The Life, Exile and Conversations with Napoleon. Emmanuel-Auguste-Dieudonné Las Cases

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СКАЧАТЬ doubtless been sent back to him. He found also some confidential letters of the King’s, likewise in his own hand. But how came they there? How had they been returned to him? That would be difficult to explain. They consisted of five or six pages, written in very elegant language, and displaying some sense; but very abstract and metaphysical. In one of them, the Prince said to the lady whom he addressed:—“Judge, Madam, how much I love you; I have left off mourning for your sake.” “And here,” said the Emperor, “the idea of the mourning was followed up by a succession of long paragraphs, quite in an academic style.” The Emperor could not imagine to whom it had been written, or what the mourning alluded to; I could not assist his conjectures on either of these points.

      Two or three days after the Emperor had replaced a certain individual at the head of a celebrated institution, he found on one of the tables a memoir from that very person, which, from the terms in which it was couched with reference to himself and the whole of his family, would certainly have prevented him from signing the re-appointment.

      There were also many other documents of the same nature: but the most complete records of baseness, deceit, and villany, were found in the apartments of M. Blacas, grand-master of the wardrobe, and minister of the household: these were filled with plans, reports, and petitions of every kind. There were few of these papers in which the writers did not put themselves forward at the expense of Napoleon, whom they were far from expecting to return. They formed altogether such a mass that the Emperor was obliged to appoint a committee of four persons to examine them; he now thinks he was to blame in not having confided that office to a single individual, and with such injunctions that he might have felt confident nothing was suffered to escape. He has since had reason to believe that these papers might have afforded some salutary hints respecting the treachery which surrounded him on his return from Waterloo.

      Among the rest there was a long letter from one of the female attendants of the Princess Pauline. This voluminous letter was expressed in very coarse language with regard to the princess and her sisters; and described the Emperor, to whom the writer always alluded under the title of that man, in the worst possible colours. This had not been thought sufficient; part of it had been erased and interlined by another hand, in order to bring forward Napoleon in the most scandalous manner; and on the margin, in the hand of the interlineator, were written the words fit to be printed. A few days more, and this libel would probably have been published.

      An upstart woman, who held a distinguished rank in the state, and who had been overwhelmed with acts of kindness from the Emperor, wrote in a great hurry to her friend, another upstart, to acquaint her with the famous decision of the Senate respecting the forfeiture and proscription of Napoleon. The letter contained the following: “My dear friend, my husband has just returned: he is tired to death; but his efforts have carried it; we are delivered from that man, and we shall have the Bourbons. Thank God, we shall now be real Countesses!” &c.

      Among these papers, Napoleon experienced the mortification to meet with some containing very improper remarks respecting himself personally; and those too in the very hand writing of individuals who only the day before had assembled round him, and were already in the enjoyment of his favours.

      The first impulse of his indignation was to determine that they should be printed, and to withdraw his protection: a second thought restrained him. “We are so volatile, so inconstant, so easily led away,” said he, “that, after all, I could not be certain that those very people had not really and spontaneously come back to my service: in that case, I should have been punishing them at the very time when they were returning to their duty. I thought it better to seem to know nothing of the matter, and I ordered all their letters to be burnt.”

THE EMPEROR COMMENCES THE CAMPAIGN OF EGYPT WITH THE GRAND MARSHAL.—ANECDOTES OF BRUMAIRE, &C.—LETTEF THE COUNT DE LILLE.—THE BEAUTIFUL DUCHESS DE GUICHE.

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      28th—31st. My son and I prosecuted our labours without intermission. His health, however, began to be affected; he felt a pain in his chest. My eyes also grew weak: these were really the effects of our excessive occupation. Indeed, we had gone through an amazing quantity of work: we had already nearly arrived at the end of the Campaign of Italy. The Emperor, however, did not yet find that he had sufficient occupation. Employment was his only resource, and the interest which his first dictations had assumed furnished an additional motive for proceeding with them. The Campaign of Egypt was now about to be commenced. The Emperor had frequently talked of employing the Grand Marshal on this subject.

      Those of our party who were lodged in the town were badly accommodated, and were dissatisfied at being separated from the Emperor. They were harassed by the constraint and mortifications to which they were subjected. I suggested to the Emperor that he should set us all to work at the same time, and proceed at once with the Campaigns of Italy and Egypt, the history of the Consulate, the return from the Island of Elba, &c. The time, I observed, would then pass more quickly; this great work, the glory of France, would advance more rapidly, and the gentlemen who resided in the town would be less unhappy. The idea pleased the Emperor, and from that moment one or two of his suite came regularly every day to write from his dictation, the transcript of which they brought to him next morning. They then stayed to dinner, and thus afforded the Emperor a little more amusement.

      We made such arrangements that the Emperor insensibly found himself more comfortably situated in many respects. A tent, which had been given to me by the Colonel of the 53rd regiment, was spread out so as to form a prolongation of the room occupied by the Emperor. His cook took up his abode at Briars. The table-linen was taken from the trunks, the plate was set forth, and our first dinner after these preparations was a sort of fête. The evenings, however, always hung heavily on our hands. The Emperor would sometimes visit the adjoining house; at other times he would endeavour to leave his chamber to walk; but more frequently he remained within-doors, and tried to pass the time in conversation until ten or eleven o’clock. He dreaded retiring to bed too early; for when he did so, he awoke in the night; and, in order to divert his mind from sorrowful reflections, he was obliged to rise and read.

      One day at dinner the Emperor cast his eyes on one of the dishes of his own campaign-service, on which the Royal arms had been engraved. “How they have spoiled this!” he exclaimed in very energetic terms; and he could not refrain from observing that the King had been in a great hurry to take possession of the Imperial plate, which he certainly could not claim as having been taken from him, since it unquestionably belonged to him, Napoleon; for, he added, that when he ascended the throne he found not a vestige of royal property. At his abdication he left to the crown five millions in plate, and between forty and fifty millions in furniture, which was all purchased with his own money out of his civil list.

      In a conversation one evening, the Emperor related the circumstances attending the event of Brumaire. I suppress the particulars, because they were afterwards dictated to General Gourgaud; and a detailed account of this remarkable affair will be found in the Memoirs.

      Sieyes, who was one of the Provisional Consuls along with Napoleon, astonished to hear his colleague, on the very first conference, discussing questions relative to finance, administration, the army, law, and politics, left him, quite disconcerted, and ran to his friends, saying, “Gentlemen, you have got a master! This man knows every thing, wills every thing, and can do every thing.”

      I was in London at that time, and I told the Emperor that the emigrants there had formed great hopes and placed much confidence on the events of the 18th of Brumaire and on his Consulate. Several of us, who had formerly been acquainted with Madame de Beauharnois, immediately set out for Paris, hoping, through her means, to exercise some influence, or give some direction to affairs, which then appeared under a new aspect.

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