Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte — Complete
Presentation of Prince Borghese to Bonaparte--Departure for Belgium
Revival of a royal custom--The swans of Amiens--Change of formula
in the acts of Government--Company of performers in Bonaparte's
suite--Revival of old customs--Division of the institute into four
classes--Science and literature--Bonaparte's hatred of literary men
--Ducis--Bernardin de Saint-Pierre--Chenier and Lemercier--
Explanation of Bonaparte's aversion to literature--Lalande and his
dictionary--Education in the hands of Government--M. de Roquelaure,
Archbishop of Malines.
In the month of April 1803 Prince Borghese, who was destined one day to
become Bonaparte's brother-in-law by marrying the widow of Leclerc, was
introduced to the First Consul by Cardinal Caprara.
About the end of June Bonaparte proceeded, with Josephine, on
his journey to Belgium and the seaboard departments. Many curious
circumstances were connected with this journey, of which I was informed
by Duroc after the First Consul's return. Bonaparte left Paris on the
24th of June, and although it was not for upwards of a year afterwards
that his brow was encircled with the imperial-diadem, everything
connected with the journey had an imperial air. It was formerly the
custom, when the Kings of France entered the ancient capital of Picardy,
for the town of Amiens to offer them in homage some beautiful swans.
Care was taken to revive this custom, which pleased Bonaparte greatly,
because it was treating him like a King. The swans were accepted, and
sent to Paris to be placed in the basin of the Tuileries, in order to
show the Parisians the royal homage which the First Consul received when
absent from the capital.
It was also during this journey that Bonaparte began to date his decrees
from the places through which he passed. He had hitherto left a great
number of signatures in Paris, in order that he might be present, as it
were, even during his absence, by the acts of his Government. Hitherto
public acts had been signed in the name of the Consuls of the Republic.
Instead of this formula, he substituted the name of the Government
of the Republic. By means of this variation, unimportant as it might
appear, the Government was always in the place where the First Consul
happened to be. The two other Consuls were now mere nullities, even
in appearance. The decrees of the Government, which Cambacérès signed
during the campaign of Marengo, were now issued from all the towns of
France and Belgium which the First Consul visited during his six weeks'
journey. Having thus centred the sole authority of the Republic in
himself, the performers of the theatre of the Republic became, by a
natural consequence, his; and it was quite natural that they should
travel in his suite, to entertain the inhabitants of the towns in which
he stopped by their performances. But this was not all. He encouraged
the renewal of a host of ancient customs. He sanctioned the revival of
the festival of Joan of Arc at Orleans, and he divided the Institute
into four classes, with the intention of recalling the recollection of
the old academies, the names of which, however, he rejected, in spite of
the wishes and intrigues of Suard and the Abby Morellet, who had gained
over Lucien upon this point.
However, the First Consul did not give to the classes of the Institute
the rank which they formerly possessed as academies. He placed the class
of sciences in the first rank, and the old French Academy in the second
rank. It must be acknowledged that, considering the state of literature
and science at that period, the First Consul did not make a wrong
estimate of their importance.
Although the literature of France could boast of many men of great
talent, such as La Harpe, who died during the Consulate, Ducis,
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Chenier, and Lemercier, yet they could not
be compared with Lagrange, Laplace, Monge, Fourcroy, Berthollet, and
Cuvier, whose labours have so prodigiously extended the limits of
human knowledge. No one, therefore, could murmur at seeing the class of
sciences in the Institute take precedence of its elder sister. Besides,
the First Consul was not sorry to show, by this arrangement, the slight
estimation in which he held literary men. When he spoke to me respecting
them he called them mere manufacturers of phrases. He could not
pardon them for excelling him in a pursuit in which he had no claim to
distinction. I never knew a man more insensible than Bonaparte to the
beauties of poetry or prose. A certain degree of vagueness, which
was combined with his energy of mind, led him to admire the dreams of
Ossian, and his decided character found itself, as it were, represented
in the elevated thoughts of Corneille. Hence his almost exclusive
predilection for these two authors. With this exception, the finest
works in our literature were in his opinion merely arrangements of
sonorous words, void of sense, and calculated only for the ear.
Bonaparte's contempt, or, more properly speaking, his dislike of
literature, displayed itself particularly in the feeling he cherished
towards some men of distinguished literary talent. He hated Chenier,
and Ducis still more. He could not forgive Chenier for the Republican
principles which pervaded his tragedies; and Ducis excited in him; as
if instinctively, an involuntary hatred. Ducis, on his part, was not
backward in returning the Consul's animosity, and I remember his writing
some verses which were inexcusably violent, and overstepped all the
bounds of truth. Bonaparte was so singular a composition of good and bad
that to describe him as he was under one or other of these aspects
would serve for panegyric or satire without any departure from truth.
Bonaparte was very fond of Bernardin Saint-Pierre's romance of 'Paul and
Virginia', which he had read in his boyhood. I remember that he one
day tried to read 'Les etudes de la Nature', but at the expiration of a
quarter of an hour he threw down the book, exclaiming, "How can any one
read such silly stuff. It is insipid and vapid; there is nothing in it.
These are the dreams of a visionary! What is nature? The thing is vague
and unmeaning. Men and passions are the subjects to write about--there
is something there for study. These fellows are good for nothing under
any government. I will, however, give them pensions, because I ought to
do so, as Head of the State. They occupy and amuse the idle. I will make
Lagrange a Senator--he has a head."
Although Bonaparte spoke so disdainfully of literary men it must not be
taken for granted that he treated them ill. On the contrary, all those
who visited at Malmaison were the objects of his attention, and even
flattery. M. Lemercier was one of those who came most frequently, and
whom Bonaparte received with the greatest pleasure. Bonaparte treated M.
Lemercier with great kindness; but he did not like him. His character as
a literary man and poet, joined to a polished frankness, and a mild
but inflexible spirit of republicanism, amply sufficed to explain
Bonaparte's dislike. He feared M. Lemercier and his pen; and, as
happened more than once, he played the part of a parasite by flattering
the writer. M. Lemercier was the only man I knew who refused the cross
of the Legion of Honour.
Bonaparte's general dislike of literary men was less the result of
prejudice than circumstances. In order to appreciate or even to read
literary works time is requisite, and time was so precious to him that
he would have wished, as one may say, to shorten a straight line. He
liked only those writers who directed their attention to positive and
precise things, which excluded all thoughts of government and censures
on administration. He looked with a jealous eye on political economists
and lawyers; in short, as all persons who in any way whatever meddled
with legislation and moral improvements. His hatred of discussions
on those subjects was strongly displayed on the occasion of the
classification of the Institute. Whilst he permitted the reassembling of
a literary class, to the number of forty, as formerly, he suppressed
the class of moral and political science. Such was his predilection for
things of immediate and certain utility that even in the sciences he
favoured only such as applied to terrestrial objects. He never treated
Lalande with so much distinction as Monge and Lagrange. Astronomical
discoveries could not add directly to his own greatness; and, besides,
he could never forgive Lalande for having wished to include him in
a dictionary of atheists precisely at the moment when he was opening
negotiations with the court of Rome.
Bonaparte wished to be the sole centre of a world which he believed he
was called to govern. With this view he never relaxed in his constant
endeavour to concentrate the whole powers of the State in the hands
of its Chief. His conduct upon the subject of the revival of public
instruction affords evidence of this fact. He wished to establish
6000 bursaries, to be paid by Government, and to be exclusively at his
disposal, so that thus possessing the monopoly of education, he could
have parcelled it out only to the children of those who were blindly
devoted to him. This was what the First Consul called the revival of
public instruction. During the period of my closest intimacy with him
he often spoke to me on this subject, and listened patiently to my
observations. I remember that one of his chief arguments was this:
"What is it that distinguishes men? Education--is it not? Well, if the
children of nobles be admitted into the academies, they will be as well
educated as the children of the revolution, who compose the strength of
my government. Ultimately they will enter into my regiments as officers,
and will naturally come in competition with those whom they regard as
the plunderers of their families. I do not wish that!"
My recollections have caused me to wander from the journey of the First
Consul and Madame Bonaparte to the seabord departments and Belgium.
I have, however, little to add to what I have already stated on
the subject. I merely remember that Bonaparte's military suite, and
Lauriston and Rapp in particular, when speaking to me about the journey,
could not conceal some marks of discontent on account of the great
respect which Bonaparte had shown the clergy, and particularly to M. de
Roquelaure, the Archbishop of Malines (or Mechlin). That prelate, who
was a shrewd man, and had the reputation of having been in his youth
more addicted to the habits of the world than to those of the cloister,
had become an ecclesiastical courtier. He went to Antwerp to pay his
homage to the First Consul, upon whom he heaped the most extravagant
praises. Afterwards, addressing Madame Bonaparte, he told her that she
was united to the First Consul by the sacred bonds of a holy alliance.
In this harangue, in which unction was singularly blended with
gallantry, surely it was a departure from ecclesiastical propriety to
speak of sacred bonds and holy alliance when every one knew that those
bonds and that alliance existed only by a civil contract. Perhaps M. de
Roquelaure merely had recourse to what casuists call a pious fraud in
order to engage the married couple to do that which he congratulated
them on having already done. Be this as it may, it is certain that this
honeyed language gained M. de Roquelaure the Consul's favour, and in a
short time after he was appointed to the second class of the Institute.
CHAPTER XXI.
1804.
The Temple--The intrigues of Europe--Prelude to the Continental
system--Bombardment of Granville--My conversation with the First
Consul on the projected invasion of England--Fauche Borel--Moreau
and Pichegru--Fouché's manoeuvres--The Abbe David and Lajolais--