Fructidor, to assist the Royalist cause. While this rumor was spreading, the Legislative Assembly was called together. The report of the state of the Republic which was laid before it was remarkable, and gave rise to much comment. It included peace with foreign powers; the conclusum given at Ratisbon upon the new partition of Germany, and recognized by all the sovereigns; the constitution accepted by the Swiss; the Concordat; the regulation of public education; the formation of the Institute; the improved administration of justice; the amelioration of the finances; the Civil Code, of which a portion was submitted to the Assembly; various public works commenced both on our frontiers and in France; plans for Antwerp, for Mont Cenis, the banks of the Rhine, and the canal de l’Ourcq; the acquisition of the island of Elba; the possession of Saint Domingo; several proposals for laws, upon indirect taxation, on the formation of chambers of commerce, on the exercise of the profession of medicine, and on manufactures. All this formed a satisfactory statement, and one honorable to the Government. At the end of the report, however, a few words were slipped in with reference to the possibility of a rupture with England, and the necessity for increasing the army. Neither the Legislative Assembly nor the Tribunate offered any opposition whatever, and approbation which at that time was really deserved was bestowed upon so fair a beginning to many great undertakings.
In March, bitter complaints appeared in our newspapers of certain pamphlets against Bonaparte which were circulated in England. This sensitiveness to strictures by the English free press was only a pretext; the occupation of Malta and our intervention in the Government of Switzerland were the true causes of the rupture. On the 8th of March, 1803, a message from the King of England to the Parliament declared that important differences between the two Governments had arisen, and complained of the warlike preparations which were being made in the ports of Holland. Immediately afterward the scene took place in which Bonaparte either feigned or allowed himself to exhibit violent anger in the presence of all the ambassadors. A little later he left Paris for Saint Cloud.
Notwithstanding his absorption in public affairs, he took care to direct one of his Prefects of the Palace to write a letter of congratulation and compliment to the celebrated musician Paisiello on the opera of “Proserpine,” which had just been given in Paris. The First Consul was exceedingly anxious to attract the celebrated people of all countries to France, and he paid them liberally.
Shortly afterward the rupture between France and England took place, and the English ambassador—before whose house a great crowd had been in the habit of assembling daily, in order to judge of the state of affairs, according to the preparations for departure which they could or could not perceive in the courtyard—left Paris abruptly. M. de Talleyrand communicated to the Senate a statement of the reasons that rendered war inevitable. The Senate replied that they could only applaud the combined moderation and firmness of the First Consul, and sent a deputation to Saint Cloud to express their gratitude and their devotion. M. de Vaublanc, when speaking in the Legislative Assembly, exclaimed enthusiastically, “What chief of a nation has ever shown a greater love of peace?” If it were possible to separate the history of the negotiations of the First Consul from that of his exploits, it would read like the life of a magistrate whose sole endeavor had been the establishment of peace. The Tribunate expressed a desire that energetic measures should be taken; and, after these various acts of admiration and obedience, the session of the Legislative Assembly came to a close.
Then appeared certain violent notes against the English Government, which soon became numerous, and dealt in detail with the attacks of the free daily press in London. Bonaparte dictated the substance of these notes, and M. Maret drew them up. Thus the sovereign of a great empire entered, so to speak, into a war of words with journalists, and lowered his own dignity by allowing it to be seen that he was stung by the criticisms of ephemeral newspapers, whose comments it would have been far wiser to ignore. It was easy for the English journalists to find out how hard their remarks hit the First Consul, and a little later the Emperor of France, and they accordingly redoubled their attacks. How many times, when we saw him gloomy and out of temper, did Mme. Bonaparte tell us it was because he had read some article against himself in the “Courier” or the “Sun”! He tried to wage a pen-and-ink war with the English press; he subsidized certain journals in London, expended a great deal of money, and deceived no one either in France or in England.
I have said that he often dictated notes on this subject for the “Moniteur.” Bonaparte dictated with great ease. He never wrote anything with his own hand. His handwriting was bad, and as illegible by himself as by others; his spelling was very defective. He utterly lacked patience to do anything whatever with his own hands. The extreme activity of his mind and the habitual prompt obedience rendered to him prevented him from practicing an occupation in which the mind must necessarily wait for the action of the body. Those who wrote from his dictation—first M. Bourrienne, then M. Maret, and Menneval, his private secretary—had made a sort of shorthand for themselves, in order that their pens might travel as fast as his thoughts. He dictated while walking to and fro in his cabinet. When he grew angry, he would use violent imprecations, which were suppressed in writing, and which had at least the advantage of giving the writer time to come up with him. He never repeated anything that he once said, even if it had not been heard; and this was very hard on the poor secretary, for he remembered accurately what he had said and detected every omission. One day he read a tragedy in manuscript, and it interested him sufficiently to inspire him with a fancy to make some alterations in it. “Take a pen and paper,” said he to M. de Rémusat, “and write for me.” Hardly giving my husband time to seat himself at a table, he began to dictate so quickly that M. de Rémusat, although accustomed to write with great rapidity, was bathed in perspiration while trying to follow him. Bonaparte perceived his difficulty, and would stop now and then to say, “Come, try to understand me, for I will not repeat what I say.” He always derived amusement from causing any one uneasiness and distress. His great general principle, which he applied to everything, both small and great, was that there could be no zeal where there was no disquiet. Fortunately he forgot to ask for the sheet of observations he had dictated. M. de Rémusat and I have often tried to read it since, but we have never been able to make out a word of it.
M. Maret, the Secretary of State, was a man of very ordinary intellect; indeed, Bonaparte did not dislike mediocrity, because he said he had enough brains to give those about him what they wanted in that way. M. Maret rose to high favor in consequence of his great facility in writing from the First Consul’s dictation. He accustomed himself to follow and seize upon the first indication of Bonaparte’s idea so faithfully that he could report it just as it came from the speaker’s brain without making an observation. His favor with his master was perhaps still more largely due to the fact that he felt or feigned boundless devotion to him, and it was displayed by such enthusiastic admiration that Bonaparte could not help being flattered. So far did M. Maret carry the art of skillful adulation, that it was positively asserted that when he traveled with the Emperor he took the trouble to leave with his wife drafts of letters, which she copied carefully, complaining that her husband was so exclusively devoted to his master that she could not help feeling jealous. As all the letters were delivered at the Emperor’s own quarters while he was traveling, and as he frequently amused himself by opening them, these clever complainings produced exactly the intended effect.
When M. Maret was Minister of Foreign Affairs, he took care not to follow the example of M. de Talleyrand, who used to say that it was, above all, Bonaparte himself whom it was necessary for that minister to manage. Maret, on the contrary, fostered all Bonaparte’s passions, and was surprised that foreign sovereigns should dare to be angry when he insulted them, or should offer any resistance to their own ruin. He thus advanced his personal fortune at the expense of Europe, whose just interests an honest and able minister would have endeavored to protect. A courier was always in readiness, by whom he might dispatch to any one of the sovereigns the first angry words that escaped from Bonaparte, when he heard news which displeased him. His weak complaisance was sometimes injurious to his master. It caused more than one rupture which was regretted when the first outbreak of violence had passed, and it probably contributed to the fall of Bonaparte; for, in the last year of his reign, while he lingered at Dresden uncertain what to do, Maret delayed for eight days the retreat it was so important to make, because he had not the courage to inform the Emperor of the defection of Bavaria, a piece of intelligence it was most necessary he should learn. An anecdote of M. de Talleyrand