Madame de Rémusat

“ 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 ”

“ 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? ”

“ M. de Fontanes had to deliver harangues to the Emperor under most difficult circumstances, but he always acquitted himself with grace and distinction. He had but little strength of character, but his ability told when he had to speak in public, and his good taste lent him dignity and impressiveness. Perhaps that was not an advantage for Bonaparte. Nothing is so dangerous for sovereigns as to have their abuses of power clothed in the glowing colors of eloquence, when they figure before nations; and this is especially dangerous in France, where forms are held in such high esteem. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Berthier was happy in the sincerity of his attachment; in short, every one seemed to feel something. M. de Rémusat tried to like his post, and to esteem the man who had conferred it on him. As for myself, I cultivated every opportunity of emotion and of self-deception; and the calm indifference of M. de Talleyrand amazed me. “Good heavens!” I said to him on one occasion, “how is it possible that you can live and work without experiencing any emotion either from what passes around us, or from your own actions?” “Ah! what a woman you are, and how young!” ”

“ Mme. de —— began to cry, and Bonaparte flew into so violent a passion that I had hardly time to fly before him and escape his rage. I am still trembling at the thought of it; I did not know to what excess his anger might have gone. No doubt he will soon come here, and I may expect a terrible scene.” The emotion of the Empress moved me deeply. “Do not,” said I, “commit a second fault, for the Emperor will never forgive you for having admitted any one, no matter whom, to your confidence. Let me leave you, Madame. You must wait for him; let him find you alone.” ”

“ Moreover, he bound himself, as it were, to be always successful, for by success alone could he be justified. If we contemplate the tortuous and difficult path he was henceforth obliged to tread, we shall conclude that a noble and pure policy, based upon the prosperity of the human race and the free exercise of its rights, would have been then, as it is always, the best on which a sovereign can act.
By the death of the Duc d’Enghien, Bonaparte succeeded in compromising, first ourselves, then the French nobility, finally the whole nation and all Europe. ”

“ 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. ”

“ What caused the Revolution? Vanity. What will end it? Vanity again. Liberty is a pretext; equality is your hobby, and here are the people quite pleased with a king taken from the ranks of the soldiery. Men like the Abbé Siéyès,” he added, laughing, “may inveigh against despotism, but my authority will always be popular. To-day I have the people and the army on my side; and with these a man would be a great fool who could not reign.”
With these concluding words, Bonaparte rose. ”

“ M. de Rémusat found himself exposed to continual envy, and as it were at war with these personages. I am now ashamed when I recall the annoyance which all this caused me; but whatever the Court in which one lives—and ours had become a very real one—it is impossible not to attach importance to the trifles of which it is composed. An honorable and sensible man is often ashamed in his own eyes of the pleasure or annoyance which he experiences in the profession of a courtier, and yet he can scarcely avoid either the one or the other. ”

“ Bonaparte was seconded for a long time by the military ardor of the youth of France. That insensate passion for conquest which has been implanted by an evil spirit in men collected into societies, to retard the progress of each generation in every kind of prosperity, urged us forward in the path of Bonaparte’s career of devastation. France can rarely resist glory, and it was especially tempting when it covered and disguised the humiliation to which we were then condemned. ”

“ Can there be a worthier employment of the faculties of an enlightened and high-hearted man, or a greater contrast with the restless, troublesome, not to say ridiculous life which has to be led, without one moment’s intermission, in the courts of kings? I say court, because they are all alike. No doubt the difference of character in sovereigns has some influence over the lives of those who surround them; there are shades of difference in the homage exacted by Louis XIV., our own King Louis XVIII., the Emperor Alexander, or Bonaparte. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ I continued, “how a man can expose himself to every sort of danger for fame’s sake, if his own inward sentiment be only contempt for the men of his own time.”
Here Bonaparte interrupted me quickly. “I do not despise men, madame—that is a thing you must never say; and I particularly esteem the French.”
I smiled at this abrupt declaration, and, as he guessed why, he smiled also; and approaching me and pulling my ear, which was, as I have already said, a trick of his when he was in a good humor, he repeated, “Do you hear, madame? you must never say that I despise the French.” ”

“ Early in the morning I went down to the drawing-room, and there I found Savary. He was deadly pale, and I must do him the justice to say that his face betrayed great agitation. He spoke to me with trembling lips, but his words were quite insignificant. I did not question him; for persons of his kind will always say what they want to say without being asked, although they never give answers.
Mme. Bonaparte came in, looked at me very sadly, and, as she took her seat, said to Savary, “Well—so it is done?” “Yes, madame,” he answered. ”

“ I asked her, “that, rightly or wrongly, it is believed here that my tender attachment to you, madame, makes me clear-sighted to what is going on, and that, feeble as my counsels are, they may help you to act with prudence? Political jealousy spreads suspicion broadcast everywhere, and, insignificant as I am, I do believe they want to make you quarrel with me.” Mme. Bonaparte agreed in the truth of my observation; but she had not the least idea that I could feel aggrieved because it had not occurred to herself in the first instance. ”

“ He was greatly surprised that his presence produced so little effect upon the Viennese, and that it was so difficult to induce them to attend the fêtes he provided for them, and the dinners at the palace to which he invited them. Bonaparte could not understand their attachment to a conquered sovereign—one, too, so much inferior to himself. One day he spoke quite openly about this to M. de Rémusat. “You have passed some time at Vienna,” he said, “and have had opportunities of observing them. What a strange people they are! They seem insensible alike to glory and to reverses.” ”

“ Little Napoleon (the son of Louis and Hortense) Had been brought down from Paris; and his uncle placed the child in the middle of the table, and seemed much amused when he pulled the dishes about, and upset everything within his reach.
After dinner he sat on the floor, playing with the boy, and apparently in very high spirits, but, it seemed to me, assumed. Mme. Bonaparte, who was afraid that he would have been angry at what she had told him about me, looked from him to me, smiling sweetly, as if she would have said, “You see, he is not so bad after all; we may make our minds easy.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ He could laugh at himself on occasion: he was active, animated, always restless; talkative, affecting a sort of frankness which was merely the last degree of deceit; boastful; disposed to seek the opinion of others upon his conduct by talking about it; and sought no justification except in his contempt of a certain class of morality, or his carelessness of a certain order of approbation. But he carefully maintained, to Bonaparte’s occasional disquiet, relations with a party whom the Emperor felt himself obliged to conciliate in his person. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I did not know M. de Talleyrand, and all I had heard of him had prejudiced me strongly against him. I was, however, struck by the elegance of his manners, which presented so strong a contrast to the rude bearing of the military men by whom I was surrounded. He preserved among them the indelible characteristics of a grand seigneur. He overawed by his disdainful silence, by his patronizing politeness, from which no one could escape. M. de Talleyrand, who was the most artificial of beings, contrived to make a sort of natural character for himself out of a number of habits deliberately adopted ”

“ The arts of the courtier availed nothing with Bonaparte, and so profited them not at all. It was not safe to remain a man in his presence—that is to say, to preserve the use of one’s intellectual faculties; it was easier and quicker for everybody, or nearly everybody, to assume the attitude of servility. If I chose, I could tell exactly the individuals to whom such a course came most readily; but, if I were to go more at length into this subject, I should give my Memoirs the color of a satire, which is neither according to my taste nor my intention. ”

“ The taking of Ulm and the capitulation of its immense garrison completed the surprise and terror of Austria, and served to silence the factious spirit in Paris, which had been with difficulty repressed by the police. It is hard to prevent Frenchmen from ranging themselves on the side of glory, and we began to share in that which our army was gaining. But the monetary difficulty was still painfully felt; trade suffered, the theatres were empty, an increase of poverty was perceptible, and the only hope that sustained is was that a campaign so briliant must be followed by an immediate peace. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This sincere avowal of what we both felt shows how much need we had of hope. Severe judges of other people might blame us, no doubt, for the facility with which we again deceived ourselves, and impute our credulity, with apparent justice, to our own position in the Court. Ah! it is so hard to have to blush in secret for the calling one has chosen, it is so pleasant to like one’s self-imposed duties, it is so natural to paint in bright colors one’s own and one’s country’s future, that it is only after a long struggle the conviction of a truth which must shatter one’s whole life is admitted. ”

“ The Emperor had made known to me through the Empress, and M. de Caulaincourt had repeated it to my husband, that, on the consolidation of his own fortunes, he would not forget those who had from the first devoted themselves to his service. Relying on this assurance, we felt easy with regard to our future, and took no steps to render it secure. We were wrong, for every one else was actively at work. M. de Rémusat had always kept aloof from any kind of scheming, a defect in a man who lived at a Court. Certain good qualities are absolutely a bar to advancement in the favor of sovereigns. ”