Memoirs of the Empress Josephine, Vol. 1 of 2

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Title: Memoirs of the Empress Josephine, Vol. 1 of 2

Author: Madame de Rémusat

Commentator: Paul de Rémusat

Translator: Frances Cashel Hoey
John Lillie

Release date: June 9, 2015 [eBook #49175]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMOIRS OF THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE, VOL. 1 OF 2 ***

[Illustration: CORONATION OF THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE]

M E M O I R S O F
T H E E M P R E S S J O S E P H I N E

BY MADAME DE RÉMUSAT
_Lady-in-Waiting to the Empress_

V O L U M E I

_With a Special Introduction_
_and Illustrations_

[Illustration]

N E W Y O R K
P F C O L L I E R & S O N
P U B L I S H E R S

CONTENTS

PAGE
INTRODUCTION 9
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 11
PREFACE BY PAUL DE RÉMUSAT 13
PORTRAITS AND ANECDOTES BY THE AUTHOR 65

_B O O K I_

CHAPTER I
(1802-1803.)
Family Affairs—My First Evening at Saint Cloud—General Moreau—M.
de Rémusat is made Prefect, and I, Lady of the Palace—Habits of
the First Consul and of Mme. Bonaparte—M. de Talleyrand—The
Family of the First Consul—Mlles. Georges and Duchesnois—Mme.
Bonaparte’s Jealousy 103

CHAPTER II
(1803.)
A Return to the Customs of the Monarchy—M. de Fontanes—Mme.
d’Houdetot—Rumors of War—Meeting of the Corps
Législatif—Departure of the English Ambassador—M. Maret—Marshal
Berthier—Journey of the First Consul to Belgium—A Carriage
Accident—The Amiens Fêtes 133

CHAPTER III
(1803.)
Continuation of the Journey to Belgium—Opinions of the First
Consul on Gratitude, on Glory, and on the French—Ghent,
Malines, and Brussels—The Clergy—M. de Roquelaure—Return to
Saint Cloud—Preparations for an Invasion of England—Marriage of
Mme. Leclerc—Journey of the First Consul to Boulogne—Illness of
M. de Rémusat—I rejoin him—Conversations with the First Consul 148

CHAPTER IV
(1803-1804.)
Continuation of the First Consul’s Conversations at
Boulogne—Reading of the Tragedy of “Philippe Auguste”—My New
Impressions—Return to Paris—Mme. Bonaparte’s Jealousy—Winter
Fêtes of 1804—M. de Fontanes—M. Fouché—Savary—Pichegru—Arrest
of General Moreau 171

CHAPTER V
The Arrest of Georges Cadoudal—The Mission of M. de Caulaincourt
to Ettenheim—The Arrest of the Due d’Enghien—My Distress and my
Urgency with Mme. Bonaparte—An Evening at Malmaison—The Death
of the Duc d’Enghien—Remarkable Words of the First Consul 192

CHAPTER VI
(1804.)
The Impression produced in Paris by the Death of the Duc
d’Enghien—The First Consul’s Efforts to dispel it—Performance
at the Opéra House—Death of Pichegru—Breach between Bonaparte
and his Brother Lucien—Project of adopting the Young
Napoleon—Foundation of the Empire 213

CHAPTER VII
Effects and Causes of the Accession of Bonaparte to the Imperial
Throne—The Emperor converses—The Grievances of Mme. Murat—The
Character of M. de Rémusat—The New Court 233

CHAPTER VIII
(1804.)
The Trial of General Moreau—Condemnation of MM. de Polignac, De
Rivière, etc.—Pardon of M. de Polignac—A Letter from Louis
XVIII. 256

CHAPTER IX
(1804.)
Plans for the Invasion—An Article in the “Moniteur”—The Great
Officers of State—The Ladies-in-Waiting—The Anniversary of July
14th—Beauty of the Empress—Projects of Divorce—Preparations for
the Coronation 270

CHAPTER X
The Pope’s Arrival in Paris—The Plebiscitum—The Marriage of the
Empress Josephine—The Coronation Fêtes in the Champ de Mars, at
the Opéra, etc.—The Court of the Empress 294

CHAPTER XI
(1807.)
The Emperor in Love—Mme. de X——.—Mme. de Damas—The Empress
confides in me—Palace Intrigues—Murat is raised to the Rank of
Prince 311

_B O O K II_

CHAPTER XII
(1805.)
Opening of the Session of the Senate—M. de Talleyrand’s
Report—Letter from the Emperor to the King of England—Union of
the Crown of Italy to the Empire—Mme. Bacciochi becomes
Princess of Piombino—Performance of “Athalie”—The Emperor goes
to Italy—His Dissatisfaction—M. de Talleyrand—Prospect of War
with Austria 331

CHAPTER XIII
(1805.)
Fêtes at Verona and Genoa—Cardinal Maury—My Retired Life in the
Country—Mme. Louis Bonaparte—“Les Templiers”—The Emperor’s
Return—His Amusements—The Marriage of M. de Talleyrand—War is
declared 350

CHAPTER XIV
(1805.)
M. de Talleyrand and M. Fouché—The Emperor’s Speech to the
Senate—The Departure of the Emperor—The Bulletins of the Grand
Army—Poverty in Paris during the War—The Emperor and the
Marshals—The Faubourg St. Germain—Trafalgar—Journey of M. de
Rémusat to Vienna 368

CHAPTER XV
(1805.)
The Battle of Austerlitz—The Emperor
Alexander—Negotiations—Prince Charles—M. d’André—M. de Rémusat
in Disgrace—Duroc—Savary—The Treaty of Peace 388

VOLUME II

CHAPTER XVI
(1805-1806.)
State of Paris during the War—Cambacérès—Le Brun—Mme. Louis
Bonaparte—Marriage of Eugène de Beauharnais—Bulletins and
Proclamations—Admiration of the Emperor for the Queen of
Bavaria—Jealousy of the Empress—M. de Nansouty—Mme. de
——.—Conquest of Naples—Position and Character of the Emperor 409

CHAPTER XVII
(1806.)
The Death of Pitt—Parliamentary Debates in England—Public
Works—Industrial Exhibition—New Etiquette—Performances at the
Opéra House and at the Comédie Française—Monotony of the
Court—Opinions of the Empress—Mme. Louis Bonaparte—Mme.
Murat—The Bourbons—New Ladies-in-Waiting—M. Molé—Mme.
d’Houdetot—Mme. de Barante 428

CHAPTER XVIII
(1806.)
The Emperor’s Civil List—His Household and its Expenses—Dress of
the Empress and of Mme. Murat—Louis Bonaparte—Prince
Borghese—Fêtes at Court—The Empress’s Family—Marriage of
Princess Stéphanie—Jealousy of the Empress—Theatricals at
Malmaison 452

CHAPTER XIX
The Emperor’s Court—His Ecclesiastical Household—His Military
Household—The Marshals—The Ladies—Delille—Chateaubriand—Mme. de
Genlis—Romances—Literature—Arts 474

CHAPTER XX
(1806.)
_Senatus Consultum_ of the 30th of March—Foundation of Monarchies
and Duchies—Queen Hortense 506

CHAPTER XXI
(1806.)
I go to Cauterets—The King of Holland—Factitious Tranquillity of
France—M. de Metternich—The New Catechism—The Germanic
Confederation—Poland—Death of Mr. Fox—War is declared—Departure
of the Emperor—M. Pasquier and M. Molé—Session of the
Senate—The Opening of Hostilities—The Court—Reception of
Cardinal Maury 528

CHAPTER XXII
(1806-1807.)
Death of Prince Louis of Prussia—Battle of Jena—The Queen of
Prussia and the Emperor Alexander—The Emperor and the
Revolution—Court Life at Mayence—Life in Paris—Marshal
Brune—Taking of Lubeck—The Princess of Hatzfeld—The Auditors of
the State Council—Sufferings of the Army—The King of
Saxony—Battle of Eylau 553

CHAPTER XXIII
(1807.)
The Return of the Empress to Paris—The Imperial
Family—Junot—Fouché—The Queen of Holland—Levy of the Conscripts
of 1808—Theatricals at Court—Letter from the Emperor—Siege of
Dantzic—Death of the Empress of Austria—Death of Queen
Hortense’s Son—M. Decazes—The Emperor’s Want of Feeling 576

CHAPTER XXIV
(1807.)
The Duke of Dantzic—Fouché’s Police—Battle of Friedland—M. de
Lameth—Treaty of Tilsit—Return of the Emperor—M. de
Talleyrand—The Ministers—The Bishops 595

CHAPTER XXV
(1807.)
Vexations at Court—Friendship with M. de Talleyrand—General
Rapp—General Clarke—Session of the Legislative Bodies—The
Emperor’s Speech—Fêtes of the 15th of August—Marriage of Jérôme
Bonaparte—Death of Le Brun—The Abbé Delille—M. de
Chateaubriand—Dissolution of the Tribunate—The Court removes to
Fontainebleau 613

CHAPTER XXVI
(1807.)
The Power of the Emperor—Resistance of the English—The Emperor’s
Life at Fontainebleau—Plays—Talma—King Jérôme—The Princess of
Baden—The Grand Duchess of Berg—Princess
Borghese—Cambacérès—Foreign Princes—Spanish Affairs—Previsions
of M. de Talleyrand—M. de Rémusat is made Superintendent of
Theatres—The Fortunes and the Difficulties of the Marshals 635

CHAPTER XXVII
(1807-1808.)
Projects of Divorce 674

CHAPTER XXVIII

(1807-1808.)
Return from Fontainebleau—The Emperor’s Journey in Italy—The
Youth of M. de Talleyrand—Fêtes at the Tuileries—The Emperor
and the Artists—The Emperor’s Opinion of the English
Government—The Marriage of Mlle. de Tascher—Count
Romanzoff—Marriage of Marshal Berthier—The University—Affairs
of Spain 693

CHAPTER XXIX
(1808.)
The War with Spain—The Prince of the Peace—The Prince of the
Asturias—The Abdication of King Charles IV.—The Departure of
the Emperor—His Sojourn at Bayonne—Letter of the
Emperor—Arrival of the Princes in France—Birth of the Second
Son of the Queen of Holland—Abdication of the Prince of the
Asturias 723

CONCLUSION 742
POSTSCRIPT 760

INTRODUCTION

THE clear and interesting “Preface” of Paul de Rémusat, grandson of the
author of these Memoirs, renders unnecessary a lengthy introduction on
the part of the publishers. The reader will find there a sympathetic
sketch of the talented lady-in-waiting, and through her eyes a vivid
portrait not only of Josephine and Napoleon, but of surrounding Court
life.

Madame de Rémusat, born Claire de Vergennes, was a woman of superior
descent and endowments; her grandson may feel a pardonable pride in
setting forth her virtues. Her father and grandfather were among the
many political victims of the Revolution, perishing in 1794 upon the
same scaffold, three days before the fall of Robespierre. Her mother
took the young girl and her sister to a retired spot in the valley of
Montmorency, whither they were followed by a friend of the family,
Augustin de Rémusat, who won the hand of Claire.

Among the neighbours, during the months of retirement from political
storm, was Madame de Beauharnais, who in 1796 became the wife of
Bonaparte, and later the famous Empress Josephine. A warm friendship
sprang up between the two families, and when Josephine removed to Paris
to take her exalted place, Madame de Rémusat went with her as a
lady-in-waiting; while M. de Rémusat was made Prefect of the Palace, in
1802.

These Memoirs are an exact record of the life of the author, as well as
a survey of the first years of the nineteenth century. They show us what
changes the establishment of the Empire effected at Court, and how life
there constantly shifted to reflect the changing fortunes of its master.
The figure of Napoleon stands out boldly, albeit sketched with an
unsympathetic pen. The lady-in-waiting’s loyalty was entirely upon the
side of her mistress in the latter’s struggle against the Bonaparte
family; and when the downfall of Josephine occurred, Madame de Rémusat
followed her into retirement. It was then that she took up her pen to
write of historic people and affairs. Her first manuscripts, however,
were destroyed, in 1815, the author fearing that they would compromise
her family politically by their outspoken criticisms. Napoleon had
escaped from Elba, and none could prophesy what a day might bring forth.

In 1818 she began the subject afresh, inspired, as she says, by her
“love of truth,” and desiring to refute certain opinions advanced by
Madame de Staël’s newly published “Considerations upon the French
Revolution.” The circumstances of the renewed literary labour are set
forth interestingly in Paul de Rémusat’s story. The Memoirs, he says,
were to have been divided into five parts, treating of five distinct
epochs. Only three were completed, treating of the important interval
between the years 1802 and 1809. This manuscript left unfinished at
Madame de Rémusat’s death, in 1821, awaited publication for sixty years,
when the people and the events which it described so freely had long
since passed away. It was not until 1881, that the grandson of the
author gave them to the world. His reasons therefor and the story of the
manuscript itself are an appetising foretaste of this work written by a
person famed for her sincerity, clear vision, and “talent for being
true.”

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME I

CORONATION OF THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE
_from the painting by Louis David_

“BONAPARTE LIKED WOMEN TO DRESS WELL,” ETC.
_from the painting by F. Simm_

“SOVEREIGNS, PRINCES, MILITARY OFFICERS, PRIESTS, WOMEN”
_from the painting by Adrien Moreau_

VOLUME II

“MY POOR JOSEPHINE, I CANNOT LEAVE YOU”
_from the painting by L. J. Pott_

“FOR TWELVE HOURS THEY FOUGHT WITHOUT EITHER
SIDE BEING ABLE TO CLAIM THE VICTORY”
_from the painting by F. Schommer_

QUEEN LOUISE TRYING TO WIN FAVOR FROM NAPOLEON
FOR PRUSSIA
_from the painting by R. Eichstadt_

P R E F A C E

MY father bequeathed to me the manuscript of the memoirs of my
grandmother, who was lady-in-waiting to the Empress Josephine,
accompanied by an injunction that I should publish them. He regarded
those memoirs as extremely important to the history of the first portion
of the present century, and had frequently contemplated publishing them
himself; but he was always hindered from doing so, either by his other
duties, by his many labors, or by certain scruples. He deferred the
moment at which the public was to be made acquainted with these valuable
reminiscences of an epoch—recent, indeed, but respecting which the
present generation is so ill informed—precisely because that epoch was
recent, and many persons who had been involved in its important events
were still living. Although the author of these memoirs can not be
accused of intentional malice, she passes judgment upon persons and
things very freely. A certain consideration, which is not always
consonant with the verity of history, is due, not only to the living,
but to the children of the dead; the years passed on, however, and the
reasons for silence diminished with the lapse of time.

About 1848 my father would perhaps have allowed this manuscript to see
the light; but the empire and the Emperor returned, and then the book
might have been regarded either as a piece of flattery tendered to the
son of Queen Hortense, who is very gently handled by the writer, or as a
direct insult, on other points, to the dynasty. Circumstances had thus
given a polemic character—an aspect of actuality, as the phrase
goes—to a work which should be regarded as a candid and impartial
history, the narrative of a remarkable woman, who relates with simple
sincerity that which she witnessed at the court and during the reign of
the Emperor, and who records her estimate of him as an individual. In
any case, it is probable that the book would have been prosecuted, and
its publication interdicted. I may add, lest any should consider these
reasons insufficient, that my father, who was always willing that his
politics, his opinions, and his personal conduct should be discussed by
the critics and the press, who lived in the full glare of publicity, yet
shrank with great reluctance from placing names which were dear to him
before the public. That they should incur the slightest censure, that
they should be uttered with any severity of tone, he dreaded extremely.
He was timid when either his mother or his son was in question. His love
for his mother had been the “grand passion” of his life. To her he
ascribed all the happiness of his youth, every merit which he possessed,
and all the success of every kind that had come to him throughout his
whole existence. He derived from her his qualities alike of heart and
mind; he was bound to her by the tie of close similarity of ideas, as
well as by that of filial affection. Her memory, her letters, her
thoughts occupied a place in his life which few suspected, for he seldom
spoke of her, precisely because he was always thinking of her, and he
would have feared imperfect sympathy from others in his admiration of
her who was incomparable in his eyes. Who among us does not know what it
is to be united by a passionate, almost fierce affection to one who is
no more; ceaselessly to think of that beloved one, to question, to
dream, to be always under the impression of the vanished presence—of
the silent counsels; to feel that the life gone from us is mixed up with
our own life, every day, not only on great occasions, and in all our
actions, whether public or private; and yet, that we can not bear to
speak to others of the ever-present occupant of our thoughts—no, not
even to our dearest friends—and can not even hear the dear name uttered
without secret pain and disquiet? Rarely, indeed, can even the sweetness
of praise lavished upon that name by a friend or a stranger avail to
soothe our deep, mysterious trouble, or render it endurable.

While, however, a proper and natural sentiment dictates that memoirs
should not appear until a considerable time has elapsed, it is equally
desirable that their publication should not be delayed until all trace
of the facts related, of the impressions made, or of the eye-witnesses
of events has passed away. In order that the accuracy, or at least the
sincerity of memoirs may not be disputed, each family should be in a
position to substantiate them by its own recollections; and it is well
that the generation which reads them should follow that which they
depict. The records they contain are all the more useful because the
times which they chronicle have not yet become altogether historic. This
is our case at the present moment, and the great name of Napoleon is
still a party battle-cry. It is interesting to introduce a new element
into the strife which rages around that majestic shade. Although the
epoch of the First Empire has been much discussed by the writers of
memoirs, the inner life of the imperial palace has never been handled
freely, and in detail; and for this good reasons have existed. The
functionaries or the frequenters of the court of Napoleon I. did not
care to reveal with entire unreserve the story of the time they had
passed in his service. The majority, having joined the Legitimist ranks
after the Restoration, were humiliated by the remembrance that they had
served the usurper, especially in offices which are generally held to be
ennobled only by the hereditary greatness of him who confers them; and
their descendants would have been disconcerted had such manuscripts been
left to them, by their authors, with the obligation of giving them to
the world. It would, perhaps, be difficult to find another editor, also
a grandson, who could publish such a work so willingly as I. The talent
of the writer and the utility of her book affect me much more than the
difference between the opinions of my grandmother and those of her
descendants. My father’s life, his renown, the political creed which is
his most precious bequest to me, absolve me from any necessity for
explaining how and why it is that I do not necessarily adopt all the
views of the author of these Memoirs. On the contrary, it would be easy
to find in this book the first traces of that liberal spirit which
animated my grandparents in the first days of the Revolution, which was
transmitted to and happily developed in their son. It was almost being
liberal already not to regard the principles of political liberty with
hatred at the end of the last century, when so many people were ready to
lay crimes which tarnished the Revolution to the charge of that liberty,
and to pass judgment, notwithstanding the true admiration and the deep
gratitude with which they regarded the Emperor, on the defects of his
character and the evils of despotism.

Such valuable impartiality was rare indeed among the contemporaries of
the great Emperor, nor have we met with it in our own time among the
servants of a sovereign far less likely to dazzle those who approached
him. Such a sentiment is, however, easy at the present day. Events have
brought France into a state in which she is ready to receive everything
with equanimity, to judge every one with equity. We have observed many
changes of opinion concerning the early years of the present century.
One need not have reached a very advanced stage of life to recall a time
when the legend of the Empire was accepted even by the enemies of the
Empire; when it might be admired with impunity; when children believed
in an Emperor, who was at once a grand personage and a good fellow,
somewhat like the notion of God entertained by Béranger, who indeed
turned both God and Napoleon into heroes for his odes. The most
determined adversaries of despotism, those who were themselves destined
to undergo persecution by a new Empire, brought back to France the
mortal remains of Napoleon the Great—his “ashes,” as, lending an
antique coloring to a modern ceremony, it was the fashion to say just
then. At a later date, experience of the Second Empire opened the eyes,
even of those who do not admit passion into politics, to the truth
respecting the first. The disasters brought upon France in 1870, by
Napoleon III., have reminded us that it was the other Emperor who
commenced that fatal work; and an almost general malediction rises to
the lips of the nation at that name—Bonaparte—which was once uttered
with respectful enthusiasm. So fluctuating is the justice of nations! It
is, however, allowable to say that the justice of France to-day comes
nearer to true justice than at the time when, swayed by the longing for
rest and the dread of liberty, she surrendered herself to the passion
for military glory. Between these two extremes how many modes of opinion
have arisen, and gone through their several phases of triumph and
decline! It will be evident to all readers, I hope, that the author of
the following Memoirs, who came to the Court in her youth, regarded
those problems which were then and still are in debate, although General
Bonaparte thought he had solved them, with an entire absence of
prejudice. Her opinions were formed by degrees, like the opinions of
France itself, which was also very young in those days. She was at first
dazzled and aroused to enthusiasm by the great genius of the age, but
she afterward recovered the balance of her judgment by the aid of events
and of contact with other minds. More than one of our contemporaries may
find in these Memoirs an explanation of the conduct or the state of mind
of some persons of their kin whose Bonapartism or Liberalism at
different epochs has hitherto appeared inexplicable to them. And
also—not their least merit in my eyes—these Memoirs will reveal to the
reader the first germs of a remarkable talent, which was developed in
the writer’s son to a supreme degree.

A brief summary of the life of my grandmother, or at least of the period
which preceded her arrival at Court, is indispensable to the reader’s
comprehension of the impressions and the remembrances which she brought
thither. My father had frequently projected a complete biography of his
parents, and had, indeed, sketched out some portions of the work. He did
not leave any of it in a finished condition; but a great number of notes
and fragments written by his own hand, concerning the members of his
family, his own youthful opinions, and persons whom he had known, render
it easy to narrate the incidents of my grandmother’s early years, the
feelings with which she entered upon her life at Court, and the
circumstances that led her to write her Memoirs. It is also in my power
to add some comments upon her by her son, which will lead the reader to
know and esteem her. It was my father’s strong desire that her readers
should be inspired with kindly sentiments toward the object of his own
devotion, love and admiration; and I believe that the perusal of her
reminiscences, and especially of her correspondence, which is also to be
given to the public in due time, can not fail to secure the realization
of his wish.

Claire Elisabeth Jeanne Gravier de Vergennes was born on the 5th of
January, 1780. Her father was Charles Gravier de Vergennes, Counselor to
the Parliament of Burgundy, Master of Requests, afterward Intendant of
Auch, and finally Director of the Vingtièmes.[1] My great-grandfather
was not, therefore, as it has been frequently but erroneously stated,
the minister who was so well known as the Comte de Vergennes. That
minister had an elder brother who was called “the Marquis,” the first of
the family, I believe, who bore such a title. This marquis had quitted
the magistracy to enter upon a diplomatic career. He was acting as
minister in Switzerland in 1777, when the French treaties with the
Helvetian Republic were renewed. Afterward he was given the title of
ambassador. His son, Charles Gravier de Vergennes, who was born at Dijon
in 1751, married Adelaide Françoise de Bastard, born about 1760. This
lady’s family came originally from Gascony, and a branch of it, whose
members distinguished themselves at the bar and in the magistracy, was
settled at Toulouse. Her father, Dominique de Bastard, born at Laffitte
(Haute-Garonne), had been one of the counselors to the parliament, and
was the senior counselor at the time of his death. His bust is in the
Salle des Illustres in the Capitol. He took an active part in the
measures of Chancellor Maupeou. His daughter’s husband, M. de Vergennes,
being a member of the legal profession, bore, as was the custom under
the old _régime_, no title. It is said that he was a man of only
ordinary ability, who took his pleasure in life without much
discrimination, but also that he had good sense and was a useful
official. He belonged to that administrative school of which MM. de
Trudaine were the leaders.

Madame de Vergennes, of whom my father constantly spoke, was a person of
more individuality of character; she was both clever and good. When he
was quite a child, my father was on most confidential terms with her, as
grandsons frequently are with their grandmothers. In his bright and
kindly nature, his pleasant raillery, which was never malicious, he
resembled her; and from her he also inherited his musical gifts, a good
voice for singing, and a quick memory for the airs and couplets of the
vaudevilles of the day. He never lost his habit of humming the popular
songs of the old _régime_. Madame de Vergennes had the ideas of her
time—a touch of philosophy, stopping short of incredulity, and a
certain repugnance to the Court, although she regarded Louis XVI. with
affection and respect. Her intellect, which was bright, practical, and
independent, was highly cultivated; her conversation was brilliant and
sometimes very free, after the manner of the period. Nevertheless, she
gave her two daughters, Claire and Alix, a strict and indeed rather
solitary education, for it was the fashion of that day that parents
should see but little of their children. The two sisters studied in a
large, fireless room, apart from the rest of the house, under the
inspection of a governess, and were instructed in what may be called the
frivolous arts—music, drawing, and dancing. They were seldom taken to
see a play, but they were occasionally indulged with a visit to the
opera, and now and then with a ball.

M. de Vergennes had not desired or foreseen the Revolution; but he was
neither displeased nor alarmed by it. He and his friends belonged to
that citizen class, ennobled by holding public offices, which seemed to
be the nation itself, and he can not have found himself much out of his
place among those who were called “the electors of ’89.” He was elected
a member of the Council of the Commune, and made a major in the National
Guard. M. de Lafayette, whose granddaughter was to become the wife of M.
de Vergennes’s grandson, forty years after, and M. Royer-Collard, whom
that grandson was to succeed at the French Academy, treated him like one
of themselves. His opinions were more in accordance with those of M.
Royer-Collard than with those of M. de Lafayette, and the French
Revolution soon shot far ahead of him. He did not, however, feel any
inclination to emigrate. His patriotism, as well as his attachment to
Louis XVI., led him to remain in France; and thus he was unable to elude
that fate which, in 1793, threatened all who were in positions similar
to his and of the same way of thinking. He was falsely accused of
intending to emigrate, by the Administration of the Départment of Saône
et Loire; his property was placed under sequestration; and he was
arrested in Paris, at the house in the Rue Saint Eustache which he had
inhabited since 1788. The man who arrested him had no warrant from the
Committee of Public Safety except for the arrest of M. de Vergennes’s
father. He took the son because he lived with the father, and both died
on the same scaffold on the 6th Thermidor (24th July, 1794), three days
before the fall of Robespierre.

M. de Vergennes’s death left his unhappy wife and daughters unprotected,
and in straitened circumstances, as he had sold his estate in Burgundy a
short time previously, and its price had been confiscated by the nation.
There remained to them, however, one friend, not powerful, indeed, but
full of zeal and good will. This was a young man with whom M. de
Vergennes had become acquainted in the early days of the Revolution,
whose family had formerly been of some importance in the commercial
world, and also in the civic administration of Marseilles, so that the
younger members were taking their places in the magistracy and in the
army, in short, among “the privileged,” as the phrase then went. This
young man, Augustin Laurent de Rémusat, was born at Valensoles, in
Provence, on the 28th of August, 1762. After having studied, with great
credit, at Juilly, the former seat of that Oratorian College which still
exists near Paris, he was nominated, at twenty years of age,
advocate-general to the _Cour des Aides_ and the _Chambre des Comptes
Réunies_ of Provence. My father has sketched the portrait of that young
man, his arrival in Paris, and his life in the midst of the new society.
The following note tells, better than I could, how M. de Rémusat loved
and married Mademoiselle Claire de Vergennes:

“The society of Aix, a city in which nobles dwelt and a
parliament assembled, was of the brilliant order. My father
lived a great deal in society. He was of an agreeable presence,
had a great deal of pleasant humor, fine and polished manners,
high spirits, and a reputation for gallantry. He sought and
obtained all the social success that a young man could desire.
Nevertheless, he attended sedulously to his profession, which he
liked, and he married, in 1783, Mademoiselle de Sannes, the
daughter of the _Procureur-Général_ of his _Compagnie_. This
marriage was dissolved by the death of Madame de Rémusat, who
died shortly after the birth of a daughter.

“The Revolution broke out; the supreme courts were suppressed;
and the settling of their business was a serious and important
affair. In order to carry it through, the _Cour des Aides_ sent
a deputation to Paris. My father was one of the delegates. He
has often told me that he then had occasion to see M. de
Mirabeau, deputy for Aix, on the business of his mission; and,
notwithstanding his prejudices as an adherent of the old
parliaments, he was charmed with Mirabeau’s pompous politeness.
My father never told me details of his manner of living, so that
I do not know what were the circumstances under which he went to
the house of my grandfather Vergennes. He passed through the
terrible years of the Revolution alone and unknown in Paris, and
without any personal mishaps. Society no longer existed. His
company was therefore all the more agreeable, and even the more
useful to my grandmother (Madame de Vergennes), who was involved
in great anxieties and misfortunes. My father used to tell me
that my grandfather was a commonplace sort of man, but he soon
learned to appreciate my grandmother very highly, and she
conceived a liking for him. She was a wise, moderate-minded
woman, who entertained no fancies, cherished no prejudices, and
gave way to no impulses. She distrusted everything in which
there was any exaggeration, and detested affectation of every
kind, but she was readily touched by solid worth and by genuine
feeling; while her clear-headedness and her practical, somewhat
sarcastic turn of mind preserved her from everything that lacked
prudence or morality. Her head was never betrayed by her heart;
but, as she had suffered from the neglect of a husband to whom
she was superior, she was disposed to make inclination and
choice the ruling motives of marriage.

“Immediately after the death of my grandfather, a decree was
issued, by which all nobles were ordered to quit Paris. Madame
de Vergennes retired to Saint Gratien, in the valley of
Montmorency, with her two daughters, Claire and Alix; and she
gave my father permission to follow her thither. His presence
was precious to them. His bright and cheerful nature, his
amiability, and careful attentions to those he loved, made him a
charming companion. His taste for a quiet life, the country, and
seclusion, and his cultivated mind, exactly fitted him for a
family circle composed of intelligent persons, and in which
education was always going on. I can not believe that my
grandmother did not early foresee and acquiesce in that which
was destined to happen, even supposing there was not at that
time anything to read in the heart of her daughter. It is
certain, for my mother says so in several of her letters, that,
although she was then only a child, her prematurely serious turn
of mind, her sensitive and emotional nature, her vivid
imagination, and finally, the combined influences of intimacy,
solitude, and misfortune, all united to inspire her with an
interest in my father, which had from the first all the
characteristics of a lofty and abiding sentiment, I do not think
I have ever met a woman in whom so much moral strictness was
combined with so much romantic sensibility as in my mother. Her
youth, her extreme youth, was, as it were, steadied by those
fortunate circumstances which bound her to duty by ties of
passion, and procured for her that rare combination, peace of
soul and the delightful agitation of the heart.

“She was not tall, but her figure was elegant and well
proportioned. She was fair and plump; indeed, it used to be
feared that she would grow too fat. Her eyes were fine and
expressive, black, like her hair; her features were regular, but
rather too large. Her countenance was grave, almost imposing;
but the intelligent kindliness of her glance tempered the
gravity of her features very pleasantly. Her strong,
well-trained, fertile intellect, had certain virile qualities,
with which the extreme vividness of her imagination frequently
clashed. She possessed sound judgment and keen powers of
observation, and she was entirely unaffected in her manners and
in her modes of expression, although she was not without a
certain subtlety of ideas. In reality, she was profoundly
reasonable, but she was headstrong; her intellect was more
reasonable than herself. In her youth she lacked gayety and
probably ease, may have appeared to be pedantic because she was
serious, affected because she was silent, absent-minded, and
indifferent to almost all the small things of every-day life.
But, with her mother, whose cheerful moods she sometimes
crossed, with her husband, whose simple tastes and easy temper
she never crossed, she was not wanting in richness and freedom.
She had even a kind of gayety of her own, which developed as she
grew older, when, having been very absent and absorbed in her
own thoughts while she was very young, she became more like her
mother. I have often thought that, if she had lived long enough
to share the house in which I am writing to-day, she would have
been the merriest of us all.”

My father wrote these lines in 1857, at Laffitte (Haute-Garonne), where
all those whom he loved were assembled, and we were gay and happy. In
quoting them I am somewhat outrunning my narrative, for he speaks here
of his mother as of a woman and not as of a young girl, and Claire de
Vergennes, when she married, early in the year 1796, was hardly sixteen
years old.

M. and Mme. de Rémusat—for thus I shall designate them henceforth, for
the sake of clearness in my story—lived sometimes in Paris, and
sometimes in a modest country house at Saint Gratien, a residence which
had two strong recommendations—the beauty of the landscape and the
attraction of the neighborhood.

Nearest and pleasantest of neighbors were the owners of Sannois, with
whom Madame de Vergennes was very intimate. Jean Jacques Rousseau’s
“Confessions,” Madame d’Epinay’s “Mémoires,” and a hundred works of the
last century as well, have made the place and the persons known to the
world. Madame d’Houdetot (Sophie de Lalive) had lived peacefully, in her
old age, throughout the troublous time of the Revolution in that country
house, in the society of her husband and of M. de Saint Lambert. Between
the famous trio and the young couple at Saint Gratien so close an
intimacy was formed that, when the house at Saint Gratien was sold, my
grandparents hired one within a shorter distance of the residence of
their friends, and a way of communication was made between the gardens
of their respective abodes. By degrees, however, M. de Rémusat got into
the habit of going to Paris more and more frequently; and, as the times
became quieter, he began to think of emerging from obscurity, and from
the narrow circumstances to which he was reduced by the confiscation of
the property of his wife’s father and the loss of his own place in the
magistracy. As is always the case in France, it was of employment in
some public function that he thought. He had no relations with the
Government, or even with M. de Talleyrand, who was then Foreign
Minister, but he directed his efforts toward that department, and
obtained, if not exactly a place, at least an occupation, which was
likely to lead to a place, in the office of the solicitors to the
Ministry.

Besides the agreeable and intellectual relations which they maintained
with Sannois, M. and Mme. de Rémusat had formed an intimacy no less
close, but which was destined to exercise a much greater influence over
their fortunes, with Madame de Beauharnais, who, in 1796, became the
wife of Bonaparte. When her friend had acquired power through her
all-powerful husband, Madame de Vergennes applied to her on behalf of
her son-in-law, who wished to enter the Council of State or the
Administration. The First Consul, however, or his wife, had a different
idea of what ought to be done. The consideration and respect in which
Madame de Vergennes was held, her social station, her name—which was
allied both to the old _régime_ and to the new ideas—gave a certain
value to the relations of her family with the consular palace, which at
that time had but little intercourse with Parisian society. Quite
unexpectedly, M. de Rémusat was appointed Prefect of the Palace, in
1802; and shortly afterward Madame de Rémusat became Lady-in-Waiting
(_Dame pour Accompagner_) to Madame Bonaparte, a title which was soon
changed into the better sounding one of Lady of the Palace (_Dame du
Palais_).

III

Persons of the way of thinking of M. and Mme. de Rémusat had no
sacrifice to make in casting in their lot with the new _régime_. They
had neither the extravagant sentiments of the Royalists, nor the
austerity of the Republicans. No doubt their attitude of mind approached
more nearly to that of the Royalists than to that of the Republicans,
but their royalism reduced itself to pious veneration for Louis XVI. The
misfortunes of that unhappy prince rendered his memory sacred, and his
person had always been regarded in the family of M. de Vergennes with
peculiar respect; but “Legitimacy” had not yet been invented, and those
persons who most deeply deplored the fall of the old _régime_, or rather
that of the ancient dynasty, did not hold themselves under any
obligation to believe that everything done in France in the absence of
the Bourbons was null and void. Pure and unalloyed admiration was
inspired by the young general who was reëstablishing material, if not
moral order, with such brilliant success, in a society which was
disturbed after a fashion very different from that of those successive
later times, in which so many worthless “saviours” have turned up.

Public functionaries in those days adhered to the opinion which was very
natural under the old _régime_, that an official is responsible only for
what he does, and not for either the acts or the origin of the
Government. The sense of “solidarity” does not exist in absolute
monarchies. The parliamentary _régime_ has happily rendered us more
sensitive, and all honest people now admit the collective responsibility
of all the agents of a power. One could not nowadays serve a government
whose tendency and general policy one did not approve; but it was
otherwise in former times. My father—who had more right than any one
else to be strict in these matters, and who, perhaps, owed somewhat of
his extreme political scrupulousness to the difficult position in which
he had seen his parents placed during his own childhood, between their
private impressions and their official duties—explains these shades of
difference in an unpublished letter to M. Sainte Beuve, to whom he had
communicated certain biographical details for an article in the “Revue
des Deux Mondes.”

“It was not a _pis aller_, from necessity, weakness, or as a
temporary expedient, that my parents attached themselves to the
new _régime_. Of their free will and with entire confidence they
united themselves with its fortunes. If you add to that all the
pleasures of an easy and prominent position to be stepped into
from one of poverty and obscurity, the curiosity which a court
of so novel a kind inspired, the incomparable interest of the
spectacle of a man like the Emperor at an epoch when he was
irreproachable, young, and still amiable, you can easily
conceive the attraction which induced my parents to overlook all
that was in reality opposed to their tastes, their reason, and
even their true interests in this new position. At the end of
two or three years, they had learned too well that a court is
always a court, and that all is not pleasure in the personal
service of an absolute master, even though he may charm and
dazzle. But this did not prevent their being for a long time
well enough satisfied with their lot. My mother especially was
much amused with all that passed before her eyes, and she was on
very good terms with the Empress, who was extremely kind and
generous, while she enthusiastically admired the Emperor. He
treated my mother with flattering distinction. She was almost
the only woman with whom he ever talked. My mother would
sometimes say, after the Empire had ceased to exist:

‘Va, je t’ai trop aimé pour ne pas te haïr!’”

Of the impressions made by the new Court upon the new Lady of the Palace
we have no record. The security of the Post-office was very doubtful.
Madame de Vergennes burned all her daughter’s letters, and the
correspondence of the latter with her husband does not commence until
some years later, during the Emperor’s journeys in Italy and Germany.
Nevertheless, we can perceive from her Memoirs, although they do not
abound in personal details, how strange and novel everything seemed to
so very young a woman, transplanted all of a sudden into this palace,
and an eye-witness of the private life of the glorious chief of an
unknown government. She was very serious, as, when they are not very
frivolous the young are apt to be, and much disposed to observation and
reflection. She seems to have had no taste for display, no great
solicitude about external things, no turn for gossip or the running down
of other people, no love of talking or display. What was thought of her
at that time? We can not tell. We only know, from certain passages in
sundry letters and memoirs, that she was considered clever, and that
people were a little afraid of her. Probably, however, her companions
thought her pedantic rather than dangerous. She had a considerable
“success,” especially at first; for in its early days the Court was not
numerous—there were few distinctions or favors to be schemed for,
rivalry was not very brisk or ardent. Little by little, however, this
little society became a real court. Now, courtiers are always afraid of
intellect, and especially of that disposition, unintelligible to them,
which clever people have to interest themselves in a disinterested
manner, so to speak, in knowing things and judging characters, without
even thinking of turning their knowledge to their own advantage.
Courtiers always suspect that every opinion has a hidden aim. Persons of
quick intellect are very strongly impressed by the spectacle of human
affairs, even when they are merely looking on at them. And that faculty
is the most incomprehensible to those who do not possess it, and who
attribute its effects to some personal motive, or interested
calculation. They suspect intrigue or resentment every time that they
observe a movement in any direction, but they have no idea of the
spontaneous and gratuitous action of the mind. Every one has been
exposed to mistrust of this kind, which is more to be dreaded when a
woman, endowed with excessive activity of imagination, and drawn on by
her intelligence to form opinions on matters out of her sphere, is in
question. Many persons, especially in that somewhat coarse society,
would detect egotism and pretension in her life and conversation, and
accuse her unduly of ambition.

That her husband was entirely devoid of ambition, and free from any
disposition to intrigue, was evident to all. The position in which the
favor of the First Consul had placed him did not suit him; he would, no
doubt, have preferred some laborious administrative function to one
which demanded nothing of him but suavity and a graceful demeanor. From
the “Memoirs,” from his own letters, and from my father’s account of
him, we gather that M. de Rémusat was a man of discreet conduct, with
keen wits, and a cheerful and even temper—not at all a person
calculated to make enemies. Indeed, he would never have had any, but for
a certain shyness, which, little as it seems to harmonize with
conversational powers and an agreeable manner, is, nevertheless,
occasionally allied with them. His taste for quiet life, and some
indolence and timidity of character, had impelled him more and more
toward retirement and isolation. Modesty and self-esteem mingled in his
nature; and, without rendering him insensible to the honors of the post
which he had obtained, they sometimes made him ashamed of the solemn
trifles to which that very post forced him to devote his life. He
believed himself to be made for better things, but he did not care for
toiling in search of that which did not come to him of itself. He took
but little pleasure in expressing the art, in which he was probably not
deficient, of managing men. He did not love to put himself forward, and
his indolent temperament induced him to let things take their chance. He
afterward became a hard-working prefect, but he was a negligent and
inactive courtier. He employed his skill simply to avoid disputes, and
he discharged his official functions with quiet good taste. After having
had many friends, and entered into numerous relations, he let them drop
through, or at least he never seemed to do anything to retain them.
Unless great care be taken, ties are loosened, recollections are
effaced, rivalries are formed, and all the chances of ambition escape
one’s grasp. M. de Rémusat had no skill in playing a part, forming
connections, bringing people together, or contriving the opportunities
of fortune or success. He seems never to have regretted this. It would
be easy for me to trace his motives—to depict his character in detail,
and to narrate his errors, his grievances, and even his sufferings; for
was he not my grandfather?

The first severe trial which M. and Mme. de Rémusat had to endure in
their new position was the murder of the Duc d’Enghien. How profound was
the grief which they felt when the man whom they ardently admired, as
the express image of power and genius, and whom they strove to love,
stained his hands with innocent blood, and they were forced to recognize
that such a deed was simply the result of a cold and inhuman
calculation, the following narrative will prove. It will, indeed, be
seen that the impression made by the crime upon all honest persons at
the Court was even deeper than that which it produced outside among the
general public, who had become almost indifferent, through custom, to
deeds of this kind. Even among the Royalists, who were absolutely
inimical to the Government, the event caused more sorrow than
indignation, so perverted had the public mind become in political
matters and respecting State expedients! Where could the men of that day
have acquired principles? Was it the old _régime_ or the Terror which
could have instructed them? A short time afterward, the Sovereign
Pontiff came to Paris, and, among the reasons which made him hesitate to
crown the new Charlemagne, it is very doubtful whether this one was ever
even weighed for a moment. The press was dumb, and men must be possessed
of information before they are aroused to anger. Let us hope that
civilization has now made so much progress that a repetition of similar
incidents would be impossible. We should, however, be restrained from
optimism on this point by the remembrance of what we have witnessed in
our own time.

The following Memoirs are an exact record of the life of the author, and
the history of the early years of the present century. They show us what
changes the establishment of the Empire effected at the Court, and how
life there and its relations became more difficult and embarrassing; how
by degrees the prestige of the Emperor declined, in proportion as he
misused his great gifts, his power, and his chances. Mistakes, reverses,
and failures were multiplied; and at the same time the adhesion of the
earliest admirers of the Emperor became less fervent, and the manner of
serving reflected the mode of thinking. Two parties, the Beauharnais and
the Bonapartes, disputed the favor of the sovereign master with each
other; and M. and Mme. de Rémusat were regarded as belonging to the
former, by reason of their natural feelings and their family relations.
Their position was consequently affected in no small degree by the
downfall and departure of the Empress Josephine. Everything was,
however, much changed, and, when her lady-in-waiting followed her into
her retirement, the Emperor seems to have made but little effort to
detain Mme. de Rémusat. Perhaps he was glad that a person of good sense
and quick intelligence should watch over his forsaken and somewhat
imprudent wife; but it must also be taken into account that my
grandmother’s delicate health, her love of quiet, and her distaste for
all festivities, had isolated her almost entirely from court life.

Her husband, wearied and disgusted, gave way every day more and more to
his discontent, and to his inability to lay himself out to please the
great personages who were either cold or hostile to him. He neglected
his functions as Chamberlain in order to concentrate himself on his
duties as “Administrator of Theatres,” but the latter he fulfilled
admirably. A great part of the actual organization of the Théâtre
Français is due to him. My father, born in 1797, and very young when his
father was Chamberlain to the Emperor, was remarkable as a child for his
intelligence and his observation, and he retained a very distinct
recollection of that period of discouragement and ennui. He has told me
that he frequently knew his father to return from Saint Cloud utterly
worn out, and tried beyond his patience by the burden which the
arbitrariness and the ill temper of the Emperor laid upon all who
approached him. That the child was an eye- and ear-witness of his
complaints at those moments in which restraints are cast off is evident,
for, when he was more master of himself, he was fain to represent
himself as satisfied with his master and his position, and he endeavored
to conceal his vexations from his son. Perhaps he was better calculated
to serve the simple, tranquil, sober, intellectual Bonaparte, while
still a novice in the pleasures of sovereignty, than the _blasé_ and
intoxicated Napoleon, who exhibited the worse taste possible on all
State occasions, and became more exacting every day in the matter of
ceremonial and adulatory observance.

An apparently trifling circumstance, whose gravity was not at first
perceived by those whom it concerned, increased the difficulties of the
situation, and hurried on the inevitable catastrophe. Although the
history of the affair is insignificant, it will not be read without
interest, and it sheds a light upon times now happily far removed from
us, and which Frenchmen, if the lessons of the past are to avail, will
not suffer to return.

The celebrated Lavoisier was very intimate with M. de Vergennes. He
died, as every one knows, on the scaffold on the 19th Floreal, year 2
(9th May, 1794). His widow, who contracted a second marriage with M.
Rumford, a German _savant_, or at least a commercial man aiming at
science—for he was the inventor of the Prussian stoves, and also of the
thermometer that bears his name—remained on terms of close friendship
with Madame de Vergennes and her family. This second marriage had not
been happy, and compassion was, very justly, excited on behalf of the
ill-treated wife, who was compelled to invoke the protection of the law
against unendurable tyranny and exaction. As M. Rumford was a foreigner,
it was in the power of the police to procure information respecting him
from his own country, to reprimand him severely, and even to oblige him
to leave France. This, I believe, was eventually done, and it was at the
request of my grandmother that M. de Talleyrand and M. Fouché took up
the matter. Madame Rumford was anxious to evince her gratitude to those
personages, and the following is my father’s account of the results of
her wish:

“My mother consented to invite Madame Rumford to dinner, to meet
M. de Talleyrand and M. Fouché. Surely, it was not an act of
opposition to entertain the High Chamberlain and the Minister of
Police at her table! Nevertheless, that meeting—so naturally
brought about, the motive of which was as insignificant as it
was harmless, but which was, I acknowledge, unusual, and never
occurred again—was represented to the Emperor, in the reports
that were sent out to him in Spain, as a political conference,
and the proof of an important coalition. Although I do not
contend that it was impossible for M. de Talleyrand and M.
Fouché to have taken advantage of the opportunity of talking
together; or deny that my mother, perceiving the respective
inclinations of the two, or put upon the scent by something that
was said by M. de Talleyrand, might have regarded the occasion
as a favorable one for bringing about an interview which amused
herself at the same time that it was useful to one of her
friends, I have not the slightest reason for supposing that such
was the case. I am, on the contrary, perfectly certain of having
heard my father and mother quote this incident, when reverting
to it some years afterward, as an instance of the unexpected
importance which may be assumed by a fortuitous and
insignificant matter, and say, smilingly, that Madame Rumford
little knew what she had cost them.

“They added that on that occasion the word ‘triumvirate’ had
been uttered, and my mother had said, laughingly, ‘My dear, I am
sorry for it; but your lot could only be that of Lepidus.’ My
father also said that certain persons of the Court, not enemies
of his, had sometimes spoken of ‘the Conference’ to him as a
fact, and had said, though without any hostile intention, ‘Now
that it is all over, tell us what it was about, and what it was
you really meant to do?’”

This narrative gives us an insight into the life of Courts, and also
testifies to the intimacy of my grandparents with M. de Talleyrand.
Although the former Bishop of Autun does not seem to have been actuated
in this particular instance by that kind of feeling which he habitually
carried into his relations with women, he both liked and admired Mme. de
Rémusat I have found amusing evidence of his sentiments in a sketch of
her which he wrote, on the official paper of the Senate, during the
leisure time of a sitting at which he presided as “Vice-Grand Elector,”
probably in 1811:

“CONSERVATIVE SENATE, }
“LUXEMBOURG, _April 29th_. }

“I have a fancy for commencing the portrait of Clari. She is not
what the world calls a beauty, but every one agrees in
pronouncing her an agreeable woman. She is twenty-eight or
twenty-nine years old, and she is neither more nor less blooming
than she ought to be at twenty-eight. Her figure is good, her
carriage is graceful and unaffected. Clari is not thin; she is
only slight and refined. Her complexion is not brilliant, but
she has the special charm of looking fairer in proportion as she
is in a stronger light. To describe Clari in a sentence, let me
say that the better she is known the more amiable she appears.

“Clari has large, black eyes; their long lids give an expression
of mingled tenderness and vivacity which is striking, even when
her mind is inactive and she does not want to express anything.
Those occasions are, however, very rare. Lively ideas, quick
perception, a vivid imagination, exquisite sensibility, and
constant kindness are expressed in her glance. To give an idea
of that, it would be necessary to paint the soul which depicts
itself in it, and then Clari would be the most beautiful of
beings. I am not sufficiently well versed in the rules of
drawing to know whether Clari’s features are quite regular. I
believe her nose is too thick; but I know that she has beautiful
eyes, lips, and teeth. A great part of her forehead is generally
hidden by her hair, and that is a pity. Her smile is rendered as
arch as it is sweet by her two dimples. Her dress is often
careless, but never in bad taste, and she is scrupulously neat.
That neatness forms part of the system of order and decorum from
which Clari never deviates. Clari is not rich, but as she is
moderate in her tastes and above caprice and fancy, she despises
extravagance, and has never perceived that her fortune is
limited, except when she has been obliged to restrain her
benevolence. But, besides the art of giving, she has a thousand
other ways of conferring kindnesses. Always ready to commend
good deeds and to excuse faults, her mind is always bent on
beneficent purposes. Clari affords us a striking proof of how
much superior a kindly wit is to talent which produces only
severity, criticism, and satire. She is more ingenious in her
manner of passing favorable judgments than ever was malignity in
the art of suggesting the false and suppressing the true.

“Clari always vindicates those whose part she takes, but without
offending those whom she confutes. Clari has a large and
cultivated mind. I know no one who can talk better than she; but
she exhibits her superior information only when she is giving
one a proof of her confidence and friendship. Clari’s husband
knows that he possesses a treasure, and has the good sense to
appreciate it. Clari is a good mother; that is her reward.”

The Emperor was displeased at the intimacy between the Grand Chamberlain
and the First Chamberlain, and these Memoirs will show that he tried
more than once to set the two at variance. He even succeeded for a time
in alienating them. But their intimacy was unbroken when M. de
Talleyrand fell into disgrace.

It is well know that honorable motives on his part led to a violent
altercation between himself and his imperial master in January, 1809, at
the period of the Spanish war, which was the beginning of the
misfortunes of the empire, and the result of the Emperor’s errors. Both
M. de Talleyrand and M. Fouché predicted, or at least foreboded, that
public disapprobation and suspicion would be aroused. “Throughout the
whole empire,” writes M. Thiers, “hate was beginning to take the place
of love.” This change was taking place among officials as well as
citizens. Moreover, M. de Montesquiou, a member of the Legislature, who
succeeded M. de Talleyrand in his place at court, was a less important
personage than the latter, who had relegated to the First Chamberlain
not only the troublesome portions of the duties of his post, but also
those which were agreeable, and which conferred distinction. It was a
“come-down” to lose a chief whose own importance enhanced that of the
position next below him. Truly this was a strange time!

Talleyrand, though in disgrace as a minister, and as the holder of one
of the highest posts at Court, had not forfeited the Emperor’s
confidence. The latter would send for him every now and then, and freely
disclose the secret of the question or the circumstance on which he
desired his advice. These consultations went on to the end, even at
those times when the Emperor was talking of sending M. de Talleyrand to
Vincennes. In return, M. de Talleyrand would enter into his views, and
advise him with perfect frankness; and so this strange intercourse was
carried on as if nothing had happened between them.

State policy and the greatness of his own position afforded certain
privileges and consolations to M. de Talleyrand which were beyond the
reach of a chamberlain or a lady-in-waiting. Those who are in close
contact with absolute power do not foresee that the day must come when
their feelings will clash with their interests, and some of their duties
with others. They forget that there are principles of government which
must be guarded by constitutional guarantees. They yield to the natural
desire to be “somebodies” in the state, to serve the established
authority; they do not study the nature and conditions of that
authority. So long as it exacts nothing against their conscience, they
serve it in the sphere to which it has appointed them. But the hour
comes when, without exacting anything new from them, it carries
extravagance, violence, and injustice to such a height that it becomes
hard to obey it, even in things of no moment; they remain, nevertheless,
bound to obedience, while in their inmost soul they are full of
indignation and of pain. Then comes actual desire for its fall. It may
be said that their course is simple; let them resign. But they are
afraid of giving rise to rumor and scandal, of being neither understood
nor approved by public opinion. Moreover, no contract binds the servants
of the state to the conduct of the chief of the state. Having no rights,
they would seem to have no duties. They are powerless for prevention,
and are, therefore, not afraid of having to expiate errors. Thus people
thought in the reign of Louis XIV., and thus they still think in a great
part of Europe; it was thus they thought under Napoleon, and perhaps
they will be of the same opinion again. So shameful and wretched a thing
is absolute power! It paralyzes both the honest scruples and the real
duties of honest men.

Traces of these convictions, or at least of their germ, may be discerned
in the correspondence of M. and Madame de Rémusat, and all things
contributed to confirm them. Direct communication with the Emperor
became more and more infrequent, and his charm of manner, though still
powerful, failed to weaken the impression made by his policy. The
divorce of the Empress restored to Madame de Rémusat, in great part, her
freedom of judgment and the disposal of her time. She attached herself
to the Empress Josephine in her disgrace, a proceeding not calculated to
raise her in the estimation of the Court. Her husband soon after retired
from the post of Keeper of the Wardrobe, under circumstances which are
detailed in these Memoirs, and the coolness increased. I use the word
“coolness” advisedly, because in certain pamphlets written against my
father it was alleged that his family had been guilty of grave offenses,
at which the Emperor was much incensed. That this was quite untrue is
amply proved by the fact that although M. de Rémusat resigned the post
of Keeper of the Wardrobe, he continued to be Chamberlain and Supervisor
of Theatres. He merely gave up the most troublesome and most onerous of
his offices. No doubt those habits of intimacy and confidence which
arise in common every-day life were weakened by his relinquishment of
that post; but, on the other hand, he gained greater freedom and more
frequent intercourse, both with his family and with society, and, as
they were no longer restricted to the drawing-rooms of the Tuileries and
St. Cloud, both husband and wife were enabled to bring more
clear-sightedness and independence of judgment to bear upon the policy
of their sovereign. Before the final disasters, aided by the advice and
predictions of M. de Talleyrand, they foresaw the fall of the Empire,
and were enabled to choose between the possible solutions of the problem
then in course of working out. There was no hope that the Emperor would
be satisfied with a peace more humiliating to himself than to France,
and indeed Europe was no longer in the humor to gratify him even to that
extent.

The public mind turned naturally toward the return of the Bourbons,
notwithstanding certain drawbacks, which were but dimly apprehended. The
_salons_ of Paris, without being actually Royalist, were
anti-revolutionary. At this epoch the plan of making the Bonapartes
heads of the Conservative and Catholic party had not yet been invented.
To bring back the Bourbons was a very momentous resolution, and it was
not adopted without struggles, anxieties, and apprehensions of all
sorts. My father regarded the painful recollection which he always
retained of the attitude of his family in 1814—a family so simple, so
honorable, and so unpretending—as a useful political lesson, one which
contributed, as much as his own reflections, to lead him to believe that
simplicity and straightforwardness are the truest policy. He records in
the following words his own observations on the state of feeling that
prevailed at the fall of the Empire:

“Policy alone reconciled my family to the Restoration. My father
never for a moment regarded his own acquiescence otherwise than
as an absolute necessity, of which he voluntarily accepted the
consequences. It would have been foolish to conceal the nature
of those consequences, or to have endeavored to avoid them
altogether; but they might have been more firmly resisted, or at
least some effort might have been made to reduce their
proportions. My mother, as a woman, was influenced by the
sentimental aspect of Bourbonism, and allowed herself to be
carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment. In every great
political movement there is a fascination, unless one is
preserved from it by party spirit; and this sympathy, combined
with the national taste for declamation, has a large share in
the absurdities which accompany every change of government. My
mother was, however, disgusted from the first by the
exaggeration of sentiment, of opinion, and of ridiculous
language, that prevailed. The humiliating and insolent side of
the Restoration, as indeed of every restoration, is what shocks
me the most; but, if the Royalists had not gone too far, a great
deal would have been overlooked. The things of this kind which
sensible folk will endure are surprising. I still feel grateful
to my father because, in the very first days of the Monarchy, he
somewhat sharply rebuked a person who was advocating in our
_salon_ the extreme doctrines of Legitimacy. Nevertheless, we
had to accept this Legitimacy under a more politic form. The
word itself was, I believe, sanctioned by M. de Talleyrand, and
thence ensued an inevitable train of consequences which speedily
developed themselves.”

This is not merely an historical judgment of my father’s; at that time
he was beginning, notwithstanding his youth, to think for himself, and
to guide, or at least to influence, the political opinions of his
parents. As I shall soon be in a position to publish the reminiscences
of his youth, I will not dwell upon them here. I must, however, mention
him in connection with the memoirs of his mother, as he had more to do
with them than might be supposed.

I have not hitherto alluded to one of the most characteristic traits of
her whose life I have undertaken to narrate. She was a tender, careful,
and admirable mother. Her son Charles, born on the 24th Ventose, year 5
(March 14, 1797), cheered her from his childhood with the hopes which he
afterward realized, and, as he grew in years and intelligence, aroused
in her intellectual tastes similar to his own. Her second son, Albert,
was born five years later than Charles, and died in 1830. His faculties
were never completely developed; he remained a child until the end. She
had tender compassion for him, and lavished upon him care so unceasing
and devoted that it was admirable even in a mother. But her great love
was for her first-born, and never was filial or maternal affection
founded on more striking resemblance in mind and character. Her letters
are full of her maternal tenderness. The following is addressed to her
beloved son, when he was just sixteen. I think it will convey a
favorable impression of both, and throw a light on the history of their
after lives:

VICHY, _July 25, 1813_.

“I have been suffering from a severe sore throat for the last
few days, and time has hung heavily, my child; to-day I feel a
little better, and I am going to amuse myself by writing to you.
Besides, you have been scolding me for my silence, and
reproaching me too often with your four letters. I will no
longer be behindhand with you, and this letter, I think, will
entitle me to scold you in my turn, if an opportunity offers. My
dear boy, I follow you step by step in all your studies, and I
see you are full of work during this month of July, which I am
passing so monotonously. I know pretty well, too, all you say
and do on Thursdays and Sundays. Madame de Grasse tells me of
your little talks, and amuses me with it all. For instance, she
told me that the other day you had praised me to her, and said
that when you and I talk together you are sometimes tempted to
think me too clever. But you need not be checked by any fear of
that, for you, my dear child, have at least as much wit as I. I
tell you so frankly, because that gift, although an advantage,
needs many other things to support it, and therefore you may
take my words rather as warning than as praise. If my
conversation with you often takes a serious turn, you must
impute it to the fact that I am your mother, and have not
relinquished that _rôle_; to my discovery of some wise thoughts
in my own head, and wanting to put them into yours; and to my
desire to make good use of the quickly passing time that will
soon bear you far from me. When I need no longer advise and warn
you, we shall talk together quite at our ease, interchanging our
reflections, our remarks, and our opinions on everything and
everybody quite frankly, without fear of vexing one another; in
fact, with all that sincere and intimate friendship which, I
believe, may perfectly well exist between a mother and a son.
There are not so many years between us as to prevent me from
sympathizing with your youth, or sharing some of your feelings.
Women’s shoulders wear young heads for a long time, and in the
head of a mother one side is always just the same age as her
child’s.

“Madame de Grasse told me also that you want to amuse yourself
during these holidays by writing some of your notions on various
subjects. I think you are right. It will be interesting for you
to read them again in a few years. Your father would say I want
to make you a scribbler like myself—for he does not stand on
ceremony with me—but I do not care. There can be no harm in
setting down one’s thoughts in writing for one’s self alone, and
I think both taste and style may be formed in this way. It is
just because your father is lazy, and only writes one letter a
week; true, it is a very pleasant one, but still that is not
much. . . . But there! I must not run on about him.

“During my retirement I thought I should like to draw your
portrait, and if I had not had a sore throat, I would have tried
to do so. While I was thinking it over, I found that in order
not to be insipid, and, indeed, to be correct, I should have to
point out a few faults, and I do believe the hard words have
stuck in my throat and given me quinsy. While planning this
portrait, I assure you I took you to pieces very carefully, and
I found many good qualities well developed, a few just beginning
to bud, and then some slight congestions which hinder certain
others from exhibiting themselves. I beg your pardon for using a
medical expression; it is because I am in a place where nothing
but congestions and the way to get rid of them is talked about.
I will explain all this some day when I am in the vein, but
to-day I will touch only on one point—your behavior to others.
You are polite—more so, indeed, than is customary at your age:
you have a pleasant manner in addressing people, and you are a
good listener. Do not let this last quality slip. Madame de
Sévigné says that an appreciative silence is a mark of superior
sense in young people. ‘But, mother, what are you driving at?
You promised to point out a fault, and hitherto I see nothing
like one. A father’s blow turns aside. Let us come to the fact,
my dear mother.’ So I will, my son, in one moment; you forget
that I have a sore throat, and can only speak slowly. Well,
then, you are polite. When you are _asked_ to do something which
will gratify those you love, you consent willingly; but, when an
opportunity of so doing is merely pointed out to you, natural
indolence and a certain love of self make you hesitate; and,
when left to yourself, you do not seek such opportunities, for
fear of the trouble they might entail. Can you understand these
subtle distinctions? While you are still partly under my
authority, I can influence and guide you: but you will soon have
to answer for yourself, and I should wish you to think a little
about other people, notwithstanding the claims of your own
youth, which are naturally engrossing. I am not sure that I have
expressed my self clearly. As my ideas have to find their way
through a headache and all my bandages, and for the last four
days I have not sharpened my wits by contact with those of
Albert, the quinsy may possibly have got into my discourse.

“You must make the best of it. At any rate, it is a fact that
you have polished manners, in other words, you are kind.
Kindness is the politeness of the heart. But enough.

* * * * *

“Your little brother makes a good figure at the village dances.
He has become quite a rustic. In the morning he fishes and takes
long walks about the country. He understands more about trees
and agriculture than you do. In the evening he shines among our
big Auvergne shepherdesses, to whom he shows off all those
little airs and graces which you know so well.

“Adieu, my dear son; I leave off because I have come to the end
of my paper. Writing all this to you relieves me a little of my
_ennui_, but I must not quite overwhelm you by pouring out too
much at a time. My respects to Griffon, and best compliments to
M. Leclerc.”

In this confidential strain the mother and the son carried on their
correspondence. One year later, in 1814, the son left school, destined
to fulfil all the promise of his childhood, and to hold thenceforth a
more important place in the life and occupations of his parents. His
influence soon began to tell on theirs, the more so that there existed
no absolute divergence in their opinions. But he was more positive and
bolder than his parents, because he was not fettered by the ties of old
memories and old affection. He felt no regret for the Emperor, and,
although deeply moved by the sufferings of the French army, he witnessed
the fall of the Empire, if not with joy, at least with indifference. To
him, as to most talented young men of his time, it came as an
emancipation. He eagerly embraced the first notions of constitutional
order, which made their reappearance with the Bourbons. But he was
struck by the ridiculous side of Royalist society. Many of the revived
fashions and phrases seemed to him to be mere foolery; he was disgusted
by the abuse lavished upon the Emperor and the men of the Empire, but
neither his parents nor he, although still a little suspicious of the
new order of things, was seriously opposed to it. Neither the personal
vexations which resulted from it, such as the deprivation of employment,
the necessity of selling to great disadvantage a library which was the
delight of my grandfather, and which lives in the recollection of lovers
of books, nor a thousand other annoyances, could prevent their
experiencing a sense of relief. They almost verified a celebrated saying
of the Emperor, who, when at the zenith of his power, once asked those
surrounding him what would be said after his death. They all hastened to
answer in phrases of compliment or of flattery. But he interrupted them
by exclaiming, “What! you are at a loss to know what people will say?
They will say ‘Ouf!’”

It was difficult to attend to personal interests in those days; one
could hardly help being diverted from them, and engrossed solely by the
spectacle of France and Europe. Curiosity would naturally outweigh
ambition in a family such as we are depicting. My grandfather did
nevertheless think of entering the administration, and once more revived
his project, hitherto doomed to disappointment, of gaining admittance to
the Council of State; but he was as supine about it as before. Had he
entered the administration, he would only have been following the
example of the majority of the former officials of the Empire, for the
Bonapartist Opposition did not come into existence until the latter days
of the Monarchy. The members of the Imperial family lived in constant
and friendly intercourse with the new _régime_, or rather with the
reinstated old _régime_. The Empress Josephine was treated with great
respect, and the Emperor Alexander frequently visited her at Malmaison.
She wished to take up a dignified and fitting position, and she confided
to her lady-in-waiting that she thought of asking the title of High
Constable for her son Eugène, showing thereby that she scarcely
understood the spirit of the Restoration. Queen Hortense, who afterward
became the bitter enemy of the Bourbons, and was concerned in numerous
conspiracies, obtained the Duchy of Saint Leu, for which she intended to
return thanks in person to Louis XVIII. All projects of this kind had,
however, to be abandoned; for the Empress Josephine was suddenly carried
off by malignant sore throat in March, 1814, and the last link that
bound my kinsfolk to the Bonaparte family was sundered for ever.

The Bourbons seemed to make a point of annoying and depressing those
very persons whom their Government should have endeavored to conciliate,
and by slow degrees a belief gained ground that their reign would be of
short duration, and that France, just then more in love with equality
than with liberty, would demand to be placed once more under the yoke
which had seemed to be shattered; in fact, that the days of Imperial
splendor and misery would return. It was, therefore, with less amazement
than might be supposed that my grandfather learned one day from a friend
that the Emperor had escaped from Elba and landed at Cannes. Historical
events seem more astounding to those who read of them than to
eye-witnesses. Those who knew Bonaparte could readily believe him
capable of again putting France and Frenchmen in peril for the sake of a
selfish scheme. His return was, however, a tremendous event, and every
one had to think not only of the political future, but also of his own.
Even those who, like M. de Rémusat, had not publicly taken any political
side, and who only wanted to be left in repose and obscurity, had
everything to lose, and were bound to provide against eventualities. The
general suspense did not last long; even before the Emperor’s entry into
Paris, M. Réal came to announce to M. de Rémusat that he was sentenced
to exile together with twelve or fifteen others, among whom was M.
Pasquier.

An event still more serious than exile, and which left a deeper trace in
my father’s memory, occurred between the first news of the return of
Napoleon and his arrival at the Tuileries. On the day after that on
which the landing was publicly announced, Mme. de Nansouty hurried to
her sister’s house, full of dismay at all that she had been told of the
persecution to which the opponents of the vindictive and all-powerful
Emperor were about to be exposed. She told my grandparents that a
rigorous inquisition by the police was to be put in action; that M.
Pasquier apprehended molestation, and that everything in the house which
could give rise to suspicion must be got rid of. My grandmother, who
might not otherwise have thought of danger, remembered with alarm that a
manuscript highly calculated to compromise her husband, her sister, her
brother-in-law, and her friends, was in the house. For many years,
probably from her first appearance at Court, she had been in the habit
of taking notes daily of the events and conversations which came under
her notice, while her memory of them was fresh. She had recorded nearly
everything she saw and heard, at Paris, at St. Cloud, and at Malmaison.
For twelve years she had transferred, not only events and circumstances,
but studies of character and disposition, to the pages of her journal.
This journal was kept in the form of a correspondence. It consisted of a
series of letters, written from Court to a friend from whom nothing was
concealed. The author well knew all the value of these fictitious
letters, which recalled her whole life, with its most precious and most
painful recollections. Ought she to risk, for what would appear to
others only literary or sentimental selfishness, the peace, the liberty,
nay, even the life of those she loved? No one was aware of the existence
of this manuscript, except her husband and Mme. Chéron, the wife of the
Prefect of that name, a very old and attached friend. Her thoughts
turned to this lady, who had once before taken charge of the dangerous
manuscript, and she hastened to seek her. Unfortunately Mme. Chéron was
from home, and not likely to return for a considerable time. What was to
be done? My grandmother came back, greatly distressed, and, without
further reflection or delay, threw her manuscripts into the fire. My
father came into the room just as she was burning the last sheets,
somewhat cautiously, lest the flame should reach too high. He was then
seventeen, and has often described the scene to me—the remembrance of
it was most painful to him. He thought at first that his mother was
merely destroying a copy of the memoirs, which he had never read, and
that the precious original manuscript was safely concealed. He threw the
last sheets into the fire with his own hand, attaching but little
importance to the action. “Few deeds,” he used to say, “after I learned
all the truth, have I ever so bitterly regretted.”

From the very first, the author and her son so deeply lamented what they
had done—for they learned almost immediately that the sacrifice was
uncalled for—that for years they could not speak of it between
themselves or to my grandfather. The latter bore his exile with much
philosophy. He was not forbidden to dwell in France, but only in Paris
and its neighborhood, and it was decided that they should all await the
passing of the storm in Languedoc, where he possessed an estate which he
had bought back from the heirs of M. de Bastard, his wife’s grandfather,
and which had long been neglected. The family removed, therefore, to
Laffitte, where my father afterward passed so many years, now in the
midst of political agitation, again in quiet study. In after days he
again came thither from exile; for the sufferings of good citizens from
absolute power were not to be restricted to the year 1815, and Napoleons
have returned to France from a greater distance than the Isle of Elba.

My grandfather started for Laffitte on March 13th, and his family joined
him there a few days afterward. At Laffitte they passed the three months
of that reign, shorter but still more fatal than the first, which has
been called “The Hundred Days.” There my father entered upon his
literary career, not as yet producing original works, but translating
Pope, Cicero, and Tacitus. His only original writings were his songs.
The family lived quietly, unitedly, and almost happily, waiting the end
of a tragedy of which they foresaw the _dénouement_, and at Laffitte
they received the news of Waterloo. They heard at the same time of the
abdication of Napoleon, and that M. de Rémusat was appointed Prefect of
Haute-Garonne, by a decree of July 12, 1815. This appointment was quite
to the taste of my grandfather, for it placed him once more in office,
without involving him in the parade of a court; but it was less pleasing
to his wife, who regretted Paris and her old friends there, and who
dreaded the disturbances at Toulouse, at that time a prey to the
violence of southern Royalism—“the White Terror,” as it was then
called.

The new Prefect immediately set out for Toulouse, and was greeted on his
arrival with the news that General Ramel, notwithstanding that he had
hoisted the white flag on the Capitol, had been assassinated. Such are
the injustice and violence of party spirit, even when victorious; nay,
especially when victorious!

But, however interesting this episode of our national troubles may be,
it is not necessary to dwell on them here. The principal personage in
these Memoirs is not the Prefect, but Mme. de Rémusat. My grandmother,
anxious about the course of events, and perhaps afraid of the vehemence
of her son’s opinions, which were little suited to his father’s official
position, sent him back to Paris, to his great satisfaction.

Then ensued a correspondence between them which will make both of them
known to us, and will perhaps depict the writer of these Memoirs more
clearly than do the Memoirs themselves.

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. Fouché; 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, Molé, 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. Lainé 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
Rémusat:

“The nomination of my father to Lille brought my mother back
into the midst of the great stir of public opinion, which was
soon to declare itself as it had not done since 1789. Her
intelligence, her reason all her feelings and all her
convictions, were about to make a great step in advance. The
Empire, after awakening her interest in public affairs and
enabling her to understand them, subsequently directed her mind
toward a high moral aim, by inspiring her with a horror of
tyranny. Hence came her desire for a government of order,
founded on law, reason, and the spirit of the nation; hence a
certain leaning toward the forms of the English constitution.
Her stay at Toulouse and the reaction of 1815 gave her such a
knowledge of social realities as she could never have acquired
in the _salons_ of Paris, enlightening her as to the results and
the causes of the Revolution, and the needs and sentiments of
the nation. She understood, in a general way, on which side lay
true help, strength, life, and right. She learned that a new
France had been called into existence, and what it was, and that
it was for and by this new France that government must be
carried on.”

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 Rémusat 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 Espagñols, ou l’Ambitieux.”
While she was working at this with ardor and success, the posthumous
work of Mme. de Staël, “Considérations sur la Revolution Française,”
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 Staël’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 Rémusat 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 (May 27,
1818):

“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 Espagñols’ all scattered about me,
when certain chapters of Mme. de Staël’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 Staël 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:

“‘All honor to the sincere!’ This book, my dear mother, has
renewed my regret that you have burned your Memoirs, and has
made me most anxious that you should retrieve that loss. You
really owe this to yourself, to us, to the interests of truth.
Read up the old almanacs; study the ‘Moniteur’ page by page; get
back your old letters from your friends, and go over them,
especially those to my father. Try to remember not only the
details of events, but your own impressions of them. Try to
resuscitate the views you formerly held, even the illusions you
have lost; recall your very errors. Show how you, with many
other honorable and sensible people, indignant and disgusted
with the horrors of the Revolution, were carried away by natural
aversions, and beguiled by enthusiasm for one man, which was in
reality highly patriotic. Explain how we had all of us become,
as it were, strangers to political life. We had no dread of the
empire of an individual; we went out to meet it. Then show how
this man either became corrupt, or else displayed his true
character as his power increased. Tell how it unfortunately
happened that, as you lost one by one your illusions concerning
him, you became more and more dependent, and how the less you
submitted to him in heart, the more you were obliged to obey him
in fact; how at last, after having believed in the uprightness
of his policy because you were mistaken in himself, your
discovery of his true character led you to a correct view of his
system; and how moral indignation finally brought you by degrees
to what I may call a _political hatred_ of him. This, my dear
mother, is what I entreat of you to do. You see what I mean, do
you not? and you will do it.”

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

“Is it not wonderful how perfectly we understand each other? I
am reading the book, and I am as much struck by it as you are. I
regret my poor Memoirs for new reasons, and I take up my pen
again without quite knowing whither it will lead me; for, my
dear child, this task which you have set me, and which of itself
is tempting, is also formidable. I shall, however, set about
reviving my impressions of certain epochs, at first without
order or sequence, just as things come back to me. You may trust
me to set down the very truth. Yesterday, when I was alone and
at my desk, I was trying to recall my first meeting with this
wretched man. A tide of remembrance rushed over me, and that
which you so justly call my _political_ hatred was ready to fade
away and give place to my former illusions.”

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 Staël 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 (Bonaparte) 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 Rémusat 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.
Molé’s house at Champlâtreux; 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 “Lycée
Français.”

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
Villèle—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 Rémusat 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. Molé, 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 (1808-1809), 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 Staël, he asked his mother to
tell him the story of the cruel years of the First Empire: “All honor to
the sincere!”

PAUL DE RÉMUSAT.

-----

[1] The _Vingtième_ was a tax imposed under the _ancien régime_, on land
and house property, and which amounted to a twentieth of the revenue.

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 (says M. de
Talleyrand), 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.

Notwithstanding his preference for her, I have seen him in love two or
three times, and it was on these occasions that he exhibited the full
measure of the despotism of his character. How irritated he became at
the least obstacle! How roughly he put aside the jealous remonstrances
of his wife! “It is your place,” he said, “to submit to all my fancies,
and you ought to think it quite natural that I should allow myself
amusements of this kind. I have a right to answer all your complaints by
an eternal I. I am a person apart; I will not be dictated to by any
one.” But he soon began to desire to exercise over the object of his
passing preference an authority equal to that by which he silenced his
wife. Astonished that any one should have any ascendancy over him, he
speedily became angry with the audacious individual, and he would
abruptly get rid of the object of his brief passion, having let the
public into the transparent secret of his success.

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.

This extraordinary wooing did not, however, prevent the young Polish
lady from becoming attached to the Emperor, for their _liaison_ was
prolonged during several campaigns. Afterward the fair Pole came to
Paris, where a son was born, who became the object of the hopes of
Poland, the rallying point of Polish dreams of independence.

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 (I do not know at
what time she became a widow), she married again, and she died in Paris
this year (1818). I had these details from M. de Talleyrand.

I will now resume my sketch. Bonaparte carried selfishness so far that
it was not easy to move him about anything that did not concern himself.
He was, however, occasionally surprised, as it were, into impulses of
tenderness; but they were very fugitive, and always ended in ill humor.
It was not uncommon to see him moved even to the point of shedding a few
tears; they seemed to arise from nervous irritation, of which they
became the crisis. “I have,” he said, “very unmanageable nerves, and at
these times, if my blood did not always flow slowly, I think I should be
very likely to go mad.” I know, indeed, from Corvisart, that his pulse
beat more slowly than is usual for a man’s. Bonaparte never felt what is
commonly called giddiness, and he always said that the expression, “My
head is going round,” conveyed no meaning to him. It was not only from
the ease with which he yielded to all his impulses that he often used
language which was painful and distressing to those whom he addressed,
but also because he felt a secret pleasure in exciting fear, and in
harassing the more or less trembling individuals before him. He held
that uncertainty stimulates zeal, and therefore he rarely displayed
satisfaction with either persons or things. Admirably served, always
obeyed on the moment, he would still find fault, and keep everybody in
the palace in dread of his displeasure about some small detail. If the
easy flow of his conversation had established for the time a sense of
ease, he would suddenly imagine that it might be abused, and by a hard
and imperious word put the person whom he had welcomed and encouraged in
his or her place—that is to say, in fear. He hated repose for himself
and grudged it to others. When M. de Rémusat had arranged one of those
magnificent fêtes where all the arts were laid under contribution for
his pleasure, I was never asked whether the Emperor was pleased, but
whether he had grumbled more or less. His service was the severest of
toil. He has been heard to say, in one of those moments when the
strength of conviction appeared to weigh upon him, “The truly happy man
is he who hides from me in the country, and when I die the world will
utter a great ‘_Ouf!_’”

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 Rémusat, 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

Mme. Bonaparte (_née_ Ramolini) was married in 1767 to Charles
Bonaparte, who belonged to one of the noble families of Corsica. It is
said that there had been a _liaison_ between her and M. de Marbeuf,
governor of the island; and some went so far as to allege that Napoleon
was the son of M. de Marbeuf. It is certain that he always showed
kindness to the family of Marbeuf. However that may have been, the
governor had Napoleon Bonaparte included among the number of noble
children who were to be sent from Corsica to France, to be educated at a
military school. He was placed at that of Brienne.

The English having become masters of Corsica in 1790, Mme. Bonaparte, a
rich widow, retired to Marseilles with her other children. Their
education had been much neglected, and, if we are to accept the
recollections of the Marseillais as evidence, her daughters had not been
brought up under the strict rule of a scrupulous morality. The Emperor,
indeed, never pardoned the town of Marseilles for having been aware of
the position his family occupied at that period, and the disparaging
anecdotes of them imprudently repeated by certain Provençals seriously
militated against the interests of the whole of Provence.

The widowed Mme. Bonaparte established herself at Paris on her son’s
attainment of power. She lived a retired life, amassing as much money as
possible; she meddled in no public matters, and neither had nor wished
to have any influence. Her son overawed her, as he did all the rest of
the world. She was a woman of very ordinary intelligence, who,
notwithstanding the rank in which events placed her, never did anything
worthy of praise. After the fall of the Empire she retired to Rome,
where she lived with her brother, Cardinal Fesch. It is said that he, in
the first Italian campaign, showed himself eager to profit by the
opportunity of founding his fortune which then presented itself. He
acquired, received, or even took, it is said, a considerable quantity of
pictures, statues, and valuable articles, which have since served to
decorate his various residences. When he afterward became a Cardinal and
Archbishop of Lyons, he devoted himself wholly to the duties of his two
great offices, and in the end he acquired a most honorable reputation
among the clergy. He often opposed the Emperor while his disputes with
the Pope were pending, and was not one of the least obstacles to the
execution of Bonaparte’s wishes on the occasion of the futile attempt to
hold a council at Paris. Either for political reasons or from religious
motives, he made some opposition to the divorce; at least, the Empress
Josephine believed him to have done so. I shall go more into details on
this subject hereafter. The Cardinal has, since his retirement to Rome,
preserved the unvarying favor of the Sovereign Pontiff.

JOSEPH BONAPARTE

Joseph Bonaparte was born in 1768. He has a handsome face, is fond of
the society of women, and has always been remarkable for having gentler
manners than any of his brothers. Like them, however, he affects astute
duplicity. His ambition, although less developed than that of Napoleon,
has nevertheless come out under certain circumstances, and he has always
shown capacity enough to be master of the situations in which he has
been placed, difficult though they have often been. In 1805 Bonaparte
wished to make Joseph, King of Italy, requiring him, however, to
renounce all claim to the succession to the throne of France. This
Joseph refused to do. He always adhered tenaciously to what he called
his rights, and believed himself destined to give the French repose from
the turmoil in which they were kept by the over-activity of his brother.
He understood better than Napoleon how to carry a point by fair means,
but he failed to inspire confidence. He is amiable in domestic life; but
he did not exhibit much ability, either on the throne of Naples or on
that of Spain. It is true he was permitted to reign only as if he were
Napoleon’s lieutenant, and in neither country did he inspire personal
esteem or arouse animosity.

His wife, the daughter of a Marseilles merchant named Clary, is the
simplest and the best woman in the world. Plain, common-looking, timid,
and silent, she attracted no attention, either at the Emperor’s Court,
or when she successively wore those two crowns which she has apparently
lost without regret. There are two daughters by this marriage. The
family is now established in America. The sister of Mme. Bonaparte was
married to General Bernadotte, now King of Sweden. She, who was not a
commonplace person, had before her marriage been very much in love with
Napoleon, and appears to have always preserved the memory of that
feeling. It has been supposed that her hardly extinguished passion
caused her obstinate refusal to leave France. She lives in Paris at
present, where she leads a very retired life.

LUCIEN BONAPARTE

Lucien Bonaparte has a great deal of ability. He displayed a taste for
the arts and for certain kinds of literature at an early age. As a
deputy from Corsica, some of his speeches in the Council of the Five
Hundred were remarked at the time; among others, that which he made on
the 22d of September, 1798, the anniversary of the foundation of the
Republic. He there defined the oath that each member of the Council
ought to take—to watch over the constitution and liberty, and to
execrate any Frenchman who should endeavor to reëstablish royalty. On
General Jourdan’s expressing some fears relative to the rumors that the
Council was menaced with a speedy overthrow, Lucien reminded them of the
existence of a decree which pronounced outlawry on all who should attack
the inviolability of the national representation. It is probable that
all the time he had a secret understanding with his brother, and was
awaiting like him the approach of the hour when they might lay the
foundation for the elevation of their family. There were, however, some
constitutional ideas in Lucien’s head; and, perhaps, if he had been able
to preserve any influence over his brother, he might have opposed the
indefinite growth of arbitrary power. He succeeded in sending
information to Napoleon in Egypt of the state of affairs in France; and,
having thus hastened his brother’s return, he aided him effectually, as
is well known, in the revolution of the 18th Brumaire, 1799.

Lucien afterward became Minister of the Interior, then Ambassador to
Spain, and in both capacities he gave offense to the First Consul.
Bonaparte did not like to remember services which had been rendered to
him, and Lucien was in the habit of reminding him of them in an
aggressive manner during their frequent altercations.

While he was in Spain he became very intimate with the Prince of the
Peace, and assisted to arrange the treaty of Badajoz, which on that
occasion saved Portugal from invasion.

He received a sum which has been estimated at five hundred millions of
francs as a reward for his services. This was paid partly in money, and
partly in diamonds. At this time he also formed a project of marriage
between Bonaparte and an Infanta of Spain; but Napoleon, either from
affection for his wife, or from fear of exciting the suspicions of the
republicans, with whom he was still keeping on terms, rejected the idea
of his marriage, which was to have been concluded through the agency of
the Prince of the Peace.

In 1795 Lucien Bonaparte, who was then keeper of the military stores
near Toulon, had married the daughter of an innkeeper, who bore him two
daughters, and who died a few years later. The elder of these two girls
was in after years recalled to France by the Emperor, who, when he saw
his affairs going badly in Spain, wished to treat for peace with the
Prince of the Asturias, and to make him marry this daughter of Lucien’s.
But the young girl, who was placed under her grandmother’s care, too
frankly imparted in her letters to her father the impression she
received of her uncle’s Court; she ridiculed the most important
personages, and her letters, having been opened, so irritated the
Emperor that he sent her back to Italy.

In 1803 Lucien, now a widower and entirely devoted to a life of
pleasure, to which I might indeed give a harsher name, fell suddenly in
love with Mme. Jouberthon, the wife of a stock-broker. Her husband was
promptly sent to Saint Domingo, where he died, and then this beautiful
and clever woman managed to make Lucien marry her, despite the
opposition of the First Consul. An open rupture took place between the
two brothers on that occasion. Lucien left France in the spring of 1804,
and established himself at Rome.

It is well known that since then he has devoted himself to the interests
of the Pope, and has adroitly secured his protection; so much so that
even now, although he was recalled to Paris at the period of the fatal
enterprise of 1815, he was permitted to return, after the second
restoration of the King, to the Roman States, and live quietly with
those members of his family who had retired thither. Lucien was born in
1775.

LOUIS BONAPARTE

Louis Bonaparte, born in 1778, is a man concerning whom opinions have
differed widely. His assumption of a stricter morality than that of
other members of his family, his odd opinions—based, however, on daring
theories rather than on solid principles—have deceived the world, and
made for him a reputation apart from that of his brothers. With much
less talent than either Napoleon or Lucien, he has a touch of romance in
his imagination, which he manages to combine with complete hardness of
heart. Habitual ill health blighted his youth, and has added to the
harsh melancholy of his disposition. I do not know whether, had he been
left to himself, the ambition so natural to all his family would have
been developed in him; but he has, at least, shown upon several
occasions that he considered himself entitled to profit by the chances
which circumstances have thrown in his way. He has been applauded for
wishing to govern Holland in the interests of the country, in spite of
his brother’s projects, and his abdication, although it was due to a
whim rather than to generous feeling, has certainly done him honor. It
is, after all, the best action of his life.

Louis Bonaparte is essentially egotistical and suspicious. In the course
of these Memoirs he will become better known. Bonaparte said of him one
day, “His feigned virtues give me almost as much trouble as Lucien’s
vices.” He has retired to Rome since the downfall of his family.

MADAME JOSEPHINE BONAPARTE AND HER FAMILY

The Marquis de Beauharnais, father of the general who was the first
husband of Mme. Bonaparte, having been employed in a military capacity
at Martinique, became attached to an aunt of Mme. Bonaparte’s, with whom
he returned to France, and whom he married in his old age.

This aunt brought her niece, Josephine de la Pagerie, to France. She had
her educated, and made use of her ascendency over her aged husband to
marry her niece, at the age of fifteen years, to young Beauharnais, her
stepson. Although he married her against his inclination, there is no
doubt that at one time he was much attached to his wife; for I have seen
very loving letters written by him to her when he was in garrison, and
she preserved them with great care. Of this marriage were born Eugène
and Hortense. When the Revolution began, I think that Beauharnais’s love
for his wife had cooled. At the commencement of the Terror M. de
Beauharnais was still commanding the French armies, and had no longer
any relations with his wife.

I do not know under what circumstances she became acquainted with
certain deputies of the Convention, but she had some influence with
them; and, as she was kind-hearted and obliging, she used it to do as
much good to as many people as possible. From that time her reputation
for good conduct was very much damaged; but her kindness, her grace, and
the sweetness of her manners could not be disputed. She served my
father’s interests more than once with Barrère and Tallien, and owed to
this my mother’s friendship. In 1793 chance placed her in a village on
the outskirts of Paris, where, like her, we were passing the summer. Our
near neighborhood led to some intimacy. I remember that Hortense, who
was three or four years younger than I, used to visit me in my room,
and, while amusing herself by examining my little trinkets, she would
tell me that all her ambition for the future was to be the owner of a
similar treasure. Unhappy woman! She has since been laden with gold and
diamonds, and how has she not groaned under the crushing weight of the
royal diadem!

In those evil days when every one was forced to seek a place of safety
from the persecution by which all classes of society were beset, we lost
sight of Mme. de Beauharnais. Her husband, being suspected by the
Jacobins, had been thrown into prison in Paris, and condemned to death
by the Revolutionary Tribunal. She also was imprisoned, but escaped the
guillotine, which preyed on all without distinction. Being a friend of
the beautiful Mme. Tallien, she was introduced into the society of the
Directory, and was especially favored by Barras. Mme. de Beauharnais had
very little fortune, and her taste for dress and luxury rendered her
dependent on those who could help her to indulge it. Without being
precisely pretty, she possessed many personal charms. Her features were
delicate, her expression was sweet; her mouth was very small, and
concealed her bad teeth; her complexion was rather dark, but with the
help of red and white skillfully applied she remedied that defect; her
figure was perfect; her limbs were flexible and delicate; her movements
were easy and elegant. La Fontaine’s line could never have been more
fitly applied than to her:

“Et la grâce, plus belle encore que la beauté.”

She dressed with perfect taste, enhancing the beauty of what she wore;
and, with these advantages and the constant care bestowed upon her
attire, she contrived to avoid being eclipsed by the youth and beauty of
many of the women by whom she was surrounded. To all this, as I have
already said, she added extreme kindness of heart, a remarkably even
temper, and great readiness to forget any wrong that had been done to
her.

She was not a person of remarkable intellect. A Creole, and frivolous,
her education had been a good deal neglected; but she recognized her
deficiencies, and never made blunders in conversation. She possessed
true natural tact; she readily found pleasant things to say; her memory
was good—a useful quality for those in high position. Unhappily, she
was deficient in depth of feeling and elevation of mind. She preferred
to charm her husband by her beauty, rather than the influence of certain
virtues. She carried complaisance to excess for his sake, and kept her
hold on him by concessions which, perhaps, contributed to increase the
contempt with which he habitually regarded women. She might have taught
him some useful lessons; but she feared him, and allowed him to dictate
to her in everything. She was changeable, easy to move and easy to
appease, incapable of prolonged emotion, of sustained attention, of
serious reflection; and, although her greatness did not turn her head,
neither did it educate her. The bent of her character led her to console
the unhappy; but she could only dwell on the troubles of
individuals—she did not think of the woes of France. The genius of
Bonaparte overawed her: she only criticised him in what concerned
herself personally; in everything else she respected what he called “the
force of his destiny.” He exerted an evil influence over her, for he
inspired her with contempt for morality, and with a large share of his
own characteristic suspicion; and he taught her the art of lying, which
each of them practiced with skill and effect.

It is said that she was the prize of his command of the army of Italy;
she has often assured me that at that time Bonaparte was really in love
with her. She hesitated between him, General Hoche, and M. de
Caulaincourt, who also loved her. Bonaparte prevailed. I know that my
mother, then living in retirement in the country, was much surprised on
learning that the widow of M. de Beauharnais was about to marry a man so
little known as Bonaparte.

When I questioned her as to what Bonaparte was like in his youth, she
told me that he was then dreamy, silent, and awkward in the society of
women, but passionate and fascinating, although rather an odd person in
every way. She charged the campaign in Egypt with having changed his
temper, and developed that petty despotism from which she afterward
suffered so much.

I have seen letters from Napoleon to Mme. Bonaparte, written at the time
of the first Italian campaign. She accompanied him to Italy, but he
sometimes left her with the rearguard of the army, until a victory had
secured the safety of the road. These epistles are very singular. The
writing is almost illegible; they are ill spelt; the style is strange
and confused. But there is in them such a tone of passionate feeling;
the expressions are so animated, and at the same time so poetical; they
breathe a love so different from mere “amours,” that there is no woman
who would not have prized such letters. They formed a striking contrast
with the graceful, elegant, and measured style of those of M. de
Beauharnais. How strange it must have been for a woman to find herself
one of the moving powers of the triumphant march of an army, at a time
when politics alone governed the actions of men! On the eve of one of
his greatest battles, Bonaparte wrote: “I am far from you! It seems to
me that I am surrounded by the blackest night; I need the lurid light of
the thunderbolts which we are about to hurl upon our enemies to dispel
the darkness into which your absence has thrown me. Josephine, you wept
when I parted from you—you wept! At that thought all my being trembles.
But calm yourself: Wurmser shall pay dearly for the tears I have seen
you shed.” And on the morrow Wurmser was beaten.

The enthusiasm with which General Bonaparte was received in beautiful
Italy, the magnificence of the _fêtes_, the fame of his victories, the
wealth which every officer might acquire there, the unbounded luxury in
which she lived, accustomed Mme. Bonaparte from that time forth to all
the pomp with which she was afterward surrounded; and she acknowledged
that nothing in her life ever equaled the emotions of that time, when
love came (or seemed to come) daily, to lay at her feet a new conquest
over a people enraptured with their conqueror. It is, however, plain
from these letters that Mme. Bonaparte, in the midst of this life of
triumph, of victory, and of license, gave some cause for uneasiness to
her victorious husband. His letters, sometimes sullen and sometimes
menacing, reveal the torments of jealousy; and they abound in melancholy
reflections, which betray his weariness of the fleeting delusions of
life. It may have been that these misunderstandings, which outraged the
first very keen feelings Bonaparte had ever experienced, had a bad
effect upon him, and hardened him by degrees. Perhaps he would have been
a better man if he had been more and better loved.

When, on his return from this brilliant campaign, the conquering general
was obliged to exile himself to Egypt, to escape from the growing
suspicion of the Directory, Mme. Bonaparte’s position became precarious
and difficult. Her husband entertained serious doubts of her, and these
were prompted by Joseph and Lucien, who dreaded the powerful influence
that she might exercise through her son, who had accompanied Bonaparte.
Her extravagant tastes led her into reckless expense, and she was
harassed by debts and duns.

Before leaving France, Bonaparte had directed her to purchase an estate;
and as she wished to live in the neighborhood of Saint Germain, where
her daughter was being educated, she selected Malmaison. There we met
her again, when we were residing for some months at the château of one
of our friends, at a short distance from Malmaison. Mme. Bonaparte, who
was naturally unreserved, and even indiscreet, had no sooner met my
mother again than she talked to her very freely about her absent
husband, about her brothers-in-law—in fact, about a host of people who
were utter strangers to us. Bonaparte was supposed to be almost lost to
France, and his wife was neglected. My mother took pity on her; we
showed her some attention, which she never forgot. At that time I was
seventeen years of age, and I had been married one year.

It was at Malmaison that Mme. Bonaparte showed us an immense quantity of
pearls, diamonds, and cameos, which at that time constituted the
contents of her jewel-case. Even at that time it might have figured in a
story of the “Arabian Nights,” and it was destined to receive immense
accessions. Invaded and grateful Italy had contributed to these riches,
and the Pope also, as a mark of his appreciation of the respect with
which the conqueror treated him by denying himself the pleasure of
planting his flag upon the walls of Rome. The reception-rooms at
Malmaison were sumptuously decorated with pictures, statues, and
mosaics, the spoils of Italy, and each of the generals who figured in
the Italian campaign exhibited booty of the same kind.

Although she was surrounded with all these treasures, Mme. Bonaparte was
often without money to meet her every-day expenses; and, to get out of
this difficulty, she trafficked in her influence with the people in
power at the time, and compromised herself by entering into imprudent
relations. Dreadfully embarrassed, on worse terms than ever with her
brothers-in-law, supplying too much reason for their accusations against
her, and no longer counting on the return of her husband, she was
strongly tempted to give her daughter in marriage to the son of Rewbell,
a member of the Directory; but Mlle. de Beauharnais would not consent,
and her opposition put an end to a project whose execution would
doubtless have been highly displeasing to Bonaparte.

Presently a rumor of Bonaparte’s arrival at Fréjus arose. He came back
with his mind full of the evil reports that Lucien had repeated to him
in his letters. His wife, on hearing of his disembarkation, set out to
join him; she missed him, had to retrace her steps, and returned to the
house in the Rue Chantereine some hours after his arrival there. She
descended from her carriage in haste, followed by her son and daughter,
and ran up the stairs leading to his room; but what was her surprise to
find the door locked! She called to Bonaparte, and begged him to open
it. He replied through the door that it should never again be opened for
her. Then she wept, fell on her knees, implored him for her sake and
that of her two children; but all was profound silence around her, and
several hours of the night passed over her in this dreadful suspense. At
last, however, moved by her sobs and her perseverance, Bonaparte opened
the door at about four o’clock in the morning, and appeared, as Mme.
Bonaparte herself told me, with a stern countenance, which, however,
betrayed that he too had been weeping. He bitterly reproached her with
her conduct, her forgetfulness of him, all the real or imaginary sins of
which Lucien had accused her, and concluded by announcing an eternal
separation. Then turning to Eugène de Beauharnais, who was at that time
about twenty years old—“As for you,” he said, “you shall not bear the
burden of your mother’s faults. You shall be always my son; I will keep
you with me.”

“No, no, General,” replied Eugène: “I must share the ill fortune of my
mother, and from this moment I say farewell to you.”

These words shook Bonaparte’s resolution. He opened his arms to Eugène,
weeping; his wife and Hortense knelt at his feet and embraced his knees;
and, soon after, all was forgiven. In the explanation that ensued, Mme.
Bonaparte succeeded in clearing herself from the accusations of her
brother-in-law; and Bonaparte, then burning to avenge her, sent for
Lucien at seven o’clock in the morning, and had him, without any
forewarning, ushered into the room where the husband and wife, entirely
reconciled, occupied the same bed.

From that time Bonaparte desired his wife to break with Mme. Tallien and
all the society of the Directory. The 18th Brumaire completely severed
her connection with those individuals. She told me that on the eve of
that important day she observed, with great surprise, that Bonaparte had
loaded two pistols and placed them beside his bed. On her questioning
him, he replied that a certain event might happen in the night which
would render such a precaution necessary. Then, without another word, he
lay down, and slept soundly until the next morning.

When he became Consul, the gentle and gracious qualities of his wife,
which attracted many persons to his Court whom his natural rudeness
would have otherwise kept away, were of great service to him. To
Josephine he intrusted the measures to be taken for the return of the
_émigrés_. Nearly all the “erasures” passed through the hands of Mme.
Bonaparte; she was the first link that united the French nobility to the
Consular Government. We shall learn more of this in the course of these
Memoirs.

Eugène de Beauharnais, born in 1780, passed through all the phases of a
sometimes stormy and sometimes brilliant life, without ever forfeiting
his title to general esteem. Prince Eugène, sometimes in camp with his
father, sometimes in all the leisure and luxury of his mother’s house,
was, to speak correctly, educated nowhere. His natural instinct led
toward what is right; the schooling of Bonaparte formed but did not
pervert him; the lessons taught him by events—all these were his
instructors. Mme. Bonaparte was incapable of giving sound advice; and
therefore her son, who loved her sincerely, perceived very early in his
career that it was useless to consult her.

Prince Eugène did not lack personal attractions. His figure was
graceful; he was skilled in all bodily exercises; and he inherited from
his father that fine manner of the old French gentleman, in which,
perhaps, M. de Beauharnais himself gave him his earliest lessons. To
these advantages he added simplicity and kindheartedness; he was neither
vain nor presumptuous; he was sincere without being indiscreet, and
could be silent when silence was necessary. Prince Eugène had not much
natural talent; his imagination was not vivid, and his feelings were not
keen. He was always obedient to his stepfather; and, although he
appreciated him exactly, and was not mistaken with regard to him, he
never hesitated to observe the strictest fidelity to him, even when it
was against his own interests. Never once was he surprised into showing
any sign of discontent, either when the Emperor, while loading his own
family with honors, seemed to forget him, or when his mother was
repudiated. At the time of the divorce Eugène maintained a very
dignified attitude.

Eugène, as colonel of a regiment, was beloved by his soldiers. In Italy
he was held in high honor. The sovereigns of Europe esteemed him, and
the world was well pleased that his fortunes have survived those of his
family. He had the good fortune to marry a charming princess, who never
ceased to love him, and whom he rendered happy. He possessed in
perfection those qualities which make the happiness of home life—sweet
temper, and that natural cheerfulness which rises above every ill, and
was perhaps due to the fact that he was never profoundly moved by
anything. When, however, that kind of indifference toward the interests
of other people is also displayed in one’s own personal troubles, it may
fairly be called philosophy.

Hortense, Prince Eugène’s younger sister (she was born in 1783), was, I
think, the most unhappy person of our time, and the least formed by
nature to be so. Cruelly slandered by the Bonapartes, who hated her,
included in the accusations which the public delighted to bring against
all who belonged to that family, she was not strong enough to contend
against such a combination of ills, and to defy the calumnies that
blighted her life.

Mme. Louis Bonaparte, like her mother and brother, was not remarkable
for intellect; but, like them, she possessed tact and good feeling, and
she was more high-minded and imaginative than they. Left to herself in
her youth, she escaped the contagion of the dangerous example of evil.
At Mme. Campan’s select and elegant boarding-school she acquired
accomplishments rather than education. While she was young, a brilliant
complexion, beautiful hair, and a fine figure rendered her agreeable to
look upon; but she lost her teeth early, and illness and sorrow altered
her features. Her natural instincts were good; but, being absolutely
ignorant of the world and the usages of society, and entirely given up
to ideal notions drawn from a sphere which she had created for herself,
she was unable to rule her life by those social laws which do not indeed
preserve the virtue of women, but which procure them support when they
are accused, without which it is impossible to pass through the world,
and which the approbation of conscience can not replace. It is not
sufficient to lead a good life in order to appear virtuous; women must
also obey those rules which society has made. Mme. Louis, who was placed
in circumstances of extreme difficulty, never had a guide; she
understood her mother, and could not venture to place any confidence in
her. As she held firmly to the principles, or rather to the sentiments,
her imagination had created, she was at first very much surprised at the
lapses from morality in which she detected the women by whom she was
surrounded, and was still more surprised when she found that these
faults were not always the result of love. Her marriage cast her on the
mercy of the most tyrannical of husbands; she became the resigned and
dejected victim of ceaseless and unremitting persecution, and sank under
the weight of her sorrow. She yielded to it without daring to complain,
and it was not until she was on the point of death that the truth became
known. I knew Mme. Louis Bonaparte very intimately, and was acquainted
with all the secrets of her domestic life. I have always believed her to
be the purest, as she was the most unfortunate, of women.

Her only consolation was in her tender love for her brother; she
rejoiced in his happiness, his success, his amiable temper. How many
times have I heard her say, “I only live in Eugène’s life!”

She declined to marry Rewbell’s son, and this reasonable refusal was the
result of one of the errors of her imagination. From her earliest youth
she had persuaded herself that a woman, if she would be virtuous and
happy, should marry no man unless she loved him passionately. Afterward,
when her mother wished her to marry the Comte de Mun, now a peer of
France, she again refused to obey her.

M. de Mun had emigrated; Mme. Bonaparte obtained permission for his
return. He came back to a considerable fortune, and asked for the hand
of Mlle. de Beauharnais in marriage. Bonaparte, then First Consul, had
little liking for this union. Mme. Bonaparte would, however, have had
her own way about it, only for the obstinate resistance of her daughter.
Some one said before her that M. de Mun had been, while in Germany, in
love with Mme. de Staël. That celebrated woman was in the imagination of
the young girl a sort of monster, whom it was impossible to know without
scandal and without taint. M. de Mun became odious to her, and thus he
missed a great match and the terrible downfall that was to ensue. It was
a strange accident of destiny, thus to have missed being a prince,
perhaps a king, and then dethroned.

A little while after, Duroc, then one of the Consul’s aides-de-camp, and
in high favor with him, fell in love with Hortense. She was not
insensible to his passion, and thought she had at length found that
other half of her being which she sought for. Bonaparte was in favor of
the marriage; but this time Mme. Bonaparte was inflexible. “My
daughter,” she said, “must marry a gentleman or a Bonaparte.” Then Louis
was proposed. He had no liking for Hortense, he detested the Beauharnais
family, and despised his sister-in-law: but, as he was taciturn, he was
supposed to be amiable; as he was severe in his judgments, he was
supposed to be a good man. Mme. Louis has since told me that when she
first heard of this arrangement she suffered terribly. Not only was she
forbidden to think of the man she loved, but she was also to be given to
another, whom she instinctively distrusted. However, as this marriage
was in accordance with her mother’s wishes, as it would cement the
family ties, and might advance her brother’s interests, she yielded
herself a submissive victim; nay, she did even more. Her imagination was
full of the duties imposed on her; she determined to make every sort of
sacrifice to the wishes of a husband whom she had the misfortune not to
love. Too sincere and too reserved to feign sentiments she did not feel,
she was gentle, submissive, full of deference, and more anxious perhaps
to please him than if she had loved him. The false and suspicious
disposition of Louis Bonaparte led him to regard the gentle deference of
his wife as affectation and coquetry. “She practices on me,” he said,
“to deceive me.” He believed that her conduct was dictated by the
counsels of her experienced mother; he repelled the efforts she made to
please him, and treated her with rude contempt. Nor was this all. He
actually divulged to Mme. Louis all the accusations which had been
brought against her mother, and, after having gone as far in that
direction as he could go, he signified his pleasure that confidential
relations between his wife and her mother should cease. He added, “You
are now a Bonaparte. Our interests should be yours; those of your own
family no longer concern you.” He accompanied this cruel notification
with insulting threats, and a coarse expression of his disdainful
opinion of women; he enumerated the precautions he meant to take in
order, as he said, to escape the common fate of all husbands, and
declared that he would not be the dupe either of her attempts to escape
his vigilance or of the tricks of pretended docility by which she might
hope to win him over.

The effect of such a declaration upon a young woman full of fancies may
easily be conceived. She conducted herself, however, as an obedient
wife, and for many years only her sadness and her failing health
betrayed her sufferings. Her husband, who was hard and capricious, and,
like all the Bonapartes, selfish—worn and embittered besides by a
painful disease which he had contracted during the Egyptian
campaign—set no limit to his exactions. As he was afraid of his
brother, while at the same time he wanted to keep his wife away from
Saint Cloud, he ordered her to say it was by her own wish that she
seldom went thither, and forbade her to remain there a single night, no
matter how much her mother might press her to do so. Mme. Louis became
pregnant very soon after her marriage. The Bonapartes and Mme. Murat,
who were displeased at this marriage, because, as Joseph’s children were
girls, they foresaw that a son of Louis, who would also be a grandson of
Mme. Bonaparte, would be the object of natural interest, spread the
outrageous report that this pregnancy was the result of an intimacy
between the First Consul and his step-daughter, with the connivance of
Josephine herself. The public was quite ready to believe this scandalous
falsehood, and Mme. Murat repeated it to Louis, who, whether he believed
it or not, made it a pretext for every kind of conjugal tyranny. The
narrative of his cruelty to his wife would lead me too far at present; I
shall return to the subject hereafter. Her servants were employed as
spies upon her; the most trifling notes addressed to or written by her
were opened; every friendship was prohibited; Louis was jealous even of
Eugène. Scenes of violence were frequent; nothing was spared her.
Bonaparte was not slow to perceive this state of affairs, but he was
grateful to Mme. Louis for her silence, which put him at his ease, and
exempted him from the necessity of interference. He, who never esteemed
women, always professed positive veneration for Hortense, and the manner
in which he spoke of and acted toward her is a formal contradiction of
the accusations which were brought against her. In her presence his
language was always careful and decent. He often appealed to her to
arbitrate between his wife and himself, and he took rebukes from her
that he would not have listened to patiently from any one else.
“Hortense,” he said more than once, “forces me to believe in virtue.”

BOOK I

CHAPTER I

(1802-1803.)

NOTWITHSTANDING the date of the year in which I undertake this
narrative, I shall not seek to excuse the motives which led my husband
to attach himself to the person of Bonaparte, but shall simply explain
them. In political matters justifications are worth nothing. Certain
persons, having returned to France only three years ago, or having taken
no part in public affairs before that epoch, have pronounced a sort of
anathema against those among our fellow citizens who for twenty years
have not held completely aloof from passing events. If it be represented
to them that nobody pretends to pronounce whether they were right or
wrong to indulge in their long sleep, and that they are merely asked to
remain equally neutral on a similar question, they reject such a
proposition with all the strength of their present position of vantage;
they deal out unsparing and most ungenerous blame, for there is now no
risk in undertaking the duties on which they pride themselves. And yet,
when a revolution is in progress, who can flatter himself that he has
always adopted the right course? Who among us has not been influenced by
circumstances? Who, indeed, can venture to throw the first stone,
without fear lest it recoil upon himself? Citizens of the same country,
all more or less hurt by the blows they have given and received, ought
to spare each other—they are more closely bound together than they
think; and when a Frenchman mercilessly runs down another Frenchman, let
him take care—he is putting weapons to use against them both into the
hands of the foreigner.

Not the least evil of troubled times is that bitter spirit of criticism
which produces mistrust, and perhaps contempt, of what is called public
opinion. The tumult of passion enables every one to defy it. Men live
for the most part so much outside of themselves, that they have few
opportunities of consulting their conscience. In peaceful times, and for
common ordinary actions, the judgments of the world replace it well
enough; but how is it possible to submit to them, when they are ready to
deal death to those who would bow to them? It is safest, then, to rely
on that conscience which one can never question with impunity. Neither
my husband’s conscience nor my own reproaches him or me. The entire loss
of his fortune, the experience of facts, the march of events, a moderate
and legitimate desire for easier circumstances, led M. de Rémusat to
seek a place of some kind in 1802. To profit by the repose that
Bonaparte had given to France, and to rely on the hopes he inspired,
was, no doubt, to deceive ourselves, but we did so in common with all
the rest of the world.

Unerring prevision is given to very few; and if, after his second
marriage, Bonaparte had maintained peace, and had employed that portion
of his army which he did not disband to line our frontiers, who is there
that would have dared to doubt the duration of his power and the
strength of his rights? At that time both his power and his rights
seemed to have acquired the force of legitimacy. Bonaparte reigned over
France with the consent of France. That fact only blind hatred or
foolish pride can now attempt to deny. He reigned for our misfortune and
for our glory: the alliance of those two words is, in the present state
of society, more natural than it seems, at least when military glory is
in question. When he became Consul, people breathed freely. At first he
won public confidence; when, afterward, causes of disquiet arose, the
country was already committed to him. At last he frightened all the
minds who had believed in him, and led true citizens to desire his fall,
even at the risk of loss to themselves. This is the history of M. de
Rémusat and myself; there is nothing humiliating in it. We too were
relieved and confident when the country had breathing space, and
afterward we desired its deliverance before all things.

No one will ever know what I suffered during the later years of
Bonaparte’s tyranny. It would be impossible for me to describe the
absolute sincerity with which I longed for the return of the King, who
would, as I firmly believed, restore peace and liberty to us. I foresaw
all my personal losses; and M. de Rémusat foresaw them even more clearly
than I did. That which we desired would ruin the fortune of our
children. But the loss of that fortune, which we could have preserved
only by the sacrifice of our convictions, did not cost us a regret. The
ills of France cried too loud then—shame to those who would not listen
to them! We served Bonaparte, we even loved and admired him; and it
costs me nothing to make this avowal. It seems to me it is never painful
to avow a genuine feeling. I am not at all embarrassed because the
opinions I held at one time are opposed to those which I held at
another; I am not incapable of being mistaken. I know what I have felt,
and I have always felt it sincerely; that is sufficient for God, for my
son, for my friends, for myself.

My present task is, however, a difficult one, for I must go back in
search of a number of impressions which were strong and vivid when I
received them, but which now, like ruined buildings devastated by fire,
have no longer any connection one with another.

At the commencement of these Memoirs I shall pass as briefly as possible
over all that is merely personal to ourselves, up to the time of our
introduction to the Court of Bonaparte; afterward I shall perhaps revert
to still earlier recollections. A woman can not be expected to relate
the political life of Bonaparte. If he was so reserved with those who
surrounded him that persons in the next room to him were often ignorant
of events which they would indeed learn by going into Paris, but could
only comprehend fully by transporting themselves out of France, how much
more impossible would it have been for me, young as I was when I made my
entry into Saint Cloud, and during the first years that I lived there,
to do more than seize upon isolated facts at long intervals of time? I
shall record what I saw, or thought I saw, and will do my best to make
my narrative as accurate as it is sincere.

I was twenty-two years old when I became lady-in-waiting to Mme.
Bonaparte. I was married at sixteen years of age, and had previously
been perfectly happy in a quiet life, full of home affections. The
convulsions of the Revolution, the execution of my father in 1794, the
loss of our fortune, and my mother’s love of retirement, kept me out of
the gay world, of which I knew and desired to know nothing. I was
suddenly taken from this peaceful solitude to act a part upon the stage
of history; and, without having passed through the intermediate stage of
society, I was much affected by so abrupt a transition, and my character
has never lost the impression it then received. I dearly loved my
husband and my mother, and in their society I had been accustomed to
follow the impulses of my feelings. In the Bonaparte household I
interested myself only in what moved me strongly. I never in my life
could occupy myself with the trifles of what is called the great world.

My mother had brought me up most carefully; my education was finished
under the superintendence of my husband, who was a highly cultivated
man, and older than I by sixteen years. I was naturally grave, a
tendency which in women is always allied to enthusiasm. Thus, during the
early part of my residence with Mme. Bonaparte and her husband, I was
full of the sentiments which I considered due to them. Their well-known
characters, and what I have already related of their domestic life,
rendered this a sure preparation for many mistakes, and certainly I did
not fail to make them.

I have already mentioned our friendship with Mme. Bonaparte during the
expedition to Egypt. After that we lost sight of her, until the time
when my mother, having arranged a marriage for my sister with a relative
of ours, who had returned secretly, but was still included in the list
of the proscribed, addressed herself to Mme. Bonaparte in order to
obtain his “erasure.” The matter was readily arranged. Mme. Bonaparte,
who was then endeavoring, with much tact and kindness, to win over
persons of a certain class who still held aloof from her husband, begged
that my mother and M. de Rémusat would visit her one evening, in order
to return thanks to the First Consul. It was not possible to refuse, and
accordingly, one evening, shortly after Bonaparte had taken up his abode
there, we went to the Tuileries. His wife told me afterward that on the
first night of their sojourn in the palace, he said to her, laughing,
“Come, little Creole, get into the bed of your masters.”

We found Bonaparte in the great drawing-room on the ground floor; he was
seated on a sofa. Beside him I saw General Moreau, with whom he appeared
to be in close conversation. At that period they were still trying to
get on together. A very amiable speech of Bonaparte’s, of a graceful
kind unusual with him, was much talked of. He had had a superb pair of
pistols made, with the names of all Moreau’s battles engraved on the
handles in gold letters. “You must excuse their not being more richly
ornamented,” said Bonaparte, presenting them to him; “the names of your
victories took up all the space.”

There were in the drawing-room, ministers, generals, and ladies. Among
the latter, almost all young and pretty, were Mme. Louis Bonaparte; Mme.
Murat, who was recently married, and who struck me as very charming; and
Mme. Marat, who was paying her wedding visit, and was at that time
perfectly beautiful. Mme. Bonaparte received her company with perfect
grace; she was dressed tastefully in a revived antique style which was
the fashion of the day. Artists had at that time a good deal of
influence on the customs of society.

Bonaparte rose when we courtesied to him, and after a few vague words
reseated himself, and took no more notice of the ladies who were in the
room. I confess that, on this occasion, I was less occupied with him
than with the luxury, the elegance, and the magnificence on which my
eyes rested for the first time.

From that time forth we made occasional visits to the Tuileries; and
after a while it was suggested to us, and we took to the idea, that M.
de Rémusat might fill some post, which would restore us to the comfort
of which the loss of our fortune had deprived us. M. de Rémusat, having
been a magistrate before the Revolution, would have preferred occupation
of a legal character. He would not grieve me by separating me from my
mother and taking me away from Paris, and therefore he was disposed to
ask for a place in the Council of State, and to avoid prefectures. But
then we really knew nothing of the structure and composition of the
Government. My mother had mentioned our position to Mme. Bonaparte, who
had taken a liking to me, and was also pleased with my husband’s
manners, and it occurred to her that she might place us near herself.
Just at this time my sister, who had not married the cousin whom I have
mentioned, married M. de Nansouty, a general of brigade, the nephew of
Mme. de Montesson, and a man very much esteemed in the army and in
society. This marriage strengthened our connection with the Consular
Government, and a month afterward Mme. Bonaparte told my mother that she
hoped before long M. de Rémusat would be made a Prefect of the Palace. I
will pass over in silence the sentiments with which this news was
received in the family. For my own part, I was exceedingly frightened.
M. de Rémusat was resigned rather than pleased; and, as he is a
particularly conscientious man, he applied himself to all the minute
details of his new occupation immediately after his nomination, which
soon followed. Shortly afterward I received the following letter from
General Duroc, Governor of the Palace:

“MADAME: The First Consul has nominated you to attend upon Mme.
Bonaparte, in doing the honors of the palace. His personal
knowledge of your character and of your principles satisfies him
that you will acquit yourself of this duty with the politeness
which distinguishes French ladies, and with dignity such as the
Government requires. I am happy to have been made the medium of
announcing to you this mark of his esteem and confidence.

“Receive, madame, my respectful homage.”

Thus did we find ourselves installed at this singular Court. Although
Bonaparte would have been angry if any one had seemed to doubt the
sincerity of his utterances, which were at this period entirely
republican, he introduced some novelty into his manner of life every
day, which tended to give the place of his abode more and more
resemblance to the palace of a sovereign. He liked display, provided it
did not interfere with his own particular habits; therefore he laid the
weight of ceremonial on those who surrounded him. He believed also that
the French are attracted by the glitter of external pomp. He was very
simple in his own attire, but he required his officers to wear
magnificent uniforms. He had already established a marked distance
between himself and the two other Consuls; and just as, although he used
the preamble, “By order of the Consuls,” etc., in the acts of
government, his own signature only was placed at the end, so he held his
court alone, either at the Tuileries or at Saint Cloud; he received the
ambassadors with the ceremonial used by kings, and always appeared in
public attended by a numerous guard, while he allowed his colleagues
only two grenadiers before their carriages; and finally he began to give
his wife rank in the state.

At first we found ourselves in a somewhat difficult position, which,
nevertheless, had its advantages. Military glory and the rights it
confers were all-in-all to the generals and aides-de-camp who surrounded
Bonaparte. They seemed to think that every distinction belonged
exclusively to them. The Consul, however, who liked conquest of all
kinds, and whose design was to gain over to himself all classes of
society, made his Court pleasant to persons belonging to other
professions. Besides this, M. de Rémusat, who was a man of intellect, of
remarkable learning, and superior to his colleagues in conversational
powers, was soon distinguished by his master, who was quick at
discovering qualities which might be useful to himself. Bonaparte was
glad that persons in his service should know, for his purposes, things
of which he was ignorant. He found that my husband knew all about
certain customs which he wanted to reëstablish, and was a safe authority
on matters of etiquette and the habits of good society. He briefly
indicated his projects, was at once understood, and as promptly obeyed.
This unusual manner of pleasing him at first gave some offense to the
military men. They foresaw that they would no longer be the only persons
in favor, and that they would be required to alter the rough manners
which did well enough for camps and fields of battle; therefore our
presence displeased them. For my own part, although I was so young, I
had more ease of manner than their wives. Most of my companions were
ignorant of the world, timid and silent, and they were either shy or
frightened in the presence of the First Consul. As for me, I was, as I
have already said, very quick and lively, easily moved by novelty, fond
of intellectual pleasures, interested in observing so many persons, all
unknown to me; and I found favor with my new sovereign, because, as I
have said elsewhere, I took pleasure in listening to him. And then, Mme.
Bonaparte liked me, because she herself had chosen me; she was pleased
that she had been able to attach a person of good family to herself, and
that through the medium of my mother, whom she respected highly. She
trusted me, and I was attached to her, so that before long she confided
all her secrets to me, and I received them with discretion. Although I
might have been her daughter, I was often able to give her good advice,
because the habits of a secluded and strict life make one take a serious
view of things. My husband and I were soon placed in so prominent a
position that we had to secure forgiveness for it. We obtained that
position almost entirely by preserving our simple ways, by keeping
within the bounds of politeness, and by avoiding everything which might
lead to the suspicion that we wanted to trade on the favor we were in.

M. de Rémusat lived in a simple and kindly fashion in the midst of this
warlike Court. As for me, I was fortunate enough to hold my own without
offense, and I put forward no pretension distasteful to other women. The
greater number of my companions were much handsomer than I—some of them
were very beautiful; and they were all superbly dressed. My face, which
had no beauty but that of youth, and the habitual simplicity of my
attire, satisfied them that in several ways they were superior to me;
and it soon seemed as if we had made a tacit compact that they should
charm the eyes of the First Consul when we were in his presence, and
that I should endeavor, as far as lay in my power, to interest his mind.
As I have already said, to do that one had only to be a good listener.

Political ideas rarely enter into the head of a woman at twenty-two. I
was at that time quite without any kind of party spirit. I never
reasoned on the greater or less right which Bonaparte had to the power
of which every one declared that he made a good use. M. de Rémusat, who
believed in him, as did nearly the whole of France, was full of the
hopes which at that time seemed to be well founded. All classes,
outraged and disgusted by the horrors of the Revolution, and grateful to
the Consular Government which preserved us from the Jacobite reaction,
looked upon its coming into power as a new era for the country. The
trials of liberty that had been made over and over again had inspired a
very natural, though not very reasonable, aversion to it; for, in truth,
liberty always disappeared when its name was used merely to vary
successive species of tyranny. Generally speaking, nobody in France
wanted anything except quiet, the right to free exercise of the
intellect, the cultivation of private virtues, and the reparation by
degrees of those losses of fortune which were common to all. When I
remember all the dreams which I cherished at that time, the recollection
makes me sick at heart. I regret those fancies, as one regrets the
bright thoughts of the springtime of life—of that time when, to use a
simile familiar to Bonaparte himself, _one looks at all things through a
gilded veil which makes them bright and sparkling_. “_Little by
little_,” said he, “_this veil thickens as we advance in life, until all
is nearly black_.” Alas! he himself soon stained with blood that gilded
veil through which France had gladly contemplated him.

It was in the autumn of 1802 that I established myself for the first
time at Saint Cloud, where the First Consul then was. There were four
ladies, and we each passed a week in succession in attendance on Mme.
Bonaparte. The service, as it was called, of the prefects of the palace,
of the generals of the guard, and of the aides-de-camp, was conducted in
the same way. Duroc, the Governor of the Palace, lived at Saint Cloud;
he kept the household in perfect order; we dined with him. The First
Consul took his meals alone with his wife. Twice a week he invited some
members of the Government; once a month he gave a great dinner to a
hundred guests at the Tuileries, in the Gallery of Diana; after these
dinners he received every one who held an important post or rank, either
military or civil, and also foreigners of note. During the winter of
1803 we were still at peace with England. A great number of English
people came to Paris, and as we were not accustomed to seeing them, they
excited great curiosity.

At these brilliant receptions there was a great display of luxury.
Bonaparte liked women to dress well, and, either from policy or from
taste, he encouraged his wife and sisters to do so. Mme. Bonaparte and
Mmes. Bacciochi and Murat (Mme. Leclerc, afterward Princess Pauline, was
at Saint Domingo in 1802) were always magnificently attired. Costumes
were given to the different corps; the uniforms were rich; and this
pomp, coming as it did after a period in which the affectation of
squalor had been combined with that of extravagant _civisme_, seemed to
be an additional guarantee against the return of that fatal _régime_
which was still remembered with dread.

Bonaparte’s costume at this period is worthy of record. On ordinary days
he wore one of the uniforms of his guard; but he had decreed, for
himself and his two colleagues, that on all occasions of grand
ceremonial each should wear a red coat, made in winter in velvet, in
summer of some other material, and embroidered in gold. The two Consuls,
Cambacérès and Le Brun, elderly, powdered, and well set up, wore this
gorgeous coat, with lace, ruffles, and a sword, after the old fashion of
full dress, but Bonaparte, who detested all such adornments, got rid of
them as much as possible. His hair was cut short, smoothed down, and
generally ill arranged. With his crimson-and-gold coat he would wear a
black cravat, a lace frill to his shirt, but no sleeve ruffles.
Sometimes he wore a white vest embroidered in silver, but more
frequently his uniform waistcoat, his uniform sword, breeches, silk
stockings, and boots. This extraordinary costume and his small stature
gave him the oddest possible appearance, which, however, no one ventured
to ridicule. W

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