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

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СКАЧАТЬ which he acknowledged were of a very perplexing nature, and placing the rest to the account of human weakness. Vanity was the ruin of Marmont: “Posterity will justly cast a shade upon his character,” said he; “yet his heart will be more valued than the memory of his career. The conduct of Augereau was the result of his want of information, and the baseness of those who surrounded him; that of Berthier, of his want of spirit, and his absolute nullity of character.”

      I remarked that the latter had let slip the best and easiest opportunity of rendering himself for ever illustrious, by frankly making his submission to the King, and intreating his Majesty’s permission to withdraw from the world, and mourn in solitude the fate of him who had honoured him with the title of his companion in arms, and had called him his friend. “Yes,” said the Emperor; “even this step, simple as it was, was beyond his power.”—“His talents, his understanding,” said I, “had always been a subject of doubt with us. Your Majesty’s choice, your confidence, your great attachment, surprised us exceedingly.”—“To say the truth,” replied the Emperor, “Berthier was not without talent, and I am far from wishing to disavow his merit, or my partiality for him; but his talent and merit were special and technical; beyond a limited point he had no mind whatever: and then he was so undecided.”—I observed that “he was, notwithstanding, full of pretensions and pride in his conduct towards us.”—“Do you think, then, that the title of Favourite goes for nothing?” said the Emperor. I added, that “he was very harsh and overbearing.” “And what,” said he, “my dear Las Cases, is more overbearing than weakness which feels itself protected by strength? Look at women, for example.”

      Berthier accompanied the Emperor in his carriage during his campaigns. As they drove along, the Emperor would examine the order-book and the report of the positions, whence he formed his resolutions, adopted his plans, and arranged the necessary movements. Berthier noted down his directions, and at the first station they came to, or during the first moments allotted to rest, whether by night or by day, he made out, in his turn, all the orders and individual details with admirable regularity, precision, and despatch. This was a kind of duty at which he shewed himself always ready and indefatigable. “This was the special merit of Berthier,” said the Emperor: “it was most valuable to me; no other talent could have made up for the want of it.”

      I now return to notice some characteristic traits of the Emperor. He invariably speaks with perfect coolness, without passion, without prejudice, and without resentment, of the events and the persons connected with his life. It is evident that he would be capable of becoming the ally of his most cruel enemy, and of living with the man who had done him the greatest wrong. He speaks of his past history as if it had occurred three centuries ago: in his recitals and his observations he speaks the language of past ages: he is like a spirit discoursing in the Elysian fields; his conversations are true Dialogues of the Dead. He speaks of himself as of a third person; noticing the Emperor’s actions, pointing out the faults with which history may reproach him, and analysing the reasons and the motives which might be alleged in his justification.

      He never can excuse himself, he says, by throwing blame on others, since he never followed any but his own decision. He may complain, at the worst, of false information, but never of bad counsel. He had surrounded himself with the best possible advisers, but he had always adhered to his own opinion, and he was far from repenting of having done so. “It is,” said he, “the indecision and anarchy of agents which produce anarchy and feebleness in results. In order to form a just opinion respecting the faults produced by the sole personal decision of the Emperor, it will be necessary to throw into the scale the great actions which he would have been prevented from performing, and the other faults which he would have been induced to commit, by those very counsels which he is blamed for not having followed.”

      In viewing the complicated circumstances of his fall, looks upon things so much in a mass, and from so high a point, that individuals escape his notice. He never evinces the least symptom of virulence towards those of whom it might be supposed he has the greatest reason to complain. His greatest mark of reprobation, and I have had frequent occasion to notice it, is to preserve silence with respect to them, whenever they are mentioned in his presence. But how often has he not been heard to restrain the violent and less reserved expressions of those about him? “You are not acquainted with men,” he has said to us; “they are difficult to comprehend, if one wishes to be strictly just. Can they understand or explain even their own characters? Almost all those who abandoned me would, had I continued to be prosperous, never, perhaps have dreamed of their own defection. There are vices and virtues which depend on circumstances. Our last trials were beyond all human strength! Besides I was forsaken rather than betrayed; there was more of weakness than of perfidy around me. It was the denial of St. Peter: tears and repentance are probably at hand. And where will you find, in the page of history, any one possessing a greater number of friends and partisans? Who was ever more popular and more beloved? Who was ever more ardently and deeply regretted? Here, from this very rock, on viewing the present disorders in France, who would not be tempted to say that I still reign there? The Kings and princes, my allies, have remained faithful to me to the last, they were carried away by the people in a mass: and those who were around me, found themselves enveloped and overwhelmed by an irresistible whirlwind.... No! human nature might have appeared in a light still more odious, and I might have had still greater cause of complaint!”

ON THE OFFICERS OF THE EMPEROR’S HOUSEHOLD IN

       1814.—PLAN OF ADDRESS TO THE KING.

       Table of Contents

      17th.—The Emperor asked me some questions to-day relative to the officers of his household. With the exception of two or three, at the most, who had drawn upon themselves the contempt of the very party to which they had gone over, nothing could be said against them: the majority had even evinced an ardent devotion to the Emperor’s interests. The Emperor then made enquiries respecting some of these individuals in particular, calling them by their names; and I could not but express my approbation of them all. “What do you tell me?” said he, interrupting me hastily while I was speaking of one of them; “and yet I gave him so bad a reception at the Tuileries on my return! Ah! I fear I have committed some involuntary acts of injustice! This comes of being obliged to take for granted the first story that is told, and of not having a single moment to spare for verification! I fear too that I have left many debts of gratitude in arrear! How unfortunate it is to be incapable of doing every thing one’s self!”

      I replied—“Sire, it is true that, if blame be attached to the officers of your household, it must be shared equally by all; a fact, however, which must humble us strangely in the eyes of foreign nations. As soon as the King appeared, all hastened to him, not as to the sovereign whom your abdication had left us, but as to one who had never ceased to be our sovereign; not with the dignity of men proud of having always fulfilled their duties, but with the equivocal embarrassment of unskilful courtiers. Each sought only to justify himself: your Majesty was from that instant disavowed and abjured; the title of Emperor was dropped. The Ministers, the Nobles, the intimate friends of your Majesty, styled you simply 'Buonaparte,’ and blushed not for themselves or their nation. They excused themselves by saying that they had been compelled to serve; that they could not do otherwise, through dread of the treatment they might have experienced.” The Emperor here recognised a true picture of our national character. He said we were still the same people as our ancestors the Gauls: that we still retained the same levity, the same inconstancy, and, above all, the same vanity. “When shall we,” said he, “exchange this vanity for a little pride?”

      “The officers of your Majesty’s household,” said I, “neglected a noble opportunity of acquiring both honour and popularity. There were above one hundred and fifty officers of the household; a great number of them belonged to the first families, and were men of independent fortune. It was for them to set an example, which, being followed by others, might have given another impulse to the national attitude, СКАЧАТЬ