chimeras of the good old times; we should not then have been annoyed with their dissertations on the straight line and the curve line; the King would have adhered honestly to his charter; I should never have dreamed of quitting the Island of Elba; the head of the nation would have been recorded in history with greater honour and dignity; and we should all have been gainers.”
THE EMPEROR’S IDEA OF RESERVING CORSICA.—HIS OPINION OF ROBESPIERRE.—HIS IDEAS RESPECTING PUBLIC OPINION.—EXPIATORY INTENTION OF THE EMPEROR WITH REGARD TO THE VICTIMS OF THE REVOLUTION.
18th.—After the accustomed occupation of the day, I accompanied the Emperor to the garden about four o’clock. He had just completed his dictation on the subject of Corsica. Having concluded every thing he had to say relative to that island, and to Paoli, he adverted to the interest which he himself excited there, while yet so young, at the time of his separation from Paoli. He added that latterly he might to a certainty have united in his favour the wishes, the sentiments, and the efforts of the whole population of Corsica; and that, had he retired to that island on quitting Paris, he would have been beyond the reach of any foreign power whatever. He had an idea of doing so when he abdicated in favour of his son. He was on the point of reserving to himself the possession of Corsica during his life. No obstacle at sea would have obstructed his passage thither. But he abandoned that design for the sake of rendering his abdication the more sincere and the more advantageous to France. His residence in the centre of the Mediterranean, in the bosom of Europe, so near France and Italy, might have furnished a lasting pretext to the Allies. He even preferred America to England, from the same motive and the same idea. It is true that, in the sincerity of his own measures, he neither did, nor could foresee, his unjust and violent banishment to St. Helena.
The Emperor, next proceeding to take a review of different points of the Revolution, dwelt particularly on Robespierre, whom he did not know, but whom he believed to be destitute of talent, energy, or system. He considered him, notwithstanding, merely as the scapegoat of the Revolution, sacrificed as soon as he endeavoured to arrest it in its course:—the common fate, he observed, of all who, before himself (Napoleon) had ventured to take that step. The Terrorists and their doctrine survived Robespierre; and if their excesses were not continued, it was because they were obliged to bow to public opinion. They threw all the blame on Robespierre; but the latter declared shortly before his death, that he was a stranger to the recent executions, and that he had not appeared in the Committees for six weeks previously. Napoleon confessed that, while he was with the army of Nice, he had seen some long letters addressed by Robespierre to his brother, condemning the horrors of the Commissioners of the Convention, who, as he expressed it, were ruining the Revolution by their tyranny and atrocities. “Cambaceres, who,” observed the Emperor, “must be a good authority on subjects relating to that period, answered an enquiry which I one day addressed to him respecting the condemnation of Robespierre, in these remarkable words: ‘Sire, that was a sentence without a trial;’ adding that Robespierre had more foresight and conception than was generally imagined; and that his intention was, after subduing the unbridled factions which he had to oppose, to restore a system of order and moderation. ‘Some time previously to his fall,’ added Cambaceres, ‘he delivered a most admirable speech on this subject; it was not thought proper to insert it in the Moniteur, and all trace of it is now lost.’”
This is not the first instance I have heard of omissions and want of accuracy in the Moniteur. In the reports inserted in that journal relative to the proceedings of the Assembly, there must be a period remarkable for incorrectness; as the minutes of those proceedings were for a time arbitrarily drawn up by one of the Committees.
Those who are induced to believe that Robespierre was at once wearied, satiated, and alarmed by the Revolution, and had resolved on checking it, affirm that he would not take any decided step until after he had read his famous speech. He considered it so fine that he had no doubt of its effect on the Assembly. If this be true, his mistake or his vanity cost him dear. Those who think differently assert that Danton and Camille-des-Moulins had precisely the same views; and yet that Robespierre sacrificed them. To these it is replied that Robespierre sacrificed them to preserve his popularity, because he judged that the decisive moment had not yet arrived; or because he did not wish to resign to them the glory of the enterprise.
Be this as it may, it is certain that the nearer we approach to the instruments and the agents in that catastrophe, the greater obscurity and mystery we find; and this uncertainty will but increase with time. Thus the page of history will, on this point as on many others, become the record, not so much of the events which really occurred, as of the statements which are given of them.
In the course of our conversation relative to Robespierre, the Emperor said that he had been very well acquainted with his brother, the younger Robespierre, the representative to the Army of Italy. He said nothing against this young man, whom he had led into action and inspired with great confidence and considerable enthusiasm for his person; so much so, that previously to the 9th of Thermidor, young Robespierre, being recalled by his brother, who was then secretly laying his plans, insisted on Napoleon’s accompanying him to Paris. The latter experienced the greatest difficulty in ridding himself of the importunity, and, at length, only escaped it by requesting the interference of the General-in-chief Dumerbion, whose entire confidence he possessed, and who represented that it was absolutely necessary he should remain where he was. “Had I followed young Robespierre,” said the Emperor, “how different might have been my career! On what trivial circumstances does human fate depend!—Some office would doubtless have been assigned to me; and I might at that moment have been destined to attempt a sort of Vendemiaire. But I was then very young; my ideas were not yet fixed. It is probable, indeed, that I should not have undertaken any task that might have been allotted to me; but supposing the contrary case, and even admitting that I had been successful, what results could I have hoped for? In Vendemiaire the revolutionary fever was totally subdued; in Thermidor it was still raging in its utmost fury and at its greatest height.”
“Public opinion,” said the Emperor, on another occasion, when conversing on another subject, “is an invisible and mysterious power which it is impossible to resist: nothing is more unsteady, more vague, or more powerful; and capricious as it may be, it is, nevertheless, just and reasonable more frequently than is supposed. On becoming Provisional Consul, the first act of my administration was the banishment of fifty anarchists. Public opinion, which had at first been furiously hostile to them, suddenly turned in their favour, and I was forced to retract. But some time afterwards, these same anarchists, having shewn a disposition to engage in plots, were again overthrown by that very public opinion, which had now returned to support me. Thus, through the errors that were committed at the time of the restoration, popularity was secured to the regicides, who but a moment before had been proscribed by the great mass of the nation.
“It belonged to me only,” continued the Emperor, “to shed a lustre over the memory of Louis XVI. in France, and to purify the nation of the crimes with which it had been sullied by frantic acts and unfortunate fatalities. The Bourbons, being of the royal family, and coming from abroad, merely avenged their own private cause, and augmented the national opprobrium. I, on the contrary, being one of the people, should have raised the character of the nation, by banishing from society, in her name, those whose crimes had disgraced her. This was my intention, but I proceeded prudently in the fulfilment of it. The three expiatory altars at St. Denis were but a prelude to my design. The Temple of Glory, on the site of the Magdelaine, was to have been devoted to this object with still greater solemnity. There, near the tomb and over the very bones of the political victims of our revolution, monuments and religious ceremonies would have consecrated their memory in the name of the French people. This is a secret that was not known to above ten individuals: though it had been found necessary to communicate a hint of the design to those who were intrusted with the arrangement of the edifice. I should not have executed my scheme in less than ten years; but what precautions had I not adopted; how carefully had I smoothed every difficulty, and removed every obstruction! All would have applauded my design, and no one would have suffered from it. So much depends on circumstances and forms,” added he, “that in my reign, Carnot would not have dared to write a memorial, boasting of the death of the King, though he did so under the Bourbons. I should have leagued with public opinion in punishing him; while public opinion sided with him in