Joseph-François Fouché

“ It was a long while doubtful whether the great general would be implicated in the scheme. His habitual reserve—a habit less of caution than of constitutional delicacy—had led him to few intimacies, and nothing like even one close friendship; he moved little in society; he corresponded with none, save on the duties of the service. Fouché‘s well-known boast of, ‘Give me, two words of a man’s writing and I’ll hang him,’ were then scarcely applicable here.
To attack such a man unsuccessfully, to arraign him on a weak indictment, would have been ruin ”

“ The minister, undeterred by the difficulties of the ascent, and animated by his gallantry towards Pauline, continued to mount, and at length entered the poet's retreat. Great are the eccentricities of genius, and lamentable the resources of pride and poverty, thought Fouché, as he gently drew the blankets down, and discovered the dismayed Dubois. ”

“ Fouché, receiving no answer to the summons of the baker’s wife, makes up his mind to mount the six flights. A courtier does not stop at that when it becomes a51 question of proving his zeal to those in power. It would want the facetious genius of Beaumarchais or Lesage, or the comic talent of Potier, to paint the originality of the scene, and of the Minister finally discovering the protégé under the worm-eaten wooden structure that served him as a couch. Hence I abridge the particulars. Fouché reassures Dubois, and induces him to come forth from his improvised hiding-place. ”

“ What could be expected from Regnier, charged as he was with incompatible functions? What, under such circumstances, could have been expected even from a man gifted with great talents? Such was the exact history of Fouché's disgrace. ”

“ The machinery he set in motion was so calculated that the police was rather the police of Fouché than that of the Minister of the General Police. Throughout Paris, and indeed throughout all France, Fouché obtained credit for extraordinary ability; and the popular opinion was correct in this respect, namely, that no man ever displayed such ability in making it be supposed that he really possessed talent. ”

“ It is you especially who can appreciate the French nation, In the council of sovereigns united to fix the destinies of Europe, your influence and your credit cannot be less than your glory. Your law of nations has always been justice, and your conscience has always been the guide of your policy. The French nation wishes to live under a monarch, but it wishes that that monarch live under the empire of laws. ”

“ A man who spoke little, and wrote less, who indulged in no dissipations, nor seemed to have taste for any, was a difficult subject to treat; and so Fouché found, as, day after day, his spies reported to him the utter failure of all their schemes to entrap him. Lajolais, the friend of Pichegru, and the man who betrayed him, was the chief instrument the Police Minister used to obtain secret information. Being well born, and possessed of singularly pleasing manners, he had the entrée of the best society of Paris, where his gay, easy humour made him a great favourite. ”

“ Fouché always dressed in black, and in a fashion which seems to have resembled Cruikshank's caricatures of the Chadbands of the Regency period. He was a loyal, hard-working servant of any Government which employed him. If the policy of those he was working with was killing, he would kill in battalions, as indeed he did at Lyons. Yet all the time he felt no touch of the blood-lust which inspired men like Carrier. He would never have thought of killing for the sake of killing, or of committing acts of unnecessary cruelty. ”

“ I shall take no more money," said the good pastor, pushing aside the hand of the minister.
"You must take it. You do not imagine, I hope, that this would be a recompense for the services you have rendered," said Fouché, laughing heartily. "It is given to you by me for yourself, for your sister."
"Well, be it so," replied Michel, greatly softened. "I cannot reject the gift of an honest man."
Fouché stifled a sigh. "Adieu," said he; "return to Dijon."
The following year, Michel Perrin had resumed his clerical functions; and Madeleine again became the lady and mistress of the manse. ”

“ The best life of Fouché is that by L. Madelin, Fouché (2 vols., Paris, 1901) . The so-called Fouché Memoirs are not genuine, but they were apparently compiled, at least in part, from notes written by Fouché, and are often valuable, though their account of events (e.g. of the negotiations of 1809-1810) is not seldom untrustworthy. For those negotiations see Coquelle, Napoléon et l’Angleterre (Paris, 1903, Eng. trans., London, 1904) . For the plots with which Fouché had to deal see E. Daudet, La Police et les Chouans sous le Consulat et l’Empire (Paris, 1895) ”

“ Cloud, becomes no longer an object of fear. But how can we justify that relegation in the eyes of the public?"
Fouché smiled sardonically. "Citizen Brutus Desmarais," said he, "you have forgotten the fifty thousand Septembrists who are in the catacombs! My spies and my horse police will spread themselves all over Paris to-morrow trumpeting to the good bourgeois that a tremendous plot has been unearthed to-night by Monsieur Fouché, Minister of Police. ”

“ Now it happened that Fouché at that time was doing his best to conciliate the fair Pauline, who with or without reason, had shown a little humour against the minister of police. He had frequently entreated her to make use of his power in favour of any of her friends. "Well," said the good-natured Pauline, "this Fouché is always plaguing me to ask for something; give me a desk."
A lady's pen upon the smooth vellum—you know how fleetly it runs, and what pretty exaggeration of phrase must necessarily flow from it. The style, the very elegance of the note, demands it. ”

“ Lord Mornington, in the course of his speech, read extracts of a letter from Fouché, afterwards so well known as the minister of imperial police, but then commissioner in the central and western departments. In this sublime display of hypocrisy, Fouché pronounces gold and silver to have been the causes of all the calamities of the republic. "I know not," says he, "by what weak compliance those metals are suffered to remain in the hands of suspected persons. ”

“ The mysterious president of the Section Le Peletier, the famous Morgan who insulted the Convention in its own hall of assembly, do you know who he is?"
[Pg 302]
"No."
"Well, he is the man."
"Really, Monsieur Fouché," said Benjamin Constant, "you have missed your vocation. You ought to be neither priest, sailor, deputy, nor representative; you should be minister of police."
"And if I were," replied Fouché, "Paris would be quieter than it is now. I ask you, is it not perfectly absurd to quail before the Sections? Menou ought to be shot." ”

“ Nor was it long before Fouché gained sufficient influence over Davoût to make it clear to him that the Empire had come to an end, and that the only solution possible out of the impasse in which France had become involved, was submission to the will of the conquerors and the restoration of the Bourbons. Once gained over, the Marshal did not hesitate to obey, and efforts to ensure the defence of the capital were undertaken with deliberate 17half-hearted vigour. [20] The Parisians were rapidly becoming indifferent to their fate ”

“ He graduated at the Sorbonne, and spent the remainder of his life in literary work in Paris, where he died on the 27th of April 1696. In his day Foucher enjoyed considerable repute as a keen opponent of Malebranche. ”

“ The victory of Wagram, and the marriage with Marie-Louise, commenced, indeed, a new era in his history. Fouché was dismissed, though not without meriting a reprimand for his intrigues; and Talleyrand fell into unequivocal disgrace, in some degree provoked by his witticisms; whilst round these two men gathered a quiet and observant opposition, descending with the clever adventurer to the lowest classes, and ascending with the dissatisfied noble to the highest. ... ”

“ Alison, in his History of Europe, volume the fifth, p. 482. (original edition) , as genuine, as well as by Lord Brougham in the third volume of his Statesmen; yet with less decided assertion than by the Scotch historian. Fouché's family at once denounced the fabrication, and obtained heavy damages from the printer; who equally succeeded against the writer, Alphons de Beaumont, and was awarded large damages for the imposition. (See Gentleman's Magazine for November, 1842.) It is at present perfectly understood that the sharp and apt antithesis, however immoral, was Fouché's. ”

“ And also it is possible that Captain Joseph Joffre had not then begun to develop in himself those qualities which made him ready for greatness when the opportunity came.
If, however, any one has ever expressed surprise at Ferdinand Foch's attainment, I have not heard of it. He seems always to have impressed people with whom he came in contact as a man of tremendous energy, application, and thoroughness. ”

“ Fouché not have had his way with the Mortains and with Baudouin de Courson and his daughter Fernande?
Have we not cause for shrugging our shoulders? and for giving credence to the rumours which were current throughout France at this time—namely, that the dreaded Minister of Police had at this time begun to coquet with the Royalist party, as well as with the Jacobins and the English agents, with Talleyrand and with the Comte d'Artois—with any and every party in fact, who plotted against the master whom in his heart he had already betrayed. ”

“ Later on he entered the novitiate of a monastery. Then, I witnessed his initiation as spy—under the direction—well in reality, in the employ of Queen Caroline. O he is an adept, a born spy and happy only when exercising his profession. He was Fouché's most dangerous agent and now performs the same office to Lecazes. But to every man his hour! There are many accounts pending between Volpetti and me! First, my brother Raphael's long imprisonment ”

“ It is said, that Fouché did all he could to keep this story secret. But Pauline discovered the truth, and was malicious enough to disclose it to Napoleon, who more than once jested his minister on his governor of Elba.
There is a sort of premier pas known, we believe, amongst gamesters—at least trusted to very implicitly, we remember, amongst schoolboy gamesters—that which commences a run of good luck. When the cards, or the dice, have been cruelly against us, if the tide once turn, it will flow steadily for some time in its new and happier direction. ”

“ The opinions are divided here, whether this curious discovery originated in the malice of Fouche, or whether Talleyrand took this method of duping his rival, and at the same time of gratifying his own malignity. Certain it is that Fouche was severely reprimanded for the transaction, and that Bonaparte was highly offended at the disclosure.
The common people, and the middle classes, are neither so ostentatiously devout, nor so basely perverse. They go to church as to the play, to gape at others, or to be stared at themselves ”

“ The young man of whose account I am thinking uses language in describing Fouché superintending the preparation of the trench which reads like a paraphrase of Tacitus' account of Tiberius at the trial of Piso and Placentia. "Nothing so much daunted Piso as to behold Tiberius, without mercy, without wrath, close, dark, unmovable, and bent against every access of tenderness." So stood Fouché.
When Mme. de Peyronnet saw him, the Terrorist had been entirely replaced by the "civilised Statesman." What passed before her eyes was a very old, white-haired man, with a regard deep and impenetrable. ”

“ Joffre to do his sturdy bit in saving France.
The ancestral home of the Foch family is on the Garonne River, among the foothills of the Pyrenees. Here the river is hardly more than a trout stream threading its way down the wooded slopes or murmuring through the valleys. It is just such a spot as any boy would like to call "home."
The father of Ferdinand Foch had been born here during the days of the First Empire, when the fame of the Corsican was ringing around the world—and had consequently been christened Napoleon. ”

“ Armies may in part be destroyed, but the experience of all Ages and of all nations proves that a brave people, combating for justice and liberty, cannot be vanquished.
The Emperor, in abdicating, has offered himself a sacrifice. The Members of the Government devote themselves to the due execution of the authority with which they have been invested by your representatives. ”

“ And it is a rash man at this day who would voluntarily risk his purse and life by being found alone in the neighborhood after nightfall.
Fouchette's territory lay chiefly in the streets and suburbs of Charenton. To cover it she was compelled to get out before daylight. If she had good luck and brought in anything valuable she got an extra [17] allowance of soup, sometimes with a scrap of meat, to be invariably divided between her and Tartar, or a small glass of red wine; if her find was poor her fare was reduced, and instead of food she often received blows. ”

“ Pardon me for thinking it, Fouchette, but I was half crazy,—I thought but just now that it was—was you!"
"Idiot!"
"Yes, I know; but one does not stop to reason where one loves."
"As if I would throw myself into the arms of any man! You sicken me, Madeleine. But I thought this Lerouge, whoever he is,—I never even saw him,—had disappeared——"
"From his place in the Rue Monge, yes. Fouchette, why should he run away?"
"With a girl he likes better than you? What a question! All men do that, you silly goose!" ”