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they are now called—would render it impossible for her husband to retain the Prefecture of Lille; and, in fact, he was superseded on the 9th of January, 1822.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. |
INTRODUCTION
PORTRAITS AND ANECDOTES
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