, swept away thousands. Three-fourths of the French nobility were thus destroyed; and all posts, civil, judicial, or military, were filled by citizens who had risen from the common mass of the people. The change produced in persons and property by the events of the Revolution, was not less remarkable than that which was effected by the principles of the Revolution. A new church was created; the dioceses of Vienne, Narbonne, Frejus, Sisteron, Rheims, &c., were superseded by sixty new dioceses, the boundaries of which were circumscribed, in the Concordat, by new Bulls applicable to the present state of the French territory. The suppression of religious orders, the sale of convents and of all ecclesiastical property, were sanctioned, and the clergy were pensioned by the State. Every thing that was the result of the events which had occurred since the time of Clovis, ceased to exist. All these changes were so advantageous to the people that they were effected with the utmost facility, and, in 1800, there no longer remained any recollection of the old privileges and sovereigns of the provinces, the old parliaments and bailiwicks, or the old dioceses; and to trace back the origin of all that existed, it was sufficient to refer to the new law by which it had been established. One-half of the land had changed its proprietors; the peasantry and the citizens were enriched. The advancement of agriculture and manufactures exceeded the most sanguine hopes. France presented the imposing spectacle of upwards of thirty millions of inhabitants, circumscribed within their natural limits, and composing only a single class of citizens, governed by one law, one rule, and one order. All these changes were conformable with the welfare and rights of the nation, and with the justice and intelligence of the age.

CHAP. IV.—The French people establish the Imperial throne, to consolidate the new interests of the nation. The fourth dynasty did not immediately succeed the third; it succeeded the Republic. Napoleon is crowned by the Pope, and acknowledged by the Powers of Europe. He creates kings, and the armies of all the Continental Powers march under his command.

The five members of the Directory were divided. Enemies to the Republic crept into the councils; and thus men, hostile to the rights of the people, became connected with the government. This state of things kept the country in a ferment; and the great interests which the French people had acquired by the Revolution were incessantly compromised. One unanimous voice, issuing from the plains of France and from her cities and her camps, demanded the preservation of all the principles of the Republic, or the establishment of an hereditary system of government, which would place the principles and interests of the Revolution beyond the reach of factions and the influence of foreigners. By the constitution of the year VIII. the First Consul of the Republic became Consul for ten years, and the nation afterwards prolonged his magistracy for life: the people subsequently raised him to the throne, which it rendered hereditary in his family. The principles of the sovereignty of the people, of liberty and equality, of the destruction of the feudal system, of the irrevocability of the sale of national domains, and the freedom of religious worship, were now established. The government of France, under the fourth dynasty, was founded on the same principles as the Republic. It was a moderate and constitutional monarchy. There was as much difference between the government of France under the fourth dynasty and the third, as between the latter and the Republic. The fourth dynasty succeeded the Republic, or, more properly speaking, it was merely a modification of it.

No Prince ever ascended a throne with rights more legitimate than those of Napoleon. The crown was not presented to him by a few Bishops and Nobles; but he was raised to the Imperial throne by the unanimous consent of the citizens, three times solemnly confirmed. Pope Pius VII. the head of the Catholic religion, the religion of the majority of the French people, crossed the Alps to anoint the Emperor with his own hands, in the presence of the Bishops of France, the Cardinals of the Romish Church, and the Deputies from all the districts of the Empire. The sovereigns of Europe eagerly acknowledged Napoleon: all beheld with pleasure the modification of the Republic, which placed France on a footing of harmony with the rest of Europe, and which at once confirmed the constitution and the happiness of that great nation. Ambassadors from Austria, Russia, Prussia, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, and America, in fine, from all the powers of Europe, came to congratulate the Emperor. England alone sent no ambassador: she had violated the treaty of Amiens, and had consequently again declared war against France; but even England approved the change. Lord Whitworth, in the secret negotiations which took place through the medium of Count Malouet, and which preceded the rupture of the peace of Amiens, proposed, on the part of the English government, to acknowledge Napoleon as King of France, on condition of his agreeing to the cession of Malta. The First Consul replied that, if ever the welfare of France required that he should ascend the throne, it would only be by the free and spontaneous will of the French people. In 1806, when Lord Lauderdale came to Paris to negotiate peace between the King of England and the Emperor, he exchanged his powers, as is proved by the protocol of the negotiations, and he treated with the Emperor’s plenipotentiary. The death of Fox broke up the negotiations of Lord Lauderdale. The English Minister had it in his power to obviate the Prussian campaign,[22] to prevent the battle of Jena. When, in 1814, the Allies presented an _ultimatum_ at Chaumont, Lord Castlereagh, in signing this _ultimatum_, again acknowledged the existence of the Empire in the person and the family of Napoleon. If the latter did not accept the propositions of the Congress of Chatillon, it was because he did not conceive himself at liberty to cede a portion of the Empire, the integrity of which he had, at his coronation, sworn to maintain.

The Electors of Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and Saxony, were created Kings by Napoleon.

The armies of Saxony, Bavaria, Wurtemberg, Baden, and Hesse, fought in conjunction with the French armies; and the Russian and French troops fought together in 1809, in the war against Austria. In 1812, the Emperor of Austria concluded at Paris an alliance with Napoleon, and Prince Schwartzenburg commanded, under his orders, the Austrian contingent in the Russian campaign, in which he attained the rank of Field Marshal, on the application of the French Emperor. A similar treaty of alliance was concluded at Berlin, and the Prussian army also fought with the French in the campaign in Russia.

Footnote 22:

While Lord Lauderdale was in Paris, and negotiating with the Emperor’s plenipotentiaries, Prussia took up arms and assumed a hostile attitude. Lord Lauderdale seemed to disapprove of this conduct, and to consider the contest very unequal. Being informed that Napoleon intended to march at the head of the army, he enquired whether the Emperor would consent to defer his departure, and to enter into arrangements with Prussia, if England would accept the basis of the negotiations, that is to say, the _uti possidetis_ on both sides, including Hanover. The discussion was maintained on the subject of Hanover, which England wished to recover independently of this basis. By the reply of the Cabinet of St. James’s, Lord Lauderdale was recalled. The Emperor set out, and the battle of Jena took place: Fox was then dead.

We were, at this period, eye-witnesses to the regret and repugnance which Napoleon evinced at the necessity of going to war with Prussia. He was disposed to leave Hanover in the possession of that power, and to recognise a Confederation of the North of Germany. He felt that Prussia, having never been beaten or humbled by France, and her power being still unimpaired, she could have no interests hostile to his; but that, if once she were subdued, she must be destroyed.

The Emperor healed the wounds which the Revolution had inflicted: the emigrants returned, and the list of proscription was obliterated. Napoleon enjoyed the glory most gratifying to a monarch, by recalling and re-establishing in their homes upwards of 20,000 families: their unsold property was restored to them; and, the veil of oblivion being thrown over the past, persons of every class, whatever line of conduct they might previously have pursued, were admitted to all public employments. Families who had distinguished themselves by the services they had rendered to the Bourbons, those who had shewn themselves most devoted to the Royal Family, filled places about the Court, and in the ministry, and held commissions in the army. All party denominations were forgotten: aristocrats and Jacobins were no longer spoken of; and the institution of the Legion of Honour, which was at once the reward of military, civil, and judicial services, placed on a footing of unity the soldier, the man of science, the artist, the prelate, and the magistrate; it became the badge of concord among all classes and all

## parties.

CHAP. V.—The blood of the Imperial dynasty mingled with that of all the monarchical Houses in Europe; with those of Russia, Prussia, England, and Austria.

The Imperial House of France contracted alliances with all the sovereign families of Europe. Prince Eugéne Napoleon, the adopted son of the Emperor, married the eldest daughter of the King of Bavaria, a princess distinguished for her beauty and her virtues. This alliance, which was contracted at Munich on the 14th of January, 1806, afforded the highest satisfaction to the Bavarian nation. The Hereditary Prince of Baden, the brother-in-law of the Emperor of Russia, solicited the hand of Princess Stephanie, the adopted daughter of the Emperor Napoleon: this marriage was celebrated at Paris on the 7th of April, 1806. On the 22d of August, 1807, Prince Jerome Napoleon married the eldest daughter of the King of Wurtemburg, cousin-german of the Emperor of Russia, the King of England, and the King of Prussia. Other alliances of this nature were contracted with sovereign princes of Germany, of the House of Hohenzollern. These marriages have proved happy, and all have given birth to princes and princesses, who will transmit to future generations the recollection of the Imperial government of France.

“When the interests of France and the Empire induced the Emperor and the Empress Josephine to break bonds which were equally dear to them both, the greatest sovereigns in Europe courted the Alliance of Napoleon. Had it not been for religious scruples, and the delays occasioned by distance, it is probable that a Russian princess would have occupied the throne of France. The Archduchess Maria Louisa, who was married to the Emperor by procuration granted to Prince Charles, at Vienna, on the 11th of March, 1810, and at Paris on the 2d of April following, ascended the throne of France. As soon as the Emperor of Austria learned that Napoleon’s marriage was in agitation, he expressed his surprise that an alliance with the House of Austria had not been thought of. The choice was hitherto divided between a Russian and a Saxon princess: Francis explained his sentiments on this subject to the Count de Narbonne, the Governor of Trieste, who was then at Vienna; and, in consequence, instructions were forwarded to the Prince of Schwartzenberg, the Austrian ambassador at Paris. In February, 1810, a Privy Council was convoked at the Tuileries: the Minister for Foreign Affairs submitted to the Council the despatches of the Duke of Vicenza, the French ambassador at the Court of Russia. These communications shewed that the Emperor Alexander was very much disposed to give his sister, the Grand-duchess Anne, in marriage to Napoleon; but he seemed to make it a point of importance that the Princess should be allowed the public exercise of her religious worship, and a chapel appropriated to the Greek rites. The despatches from Vienna developed the insinuations and the wishes of the Austrian Court. There was a division of opinions in the French Council: the Russian, the Saxon, and the Austrian alliance, all found supporters; but the majority voted for the choice of an Archduchess of Austria. As Prince Eugéne had been the first to propose the Austrian alliance, the Emperor, breaking up the sitting at two in the morning, authorized him to make overtures with Prince Schwartzenberg. He at the same time authorized the Minister for Foreign Affairs to sign, in the course of the day, the contract of marriage with the Austrian ambassador; and, to obviate all difficulties with respect to the details, he directed him to sign, word for word, the same contract as that which had been drawn up for the marriage of Louis XVI. and the Archduchess Marie-Antoinette. In the morning, Prince Eugéne had an interview with Prince Schwartzenberg: the contract was signed the same day, and the courier who conveyed the intelligence to Austria agreeably surprised the Emperor Francis. The peculiar circumstances attending the signature of this marriage contract led the Emperor Alexander to suspect that he had been trifled with, and that the Court of the Tuileries had been conducting two negotiations at once. But this was a mistake: the negotiation with Vienna was begun and concluded in one day.[23]

Footnote 23:

A report was pretty generally circulated that the marriage of the Archduchess Maria-Louisa with the Emperor Napoleon was a secret article of the treaty of Vienna: this idea is void of foundation. The treaty of Vienna is dated Oct. 15, 1809, and the marriage contract was signed at Paris on the 7th of Feb. 1810.

Every individual who was present at the deliberations of the Privy Council can attest that the circumstances of the marriage were such as they have been above described; that no idea of the Austrian alliance was entertained before the contents of the Count de Narbonne’s despatches were made known; and that the marriage with the Archduchess Maria-Louisa was proposed, discussed, and determined on in the Council, and signed within the space of twenty-four hours.

The members of the Council were—the Emperor, the great Dignitaries of the Empire, the high Officers of the Crown, all the Ministers, the Presidents of the Senate and the Legislative Body, and the Ministers of State, Presidents of the sections of the Council of State; amounting, in all, to 25.

“Never did the birth of any Prince excite so much enthusiasm in a people, or produce so powerful a sensation throughout Europe, as the birth of the King of Rome. On the firing of the first gun, which announced the delivery of the Empress, the whole population of Paris was in the most anxious suspense. In the streets, the promenades, at the places of public amusement, and in the interior of the houses, all were eagerly intent on counting the number of guns. The twenty-second excited universal transport: it had been usual to discharge twenty-one guns on the birth of a Princess, and a hundred and one on the birth of a Prince. All the European Powers deputed the most distinguished noblemen of their Courts to present their congratulations to the Emperor. The Emperor of Russia sent his Minister of the Interior; and the Emperor of Austria despatched Count Clary, one of his highest officers of the crown, who brought, as presents to the young King, the collars of all the Orders of the Austrian Monarchy set with diamonds. The baptism of the King of Rome was celebrated with the utmost pomp, in the presence of the French bishops, and deputies from all parts of the Empire. The Emperor of Austria was sponsor to the young king by proxy; he was represented by his brother, the Archduke Ferdinand, Grand-Duke of Tuscany.

CHAP. VI.—Containing some account of the campaign of Saxony,[24] and shewing that the league of 1813 was in its object foreign to the Restoration.

Footnote 24:

I did not choose to suppress this summary of the campaign in Saxony, although the same subject has already been particularly treated of at the commencement of this volume. If, however, some readers should consider it merely a repetition, others will find in it the means of comparing and verifying what has been before stated: one of the accounts is drawn up from documents published in Europe, whilst the other was dictated at St. Helena by Napoleon himself.

“The victories of Lützen and Würtzen, on the 2nd and 22nd of May, 1813, had re-established the reputation of the French arms. The King of Saxony was brought back in triumph to his capital; the enemy was driven from Hamburg; one of the corps of the grand army was at the gates of Berlin, and the imperial head-quarters were established at Breslau. The Russian and Prussian armies, disheartened by their defeats, had no alternative but to repass the Vistula, when Austria interfered and advised France to sign an armistice. Napoleon returned to Dresden, the Emperor of Austria quitted Vienna and repaired to Bohemia, and the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia established themselves at Schweidnitz. Communications took place between the different Powers. Count Metternich proposed the Congress of Prague, which was agreed on; but it was merely the shadow of a Congress. The Court of Vienna had already entered into engagements with Russia and Prussia, and intended to declare itself in the month of May, when the unexpected success of the French army rendered greater circumspection necessary. Notwithstanding all the efforts which Austria had exerted, her army was still inconsiderable in number, badly organized, and ill prepared to enter upon a campaign. Count Metternich demanded, on the part of Austria, the surrender of the Illyrian Provinces, one half of the kingdom of Italy, (that is to say, Venice, as far as the Mincio,) and Poland. It was moreover required that Napoleon should renounce the Protectorate of Germany, and the departments of the thirty-second military division. These extravagant propositions were advanced only that they might be rejected. The Duke of Vicenza proceeded to the Congress of Prague. The choice of Baron d’Anstetten, as the Russian plenipotentiary, shewed that Russia wished not for peace, but was merely anxious to afford Austria time to complete her military preparations. The unfavourable augury, occasioned by the selection of Baron d’Anstetten as a negotiator, was confirmed: he declined entering upon any conference. Austria, who pretended to act as mediatrix, declared, when her army was in readiness, that she adhered to the coalition, though she did not even require the opening of a single sitting, or the drawing up of a single protocol. This system of bad faith, and of perpetual contradictions between words and acts, was unremittingly pursued, at this period, by the Court of Vienna. The war was resumed. The brilliant victory gained by the Emperor at Dresden, on the 27th of August, 1813, over the army commanded by the three Sovereigns, was immediately followed by the disasters which Macdonald, through his ill-concerted manœuvres, brought upon himself in Silesia, and by the destruction of Vandamme’s force in Bohemia. However, the superiority was still on the side of the French army, which supported itself on three points, viz: Torgau, Wittenberg, and Magdeburg. Denmark had concluded a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, and her contingent augmented the army of Hamburg.

“In October, the Emperor quitted Dresden to proceed to Magdeburg, by the left bank of the Elbe, in order to deceive the enemy. His intention was to recross the Elbe at Wittenburg and to march on Berlin. Several corps of the army had already arrived at Wittenburg, and the enemy’s bridges at Dessau had been destroyed, when a letter from the King of Wurtemburg informed the Emperor that the King of Bavaria had suddenly gone over to the enemy; and that, without any declaration of war or any previous intimation, the Austrian and Bavarian forces, cantoned on the banks of the Inn, had formed themselves into one camp; that these forces, amounting to 80,000, under the orders of General Wrede, were marching on the Rhine; that he (the King of Wurtemberg), seeing the impossibility of his opposing this united force, had been obliged to add his contingent to it. The letter farther added that 100,000 men would soon surround Mentz, the Bavarians having made common cause with Austria. Upon receiving this unexpected intelligence, the Emperor found himself compelled to change the plan of the campaign which he had projected two months previously, and for which he had prepared the fortresses and magazines. This plan had for its object to drive the Allies between the Elbe and the Saale; and, under the protection of the fortresses and magazines of Torgau, Wittemberg, Magdeburg, and Hamburg, to establish the seat of war between the Elbe and the Oder (the French army being at that time in possession of the fortresses of Glogau, Cüstrin, and Stettin), and, according to circumstances, to raise the blockades of the fortresses of the Vistula, Dantzick, Thorn, and Modlin. It was anticipated that the success of this vast plan would have been the means of breaking up the coalition, and that, in consequence, all the German Princes would have been confirmed in their allegiance and their alliance with France. It was hoped that Bavaria would have delayed for a fortnight to change sides, and then it was certain that she would not have changed at all.

“The armies met on the plains of Leipsic, on the 16th of October. The French were victorious; the Austrians were beaten and driven from all their positions; and Count Meerfeld, who commanded one of the Austrian corps, was made prisoner. On the 18th, notwithstanding the check sustained by the Duke of Ragusa on the 16th, victory was still on the side of the French, when the whole of the Saxon army, with a battery of sixty guns, occupying one of the most important positions of the line, passed over to the enemy, and turned its artillery on the French ranks. Such unlooked-for treachery could not but cause the destruction of the French army, and transfer all the glory of the day to the Allies. The Emperor galloped forward with half his guard, repulsed the Swedes and Saxons, and drove them from their positions. This day (the 18th) was now ended: the enemy made a retrograde movement along the whole of his line, and bivouacked in the rear of the field of battle, which remained in the possession of the French. In the night, the French army made a movement, in order to take its position behind the Elster, and thus to be in direct communication with Erfurt, whence were expected the convoys of ammunition that were so much wanted. In the engagements of the 16th and 18th, the French army had fired more than 150,000 discharges of cannon. The treachery of several of the German corps of the Confederation, who were seduced by the example of the Saxons on the preceding day, and the destruction of the bridge of Leipsic, which was blown up by mistake, occasioned the French army, though victorious, to experience the losses which usually result from the most disastrous engagements. The French re-crossed the Saale by the bridge of Weissenfeld: they intended to rally their forces, and await the arrival of the ammunition from Erfurt, which had abundant supplies.

“Intelligence was now received of the Austro-Bavarian army, which, by forced marches, had reached the Maine. It was necessary therefore to repair thither, in order to come up with the Bavarians; and, on the 30th of October, the French fell in with them, drawn up in order of battle before Hanau and intercepting the Frankfort roads. The Bavarian force, though numerous, and occupying fine positions, was completely routed, and driven beyond Hanau, which was in the possession of Count Bertrand. General Wrede was wounded. The French forces continued their movement with the view of falling back behind the Rhine, and they re-crossed the river on the 2nd of November. A parley ensued: Baron de St. Aignan repaired to Frankfort, where he had conferences with Counts Metternich and Nesselrode and Lord Aberdeen, and he arrived at Paris with proposals for peace on the following bases:—That the Emperor Napoleon should renounce the Protectorship of the Confederation of the Rhine, Poland, and the departments of the Elbe; but that France should retain her boundaries of the Alps and the Rhine, together with the possession of Holland, and that a frontier line in Italy should be determined upon, for separating France from the States of the House of Austria. The Emperor agreed to these bases; but the Congress of Frankfort, like that of Prague, was merely a stratagem employed in the hope that France would reject the terms which were proposed. It was wished to have a new subject for a manifesto to operate on the public mind; for at the moment when these conciliatory propositions were made, the Allied army was violating the neutrality of the cantons, and entering Switzerland. However, the Allies at last developed their real intentions; they named Chatillon-sur-Seine, in Burgundy, as the seat of the Congress. The battles of Champ-Aubert, Montmirail, and Montereau, destroyed the armies of Blucher and Witgenstein. No negotiations took place at Chatillon; but the coalesced Powers presented an _ultimatum_, the conditions of which were as follows:

“1st, That France should surrender the whole of Italy, Belgium, Holland, and the departments of the Rhine; 2nd, that France should return to her limits as they existed previously to 1792. The Emperor rejected this _ultimatum_. He consented to sacrifice Holland and Italy to the circumstances in which France was then placed; but he refused to resign the limits of the Alps and the Rhine, or to surrender Belgium and

## particularly Antwerp. Treason secured the triumph of the Allies,

notwithstanding the victories of Arcis and St. Dizier. Hitherto the Allies had intimated no design of interfering in the internal affairs of France; this is proved by the _ultimatum_ of Chatillon, signed by England, Austria, Russia, and Prussia. At length, however, some of the returned emigrants, excited by the presence of the Austrian, Russian, and Prussian armies, in whose ranks they had long borne arms, imagined that the moment had arrived in which their dreams were to be realized: some mounted the white cockade, and others displayed the cross of St. Louis. This conduct was disapproved by the Allied Sovereigns; and it was even censured by Wellington at Bourdeaux, though in reality he secretly favoured all who endeavoured to raise the ensigns of the House of Bourbon. In the transactions which detached Prussia from her alliance with France, and bound her to Russia by the treaty of Kalisch; in the treaty which united Austria with the coalition; in the diplomatic proceedings, public and private, which took place down to the treaty of Chatillon; and even in that concluded in France, in 1814, the Allies never made any reference to the Bourbons.”

The VIIth, VIIIth, and IXth Chapters shew that the Bourbons after their return ought to have commenced a fifth dynasty, and not to have endeavoured to continue the third. The first course would have rendered all easy, the second has involved every thing in difficulty.

The Xth Chapter closes with a passage of a few lines which forcibly describe the magical effect of the Emperor’s return on the 20th of March. These last chapters contain the most nervous and energetic writing, but the applications are direct, and indeed often personal. I have suppressed the details, because I wish not to afford any ground for my being accused of bringing forward a hostile statement. Time, which modifies all things, will render this work merely an historical document, which is the only light in which I wish it to be considered here, as well, indeed, as all works of a similar nature that I may think it necessary to quote. I have written in France and other countries, under different laws and circumstances, and I have always found the liberty of the press existing for me.

I hope to experience its influence on the present occasion, although my subject is one of a most delicate nature. I now look forward to the speedy termination of my voyage; the port is within sight, and I hope to reach it safely, in spite of all the shoals I may encounter.

MY DOMESTIC AFFAIRS.—THE EMPEROR’S VIEWS IN HIS MUNIFICENCE.

9th—10th. The Emperor passed a bad night. He desired me to be called early in the morning. When I went to him, he told me that he was half dead, that he had had no rest, and was feverish. He has continued very ill for these two days, and has reclined almost constantly on his couch, which in the evenings is drawn near the fire. He has been unable to eat, and has drunk nothing but warm lemonade. I have been in continual attendance on him during these two days; he has enjoyed a little sleep at intervals, and the rest of the time he has spent in conversing with me upon various subjects. He spoke of the expense of giving parties in Paris; and, passing from that subject to my domestic affairs, he expressed a wish that I should make him acquainted with the minutest details on that point.

I told him that my income had amounted only to 20,000 francs a year, 15,000 of which were derived from my own property, and 5000 from my salary as a Councillor of State. On hearing this he exclaimed: “You must have been mad! How could you venture to approach the Tuileries with so straitened an income? The expenses of attending the Court were enormous!”—“Sire,” I replied, “I contrived to keep up my dignity as well as the rest: and yet I never solicited any thing from your Majesty.” The Emperor observed, “I do not say you did; but you must have been ruined in less than four or five years.”—“No, Sire,” I rejoined, “I had been an emigrant during the greater part of my life; I had lived amidst privations, and, with a few exceptions, I still subjected myself to them. It is true that, in spite of all my economy, I ran through 7 or 8000 francs of my capital every year. But I calculated thus: it was well known that every person about you must, by dint of zeal and attention to their duties, sooner or later, attract your notice, and that he who once gained your favour might consider his fortune made. I had still four or five years left to try this chance; at the expiration of which, if fortune did not smile on me, I was determined to renounce the illusions of the world, and to retire from the capital with an income of ten or twelve thousand livres; poor enough, to be sure, but, nevertheless, richer than ever I had been in Paris.”—“Well,” said the Emperor, “your scheme was not a bad one, and the moment had just arrived when you would have been indemnified for all your losses. I was just about to do something for you, and it was wholly your own fault that you did not make a more rapid and brilliant fortune. I believe I have told you before that you did not know how to avail yourself of favourable opportunities for securing your own advancement.”

This conversation led us to speak of the enormous sums which the Emperor had lavished on the persons about him, and, gradually becoming animated, he said:—“It would be difficult to estimate all that I bestowed in this way. I might, on more than one occasion, have been accused of profusion, and I am grieved to see that it has been of little use in any respect. There must certainly have been some fatality on my part, or some essential fault in the persons whom I favoured. What a difficulty was I placed in! It cannot be believed that my extravagance was caused by personal vanity. To act the part of an Asiatic monarch was not a thing to my taste. I was not actuated either by vanity or caprice; every thing was with me a matter of calculation. Though certain persons might be favourites with me, yet I did not lavish my bounty on them merely because I liked them: I wished to found, through them, great families, who might form rallying-points in great national crises. The great Officers of my Household, as well as all my Ministers, independently of their enormous salaries, often received from me handsome gratuities,—sometimes complete services of plate, &c. What was my object in this profuseness? I required that they should maintain elegant establishments, give grand dinners and brilliant balls!—And why did I wish this? In order to amalgamate parties, to form new unions, to smooth down old asperities, and to give a character to French society and manners. If I conceived good ideas, they miscarried in the execution: for instance, none of my chief Courtiers ever kept up a suitable establishment. If they gave dinners, they invited only their party friends; and when I attended their expensive balls, whom did I find there? All the Court of the Tuileries: not a new face; not one of those who were offended at the new system—those sullen malcontents, whom a little honey would have brought back to the hive. They could not enter into my views, or did not wish to do so. In vain I expressed displeasure, intreated, and commanded: things still went on in the same way. I could not be every-where at once, and they knew that;—and yet it was affirmed that I ruled with a rod of iron. How, then, must things go under gentle sovereigns?”

REMOVAL OF THE EMPEROR’S BED.—ANECDOTE OF A GASCON SOLDIER.—THE GUARDS OF THE EAGLE.

11th.—The Emperor continued unwell. I found him very low-spirited. He had ordered the situation of his bed to be changed—that bed, so long the constant companion of his victories, was now a couch of sickness. He complained that it was too small for him, that he could hardly turn himself in it; but his chamber would not have afforded room for a longer one. He ordered the camp-bed to be carried into his cabinet, and placed beside a couch; so that the two combined formed a bed of tolerable size. To what an extremity is he reduced! The Emperor stretched himself on his sofa, and entered into conversation, which revived him a little. Speaking of his accession to the Consulship, and of the dreadful disorders which he found existing in all the branches of the public service, he said that he had been compelled to adopt numerous measures of reform, which caused a great outcry, but which had not a little contributed to strengthen the bonds of society. These measures extended to the army, among the officers, and even among the generals, who, he said, had become such, Heaven knows how. Here I took the liberty to relate an anecdote which had at one time afforded great amusement to the circle in which I moved. One of my friends, (who was as dissatisfied with the then existing government as I was myself,) travelling in one of the small Versailles diligences with a soldier of the guard, maliciously excited him to express his opinions. The man complained that every thing went wrong, because it was required that a soldier should know how to read and write before he could be advanced from the ranks. “So you see,” he exclaimed, “the _tic has returned again_.”[25] This phrase pleased us, and was often repeated among us. “Well,” observed the Emperor, “what would your soldier have said when I created the Guards of the Eagle? That measure would, doubtless, have re-established me in his good opinion. I appointed two sub-officers to be the special guards of the Eagle in every regiment, one of whom was placed on either side of the standard; and, lest their ardour in the midst of the conflict might cause them to lose sight of the only object which they ought to have in view, namely, the preservation of the Eagle, they were prohibited from using the sabre or the sword: their only arms were a few braces of pistols; their only duty was coolly to blow out the brains of the enemy who might attempt to lay hands on the Eagle. But, before a man could obtain this post, he was required to prove that he could neither read nor write, and of course you guess the reason why.” “No, Sire.” “Why, simpleton! Every man who has received education is sure to rise in the army, but the soldier who has not these advantages, never attains advancement except by dint of courage and extraordinary circumstances.”

Footnote 25:

TIC is the French term for any bad habit.

As I was in the humour for gossiping, I related another anecdote, which had also produced merriment in the saloons of Paris. It was said that, a regiment having lost its Eagle, Napoleon harangued the men on the subject, and expressed great indignation at the dishonour they had brought upon themselves by suffering their Eagle to be taken. “But we tricked the enemy,” exclaimed a Gascon soldier, “they have only got the staff, for here is the _cuckoo_ in my pocket;” and he produced the Eagle. The Emperor laughed and said, “Well, I could not venture to affirm that this circumstance, or something very like it, did not actually take place. My soldiers were very much at their ease and made very free with me; often addressing me familiarly by the pronoun _thou_.”

I mentioned having heard that on the eve of the battle of Jena, or some other great engagement, as Napoleon was passing a particular station, accompanied by a very small escort, a soldier refused to let him pass, and, growing angry when the Emperor insisted on advancing, swore that he should not pass even though he were the _Little Corporal_ himself. When the soldier ascertained that it was really the Little Corporal, he was not at all disconcerted. The Emperor observed, “That was because he felt the conviction of having done his duty; and indeed the fact is that I passed for a terrible tyrant in the saloons, and even among the officers of the army, but not among the soldiers: they possessed the instinct of truth and sympathy, they knew me to be their protector, and, in case of need, their avenger.”

THE EMPEROR CONTINUES UNWELL.—HORRIBLE PROVISIONS, EXECRABLE WINE, &C.

12th.—To-day the Emperor, although no better than he had been for some days past, determined, as he said, to nurse himself no longer. He dressed and repaired to the drawing-room, where he dictated, for two or three hours, to one of his suite. He had eaten nothing for three days: he had not yet been relieved by the crisis which he expected, and which is usually produced by the singular regimen which he prescribes for himself. He continued drinking warm lemonade. This circumstance led him to inquire how long a person might live without eating, and how far drink might supply the place of solid food. He sent for the _Encyclopedia Britannica_, in which he met with some very curious facts: for instance, he found that a woman had existed for fifty days without solid food, and drinking only twice. Another instance was mentioned of a person who had lived twenty days upon water alone.

Somebody observed, in reference to this subject, that Charles XII., out of pure contradiction to the opinions of those around him, had abstained from eating for the space of five or six days, at the expiration of which, however, he devoured a turkey and a leg of mutton, at the hazard of bursting. Napoleon laughed at this anecdote, and assured us that he felt no wish to run to such extremes, however attractive the model might be in other respects.

The Emperor played a game at piquet with Madame de Montholon. The Grand Marshal having entered, he left off playing, and asked him how he thought he looked. Bertrand replied, “Only rather sallow;” which was indeed the case. The Emperor rose good-humouredly, and pursued Bertrand into the saloon, in order to catch him by the ear, exclaiming, “Rather sallow, indeed! Do you intend to insult me. Grand Marshal? Do you mean to say that I am bilious, morose, atrabilarious, passionate, unjust, tyrannical! Let me catch hold of your ear, and I will take my revenge.”

The dinner-hour arrived, and the Emperor for some time was undecided whether he would sit down to table with us, or dine alone in his own room. He decided upon the latter plan, lest, as he said, he should be tempted to imitate Charles XII. if he sat at the great table: but he would have found it difficult to do that. He returned while we were at dinner, and, from the scanty way in which our table was served, he said he really pitied us, for in fact we had scarcely any thing to eat. This circumstance induced the Emperor to resort to a painful extremity: he instantly gave orders that a portion of his plate should be sold every month, to supply what was necessary for our table. The worst thing connected with our wretched dinner was the wine, which had for some days been execrable, and had made us all unwell. We were obliged to send for some to the camp, in the hope that that which had been furnished to us would be changed, as we could not drink it.

In the course of a conversation which took place respecting the wine, the Emperor stated that he had received a great number of instructions and directions from chemists and physicians, all of whom had concurred in declaring that wine and coffee were the two things respecting which it was most necessary he should be on his guard. Every professional man had cautioned him to reject both wine and coffee if he found any unpleasant flavour in them. Wine, in particular, he was advised to abstain from, if he found any thing _uncommon_ in the taste of it. He had always been in the habit of getting his wine from Chambertin, and had therefore, seldom occasion to find fault with it; but the case is different now, if he had refused wine whenever he found any thing _uncommon_ in it, he must have abstained from it for a considerable time past.

CRITICISM ON PRINCE LUCIEN’S POEM OF CHARLEMAGNE.—HOMER.

13th.—The weather is very bad; and it has continued so for three weeks or a month. The Emperor sent for me before one o’clock: he was in his saloon; our Amphitryon had paid me a visit, and I took him to the Emperor, who spoke to him on matters of a private and personal nature.

Napoleon is much altered in his looks.—To-day he wished to set to work. I sent for my son, and he went over the chapters relating to the Pope and Tagliamento. He continued thus employed until five o’clock. He was very low-spirited, and appeared to be suffering much; he retired, saying he would try to eat a little.

Two ships came within sight, one was supposed to be the Eurydice, which was every moment expected to arrive from Europe, having touched at the Cape: they proved to be, however, one of the Company’s ships and another vessel that was accidentally passing the island.

The Emperor came to us while we were at dinner; he said he had eaten enough for four persons, and that this had quite restored him.

He wanted something to read, and looked over his brother Lucien’s poem of Charlemagne. He analysed the first canto, and afterwards glanced over a few others: he then examined the subject and the plan of the work, &c. “How much labour, ingenuity and time,” he observed, “have been thrown away upon this book! what a wreck of judgment and taste! Here are twenty thousand verses, some of which may be good, for aught I know; but they are destitute of interest, design, or effect. It might have been regarded as a compulsory task, had it been written by a professed author. Why did not Lucien, with all his good sense, consider that Voltaire, master as he was of the French language and the art of poetry, failed in a similar attempt, though that attempt was made in Paris, in the midst of the sanctuary! How could Lucien suppose it possible to write a French poem, when living at a distance from the French capital? How could he pretend to introduce a new metre? He has written a history in verse, and not an epic poem. An epic poem should not be the history of a man, but of a passion or an event. And, then, what a subject has Lucien chosen! What barbarous names has he introduced! Does he think he has succeeded in raising the religion which he conceived to be fallen? Is his poem intended as a work of re-action? It certainly bears the stamp of the soil on which it was written: it is full of prayers, priests, the temporal authority of the Popes, &c. How could he think of devoting twenty thousand lines to absurdities which do not belong to the present age, to prejudices which he could not enter into, and opinions which he could not entertain! What a misapplication of talent! He might undoubtedly have produced something more creditable to himself; for he possesses judgment, facility, and industry. He was in Rome amidst the richest materials, and with the means of satisfying the deepest research. He understands the Italian language: and, as we have no good history of Italy, he might have written one. His talents, his situation, his knowledge of affairs, his rank, might have enabled him to produce an excellent classic work. It would have been a valuable acquisition to the literary world, and would have conferred honour on its author. But what is Charlemagne? What reputation will it gain? It will be buried in the dust of libraries, and its author will obtain at most a few scanty and perhaps ridiculous notices in biographical dictionaries. If Lucien could not resist the temptation of scribbling verses, he should have prepared a splendid manuscript, embellished with elegant designs and superb binding, with which he might now and then have gratified the eyes of the ladies, occasionally allowing a few quotations from it to creep into publicity; and finally he should have left it to his heirs, with a severe prohibition against committing it to the press. One might then have been able to understand his taste.”

He laid the work aside, and said: “Let us turn to the Iliad.” My son went to fetch it, and the Emperor read a few cantos, stopping at various passages, in order, as he said, to admire them at his ease. His observations were copious and remarkable. He was so deeply interested in what he read, that it was half-past twelve before he retired to rest.

SCARCITY OF PROVISIONS.—RIDICULOUS ALLOWANCE OF WINE.—NAPOLEON’S RETURN FROM ELBA.

14th.—The terrible state of the weather still continued, and confined us to our miserable huts. We are all indisposed.

The Emperor dictated during part of the day, and he felt himself much better.

At dinner we had literally scarcely any thing to eat. The Governor continued his successive reductions. The Emperor ordered some additional provisions to be purchased and paid for out of the produce of the sale of his plate.

The Governor intimated that the allowance of wine should continue fixed at one bottle for each person, the Emperor included. Will it be credited? _One bottle for a mother and her children!_ these were the words used in the note.

The Emperor retired to his own apartment, and sent for me to attend him. “I am not inclined to sleep,” said he, “and I sent for you to help me to keep my vigil; let us have a little chat together.” The turn of the conversation led us to speak of the Island of Elba, of the Emperor’s occupations, sensations, and opinions while he continued there; finally, his return to France, and the brilliant success which attended him, and which, he said, he never for a moment doubted. Many observations were repeated, which I have already noted down at different times. At one moment he said: “They may explain this as they will: but I assure you, I never entertained any direct or personal hatred of those whose power I subverted. To me it was merely a political contest: I was astonished myself to find my heart free from animosity, and, I may add, animated by good will towards my enemies. You saw how I released the Duke d’Angoulême; and I would have done the same by the King, and even have granted him an asylum of his own choosing. The triumph of the cause in no way depended on his person, and I respected his age and his misfortunes. Perhaps also I felt grateful for a certain degree of consideration which he in particular had observed towards me. It is true that, at the moment to which I am now alluding, he had, I believe, outlawed me and set a price upon my head; but I looked upon all this as belonging to the _manifesto style_. The same kind of denunciations were also issued by the Austrian government, without, however, giving me much uneasiness; though I must confess that my dear father-in-law was rather too hard with the husband of his beloved daughter.”

Since I have once more had occasion to mention the Emperor’s return from the Island of Elba, this is, perhaps, the proper place to fulfil the promise I have made of giving a narrative of the circumstances connected with that extraordinary event. I here combine together the statements that fell from him at different times.

Napoleon was residing at the Island of Elba, on the faith of treaties, when he learned that at the Congress of Vienna some idea was entertained of transporting him from Europe. None of the articles of the treaty of Fontainebleau were fulfilled. The public papers informed him of the state of feeling in France, and he accordingly formed his determination. He kept the secret until the last moment;[26] and, under one pretence or another, means were found for making the requisite preparations. It was not until they were all on board that the troops first conceived a suspicion of the Emperor’s purpose: a thousand or twelve hundred men had set sail to regain possession of an empire containing a population of thirty millions!

Footnote 26:

I must take this opportunity of correcting an error which has occasioned considerable pain to an individual whom I greatly esteem. In a former part of this Journal it is mentioned that, _eight days_ before the Emperor quitted Elba, General Drouot communicated his intentions to the Princess Borghesse, &c. General Drouot, however, affirms that he was not honoured with the Emperor’s confidence until the _very last moment_, and that consequently he could not have divulged the secret at the time alluded to. General Drouot must of all others be the best informed, as well as most interested, with regard to these facts: for my own