Read Ebook: Memoirs of the Empress Josephine Vol. 1 of 2 by R Musat Madame De Claire Elisabeth Jeanne Gravier De Vergennes R Musat Paul De Commentator Hoey Frances Cashel Translator Lillie John Translator

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 678 lines and 130769 words, and 14 pages

As, however, the latter work only is in question at present, it is not necessary to give in detail the history of the period subsequent to 1815. The administration of the department, which commenced under such gloomy auspices, was, for a period of nineteen months, extremely difficult. While the son, mixing in very Liberal society in Paris, adopted the opinions of advanced constitutional Royalism, which did little more than tolerate the Bourbons, the father, amid totally different surroundings, underwent a similar mental process, and placed himself by word and deed in the front rank of those officials of the King's Government who were the least Royalist and the most Liberal. He was a just and moderate man, a lover of law, neither an aristocrat nor a bigot. The people of Toulouse were all that he was not; nevertheless he was successful there, and left behind him a kindly memory, which lapsed as the men of his time disappeared, but of which my father has more than once found traces. These early days of constitutional liberty, even in a province which did not afterward put its theories boldly in practice, are curious to contemplate.

The light of that liberty illumined all that the Empire had left in darkness. Opinions, ideas, hatred, passions, came to life. The Government of the Bourbons was represented by a married priest, M. de Talleyrand, and a regicide Jacobin, M. Fouch?; but even they could not oppose the reactionary tendency of the time, and the Liberal policy did not triumph until the accession of MM. Decazes, Pasquier, Mol?, and Royer-Collard to the ministry, and the passing of the famous decree of the 5th of September. The new policy was of course advantageous to those who had practiced it beforehand, and there could be no ill will toward the Prefect on account of the failure of the Liberal party in the elections of Haute-Garonne. So soon as the ministry was firmly established, and as M. Lain? had succeeded M. de Vaublanc, my grandfather was appointed Prefect of Lille. My father records in a letter already quoted the effect of these events on the mind of Mme. de R?musat:

My grandmother's stay at Lille was occasionally varied by visits to her son in Paris. The pleasures of society were but a prelude to the literary success that he achieved a few months later; and indeed he was already practicing composition in his frequent letters to his mother on politics and literature. Mme. de R?musat had more leisure at Lille than in Paris, and, although her health was still delicate, she indulged her taste for intellectual pursuits. Hitherto she had written nothing but the Memoirs that she had afterward destroyed, and a few short tales and essays. In the leisure of a country life she now attempted a romance in the form of letters, called "Les Lettres Espag?ols, ou l'Ambitieux." While she was working at this with ardor and success, the posthumous work of Mme. de Sta?l, "Consid?rations sur la Revolution Fran?aise," came out in 1818, and made a great impression on her. Now that sixty years have elapsed, it is difficult for us to realize the extraordinary effect of Mme. de Sta?l's eloquent dissertation on the principles of the Revolution. The opinions of the author, then quite novel, are now merely noble truisms obvious to all. But in the days that immediately followed the Empire they were something more. Everything was then new, and the younger generation, who had undergone twenty years of tyranny, had to learn over again that which their fathers had known so well in 1789.

My grandmother was especially struck by the eloquent pages in which the author gives somewhat declamatory expression to her hatred of Napoleon. Mme. de R?musat felt a certain sympathy with the author's sentiments, but she could not forget that at one time she had thought differently. People who are fond of writing are easily tempted into explaining their conduct and feelings on paper. She conceived a strong desire to arrange all her reminiscences, to describe the Empire as she had seen it, and how she had at first loved and admired, next condemned and dreaded, afterward suspected and hated, and finally renounced it. The Memoirs she had destroyed in 1815 would have been the most accurate exposition of this succession of events, situations, and feelings. It was vain to think of rewriting them, but it was possible, with the help of a good memory and an upright intention, to compose others which should be equally sincere. Full of this project, she wrote to her son :

"I have taken up a new notion. You must know that I wake every morning at six o'clock, and that I write regularly from that hour until half-past nine. Well, I was sitting up with the manuscript of my 'Lettres Espag?ols' all scattered about me, when certain chapters of Mme. de Sta?l's book came into my head. I flung my romance aside, and took up a clean sheet of paper, bitten with the idea that I must write about Bonaparte. On I went, describing the death of the Duke d'Enghien and that dreadful week I spent at Malmaison; and, as I am an emotional person, I seemed to be living all through that time over again. Words and events came back of themselves; between yesterday and to-day I have written twenty pages, and am somewhat agitated in consequence."

The same circumstance which reawakened the recollections of the mother aroused the literary tastes of the son; and while he was publishing an article on Mme. de Sta?l in the "Archives," his first appearance in print, he wrote as follows to his mother on the same date, May 27, 1818. Their respective letters crossed on the road:

Two days after, on the 30th of May, my grandmother replied as follows:

A few days later, on the 8th of June, 1818, she dwells on the difficulties of her task:

"Do you know that I need all my courage to do as you tell me? I am like a person who, having spent ten years at the galleys, is asked to write an account of how he passed his time. My heart sinks when I recall old memories. There is pain both in my past fancies and in my present feelings. You are right in saying I love truth; but it follows that I can not, like so many others, recall the past with impunity, and I assure you that, for the last week, I have risen quite saddened from the desk at which you and Mme. de Sta?l have placed me. I could not reveal these feelings to any one but you. Others would not understand, and would only laugh at me."

On the 28th of September and the 8th of October of the same year, she writes to her son:

"If I were a man, I should certainly devote a part of my life to studying the League; being only a woman, I confine myself to verbal utterances about you know whom. What a man! what a man! It terrifies me to retrace it all. It was my misfortune to be very young when I was placed near him; I did not reflect on what passed before me; but now that we are both older, I and the generation to which I belong, my memories move me more than did events at that time. If you come . . . I think you will find that I have not lost much time this summer. I have already written nearly five hundred pages, and I was going to write much more; the task lengthens as I work at it. Afterward much time and patience will be required to put all this material in order. Perhaps I shall never have either one or the other; if so, that will be your business when I shall be no longer here."

"Your father," she writes again, "says that he does not know of any one to whom I could show what I am writing. He declares that no one excels me in 'the talent for being true' as he expresses it. So, therefore, I write for nobody in particular. Some day you will find my manuscripts among my effects, and you can do what you like with them."

On the 8th of October, 1818, she writes: "There is a thought that sometimes troubles me. I say to myself, 'Suppose some day my son publishes this, what will be said of me?' Then the fear seizes me that I shall be held to have been malicious, or at least ill-natured, and I rack my brain for something to praise. But this man was such a ruthless destroyer of all worth and we were brought so low that I am straitened by the demands of truth, and I grow quite disheartened."

These fragments of her letters indicate the spirit in which the Memoirs of Mme. de R?musat were written; and it was not that of a literary pastime, nor a pleasure of the imagination. Her motive was neither ambition to be an author, nor the desire to put forward an apology. The love of truth, the political spectacle before her eyes, and the influence of a son who became day by day more strongly confirmed in those Liberal opinions which were destined to be the delight and the honor of his life--these things gave her courage to persevere in her task for more than two years. She understood that noble policy which places the rights of man above the rights of the State. Nor was this all. As often happens to persons deeply engaged in intellectual work, her task became plain and easy, and she led a more active life than at any previous time. In spite of failing health, she constantly traveled from Lille to Paris; she acted the part of Elmire in "Tartuffe" at M. Mol?'s house at Champl?treux; she commenced a work on the Women of the Seventeenth Century, which she afterward expanded into her "Essai sur l'Education des Femmes;" she supplied Dupuytren with material for a panegyric on Corvisart, and she even published a tale in the "Lyc?e Fran?ais."

In the midst of the happiness which she derived from her quiet life and her busy mind, from her husband's official and her son's literary success, her health failed. First came a weakness of the eyes, which, without actually threatening her sight, occasioned her both pain and inconvenience; then followed a general delicacy of the system, in which the stomach was chiefly affected. After alternate changes for the better and the worse, her son brought her to Paris on the 28th of November, 1821, in a suffering condition, which was alarming to those who loved her, but did not appear to the doctors to indicate immediate danger. Broussais, however, took a desponding view of her case, and my father was then first struck by the power of induction to which the discoveries and the errors of that eminent man are alike due. Notwithstanding her illness, she occupied herself on her return to Lille with literary and historical work, and received company, including a great number of political personages. She was still able to feel interested in the fall of the Duke Decazes, and she foresaw that the coming into power of M. de Vill?le--that is to say, of the ultras or reactionaries, as they are now called--would render it impossible for her husband to retain the Prefecture of Lille; and, in fact, he was superseded on the 9th of January, 1822. Before this occurred, Mme. de R?musat was no more. She expired suddenly in the night, December 16, 1821, aged forty-one years.

She bequeathed to her son a lifelong sorrow, and to her friends the memory of a remarkable and charming woman. Not one of those friends is now living; M. Pasquier, M. Mol?, M. Guizot, and M. Leclerc have recently passed away. I render her memory the truest homage in my power by the publication of these unfinished Memoirs, which, with the exception of a few chapters, she was unable to read over or correct. The work was to have been divided into five parts, corresponding with five distinct epochs. She completed only three, which treat of the interval between 1802 and 1808; that is to say, from her first appearance at Court to the breaking out of the war in Spain. The unwritten portions would have described the period that elapsed between that war and the divorce , and the five following years, ending with the fall of the Emperor. I am well aware that a work of the nature of this one is calculated to bring down upon both its author and its editor much blame, many insinuations, and a great deal of political animosity. Its apparent contradictions will be held up to observation, rather than the interesting analogy of the opinions of three generations which it sets forth, and the difference in the times. It will be a theme for wonder that any man could be a chamberlain and any woman a lady-in-waiting, and yet that both could be so far from servile, so liberal, so little shocked by the 18th Brumaire, so patriotic, so much fascinated by that man of genius, Bonaparte, and so severe upon his faults, so clear-sighted respecting the majority of the members of the Imperial family, so indulgent or so blind with regard to others who have left an equally fatal impress on our national history. It will, however, be difficult to avoid doing justice to the sincerity, the honesty, and the intelligence of the author, or to read the book without deriving from it an increased aversion to absolute power, a keener perception of its sophistry, and the hollowness of the apparent prosperity with which it dazzles public opinion. These impressions I have especially derived from it, and I desire to retain them. It would have been sufficient preface to this book had I written only those words which my father uttered, sixty years ago, when, on reading Mme. de Sta?l, he asked his mother to tell him the story of the cruel years of the First Empire: "All honor to the sincere!"

PAUL DE R?MUSAT.

MEMOIRS OF THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE

INTRODUCTION

PORTRAITS AND ANECDOTES

NOW that I am about to commence these Memoirs, I think it well to precede them by some observations on the character of the Emperor, and the various members of the family respectively. These observations will help me in the difficult task I am about to undertake, by aiding me to recall the impressions of the last twelve years. I shall begin with Bonaparte himself. I am far from saying that he always appeared to me in the light in which I see him now; my opinions have progressed, even as he did; but I am so far from being influenced by personal feelings, that I do not think it is possible for me to deviate from the exact truth.

Napoleon Bonaparte is of low stature, and rather ill-proportioned; his bust is too long, and so shortens the rest of his figure. He has thin chestnut hair, his eyes are grayish blue, and his skin, which was yellow while he was slight, became in later years a dead white without any color. His forehead, the setting of his eye, the line of his nose--all that is beautiful, and reminds one of an antique medallion. His mouth, which is thin-lipped, becomes agreeable when he laughs; the teeth are regular. His chin is short, and his jaw heavy and square. He has well-formed hands and feet; I mention them particularly, because he thought a good deal of them.

He has an habitual slight stoop. His eyes are dull, giving in his face when in repose a melancholy and meditative expression. When he is excited with anger his looks are fierce and menacing. Laughter becomes him; it makes him look more youthful and less formidable. It is difficult not to like him when he laughs, his countenance improves so much. He was always simple in his dress, and generally wore the uniform of his own guard. He was cleanly rather from habit than from a liking for cleanliness; he bathed often, sometimes in the middle of the night, because he thought the practice good for his health. But, apart from this, the precipitation with which he did everything did not admit of his clothes being put on carefully; and on gala days and full-dress occasions his servants were obliged to consult together as to when they might snatch a moment to dress him.

He could not endure the wearing of ornaments; the slightest constraint was insupportable to him. He would tear off or break anything that gave him the least annoyance; and sometimes the poor valet who had occasioned him a passing inconvenience would receive violent proof of his anger. I have said there was a sort of fascination in the smile of Bonaparte; but, during all the time I was in the habit of seeing him, he rarely put forth that charm. Gravity was the foundation of his character; not the gravity of a dignified and noble manner, but that which arises from profound thought. In his youth he was a dreamer; later in life he became a moody, and later still an habitually ill-tempered man. When I first began to know him well, he was exceedingly fond of all that induces reverie--Ossian, the twilight, melancholy music. I have seen him enraptured by the murmur of the wind, I have heard him talk with enthusiasm of the moaning of the sea, and he was tempted sometimes to believe that nocturnal apparitions were not beyond the bounds of possibility; in fact, he had a leaning to certain superstitions. When, on leaving his study in the evening, he went into Mme. Bonaparte's drawing-room, he would sometimes have the candles shaded with white gauze, desire us to keep profound silence, and amuse himself by telling or hearing ghost stories: or he would listen to soft, sweet music executed by Italian singers, accompanied only by a few instruments lightly touched. Then he would fall into a reverie which all respected, no one venturing to move or stir from his or her place. When he aroused himself from that state, which seemed to procure him a sort of repose, he was generally more serene and more communicative. He liked then to talk about the sensations he had experienced. He would explain the effect music had upon him; he always preferred that of Paisiello, because he said it was monotonous, and that impressions which repeat themselves are the only ones that take possession of us. The geometrical turn of his mind disposed him to analyze even his emotions. No man has ever meditated more deeply than Bonaparte on the "wherefore" that rules human actions. Always aiming at something, even in the least important acts of his life, always laying bare to himself a secret motive for each of them, he could never understand that natural nonchalance which leads some persons to act without a project and without an aim. He always judged others by himself, and was often mistaken, his conclusions and the actions which ensued upon them both proving erroneous.

Bonaparte was deficient in education and in manners; it seemed as if he must have been destined either to live in a tent where all men are equal, or upon a throne where everything is permitted. He did not know how either to enter or to leave a room; he did not know how to make a bow, how to rise, or how to sit down. His questions were abrupt, and so also was his manner of speech. Spoken by him, Italian loses all its grace and sweetness. Whatever language he speaks, it seems always to be a foreign tongue to him; he appears to force it to express his thoughts. And then, as any rigid rule becomes an insupportable annoyance to him, every liberty which he takes pleases him as though it were a victory, and he would never yield even to grammar. He used to say that in his youth he had liked reading romances as well as studying the exact sciences; and probably he was influenced by so incongruous a mixture. Unfortunately, he had met with the worst kind of romances, and retained so keen a remembrance of the pleasure they had given him that, when he married the Archduchess Marie Louise, he gave her "Hippolyte, Comte de Douglas," and "Les Contemporains," so that, as he said, she might form an idea of refined feeling, and also of the customs of society.

In trying to depict Bonaparte, it would be necessary, following the analytical forms of which he was so fond, to separate into three very distinct parts his soul, his heart, and his mind; for no one of these ever blended completely with the others. Although very remarkable for certain intellectual qualities, no man, it must be allowed, was ever less lofty of soul. There was no generosity, no true greatness in him. I have never known him to admire, I have never known him to comprehend, a fine action. He always regarded every indication of a good feeling with suspicion; he did not value sincerity; and he did not hesitate to say that he recognized the superiority of a man by the greater or less degree of cleverness with which he used the art of lying. On the occasion of his saying this, he added, with great complacency, that when he was a child one of his uncles had predicted that he should govern the world, because he was an habitual liar. "M. de Metternich," he added, "approaches to being a statesman--he lies very well."

All Bonaparte's methods of government were selected from among those which have a tendency to debase men. He dreaded the ties of affection; he endeavored to isolate every one; he never sold a favor without awakening a sense of uneasiness, for he held that the true way to attach the recipients to himself was by compromising them, and often even by blasting them in public opinion. He could not pardon virtue until he had succeeded in weakening its effect by ridicule. He can not be said to have truly loved glory, for he never hesitated to prefer success to it; thus, although he was audacious in good fortune, and although he pushed it to its utmost limits, he was timid and troubled when threatened with reverses. Of generous courage he was not capable; and, indeed, on that head one would hardly venture to tell the truth so plainly as he has told it himself, by an admission recorded in an anecdote which I have never forgotten. One day, after his defeat at Leipsic, and when, as he was about to return to Paris, he was occupied in collecting the remains of his army for the defense of our frontiers, he was talking to M. de Talleyrand of the ill success of the Spanish war, and of the difficulty in which it had involved him. He spoke openly of his own position, not with the noble frankness that does not fear to own a fault, but with that haughty sense of superiority which releases one from the necessity of dissimulation. At this interview, in the midst of his plain speaking, M. de Talleyrand said to him suddenly, "But how is it? You consult me as if we had not quarreled."

Bonaparte answered, "Ah, circumstances! circumstances! Let us leave the past and the future alone. I want to hear what you think of the present moment."

"Well," replied M. de Talleyrand, "there is only one thing you can do. You have made a mistake: you must say so; try to say so nobly. Proclaim, therefore, that being a King by the choice of the people, elected by the nations, it has never been your design to set yourself against them. Say that, when you began the war with Spain, you believed you were about to deliver the people from the yoke of an odious minister, who was encouraged by the weakness of his prince; but that, on closer observation, you perceive that the Spaniards, although aware of the faults of their King, are none the less attached to his dynasty, which you are therefore about to restore to them, so that it may not be said you ever opposed a national aspiration. After that proclamation, restore King Ferdinand to liberty, and withdraw your troops. Such an avowal, made in a lofty tone, and when the enemy are still hesitating on our frontier, can only do you honor; and you are still too strong for it to be regarded as a cowardly act."

"A cowardly act!" replied Bonaparte; "what does that matter to me? Understand that I should not fail to commit one, if it were useful to me. In reality, there is nothing really noble or base in this world; I have in my character all that can contribute to secure my power, and to deceive those who think they know me. Frankly, I am base, essentially base. I give you my word that I should feel no repugnance to commit what would be called by the world a dishonorable action; my secret tendencies, which are, after all, those of nature, opposed to certain affectations of greatness with which I have to adorn myself, give me infinite resources with which to baffle every one. Therefore, all I have to do now is to consider whether your advice agrees with my present policy, and to try and find out besides," he added , with a satanic smile, "whether you have not some private interest in urging me to take this step."

Another anecdote which bears on the same characteristic will not be out of place here. Bonaparte, when on the point of setting out for Egypt, went to see M. de Talleyrand, then Minister of Foreign Affairs under the Directory. "I was in bed, being ill," said M. de Talleyrand. "Bonaparte sat down near me, and divulged to me all the dreams of his youthful imagination. I was interested in him because of the activity of his mind, and also on account of the obstacles which I was aware would be placed in his way by secret enemies of whom I knew. He told me of the difficulty in which he was placed for want of money, and that he did not know where to get any. 'Stay,' I said to him; 'open my desk. You will find there a hundred thousand francs that belong to me. They are yours for the present; you may repay the money when you return,' Bonaparte threw himself on my neck, and I was really delighted to witness his joy. When he became Consul, he gave me back the money I had lent him; but he asked me one day, 'What interest could you have had in lending me that money? I have thought about it a hundred times since then, and have never been able to make out your object.' 'I had none,' I replied. 'I was feeling very ill: it was quite possible I might never see you again; but you were young, you had impressed me very strongly, and I felt impelled to render you a service without any afterthought whatsoever.' 'In that case,' said Bonaparte, 'and if it was really done without any design, you acted a dupe's part.'"

According to the order I have laid down, I ought now to speak of Bonaparte's heart; but, if it were possible to believe that a being, in every other way similar to ourselves, could exist without that portion of our organization which makes us desire to love and to be loved, I should say that in his creation the heart was left out. Perhaps, however, the truth was that he succeeded in suppressing it completely. He was always too much engrossed by himself to be influenced by any sentiment of affection, no matter of what kind. He almost ignored the ties of blood and the rights of nature; I do not know that even paternity weighed with him. It seemed, at least, that he did not regard it as his primary relation with his son. One day, at breakfast, when, as was often the case, Talma had been admitted to see him, the young Napoleon was brought to him. The Emperor took the child on his knee, and, far from caressing, amused himself by slapping him, though not so as to hurt him; then, turning to Talma, he said, "Talma, tell me what I am doing?" Talma, as may be supposed, did not know what to say. "You do not see it," continued the Emperor; "I am slapping a King."

Notwithstanding his habitual hardness, Bonaparte was not entirely without experience of love. But, good heavens! what manner of sentiment was it in his case? A sensitive person forgets self in love, and becomes almost transformed; but to a man of the stamp of Bonaparte it only supplies an additional sort of despotism. The Emperor despised women, and contempt can not exist together with love. He regarded their weakness as an unanswerable proof of their inferiority, and the power they have acquired in society as an intolerable usurpation--a result and an abuse of the progress of that civilization which, as M. de Talleyrand said, was always his personal enemy. On this account Bonaparte was under restraint in the society of women; and, as every kind of restraint put him out of humor, he was always awkward in their presence, and never knew how to talk to them. It is true that the women with whom he was acquainted were not calculated to change his views of the sex. We may easily imagine the nature of his youthful experiences. In Italy morals were utterly depraved, and the general licentiousness was augmented by the presence of the French army. When he returned to France society was entirely broken up and dispersed. The circle that surrounded the Directory was a corrupt one, and the Parisian women to whose society he was admitted were vain and frivolous, the wives of men of business and contractors. When he became Consul, and made his generals and his aides-de-camp marry, or ordered them to bring their wives to Court, the only women he had about him were timid and silent girls, newly married, or the wives of his former comrades, suddenly withdrawn from obscurity by the good fortune of their husbands, and ill able to conform to the change in their position.

I am disposed to believe that Bonaparte, almost always exclusively occupied by politics, was never awakened to love except by vanity. He thought nothing of a woman except while she was beautiful, or at least young. He would probably have been willing to subscribe to the doctrine that, in a well-organized country, we should be killed--just as certain kinds of insects are destined by nature to a speedy death, so soon as they have accomplished the task of maternity. Yet Bonaparte had some affection for his first wife; and, if he was ever really stirred by any emotion, it was by her and for her. Even a Bonaparte can not completely escape from every influence, and a man's character is composed, not of what he is always, but of what he is most frequently.

Bonaparte was young when he first made the acquaintance of Mme. de Beauharnais, who was greatly superior to the rest of the circle in which she moved, both by reason of the name she bore and from the elegance of her manners. She attached herself to him, and flattered his pride; she procured him a step in rank; he became accustomed to associate the idea of her influence with every piece of good fortune which befell him. This superstition, which she kept up very cleverly, exerted great power over him for a long time; it even induced him more than once to delay the execution of his projects of divorce. When he married Mme. de Beauharnais, Bonaparte believed that he was allying himself to a very great lady; his marriage, therefore, was one conquest the more. I shall give further details of the charm she exercised over him when I have to speak more particularly of her.

The intellect of Bonaparte was most remarkable. It would be difficult, I think, to find among men a more powerful or comprehensive mind. It owed nothing to education; for, in reality, he was ignorant, reading but little, and that hurriedly. But he quickly seized upon the little he learned, and his imagination developed it so extensively that he might easily have passed for a well-educated man.

His intellectual capacity seemed to be vast, from the number of subjects he could take in and classify without fatigue. With him one idea gave birth to a thousand, and a word would lift his conversation into elevated regions of fancy, in which exact logic did not indeed keep him company, but in which his intellect never failed to shine.

It was always a great pleasure to me to hear him talk, or rather to hear him hold forth, for his conversation was composed generally of long monologues; not that he objected to replies when he was in a good humor, but, for many reasons, it was not always easy to answer him. His Court, which for a long time was entirely military, listened to his least word with the respect that is paid to the word of command; and afterward it became so numerous that any individual undertaking to refute him, or to carry on a dialogue with him, felt like an actor before an audience. I have said that he spoke badly, but his language was generally animated and brilliant; his grammatical inaccuracies sometimes lent his sentences an unexpected strength, very suitable to the originality of his ideas. He required no interlocutor to warm him up. He would dash into a subject, and go on for a long time, careful to notice, however, whether he was followed, and pleased with those who comprehended and applauded him. Formerly, to know how to listen to him was a sure and easy way of pleasing him. Like an actor who becomes excited by the effect he produces, Bonaparte enjoyed the admiration he watched for closely in the faces of his audience. I remember well how, because he interested me very much when he spoke, and I listened to him with pleasure, he proclaimed me a woman of intellect, although at that time I had not addressed two consecutive sentences to him.

He was very fond of talking about himself, and criticised himself on certain points, just as another person might have done. Rather than fail to make the most out of his own character, he would not have hesitated to subject it to the most searching analysis. He used often to say that a real politician knows how to calculate even the smallest profits that he can make out of his defects; and M. de Talleyrand carried that reflection even further. I once heard him say, "That devil of a man deceives one on all points. His very passions mislead, for he manages to dissemble them even when they really exist." I can recall an incident which will show how, when he found it useful, he could pass from the most complete calm to the most violent anger.

A little while before our last rupture with England, a rumor was spread that war was about to recommence, and that the ambassador, Lord Whitworth, was preparing to leave Paris. Once a month the First Consul was in the habit of receiving, in Mme. Bonaparte's apartments, the ambassadors and their wives. This reception was held in great pomp. The foreigners were ushered into a drawing-room, and when they were all there the First Consul would appear, accompanied by his wife. Both were attended by a prefect and a lady of the palace. To each of them the ambassadors and their wives were introduced by name. Mme. Bonaparte would take a seat; the First Consul would keep up the conversation for a longer or a shorter time, according to his convenience, and then withdraw with a slight bow. A few days before the breach of the peace, the Corps Diplomatique had met as usual at the Tuileries. While they were waiting, I went to Mme. Bonaparte's apartment, and entered the dressing-room, where she was finishing her toilet.

The First Consul was sitting on the floor, playing with little Napoleon, the eldest son of his brother Louis. He presently began to criticise his wife's dress, and also mine, giving us his opinion on every detail of our costume. He seemed to be in the best possible humor. I remarked this, and said to him that, judging by appearances, the letters the ambassadors would have to write, after the approaching audience, would breathe nothing but peace and concord. Bonaparte laughed, and went on playing with his little nephew.

By-and-by he was told that the company had arrived. Then he rose quickly, the gayety vanished from his face, and I was struck by the severe expression that suddenly replaced it: he seemed to grow pale at will, his features contracted; and all this in less time than it takes me to describe it. "Let us go, mesdames," said he, in a troubled voice; and then he walked on quickly, entered the drawing-room, and, without bowing to any one, advanced to the English ambassador. To him he began to complain bitterly of the proceedings of his Government. His anger seemed to increase every minute; it soon reached a height which terrified the assembly; the hardest words, the most violent threats, were poured forth by his trembling lips. No one dared to move. Mme. Bonaparte and I looked at each other, dumb with astonishment, and every one trembled. The impassibility of the Englishman was even disconcerted, and it was with difficulty he could find words to answer.

Another anecdote which sounds strange, but is very characteristic, proves how completely he could command himself when he chose to do so.

When he was traveling, or even during a campaign, he never failed to indulge in gallantries which he regarded as a short respite from business or battles. His brother-in-law Murat, and his grand-marshal Duroc, were charged with the task of procuring him the means of gratifying his passing fancies. On the occasion of his first entry into Poland, Murat, who had preceded him to Warsaw, was ordered to find for the Emperor, who would shortly arrive, a young and pretty mistress, and to select her from among the nobility. He acquitted himself cleverly of this commission, and induced a noble young Polish lady, who was married to an old man, to comply with the Emperor's wishes. No one knows what means he employed, or what were his promises; but at last the lady consented to go in the evening to the castle near Warsaw, where the Emperor was lodged.

The fair one arrived rather late at her destination. She has herself narrated this adventure, and she acknowledges, what we can readily believe, that she arrived agitated and trembling.

The Emperor was in his cabinet. The lady's arrival was announced to him; but, without disturbing himself, he ordered her to be conducted to her apartment, and offered supper and a bath, adding that afterward she might retire to rest if she chose. Then he quietly went on writing until a late hour at night.

At last, his business being finished, he proceeded to the apartment where he had been so long waited for, and presented himself with all the manner of a master who disdains useless preliminaries. Without losing a moment, he began a singular conversation on the political situation of Poland, questioning the young lady as if she had been a police agent, and demanding some very circumstantial information respecting the great Polish nobles who were then in Warsaw. He inquired particularly into their opinions and their present interests, and prolonged this extraordinary interrogatory for a long time. The astonishment of a woman twenty years of age, who was not prepared for such a cross-examination, may be imagined. She answered him as well as she could, and only when she could tell him no more did he seem to remember that Murat had promised, in his name, an interview of a more tender nature.

I saw his mother when she was presented at the Imperial Court, where she at first excited the jealousy of Mme. Bonaparte; but after the divorce she became the intimate friend of the repudiated Empress at Malmaison, whither she often brought her son. It is said that she was faithful to the Emperor in his misfortunes, and that she visited him more than once at the Isle of Elba. He found her again in France when he made his last and fatal appearance there. But, after his second fall , she married again, and she died in Paris this year . I had these details from M. de Talleyrand.

I have said that Bonaparte was incapable of generosity; and yet his gifts were immense, and the rewards he bestowed gigantic. But, when he paid for a service, he made it plain that he expected to buy another, and a vague uneasiness as to the conditions of the bargain always remained. There was also a good deal of caprice in his gifts, so that they rarely excited gratitude. Moreover, he required that the money he distributed should all be expended, and he rather liked people to contract debts, because it kept them in a state of dependence. His wife gave him complete satisfaction in the latter particular, and he would never put her affairs in order, so that he might keep the power of making her uneasy in his hands. At one time he settled a considerable revenue on M. de R?musat, that we might keep what is called open house, and receive a great many foreigners. We were very exact in the first expenses demanded by a great establishment. A little while after, I had the misfortune to lose my mother, and was forced to close my house. The Emperor then rescinded all his gifts, on the ground that we could not keep the engagement we had made, and he left us in what was really a position of embarrassment, caused entirely by his fugitive and burdensome gifts. I pause here. If I carry out the plan I have formed, my memory, carefully consulted, will furnish me by degrees with other anecdotes which will complete this sketch. What I have already written will suffice to convey an idea of the character of him with whom circumstances connected the best years of my life.

BONAPARTE'S MOTHER

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet