Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte — Complete
mistress of the seas. He usually ended by alluding to what was then his
favourite scheme--an expedition to India.
When from these general topics Bonaparte descended to the particular
interests of France, he still spoke like a sovereign; and I may truly
say that he showed himself more jealous than any sovereign ever was of
the dignity of France, of which he already considered himself the sole
representative. Having learned that a captain of the English navy had
visited the dockyard of Brest passing himself off as a merchant,
whose passport he had borrowed, he flew into a rage because no one had
ventured to arrest him.--[see James' Naval History for an account of Sir
Sidney Smith's daring exploit.]--Nothing was lost on Bonaparte, and he
made use of this fact to prove to the Council of State the necessity of
increasing the number of commissary-generals of police. At a meeting of
the Council he said, "If there had been a commissary of police at Brest
he would have arrested the English captain and sent him at once to
Paris. As he was acting the part of a spy I would have had him shot as
such. No Englishman, not even a nobleman, or the English Ambassador,
should be admitted into our dockyards. I will soon regulate all this."
He afterwards said to me, "There are plenty of wretches who are selling
me every day to the English without my being subjected to English
spying."
--[During the short and hollow peace of Amiens Bonaparte sent over
to England as consuls and vice-consuls, a number of engineers and
military men, who were instructed to make plans of all the harbours
and coasts of the United Kingdom. They worked in secrecy, yet not
so secretly but that they were soon suspected: the facts were
proved, and they were sent out of the country without ceremony.--
Editor of 1836 edition.]--
He had on one occasion said before an assemblage of generals, senators,
and high officers of State, who were at an audience of the Diplomatic
Body, "The English think that I am afraid of war, but I am not." And
here the truth escaped him, in spite of himself. "My power will lose
nothing by war. In a very short time I can have 2,000,000 of men at
my disposal. What has been the result of the first war? The union of
Belgium and Piedmont to France. This is greatly to our advantage; it
will consolidate our system. France shall not be restrained by foreign
fetters. England has manifestly violated the treaties! It would be
better to render homage to the King of England, and crown him King of
France at Paris, than to submit to the insolent caprices of the English
Government. If, for the sake of preserving peace, at most for only
two months longer, I should yield on a single point, the English would
become the more treacherous and insolent, and would enact the more in
proportion as we yield. But they little know me! Were we to yield to
England now, she would next prohibit our navigation in certain parts of
the world. She would insist on the surrender of our ships. I know
not what she would not demand; but I am not the man to brook such
indignities. Since England wishes for war she shall have it, and that
speedily!"
On the same day Bonaparte said a great deal more about the treachery
of England. The gross calumnies to which he was exposed in the London
newspapers powerfully contributed to increase his natural hatred of the
liberty of the press; and he was much astonished that such attacks
could be made upon him by English subjects when he was at peace with the
English Government.
I had one day a singular proof of the importance which Bonaparte
attached to the opinion of the English people respecting any misconduct
that was attributed to him. What I am about to state will afford another
example of Bonaparte's disposition to employ petty and roundabout means
to gain his ends. He gave a ball at Malmaison when Hortense was in the
seventh month of her pregnancy.
--[This refers to the first son of Louis and of Hortense, Napoleon
Charles, the intended successor of Napoleon, who was born 1802, died
1807, elder brother of Napoleon III.]--
I have already mentioned that he disliked to see women in that
situation, and above all could not endure to see them dance. Yet, in
spite of this antipathy, he himself asked Hortense to dance at the
ball at Malmaison. She at first declined, but Bonaparte was exceedingly
importunate, and said to her in a tone of good-humoured persuasion, "Do,
I beg of you; I particularly wish to see you dance. Come, stand up,
to oblige me." Hortense at last consented. The motive for this
extraordinary request I will now explain.
On the day after the ball one of the newspapers contained some verses
on Hortense's dancing. She was exceedingly annoyed at this, and when
the paper arrived at Malmaison she expressed, displeasure at it.
Even allowing for all the facility of our newspaper wits, she was
nevertheless at a loss to understand how the lines could have been
written and printed respecting a circumstance which only occurred the
night before. Bonaparte smiled, and gave her no distinct answer. When
Hortense knew that I was alone in the cabinet she came in and asked me
to explain the matter; and seeing no reason to conceal the truth, I told
her that the lines had been written by Bonaparte's direction before the
ball took place. I added, what indeed was the fact, that the ball
had been prepared for the verses, and that it was only for the
appropriateness of their application that the First Consul had pressed
her to dance. He adopted this strange contrivance for contradicting an
article which appeared in an English journal announcing that Hortense
was delivered. Bonaparte was highly indignant at that premature
announcement, which he clearly saw was made for the sole purpose of
giving credit to the scandalous rumours of his imputed connection with
Hortense. Such were the petty machinations which not unfrequently found
their place in a mind in which the grandest schemes were revolving.
CHAPTER XIX.
1803.
Mr. Pitt--Motive of his going out of office--Error of the English
Government--Pretended regard for the Bourbons--Violation of the
treaty of Amiens--Reciprocal accusations--Malta--Lord Whitworth's
departure--Rome and Carthage--Secret satisfaction of Bonaparte--
Message to the Senate, the Legislative Body, and the Tribunate--
The King of England's renunciation of the title of King of France--
Complaints of the English Government--French agents in British ports
--Views of France upon Turkey--Observation made by Bonaparte to the
Legislative Body--Its false interpretation--Conquest of Hanover--
The Duke of Cambridge caricatured--The King of England and the
Elector of Hanover--First address to the clergy--Use of the word
"Monsieur"--The Republican weeks and months.
One of the circumstances which foretold the brief duration of the
peace of Amiens was, that Mr. Pitt was out of office at the time of its
conclusion. I mentioned this to Bonaparte, and I immediately perceived
by his hasty "What do you say?" that my observation had been heard--but
not liked. It did not, however, require any extraordinary shrewdness
to see the true motive of Mr. Pitt's retirement. That distinguished
statesman conceived that a truce under the name of a peace was
indispensable for England; but, intending to resume the war with France
more fiercely than ever, he for a while retired from office, and left
to others the task of arranging the peace; but his intention was to mark
his return to the ministry by the renewal of the implacable hatred
he had vowed against France. Still, I have always thought that the
conclusion of peace, however necessary to England, was an error of the
Cabinet of London. England alone had never before acknowledged any of
the governments which had risen up in France since the Revolution; and
as the past could not be blotted out, a future war, however successful
to England, could not take from Bonaparte's Government the immense
weight it had acquired by an interval of peace. Besides, by the mere
fact of the conclusion of the treaty England proved to all Europe that
the restoration of the Bourbons was merely a pretext, and she defaced
that page of her history which might have shown that she was actuated
by nobler and more generous sentiments than mere hatred of France. It
is very certain that the condescension of England in treating with the
First Consul had the effect of rallying round him a great many partisans
of the Bourbons, whose hopes entirely depended on the continuance of war
between Great Britain and France. This opened the eyes of the greater
number, namely, those who could not see below the surface, and were not
previously aware that the demonstrations of friendship so liberally made
to the Bourbons by the European Cabinets, and especially by England,
were merely false pretences, assumed for the purpose of disguising,
beneath the semblance of honourable motives, their wish to injure
France, and to oppose her rapidly increasing power.
When the misunderstanding took place, France and England might have
mutually reproached each other, but justice was apparently on the side
of France. It was evident that England, by refusing to evacuate Malta,
was guilty of a palpable infraction of the treaty of Amiens, while
England could only institute against France what in the French law
language is called a suit or process of tendency. But it must be
confessed that this tendency on the part of France to augment her
territory was very evident, for the Consular decrees made conquests more
promptly than the sword. The union of Piedmont with France had changed
the state of Europe. This union, it is true, was effected previously
to the treaty of Amiens; but it was not so with the states of Parma and
Piacenza, Bonaparte having by his sole authority constituted himself the
heir of the Grand Duke, recently deceased. It may therefore be easily
imagined how great was England's uneasiness at the internal prosperity
of France and the insatiable ambition of her ruler; but it is no less
certain that, with respect to Malta, England acted with decidedly bad
faith; and this bad faith appeared in its worst light from the following
circumstance:--It had been stipulated that England should withdraw her
troops from Malta three months after the signing of the treaty, yet more
than a year had elapsed, and the troops were still there. The order of
Malta was to be restored as it formerly was; that is to say, it was to
be a sovereign and independent order, under the protection of the Holy
See. The three Cabinets of Vienna, Berlin, and St. Petersburg were to
guarantee the execution of the treaty of Amiens. The English Ambassador,
to excuse the evasions of his Government, pretended that the Russian
Cabinet concurred with England in the delayed fulfilment of the
conditions of the treaty; but at the very moment he was making that
excuse a courier arrived from the Cabinet of St. Petersburg bearing
despatches completely, at variance with the assertion of Lord Whitworth.
His lordship left Paris on the night of the 12th May 1803, and the
English Government, unsolicited, sent passports to the French embassy
in London. The news of this sudden rupture made the English console fall
four per cent., but did not immediately produce such a retrograde effect
on the French funds, which were then quoted at fifty-five francs;--a
very high point, when it is recollected that they were at seven or eight
francs on the eve of the 18th Brumaire.
In this state of things France proposed to the English Government to
admit of the mediation of Russia; but as England had declared war
in order to repair the error she committed in concluding peace, the